Talk:Hacker culture/Archive 1

Free software movement
Shouldn't there be a mention of the free software movement in the introduction, after all it is evident in the GNU manifesto that stallman created GNU so as to bring back the hacker culture. (--el magnifico 14:34, 21 August 2005 (UTC))

Edit... fixed?
I think I killed the bias, not sure, tho — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingoomieiii (talk • contribs) 18:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Eric S. Raymond's changes
Someone really needs to go back and revert the damage done by Eric_S._Raymond. He applied his bias to article. It was originally about the hacker culture that included all sides, not just open source. He went and changed it to open source removing all the other references and information that didn't fit his worldview. The changes are too big of a project for me to take, but I hope someone can properly seperate this out and make people from both hacker culture's happy without the opensource hacker culture editing the page and claiming to be the one true hacker culture.
 * I'd say it is fair. ESR is maintainer of the Jargon File, he is a demigod, and he knows about this in first person, and can quote sources on this. Anyway, hackerdom is closely connected with free-software movement today, and will probably be so for the foreseable future. --vidarlo 18:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Just because ESR is so involved with the Jargon File doesn't make him qualified to change the focus of the article. The only sources fit to quote are published, anyway, and if only ESR can access them, they're no good. ProfMoriarty 21:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Intersection
From my personal POV, the "academic hacker culture" and "underground hacking culture" overlap to a great degree. The views stated in the article are too simplified, and fails to take into account any form of human social dynamics. The article seems to consider computer security as a field "dirty" and/or corrupt. While this is in many cases true, putting it in this emotional way is irrational and not even remotely NPOV.

The article should treat the hobbyist/academic programming culture separate from the underground (and for that matter, "overground") security culture as separate things that are not in conflict with each other. As it stands now, this article comes of as a childish rant, esp. in the sense that it seemingly tries to generalize higly variable characteristics of personality (criminal behaviour, fields of interest) into too rigidly defined social and cultural groups.

Victor Fors 02:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yup, there is much to be improved about the article. It is currently loosely based on . I guess the 'underground' has changed radically since laws for computer criminality were established and enforced, leading to the rise of ethical/legal/white hat computer security hackers, a phenomenon not seen before. That's not mentioned at all currently. At least since the broad availability of the internet there is quite some amount of blurring involed, yet I think certain demarcation should still be possible – open source movement proponents wouldn't like to see themselves being classified into the same subculture as the l33t hax0rs breaking into systems. The problem is that reputable sources about all these complex social things are needed desparately. Can you help? It is a long way to a good, neutral and factual account of hacker culture. --Rtc 04:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an anthropologist, but i could try (maybe some activity in this particular article could spur others to join in as well.)

Victor Fors 22:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Leet is not really a hacker creation
Leet is not usually part of what true hackers believe to be part of the culture. Handles yes, but leet is if anything seen as a debasement of the original ideals of hacking and is reserved for the lesser want to be script kiddies. I would eather put in a seperate section talking about hacker word play as there is the TLA (Three Letter Acronyms) puns and the jokes about the spelling of Micro$oft and the like. However Leet is used in a mocking fassion if at all.


 * Reference to true hacker suggests you should read the hacker definition controversy piece. While I would agree Leet/l33t/1337 has no bearing to the technical aspects of hacking, and the earliest use I can find in Google groups is shortly after September never ended, it's definitely a cultural artifact of a portion of the broadest view of the hacker subculture. Granted, it's not a portion of the subculture I like being associated with, even peripherally; however, I view it much the same as how by being an American, I am associated with the wingnuts on the Religious Right: it's part of the culture as a whole... just not one I like. &mdash; Abb3w 20:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

wh@7 1337Z for 4@x0rZ!!11!!1!1 rofl Caleb09 21:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

