The Myth Of The Borg

I get a steady trickle of e-mail from Microsoft employees who dislike many of their employer's actions, and I know many good, concerned reporters who work at ZDNet, the Washington Post, USA Today, and other media outlets who do not follow any secret "editorial agenda." There are plenty of real conspiracies out there. We shouldn't waste our time making up fake ones, and we should never assume that all employees or associates of a company or government agency are part of a faceless, marching mass that always does exactly what its leaders want.

Let's start with Microsoft. Remember when they asked us to pull some reader posts? That was the work of a few people in an obscure legal department, not a case of a leering, drooling Bill Gates calling a cowering subordinate and screaming, "Slashdot sucks! Kill Slashdot, kill, kill, kill!" And obviously not everyone at Microsoft agreed that it was a good idea to keep the matter alive, because it has since been allowed to die quietly. (We haven't written anything further on the subject because there has been nothing to say. No news is good news.)

There is no giant, singleminded conspiracy at Microsoft, just thousands of people trying to get through the day. This is how things really work at any large company. Good decisions get made and so do bad ones. Projects get started. Some of them work out and some of them don't. Orders issued from the top sometimes get carried out effectively and efficiently, and sometimes they don't. I often suspect that some of the worst software (and the worst Web sites) I see are so crappy because the workers actually putting them together are unenthusiastic about management's plans and are either consciously or subconsciously dragging their feet -- or, in this case, their coding fingers. I'm not implying any employee conspiracy, either; these tend to be individual decisions that, collectively, may look like a consipracy to an outsider (or a boss) when there really isn't one.

Now let's take a look at one of Slashdot readers' favorits media whipping boys: ZDNet, which is now part of CNET. If you look closely, you'll see that ZD is no more organized than rush hour traffic in Paris. There are dozens of publications listed on the ZD main page. Some of them deal with Linux all day long, some are pure Windows, others concern themselves with consumer electronics and are only interested in things like camcorders or stereo gear. Jesse Berst is often treated as if he is the boss of this whole thing. He's not. He is the front man for one little piece of it called AnchorDesk . Berst has nothing to do with PC Magazine or Yahoo! Internet Life or GameSpot , all of which are also part of ZDNet.

The people who write for all these separate publications never meet. Most of them don't even know each other. They have no idea what ads are going to run where, so even if they wanted to pander to a particular advertiser they'd have trouble doing it effectively. The guiding rule at a big media mill like ZD or CNET is to have usable copy to fill all the pages every day, and they have a lot of pages to fill. Editors at these places are help-short and constantly looking for new freelance and staff writers. They don't have time to sit there and say, "Oh my, we need more stories today that make Microsoft look good and Linux look bad."

Offline media workers are similarly rushed. In many publishing companies (including Andover.net) close contact between editorial-side employees and and business-side employees is discouraged. There are journalistic organizations that act as watchdogs to help keep editorial content free from business or outside influence. These groups avidly publish instances of improper behavior. Now and then, their work gets direct results, but more often the influence is subtle; a media outlet that gains a reputation among journalists for altering stories or trying to taint them to satisfy advertisers has trouble recruiting and retaining high-end writers, and almost always sets itself on a downward quality spiral.

Remember, the shortage of competent writers and editors, especially in tech-oriented fields, is almost as acute as the shortage of competent programmers. This has not always been so, and may not always be so, but right now there is no excuse for a tech media writer to accept conspiracy-level censoring from a publisher.

Now we'll talk about the biggest and most perfidious influence I believe does exist throughout media everywhere, even though it is not a conspiracy per se: denial of access.

Imagine a celebrity besieged by reporters. Imagine that you're the press agent for that celebrity. Your client has one interview time slot open this week. You have a dozen writers begging for that interview, all of whom have audiences of approximately equal size. One of those writers has always been "nice" to your client, six of them have been (in your opinion) fair but not necessarily nice, and five of them have written primarily negative stories about him or her.

Which writer gets the interview?

