> but there's a big difference between "less", and being done publishing anything, versus deleting everything and completely disappearing.

Isn't the difference at least in part the forcefulness of the desire to be left alone? I.e., since he deleted everything, he really wants to be left alone, as opposed to having a "meh" attitude towards notoriety. And wouldn't that therefore make the violation of his privacy more harmful as a result?

Lots of people fade away, stop posting new stuff, stop answering emails. The internet moves on. If he wanted that, there was an easy path to follow. Instead, he staged an event that was singular, dramatic, that built up his legend and mystique even more. It's like he didn't want to be forgotten and was willing to snatch back everything he offered the world in order to accomplish that.

This is special pleading, and circular, too, in the sense that it says that the irrational response of his fans justifies their irrational response. Either way: leave the guy alone.

If leaving the guy alone means stopping wondering why he did what he did, I don't think you can expect that of people. If it means don't harass him, what am I saying that makes you think I need to be told?

I think it's quite rational to believe that someone making a flamboyant exit does so because they want people to notice and talk about it. That's just basic human behavior. You're asking people to believe that someone who successfully connected with a large audience for years, artistically, pedagogically, and as a persona, suddenly forgot the basics of human interaction in his grand finale and accidentally focused an entire community's attention on his absence. Maybe you're right, but on the face of it, can you see why people might find that unlikely?

It's fine to wonder, as long as you're not attempting to dox him.

At the very least it is exactly the sort of discussion they wanted to happen in making such a forceful statement. If psuedonymous privacy could even still exist on the internet seemed a question they wanted people to ask.

> completely disappearing

He did not completely disappear. He removed some stuff that was online and stopped publishing. He is - one assumes - still a human being with a job, friends, family, and so on.

Why? Because we say so? It was his content to delete.

It would be different even if we didn't "say so".

I don't understand what you're asking, exactly. I didn't say he wasn't allowed, but you're going to get a lot of attention for purging popular things, attention that you don't get if you simply cut back to being "less Online" and shift from huge amounts of time to fifteen minutes a week making an occasional comment and replying to the occasional direct message.

This presupposes that content and ideas are "property". I more subscribe to the idea that once you put content out into the world, it is no longer yours.

(That said, all this chasing and doxing of this poor guy really is disgusting. If nothing else he absolutely has the right to leave and stop actively hosting things he doesn't want to host anymore.)

I don't think anyone is complaining about efforts to rescue and resuscitate the code.

It was his content. But it was also an inconsiderate move.

Lots of people decide to abandon their open-source projects and their personas. They will also arrange a transition if these happen to be popular projects other people depend on.

But hey, there's no mystique in an orderly shutdown. You don't make the news if you do that. Do we know if this was his intention? We don't.

But people usually leave farewell notes. Or a will.

> Why? Because we say so?

Because people were using it, and depending on it.

> It was his content to delete.

A major contributor in a large, active programming community just up and deleted all of his stuff, and you expect people to be just "huh, well, whatever, everything's probably fine."?

Yep. Consider your response in interaction with future major contributors to large, active programming communities. Because people can, and sometimes will, take their marbles and go home if you piss them off enough.

Yeah, exactly. If leftpad and bukkit taught us anything, it’s that contributor licensing agreements are really necessary. Otherwise you’re building your entire edifice on sand.

The story seems to be that deleting and disappearing was his response to his real-life identity being busted or soon-to-be, not something he just up and did one day.