ESR a hacker hero?
I really hate wasting time bashing ESR, but he hasn't done too much a hacker would consider "heroic." Just because he maintains the Jargon File doesn't mean he's a hacker demi-god. Its more like the ESR File now than the Jargon File (twisted and evil), considering his centralized control over the File. Have you seen any slashdot topics relevant to ESR? The ratio is roughly 10 ESR pure unadulterated haters to 1 ESR apoligist who realizes that wasting time bashing ESR isn't going to cure the damage he has caused the community, and just wants to say something like "He's done some good things for the community. Lets move on to the topics we came to slashdot for." I acknoweldge that he's a decent spokesman for the open source software movement, but he does not represent hacker culture, and he is despised by basically all of it, with a few exceptions I'm sure. I personally could care less, and I really don't want to waste time on the foolishness of one man. I had hoped that this article could rise up as an unbiased Jargon File, but its basically a condensed version of it. I'll probably make some changes.
 * I have to agree with this, besides writing The Cathedral and the Bazaar and maintaining/rewriting the Jargon File he hasn't contributed much. And I sincerely doubt that many if anyone of the hacker culture would call him a hero. And even besides that he is hardly at the level of the other people mentioned, there really are more notable persons to name if you pick only eight.80.134.42.152 14:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Glider is too distracting
I moved the glider animation to the bottom; while it is appropriately hackish in the right sense, it is also very distracting when reading the text. --DavidHopwood 04:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism
This article seems bogus. Look at the title first: Hacker (academia). Do any academic institutions have a Department of Hacking or similiar faculty? Insofar as the title means anything, it's talking about Computer scientist or similar. So, I've stuck some tags on the article and will be ramping these up to deletion unless we get some improvement in the title and content. Suggestions are invited. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I suggested in particular that we merge this to Programmer which seems to have the appropriate tone. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I dunno. I come here specifically to propose renaming this article, even before I read your criticism. The article as it currently stands is a mess, but IMO it has room for improvement, so a merging could be too drastic a measure right now. As for the title, I don't like it, either. My proposal is to rename it Hacker (programmer). The current title is broken because, even if still today most hackers (in the ESR and RMS's sense) study at a university, IMO that's no longer one of the distinguishing features of the movement. OTOH, a title such as Hacker (free software)) underemphasizes the past history of hackerdom, which predates the free software movement as it exists today. Hacker (programmer) would be a good compromise, encompassing both the past and the present.
 * But if this article is to be kept separate, it needs major improvements. As it stands now, it is not radically better than a redirect to Programmer. --Army1987 (talk) 15:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * "Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole." (Academia). Much of academia is not institutionalized, but informal folklore, as in this case. I do not think that programmer and hacker are the same thing. Hacking is a culture of sharing; at least today, many programmers try to keep their knowledge a secret. Further, programmer usually implies a relation to the industrial, not the academic world. Hacking is strongly influenced by the values of academia, not by the values of industry. --rtc (talk) 04:35, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's take Tim Berners-Lee as an example of the sort of person we're talking about. If you look at his Wikipedia article (which I haven't touched), we see that he is described as a developer, was caught hacking (bad) and worked as a programmer.  In the sidebar, his occupation is given as computer scientist.  I think the latter is the best term though the corresponding article perhaps needs work to emphasise the practical side, like creating the World Wide Web.  I have changed the proposed merge target to computer scientist. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:59, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll fill the occupation of other examples as I find them like Steve Wozniak - software engineer. This list of examples from this article is


 * Alan Kay - computer scientist
 * Bill Joy - computer scientist
 * Dennis Ritchie - computer scientist
 * Donald Knuth - computer scientist
 * Larry Wall - programmer
 * Linus Torvalds - software engineer
 * Ken Thompson - computer science
 * Richard Stallman - Hacker (academia) and Software developer

Computer scientist seems the easy winner with Hacker (academia) as an also-ran. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:21, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Another possibility is to move the article to Hacker subculture which seems to be how the article started and is really what it is about. This would fit the incoming redirects like Hacker culture betterColonel Warden (talk) 11:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Computer scientist is a formal academic profession, hacker isn't. Neither are all computers scientists hackers (many of them are quite opposed to hacking and see it as something primitive and mundane), nor are all hackers computer scientists (Stallman is a physicist for example; Wall is a linguist), even if your list suggests so. Hacker subculture is also wrong, because this article is supposed to describe only one of the at least two or three (depending on which source you ask) hacker subcultures. --rtc (talk) 11:45, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, that's the reason why the merge should be the last resort. An article titled Computer scientist will not highlight the "spirit" of hacking, even if it highlights what hackers do. And Programmer also covers code monkeys, though I can't think of anything better than Hacker (programmer) as the title of this article (but maybe it's me who lacks imagination). --Army1987 (talk) 12:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * "Hacker (programmer)" is too narrow and fails to highlight the "spirit" of hacking, too, although it is clearly better than other suggestions. How about "Hacker (playful cleverness)" or "Hacker (Free Software/Open Source)"? --rtc (talk) 12:22, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * How about producing some sources to substantiate this fanciful stuff? All I'm seeing at the moment is a POV fork supported by self-published fluff.  The sources I find, such as Hacker Culture indicate that this is best treated as a single topic.  Find the sources and the appropriate treatment will flow from that. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * This article was written by Eric S. Raymond, and it is obviously based on his The Art Of Unix Programming, which is not "self-published fluff". It is not a POV fork, it describes one of the hacker subcultures. The computer security hacker subculture described in Hacker (computer security) and the subculture described in this article are two different things and not two different views on the same thing: The second group writes free software, the first doesn't; the first group breaks into computers, the second doesn't. Overlaps, where they exist, should be described at Hacker (computing). The book you linked says "These original hackers of the 1950s and 1960s are generally recognized as the ancestors of the modern computer underground" (p.15) but, as far as I can see from the limited google books preview, it gives an argument to substantiate neither this claim, nor for the implicit claim that they are not only "recognized as" but in fact are the "ancestors of the modern computer underground". --rtc (talk) 13:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The book The Art Of Unix Programming is helpful and the article would be better if it cited it rather than stuff like the Jargon file. Look at the book on Google books, there are links to reviews.  The first of these is interesting in that it provides a link to online source for the book and discusses biculturalism.  But the two cultures it talks about are not old-school hackers and the more recent kind.  The two cultures are Unix programmers and Windows programmers (text vs GUI).  One might take the same source and use it to fork the article Programmer into Programmer (Unix) and Programmer (Windows).  I fancy that's what's happened to the hacker concept.  A common heritage has been forked by people with an axe to grind such as esr.  I do not think that this is NPOV. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * So far I have not seen any source at all that convincingly describes that there is a substantial common heritage, except perhaps in the early days of phreaking. Breaking into computers on the one hand and writing free software on the other are things of a completely different nature, and it can simply not be compared to a distinction between Unix programmers and Windows programmers. The Jargon File is not "self-published fluff", either, it has been published as a book under the name The New Hacker's Dictionary. This article is a sub-article of Hacker (computing), which describes all hacker subcultures. So the POV split is simply not there. It would be a POV split if Hacker (computing) didn't exist. ---rtc (talk) 15:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * They are not things of a completely different nature - they are closely linked in psychological, demographic, political, historical and technical ways, as The Hacker Culture source makes clear. Anyway, the free software usage is quite fringe and you don't find much of it on Wikipedia, let alone the mainstream.  If you look at the Open Source article, for example, you'll find that the only usage of the word hacker is in a security context.  And the reference to academia has not been supported.  Since this is an open source polemic we might call the article Hacker (open source), so that people can understand the POV that it is pushing. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The Hacker Culture is one source only, and it does not make it clear at all. Of course, different things may appear similar depending on the perspective. The book's perspective can be described as one point of view; but it is not an argument to merge articles. Please read the sources at Hacker (computing) to see that this is not fringe, at least not more fringe than the other hacker subcultures. Notability of a topic is not equal to mainstream usage of it. The title "Hacker (open source)" is biased, as the word is equally used by Free Software proponents in this meaning (see, for example, ). --rtc (talk) 03:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I am reminded of the fissiparious tendency which Life of Brian satirised so well in the The Judean People's Front skit. That's what we have here - people playing politics with words to claim some special status or insight.  You get the same thing in religion - endless schisms over nothing.  Anyway, my essential point is that Hacker (academia) is a bad title - misleading and not in common usage.  Do you have a better suggestion? Colonel Warden (talk) 10:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I don't, though I mentioned "Hacker (Free Software/Open Source)" as an acceptable alternative above. --rtc (talk) 10:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is a better title. The exact formulation might be better as Hacker (Free and Open Source Software) per Free and open source software.  Do we have consensus for a move? Colonel Warden (talk) 10:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Go ahead. --rtc (talk) 11:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

