Slashdot Mirror
Negative Webmonkey Editorial on Andover/VA Merger
BigTed writes "Webmonkey has got an interesting article up about the VA Linux takeover of Andover and its effect on *gasp* Slashdot and the Open Source Community." Personal note: I almost quit when I heard about the merger, because I had exactly the same worries Jay Greenspan expresses in this editorial. Since then I have been personally reassured by Larry Augustin that VA Linux has no desire to mess with the content on any Andover site, including Slashdot. I'm posting this story, even though we've been over this ground before, primarily so that we don't get accused of bias by not posting it. And yes, we will continue to post news of Red Hat, Penguin Computing, and others in the Linux corporate community, same as before. Everyone who works on Slashdot, and everyone in Andover.net management, has sworn to defend Slashdot's editorial independence. Period. - Robin 'roblimo' Miller, Editor-in-Chief, Andover.net. Update: 02/09 05:16 by CT : here is a Salon Story by Andrew Leondard expressing the same concerns as the webmonkey bit.
So, this is a negative post about VA & Andover. And it's posted with a very obvious piece of editorialising which tells a very obvious story. VA get to add positive comment to their stories before they get posted. Do Redhat get the right to reply to stories in the headline? Do Penguin get that right? I doubt it.
Alternatively, this is a slightly more subtle attempt to avoid discussion on this subject. By making the headline a mini-feature in itself, a large portion of the discussion will be about Roblimo's comments, rather than about the original story. They're trying to manipulate us!.
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My actual opinion on this? I think the quality of Slashdot has declined somewhat since I first started reading it, which was quite a long time before anyone had heard of Andover. I miss things like the war against using www.slashdot.org instead of slashdot.org aka TDwww(TMS). On the other hand, I have also changed a lot in the time since I started reading here, so it is just as possible that the 'problem' is with me, not Slashdot.
I'm glad to see the guys who put this thing together get their just rewards. I think that the code is finally open, VA are a well-known and well-respected company in the community, and there is certainly no more need to worry now than there was about Andover, and they don't seem to have (directly at least) caused any problems.
This is my normal sig - it just happens to fit this posting well:
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
What a lie. Just as Wired is out of touch these days, so is Hotwired/Lycos. Webmonkey has only headed downhill in recent years, producing progressively simplistic, shallow, "beginners" articles suited to who? None other than the beginners using Tripod and Lycos.
To claim Webmonkey (or Hotwired) have been unaffected by their own ownership dramas is outrageous
Remember, Webmonkey are the same people who claimed ownership and copyright of everything posted to their email discussion list - prompting users to leave and form evolt.org
In contrast, Slashdot has continued to operate as it always has - the material posted hasn't changed, and I do believe that roblimo et al would leave if the site's editorial independence truly were in jeopardy. That will be our signal, as site visitors, to stop using Slashdot.
Bad form, Webmonkey!
-- mind over pixel
I'm posting this story, even though we've been over this ground before, primarily so that we don't get accused of bias by not posting it.
/. article writers are always worrying about not seeming biased, it will be just as bad as if you blatently were. You can't post every article that is negative about VA, but whenever you don't, I can promise people will jump on you for it.
You can't force yourself to be impartial, and in the end, if the
Having a communal site like Slashdot owned by strong corporate interests is simply a bad idea, and I just don't think it can work out in the long run. There is an element of trust in the fact that community is willing to let a couple of people decide over what topics will be discussed here, and that trust is human, not corporate. I think the reason there is so much antagonism against Jon Katz here is that many of us feel he is abusing that trust, using Slashdot as a pulpit for his own preachings rather than choosing stories for us.
Having Slashdot owned by Andover was one thing, because Andover was a web company based on the idea of selling banner ads, and therefore had the very clear of objective of getting as many readers to return here as often as possible. With VA it is a lot more fuzzy. VA obviously do not have banner adds as their main source of income, so they have other agendas for wanting to own (even if you keep claiming they have no control over) the backbones of the community.
The relationship between the Slashdot community and VA Linux is somewhere between mutualistic and parasitic, and I share many peoples concern that it is leaning toward the latter. I guess it should come as a bucket of cold water to those who keep claiming that the influences of corporations and money will not harm the open source community, that they started by grabbing our favorite node for discussion right from our grasp...
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Actually, the internal joke is that I do so much worrying about editorial integrity that no one else has to do any. There's truth to this. I come out of "old school" alternative journalism, back when weekly alternative newspapers were more interested in covering news the increasingly monopolized dailies overlooked than in selling futon ads and 900-number "telepersonals."
So please do wait and see. I work with people I respect; we don't always agree, but we *do* respect each other and each others' opinions. We screw up from time to time because Slashdot is, in many ways, an experiment in new ways to gather and distribute news. By definition, when you are experimenting you are bound to fail more often than if you stick to the "tried and true," but on the whole, I believe we have more successes than failures. And that's what counts in the long run.
More than anything, I worry about losing Slashdot's freedom to innovate (if I can use that phrase without stepping on a Microsoft copyright *grin*). One of the beauties of Slashdot is the fact that it's constantly changing, and if Rob et al are ever held back by a risk-averse management more interested in this quarter's profit than in trying new things that might lead to a better product (in this case, news and discussion) later, this site will slowly wither away.
But again, I do enough worrying about this for the whole bunch. I don't mind doing this, because I am a natural worrier. Note that both my Slashdot and "Andover corporate" e-mail addresses are easy to find because I *want* feedback and take all reader concerns to heart, even ones with which I don't agree. I try to personally answer as much e-mail as I can, although I've admittedly been getting a little sloppy on this front because of increased e-mail volume and increased job responsibilities.
My main point, though, is to make sure you know that it's not just Slashdot people who worry about the site's integrity, but the entire Andover management crowd. A large part of the reason Andover bought Slashdot in the first place is that it was the most popular news site among Andover employees. And it still is!
- Robin 'roblimo' Miller