Twenty years ago there were hardly any celebrities in the computer industry. Even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were thrilled to speak openly, off the cuff, to reporters from magazines that had only a few thousand or even a few hundred subscribers. Now the people at the top of the computer business tend to be as infected with celeb-itis as movie stars and top-end politicians, and as cautious about interviews as any other group of celebrities. It has gotten to the point where interviews with computer industry honchos are about as informative as Jay Leno's interviews with actors and acresses pushing their upcoming movies.

Worse, in many cases the hardware or software itself is the celebrity in question. A tech-news writer, like a political writer, is under a certain amount of pressure to break news ahead of his or her competitors. Getting pre-release access to new products can make or break careers in this field. And who gets the most "sneak peeks" at new stuff coming out of Redmond or Cupertino or wherever? Writers who are A) generally negative; B) generally fair and unbiased; C) usually full of "Golly! Gee Whiz!" praise for any new piece of hardware or software that falls into their hands?

Pretend, for a moment, that you're a PR person for Apple. You have only 20 demo/review units of the new G21, equipped with GNU/Hurd-based MacOS 40.2 and a 3.6 GHz Intelorola available. Of the 100+ reasonably well-known computer journalists who have requested pre-release units to review, which ones will you choose? If you don't select the Mac-boostingest people in that whole crowd, then you're not a good PR person.

Computer trade journalists know that this is how the game is played. I used Apple as an example, on purpose, because they have the worst reputation among computer journalists for playing the "If you want to see our latest stuff you'd better be nice to us" game. According to posts to some of the private online journalists' e-mail lists I'm on, Microsoft is evenhanded compared to Apple, and other companies vary widely in the level of journalistic favoritism they expect to have shown toward them in return for easy access to their latest products -- and easy interview access to their key people.

But none of this is a conspiracy. It's quite Randian, really, in that a whole lot of individuals are performing in ways they perceive to be in accordance with their own (or corporate) best interests. No one can plausibly argue that computer manufacturers or distributors have any legal obligation to hand out review products in an evenhanded manner. It's a fact of life that Tuxtops or Corel are going to send Slashdot editors their products before they throw demo units at Windows Magazine , just as Microsoft is going to display the exact opposite bias.

I have questioned the whole idea of using free, manufacturer-supplied review units more than once, even those that are short-term loaners instead of "keepers." I believe there's temptation on the corporate side to make sure review units are just a little better-tested than those sold to the general public. But while reviewers who stick to buying products anonymously through normal channels may give slightly more honest reviews than those who rely on company-supplied units, they will never get anything to review before it is released, so an ethically pure reviewer will often be left far behind those who are a little more (shall we say) flexible. This is especially true of magazine writers whose deadlines may be weeks or months before publication date. I have come to accept the incestuous relationship between computer product reviewers and the people who supply those products as a fact of life. I don't necessarily like this way of doing business (even when *I* do it), but I don't think it's part of any grand conspiracy to dupe the public.

Bigger companies also have a tendency to enclose "reviewer guides" with demo products to make sure reporters know all of the product's good points so that they can (hopefully) cover them in their articles. Indeed, you can just about write a credible-looking, if uncritical, "review" from most of these guides without ever actually testing the product yourself. I regard this as the worst thing that can happen, the equivalent of writing a "news" story about a politician directly from his or her press kit. And stories that are nothing but rewritten PR pieces appear every day in all kinds of media, about all kinds of topics. The sad secret of PR-rewriting is that it can be a bonanza for a free-lancer. Take (for example) a press release about a potential new cure for [insert disease here] from researchers at [insert university here]. A hungry freelancer can easily reword the statements in that press release to produce at least three or four stories for different media, ranging from the medical trade press to regional general-interest publications. Even at low-end freelance rates, a rapid typist who does this can crank out $1000 worth of stories in a single morning. Do this six or eight days a month, and you have a nice little income to support you, and still have most of your time free to work on your (inevitable) novel, go sailing or whatever else strikes your fancy. Again, no conspiracy, just individual greed. Editors are supposed to detect and prevent this sort of thing, but they are generally overworked and have "news holes" to fill, so lazy journalism often slips by their eyes -- and not only from freelancers. In-house writers, especially on small and understaffed publications, face the same temptation to cut corners -- and often yield to it.