New title
Yes, Hacker (free and open source software) isn't a perfect title, but it's much better than Hacker (academia). But among the ones which were proposed I prefer Hacker (playful cleverness). It would have a broader scope than the current one, but I think that this article--Army1987 (talk) 10:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC) should have a more historical perspective than, and not become a duplicate of, Free software movement. Also, section Hacker (computing) would more logically belong here. What do you think? Another point: I think it is intended that Hacker (computing) is intended to be a summary of this article, which currently isn't. I think its contents should be integrated here, and, if this article becomes decent, that section could be made more concise. Army1987 (talk) 10:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Not a free software term
This term predates the free software movement and there were hackers in the MIT AI lab that specifically competed against the free software movement (see Symbolics), so the title of the page should not say that this is free software terminology. The article is correct in saying that it is today mostly linked with the free software community, but the title would be better if it was more general (but I don't have a suggestion right now). --Gronky (talk) 16:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. I posted a request at WP:WPFS to address this and others issue. I'm going to write to people listed in WP:WWA as hackers to request their comments, too. [Nope, stupid idea... --Army1987 (talk) 23:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)] --Army1987 (talk) 22:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

In Support of Hacker Ethic Not Being a Part of Hacker (free and open source software))
Hacker ethic, while it includes supporting open-source software, is not strictly limited to open-source software. Other issues are just as important in the unspoken code that can be identified as 'Hacker Ethic'. For example, as Levy wrote it, The Right Thing, is one important value of many to true hackers.

Please keep Hacker Ethic as its own entry so other, hacker-related, ethical issues and premises can be added to this Wikipedia entry.

TSWcontentlady (talk) 11:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The solution to this would be renaming this article, if only we found a good title for it... There is no point of having an article exclusively about free software hackers, as it would duplicate Free software movement. The phrase in parentheses was added to disambuguate the article from Hacker (computing), Hacker (computer security) etc.. It used to read Hacker (academia), which had its problems, too. Read the lead section of this article to understand what its scope is supposed to be, regardless of what the title says. Also, if you can think of a better title for this article, propose it... --Army1987 (talk) 10:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Possible Titles for Hacker Ethics entry
Since it was suggested that the likelihood of this entry being combined with Hacker (free and open source software) would be diminished with the alteration of the title, here are some proposed titles for disambiguation and (as suggested by others) - protection of the Hacker Ethic entry.

Hacker Ethic (philosophy)

Hacker Ethic (hacker culture)

Hacker Ethic (culture and society)

