Funny, I'm actually amazed that so many people keep up on this sort of thing. I wouldn't know where to begin.
I've been on the road the last several years, so unless it concerns rock climbing or surfing, or is something that you'd talk about with fellow travelers, it usually doesn't make it onto my radar.
Evidently there was some sort of economic downturn recently. Missed that too :).
HN is the only exception, since it keeps me up on the tech side of things.
Why would it make a difference why I hadn't heard of this company?
Googling the site didn't help, nor did visiting the site itself, so I asked here. Seems like a reasonable thing to do.
In general, I think that a story on the front page of HN should stand on its own, without the need to go off and do any research to figure out what it's about. This story doesn't even attempt to give any background about its subject matter, so it fails that test.
Usually I would agree; however Wikileaks has been massive news and regularly features on here (they are not a Company - it is a Whistleblower site) so it is reasonable to assume the majority of people will know what it is about. Anyone who reads HN regularly in the last 6 months should have read about Wikileaks before.
(in the same way you would expect everyone here to understand what Reddit is)
I don't know why you got slated for asking though; seems reasonable.
Googling wikileaks here anyway nets the Wikipedia page as the third link:
> Wikileaks is an amorphous, international organization, originally based in Sweden,[1] that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents from governments and other organizations, while preserving the anonymity of their sources.
I normally hate the passive-aggressive JFGI response but in this case I can feel the pain. It's pure noise that a simple google search could have avoided.
I've been on the road the last several years, so unless it concerns rock climbing or surfing, or is something that you'd talk about with fellow travelers, it usually doesn't make it onto my radar.
Evidently there was some sort of economic downturn recently. Missed that too :).
HN is the only exception, since it keeps me up on the tech side of things.