All: The coincidence of an HN user being personally close to this story is so remarkable that we have put James' comment [1] at the top of the thread, using the same method we occasionally use for moderation announcements. This is very rare—I don't think we've ever done it before.
It does occasionally happen that one commenter is uniquely close to a story, or knowledgeable about it, in an HN thread. I've thought for some time that the HN software should support this somehow, because those moments (e.g. when Peter Norvig shows up to comment on his own work) are among the most valuable here. If we had that feature today, we'd certainly have applied it to James' comment.
Except for one little detail, it's not the subject of the article that shows up but a close friend.
If one of my close friends would show up in a thread about me and would start to distribute present-day details about my private life and about my family members that are not currently public I would be less than happy. Maybe jameswburke has full support of the subject(s) about these disclosures but for all we can see here he does not.
The whole affair looks like a tragedy for all involved to me and I think it would be much better to just stick to the information already in the public eye (assuming we have to discuss this sort of thing at all) until all subjects involved (such as David's sister) indicate that they are on board with having this stuff divulged.
It doesn't have to be the subject or author of the article. Someone unusually close to or knowledgeable about a story (compared to the rest of us in the thread) also counts.
Perhaps I'm naive, but I give jameswburke the benefit of the doubt, and think the thread is much better with his contribution at the top. (The top comment otherwise would be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7796987.)
You're right that the story is personal in a very messy and unpleasant way. It also seems obvious that it has historical and cultural significance. On the other hand, the thread (sadly) isn't exploring that, so we're going to demote it.
It does occasionally happen that one commenter is uniquely close to a story, or knowledgeable about it, in an HN thread. I've thought for some time that the HN software should support this somehow, because those moments (e.g. when Peter Norvig shows up to comment on his own work) are among the most valuable here. If we had that feature today, we'd certainly have applied it to James' comment.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7797013