TSWcontentlady (talk) 22:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't understand if you want to keep the Hacker ethic article separate while changing its title (if so, I don't see anything wrong with the current title which would be fixed by the ones you propose; anyway, the discussion would belong on Talk:Hacker ethic), or to merge it with this one with one of those titles (but the result isn't supposed to be only about ethic, so I don't like those titles...). I think a better idea would be merging it here, but retitle this article. I had a couple of ideas meanwhile. Hacker (programmer): it is still not perfect, but all of its drawback are also present with its title. (Namely, the hacker attitude is not exclusively applied in programming. Anyway, since this article will continue to deal mainly with software hackers, it's not a very serious issue, though it stays an issue.) Hacker (creative playfulness) would have a wide enough scope, but its tone doesn't sound "encyclopedic" enough to me. (The ideal would be a title with the scope of the latter and the tone of the former...) --Army1987 (talk) 20:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Page moved to Hacker (programmer subculture)
Hacker (free and open source software) was a poor title for this article Not all 60's-70's-era hackers were associated with the Free Software movement, which did not exist at the time, and many hackers of that era ended up going into the commercial software industry. Instead, the Free Software movement grew out of the original hacker culture, rather than the other way around. Hacker (academia) is also a poor title; not all hackers are, or were, associated with academia, although the culture originally developed within U.S. academia. -- The Anome (talk) 01:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Excellent. I wonder how comes that nobody came up with this during all this time (see discussion above)... -- A r m y 1 9 8 7 ! ! ! 10:11, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * thanks. --rtc (talk) 23:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Big problems
I've got some really big problems with this and many of the other hacker pages. As the guy below points out, you are assuming your terminology is correct. There is the open source hacker subculture as well as the darker (bad word) hacker subculture. I just removed a section because it was wrong. There is a huge overlap in philosophy and membership. Both groups are filled with open source contributers and way too many libertarian thoughts. Even on the hacker page you list Steve Wozniak. Should we throw him into the darkside because he was a phreak? I know wikipedia is polluted by open source fanboys, but seriously, stop the bias. Stop assuming you know the one true hacker subculture. Stop assuming that your terms of seperating hacker/cracker should be accepted by all. Definitely mention the arguments. Explain them as a perspective, and then move on. Seperate out the pages. Have a page on the brighter side and the darker side, but stop assuming your perspective of the world applies to other people.


 * I don't know who wrote the above comment, but there is some truth in it. This article completely leaves out the fact, that for a large amount of people, the term "cracker" refers to members of a "cracker group" - people who remove copyright protections from games and software. Many of these groups later stepped away from software piracy, and formed what is now called "the demo scene". These groups have always refered to themselves as "cracker" groups. This subculture phenomenon seemed to flourish mainly in Europe, which could point to a difference between US and European terminology. I think Wikipedia should describe both uses of the word "cracker", and not take sides in the weird debate that regards this particular word. JoaCHIP (talk) 01:38, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

[citation needed]
I don't know who added those 99 citation needed tags, but it's highly annoying when reading. If it were a couple times, allright, but not after nearly every sentence. I'm too new to wiki to judge if they should be removed, but I think it disturbs reading. 83.161.210.237 (talk) 08:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course, they disturb reading. They are meant to inform the reader, that this article is not up to Wikipedia's quality guidelines, and for that reason, should be taken with a 'grain of salt'.  A solution is to find the citations, and/or improved the quality of the article in other ways.  E.g. by tightening the language to the key points of the topic, not everything that inexperienced editors add. Lentower (talk) 10:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * With every single sentence needing citation, how was this ever even allowed to be an article in the first place? I mean some of the claims are absolute and obvious bull crap.  "Hackers" invented the internet?  Was that before or after Al Gore? And that's just the most laughable of the claims in the article.  If I had any wiki clout I'd put the article up for deletion it's so pointless and sourceless.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.98.251 (talk) 04:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Before Al Gore. Most of the people who invented the ARPAnet are elated to be know as (white-hat) hackers. The ARPAnet evolved into the Internet. Some judicious removal of the undeeded [citation needed] could be done. Lentower (talk) 13:44, 4 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Did you review the history of this article? In an earlier form it may have had fewer problems. Lentower (talk) 16:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

More citations useful to this article might be found in the articles wiki-linked to from this article. Lentower (talk) 16:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that the article is so over-decorated with [citation needed] that it has become difficult to read, and intimidating to would-be editors. I think the warning flag at the beginning of the article (and perhaps at the beginning of selected sections) is more than enough to serve notice to readers/editors that more work is needed.  Also, aren't the internal Wikilinks supposed to point to related information and documentation?  If every single assertion has to be explained and referenced up-front, the article will become nearly unreadable, and interminably lengthy.


 * Summary: The article certainly needs more citations, but repeating this every few lines is counter-productive! Reify-tech (talk) 16:18, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Which Hacker culture?
This whole page is definitely along with the "hackers, not crackers" school of thought, which is no surprise given that it has been heavily editted by Eric_S._Raymond. The Hacker entry, although IMO slanted, at least gives multiple views to the definition of what a hacker is and who are the people that claim themselves as hackers.


 * Should this page thus reflect the multiple facets of the definition of hacker with multiple views at what hacker cultures are? Or are the cultures around the alternative definitions to be driven down to an ESR-esque Cracker culture instead? --Golgo13 17:20, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * As someone who just stumbled upon this article, I would say: If there are two hacker-cracker-whatever-cultures, then mention both of them. The introduction, explaining the distinction between hackers and so-called crackers, is quite good, but I can't understand why the rest of the page only describes one part of this culture? IMO, that is quite POV. -- 84.144.142.79, 2006-05-13 13:26:09


 * Cracking isn't so much of a cultural facet; it is more of a societal problem (when the actions are clearly subversive). As such, an article on cracker culture (or the presentation of information about that into this article) seems preposterous. Note that there isn't an article on criminal culture or mafia culture. As for cracking that is not so subversive, it may deserve increased mention. --Amit 07:13, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a cracker culture. And although there may be no mafia culture page, there is one on the mafia, within which is a description of mafia culture. Crackers, since they are most commonly thought of as 'hackers', should get an equal share of the page, or at least a disambiguation link at the top of the page, redirecting to a cracker page (which apparently needs creation). --JordyD (talk) 00:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wooh Eric S. Raymond edited this page? Holy crap?! Caleb09 21:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The cracker subculture can be covered on the cracker page. This is the hacker page. That is all. MrJosiahT (talk) 23:49, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Merge with UNIX culture
Doesn't it make more sense to say that UNIX is a product of the hacker culture for the most part? Ken Thompson and others who have worked on bringing UNIX to where it is today are strong examples of Hackers.
 * Agreed. Almost all hackers of the FOSS variety are UNIX types.

Stormchaser
 * Here we go:

The academic hacker subculture is defined by shared work and play focused around central artifacts. Some of these artifacts are very large; the Internet itself, the World Wide Web, the GNU Project, and the Linux operating system are all hacker creations, works of which the subculture considers itself primary custodian. No, they are Unix culture creations. I am definitely in favour of a merge. Stormchaser (talk) 20:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I would agree with you both, but there is no Unix culture page, only Unix. Since this is very different from Unix culture, I don't think a merge is in place with this page.  There is a Unix philosophy page, but I'm not sure how appropriately we could merge these... I do like your line "The academic hacker subculture is defined by shared work and play focused around central artifacts. Some of these artifacts are very large; the Internet itself, the World Wide Web, the GNU Project, and the Linux operating system are all hacker creations, works of which the subculture considers itself primary custodian." We should add that to the article :) MrJosiahT (talk) 17:23, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

move to Hacker (programmer subculture)
It's better to move the page to Hacker (programmer subculture) or Hacking (software subculture) because we really need it as a Sociology/Culture studies/History article. Then we can move unrelated parts to Hacker (term).--Taranet (talk) 15:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. That's where it used to be, BTW. ― A. di M.​plé​dréachtaí 16:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- The Anome (talk) 14:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Why the focus on software anyway? These days there's a _lot_ of innovation going into "hacker culture" around reworking consumer elctronics: the soundbending, 8 bit music and physical computing scenes. Software alone is too narrow a focus. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The software part has a readily identifiable history (not to mention etymology) which is somewhat lacking in the other parts. Furthermore, unqualified, a "hacker" in a positive sense still firmly refers to software. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 12:55, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Grand merge
I've just merged all of the following pages:


 * Hacker (programmer subculture)
 * Hacker (hobbyist)
 * Media hacker
 * Reality hacking
 * Hacktivism
 * Hacker ethic
 * Hacker artist

The root article is the former hacker (programmer subculture) as that is the root of the term: I have moved that page to hacking (innovation) as a more inclusive term, though I'm open to suggestions on a better title.

The reason is simple: all of these articles are dreadfully low-quality, full of original research and fundamentally about different facets of the same thing. By merging them we can identify themes once for all of the topics, and more editors will be looking at the same content (rather than working on their own little bits).

In the long run, these will probably be split out again, at least to some extent. I envisage the following:


 * Hacking (innovation) as a main article
 * Hacking (software subculture) for the original subculture
 * Hacking (hardware) for hardware mods
 * Hacking (media) for media, art and other expressive forms
 * Hacktivism for sociopolitical hacks

That's just off the top of my head. Obviously it depends how the articles develop.

Anyway, feel free to dive in and start sorting this mess out. I've structured it roughly to start off with, but there's still a lot of overlap and a huge amount of basic copyediting before we can think about re-splitting.

Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 10:59, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * This sort of redirection gives me the shivers (see a current AfD, I'm sure you know which one) - a watch list entry of  -20,000!!!  does tend to do that. However in this case, I think you're right - although the previous articles were voluminous, they weren't well structured and this merge and re-sort is perhaps the only way forwards. I would thank you in particular for this talk: comment here, for noting just what's going on in your head about how to make it work, and linking to this from the related edit summaries. It's a mess, there's no neat way to deal with it, but this is a good example of best practice in how to address it. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:07, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

It's good to see someone got around to this, I meant to do it myself and I think I have a topic on it buried in teh talk pages of each page. When I get soem more time I'll help sort out the mess. I'm not sure that letting them "split out" again is a great idea, I think it would be better organized all under one page (Hacking) with subsections. Not sure, I'm new to this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrJosiahT (talk • contribs) 23:23, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I undid this drastic change, because it completely neglects the hacker definition controversy and puts things into the same article that are just too different, based solely on the fact that they can perhaps somehow be subsumed under the general notion of "innovation". The change also makes many references to the article completely absurd, since they were made with the fact in mind that this article covers the programmer subculture philosophy of hacking, and this philosophy only. You propose "Hacking (innovation) as a main article Hacking (software subculture) for the original subculture Hacking (hardware) for hardware mods Hacking (media) for media, art and other expressive forms Hacktivism for sociopolitical hacks". In fact, this basic structure is already there. The main article exists, it is called Hacker (term). The "original" subculture exists too, it is this article (Hacker (programmer subculture)). The same is true for hardware mods et al.: Hacker (hobbyist). And we have an article for the rest, too: Hacker (computer security). Please use the existing article infrastructure. I could perhaps support, to some degree, the following merges: Media hacker + Reality hacking → Hacktivism, then (perhaps, since this topic may deserve its own article) Hacktivism → Hacker (computer security). Hacker artist → Hacker (hobbyist). Perhaps Hacker ethic → Hacker (programmer subculture) even though this topic seems well worth its own article. Further suggested merges of articles you missed above: Hack value + Life hack → Hacker (programmer subculture) --rtc (talk) 20:55, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion
IT is clear that Hacker (term) and Hacking (innovation) cover much of the same content. I'm proposing a merge to this page.

MrJosiahT (talk) 17:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't that merging two articles which are about 45 and 73 kilobytes respectively is a good idea. ― A. di M.​plé​dréachtaí 20:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have a better suggestion below: #move to Hacker (programmer subculture)--Taranet (talk) 15:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree. This article is specifically about the programmer subculture philosophy of hacking, and should remain that way. This is one of the three major philosophies of hacking. Hacker (term), in contrast, covers all three philosophies and their differences and the controversy among them. It is not a step forward to merge every hacking article into one large mess. --rtc (talk) 20:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

xkcd
I don't think that xkcd is only a trivia anymore. --rtc (talk) 14:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? MrJosiahT (talk) 17:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a comic strip. Apparently it was mentioned in the article at some point. I agree, it should be mentioned here.Elinruby (talk) 00:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

documents section
The jargon file is the most important touchstone?! What kind of POV weirdness is that? Can we either get rid of this section or else expand it? I'd certainly add the GNU Manifesto, but I think that doesn't go nearly far enough; hacker culture is transmitted through a vast body of mostly-technical works (like TAOCP, SICP, etc,) and pieces of software like Emacs, not just these anthropological studies. And if we do want anthropological studies, certainly we should mention Steven Levy's book Hackers. We would never say that the most important touchstone of "literary culture" is a dictionary or essay; hacker culture is similar. Phr 19:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes. Can we please please please get rid of the Jargon File as the ultimate authority on hacking? It's akin to saying that the only valid authority on modern Palestine is Numbers in the Old Testament. It could not be more irrelevant. Perhaps it merits a historical footnote. Perhaps. Elinruby (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

it's hard to know where to begin
This is a terrible article, quite apart from the gratuitous insertions of Eric Raymond at every turn, which, don't get me wrong, is a VERY MAJOR problem. Why are the Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy and the Illuminati books mentioned but not 2600 or DEFCON or the Sunlight Foundation or Makerfaire or any of the hundreds of hackerspaces? Just for a start. The comment above seems to imply that some of these should be at hacker (hobbyist) but that page has its own problems -- it seems to say that use of Photoshop qualifies one as a hacker. And where should all the arduino hackers go. Apparently they are undreamt of in your philosophy.

I'll try to come back with a positive suggestion. Just now I am too appalled.Elinruby (talk) 00:43, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

2600 and DEFCON surely belong in the Hacker_(computer_security) article. Maker Faire seems happier in the Hacker (hobbyist) one. And The Sunlight Foundation is some sort of Washington-DC-based political NGO that might do good work but doesn't seem more than tangentially related to any kind of hacking. If you read the first sentence of this article, it is about the relatively specific subculture that arose from the TMRC at MIT in the 1960s and spread outwards. Agreed on the ESR thing, of course 86.131.203.101 (talk) 10:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Awful Writing
The word "hacker" is important, but an Encyclopaedia needs to list each perceived meaning or "school" separately, not all mushed into a few run-on sentences; scattered with semicolons...

Next step, when the content is straightened out, the writing is awful. Please try and keep one idea in one sentence.

The whole thing reads like an individual's biased opinion.

Somebody with some knowledge here please start from scratch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Billyshiverstick (talk • contribs) 00:30, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

hacking for begining
put an article to guide beginers on hacking... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.177.137.202 (talk) 16:39, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Negative aspects of hacking/ Hacking vs Engineering
Even apart from hacking-qua-security breaches, hacking has negative connotations in some contexts, where due process is important. The article needs to cover this.1Z (talk) 10:20, 1 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I was thinking the same thing. "Hacker" has always been a complex term, with both positive and negative connotation.  Certainly in the past, a hacker could mean someone who programmed carelessly, who hacked code together that might be bloated, slow, buggy, difficult to read or maintain by a anyone else.  Sort of the opposite of good systems engineering.  At the same time, it can mean a skilled programmer, but skilled professional programmers like Ken Thompson or Rob Pike or Dave Cutler would never call themselves hackers, they'd be insulted.  This article is failing to capture that negative connotation.  DonPMitchell (talk) 08:22, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Is the article accurate?
I can't find any reference to the MIT model rail road, where the word "hack" emerged originally, but I seem to find a claim it derives from an old verb “hacker” meaning “lusty laborer”. In my opinion the existence of a word "hacker" does not mean it derives from there.

As far as I have learned the word derived from a substantive a "hack", which refers to a small ingenious modification to a model railway which had evolved to be more complicated than most people could handle. http://tmrc.mit.edu/hackers-ref.html

I can't find any references how the word would derive from "lusty laborer". I saw the note from 2011, and I agree. The article is falsified and should be returned to it's original content before the edit claiming it derives from "lusty laborer".

"Lusty labourer" could be included as a trivia in the footnotes. -- "As of a coincidence ... an old word ... " — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.232.78.156 (talk) 09:43, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 24 August 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 20:18, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Hacker (programmer subculture) → Hacker (subculture) – Shorter name. Additionally Hacker (hobbyist) should be merged into this page, but that's a separate discussion. Deku-shrub (talk) 18:43, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Support: very much agree that those should be renamed and merged. Also this article isn't just about programming - there could be a section like "In programming" in that new Hacker (subculture) article. This article even has a section called "Use outside of computing"... --Fixuture (talk) 19:34, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Support: current bracketed information is unnecessarily lengthy. Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:55, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 6 September 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Move. Cúchullain t/ c 14:11, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Hacker (subculture) → Hacker culture – Better natural disambiguation, better covers a broad range of hacker-like activities Deku-shrub (talk) 18:23, 6 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Support. The current title seems incorrect based on usage in the article. The article is not about a subculture called "Hacker" but the "(sub)culture of Hackers".  —  AjaxSmack   23:58, 7 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Weak support. I find hacker culture a closer fit of what this article is about - it's less about it being a subculture of people with a common interest and more about simply "hacker" as a specific strain of culture and type of behaviour, activity, interest etc. --Fixuture (talk) 19:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Semi-protected edit request on 25 June 2016
Original: The Jargon File has had a role in acculturating hackers since its origins in 1975.

Edit Request: The Jargon File has had a role in acculturating hackers since its origins in 1975.

WarriorPK (talk) 18:45, 25 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Your blog is not a reliable source. -- GB fan 18:53, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Hiking hacking
right — Preceding unsigned comment added by Panchal parth s. (talk • contribs) 03:33, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Hiking hacking
right — Preceding unsigned comment added by Panchal parth s. (talk • contribs) 03:35, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

"hacking away at the typewriter" - LIFE 31. may 1943
The expression hacking seems merely to be based on typing on a typerwriter originally. The article should have this information, as the "hacker" meaning is disputed, and lacks this information. It can be seen in various google hits online, including, from LIFE 31. may 1943. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.211.164.8 (talk) 18:58, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * It could be that the term later was picked up by Unix engineers, in a jobsystem where they punch in and out of work, and so hacker was then a way of describing themselves, to keep their job. Later again, the term gained its malignant factor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.211.164.8 (talk) 21:49, 19 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I rather doubt that, as "hacking away at a typewriter" describes a physical activity in the context of hacking as "to strike a blow with an implement", i.e., hacking at a wooden limb with an ax. Those of us who actually used a manual typewriter at some point in our lives will understand.  It's a long way from there to describing what programmers and other modern "hackers" do.  General Ization   Talk   22:00, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Hardware hacking ≠ Software hacking
The term Hardware hacking is redirected here, but this is not accurate. It has to do with the independent notion of hacking, of irruption into something not intended to be open. So, many Hardware Hackers are not part of the Hacker culture - although it can form part of it. It is a field of action, like physical computing. I will change the redirection to that term. Leon-geyer (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for making a note about this here. However I do think that new target page isn't appropriate either. Instead you or somebody else should create the article hardware hacking. --Fixuture (talk) 19:02, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with that a new article should be created, but I can't do it for now. Nevertheless, I think this temporal solution is anyhow better than the actual state. (Leon-geyer (talk) 06:40, 12 March 2017 (UTC))

Why is this page locked?
History

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Unable to add citations or remove unsubstantiated claims from this section as a result.

86.132.131.209 (talk) 16:24, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for being willing to contribute! The page was locked to unregistered and new users due to "persistent vandalism". You can use the template (just copy the brackets and everything in between) to request specific changes here on the talk page. VQuakr (talk) 16:30, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

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cybercrime/cybercrime countermeasures
Hi. The article needs work, maybe a bit about hackers gone bad (like ACTA/SOPA proponents), or isolated incidents of cybercrime (i.e. 00:00:54 24th October 2013 ingenico payment). for some reason, the page being locked isnt conducive to improvements; cybercrime and cybercrime countermeasures were also locked, btw, TTL207.228.146.67 (talk) 08:37, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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hello — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.50.124.166 (talk) 07:12, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Communication
Altogether the hacker makes it a point that all known collective thoughts derive from talking together on Usenet so as to be discreet about their "culture." As if someone named such and such came along with names like Johnathan etcetera. It is important that the way they feel is only a small portion of their communal activity and ongoing warfare, be it real or not. As people delve further into the computer including 'Local Chat,' the thing really starts moving along. When there might be some shift in the attitude or of the feeling users or slaves play at the computer generation, there might also be a smaller niche for `real computers,` including new "family computers" for the modern age. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:1301:8172:0:534D:6174:EE60 (talk) 05:41, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Definition
The reference to phreak is rather ambiguous. Phreak refers very specifically to phone hackers. Some would fall into what is termed cracker others simply explored the system solely for the understanding of it.

As for warez d00d or whatever.. this is a bizarre term that's not used really. There are scenekids ie. Warez scene, which has it's own wiki article, there crackers are not the crackers we see used here as a term to refer to security related hackers, but those who crack the DRM on softmedia the couriers who race to move the cracked release of software, movies, music, or other digital media to top sites, you have leeches who are end users who download it for themselves. This needs to be heavily addressed as this article is not well written nor proper in it's definitions of things.

Another thing to address is the statement that crackers rely on luck or whatever it is trying to express. We've several terms for those who don't use skill, albeit they're not using luck per see but rather they're using vulnerabilities and the explots for these vulnerabilities found by others as scriptkids, or skids. Cracker in the infosec community specifically refers to those who are bypassing legitimate security illicitly. Whitehat hackers are not referred to as crackers in this specific manner, albeit in team operations found in pentesting groups you may have a designations which include cracker, who's focus is cracking specific subsets of security, compare with social engineers who use human interaction as the approach vector to gaining access. This is not the cracker in the general sense of the netsec "cracker" or blackhat.

I hope some effort to clean up this chatoic mess that sounds more like something on a quickly written mass media sites attempting to publish an article that portrays them as being in on the culture.

2602:306:CDD2:7440:B099:C34F:6AAD:A16 (talk) 11:38, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

oh shit d00dz
The terminology used here should be relegated to a separate page on "early 90s hacker jargon, mostly incorrect". No one says d00dz or samurai with a straight face, and phreak NEVER referred to a skill level. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.241.174.137 (talk • contribs) 14:34, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Problems in the lead
The lead " The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents". If it is written well it should not need any citations because as a summary of the rest of the article, the citations will be in the article.

In this case it would stop contradictions appearing in the lead which can better be sorted out with balance within the main body of the article. For example the lead currently includes

""

Just below this However the definition lower down says "Richard Stallman explains about hackers who program:" "What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming. They wanted to make their programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things. They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show "Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn't believe this could be done"."

A lot of the best hacking is not done in primarily a spirit of playfulness it is done for the same reason as UNIX (developed for hackers by hackers) -- uses short command names like "rm" and you asked for it you got it (no "are you sure? Are you really sure?"); in old UNIX systems the root home dir set to "/" to allow for a one time only "cd; rm -r *" to be performed -- it is often done for through overwork/time-constraints/laziness as well as a spirit of playfulness. Why write verbose code when the same can be written tersely and elegantly? And as everyone knows "Documentation doesn't even have to compile").

So I think that most of what is currently in the lead should be moved down into the body of the text and then the lead should be rewritten as a summary of the content of the body of the article. -- PBS (talk) 14:24, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on45une 2020
37.26.85.152 (talk) 07:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 10:48, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Damage, not 'damages'
This reads like Denglish. Sigh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.97.114.231 (talk) 16:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

New Section
Perhaps could there be a section talking about people's general perception of hacking? And more generally, more about the negative connotations of hacking and the negative culture it can create? Loneflash (talk) 03:49, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Major Edits
Hello, I'm currently a college student and I was assigned to edit this article for one of my classes. I made quite a few changes to the first few sections of this article. What do you guys think of it? Anything else I should change or add? Loneflash (talk) 22:58, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

"Jason Sack" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Jason Sack. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 November 23 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:46, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

The description section seems a bit too informal
Hello,

Before I begin, I do understand that the subject matter is not particularly serious, and that a cornerstone of hacker culture is playfulness and informality. However, because we're writing articles for Wikipedia and not a fandom site, I would like to propose that someone more experienced than myself could make a minor rewrite to this block of text:

''"People in hacker culture have a unique desire to practice their skills while simultaneously trying to have fun like children.[6]"

''"The term hacker (quotes?) was first coined in the fourteenth century, as a term for someone who did not have a lot of knowledge in something.[7] The Jargon File, an influential but not universally accepted (citation needed) compendium of hacker slang, defines (the term?) hacker (italicize?) as "A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary."[8] The Request for Comments (RFC) 1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, amplifies this meaning as "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular."[9]

''The media (who?) started using the word "hacker" heavily when Google Maps was released to the public in 2005 (citation needed). People would mess with Google's code to add whatever they wanted to the map, which caught wind with the media (again, who?) and hackers began to have a negative connotation.[10]"

There's a few issues that I see with this section of the article, and I highlighted them. The only rewrites of this article that I'm going to do are adding [citation needed]s to the more egregious claims. I don't want to disrespect anyone, and I'm relatively inexperienced as a Wikipedia editor. I wasn't born in the time period referenced, so I don't really have the right to change things at the drop of a hat.

Ultimately, I'm just asking a more experienced editor to spruce up the article. I'm more than willing to do the actual work myself, I just would feel more comfortable receiving recommendations/blessing from those who actually have knowledge about this before I rewrite the information given.

Have a good day,

Cyergersystem (talk) 16:46, 18 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The above are valid concerns. I also tagged a sentence which suggested that an "internet" existed in the 1960s.  It appears that all of the edits in question were added in November 2020.  I think those edits should be quality-checked (or possibly reverted, considering the numerous issues cited here).  -- HLachman (talk) 08:07, 21 May 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅. Since there haven't been any comments for over a week, I went ahead and reverted the edits of 22 Nov 2020 for the reasons discussed above. If there are any issues, please discuss here before re-adding any of those edits (as suggested by WP:BRD).  -- HLachman (talk) 12:19, 29 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I re-applied an edit from the same editor, dated 23 Nov 2020, to remove a sentence about "samurai", which had been added on 30 Apr 2014 and marked as "citation needed" on 31 Mar 2020. The result as of now is that the 22 Nov 2020 edits (only) are reverted, and the "samurai" sentence is removed as well (as it had been on 23 Nov 2020).  -- HLachman (talk) 12:49, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Small typo
The act of engaging in activities (such as programming or other media[2]) in a spirit of playfulness and exploration is termed "hacking." The period should go after the quotes. I'd edit it myself but I don't have such privileges yet. Rvanee (talk)
 * Fixed. Mind  matrix  13:51, 10 November 2021 (UTC)