And now, on to the great (gasp!) Slashdot editorial conspiracy. Real life around here is that this site is run, day to day, by about six people, all of whom are independent to the point of uncontrollability. We share many common biases, and CmdrTaco sets the overall tone of the site, but that's it. One editor might post a story another wouldn't. Jon Katz writes what Jon Katz feels like writing. Hemos is ... Hemos, and also determines which books whould be reviewed, and by whom. Timothy picks stories and SlashBack material on his own, Cliff chooses "Ask Slashdot" material, and Emmett decides what stories he should cover, all by himself. Sure, we kick stuff around and ask each other for advice, and CmdrTaco will sometimes issue general directives about kinds of stories he'd like to see more often and other kinds he'd like to see less often, and these directives get followed to a certain extent, but when you come right down to it the ruling principle around here is "Chaos is Better Than Order."

No human-run organization operates with Borg-like singlemindedness. People are incapable of that kind of groupthink. Not even the old Soviet Union achieved it. This is why I am leery of so many of the conspiracy theories touted here and elsewhere. Face it: once you get behind their public masks, Microsoft, "the mainstream media," the U.S. Department of Justice, and many of our other favorite alleged conspirators are no more organized than Slashdot, and are no more capable than we are of sustaining any kind of secret agenda for any length of time -- at least not without getting caught.

Comments

Silicon Spin

[JohnG]

I was watching Silicon Spin on ZDTV a few days back. There was a guy on there (I forget who he was, I think maybe he had something to do with NEXT?) Anyhow he was saying that he knows some people that work in MS applications department that would like to see a split to get away from the politics of the OS department. According to him his friends would like to port Office and other products to other OS's.

I don't know how true this is, so take it with a grain of salt. But it doesn't seem all that far fetched to me. Being hired by MS doesn't automatically make one "evil". Especially if that person was hired before MS's inherent "evil" came to light.

Everyone seems to want Office for Linux, personally I just want to see Motocross Madness on linux and I'd be happy! ;-)

Hooray, some analysis instead of paranoia

[gonerill]

I think this is an excellent editorial. Here's a mild paradox about Slashdot readers that's always struck me as odd: On the one hand, they're the people who are most aware of the power of complex, decentralized, un-coordinated modes of social organization, and are usually vociferous in their advocacy of them as models for everything from software development to social organization. On the other hand, they're pathologically prone to seeing conspiracies everywhere, run by evil individuals with vast powers who are out to dominate the world. Why is this so?

I think there are two reasons. The first is specific to tha hacker community. The image of themselves as a loose goup of outsiders who fight the power is just part of their collective identity. As the internet has developed, this has really become a difficult identity to sustain. As linux has taken off, and many fomer penniless grad students have become billionaires, the community has been forced to believe in ever more evil threats --- Bill Gates becomes like some sort of comic book character who is impossibly evil and powerful.

The second reason is more general: the alternative to a conspiracy theory is a structural explanation of some kind. Structural explanations are inherently more boring than conspiracy theories, and they are certainly less media friendly. Better to blame Bill Gates -- or an evil conspiracy of Hackers, depending on your point of view! --- for our troubles, than analyze the complex structure of a developing economy and society.

None of this is to deny that powerful people can have bad motives and do evil things. But the bigger the conspiracy, the more people have to be involved, and the more it starts to look like a structural phenomenon. Having a conspiracy answer as a knee-jerk explanation for everything just isn't going to cut it anymore. As an explanation for events, blaming Bill (or whoever) is exactly what the media do to hackers when they demonize some 13 year old and say he could destroy the internet. Let's have more analysis and less paranoia.

The Effect of Leadership

[_Sprocket_]

However, successful large organizations share a characteristic which can be rather disturbing to us more individual-minded types: they have a culture, which dictates to a large degree how their members behave, even in the absence of orders from above.

When I was in the US military, I saw the effects of leadership. Shop Chiefs affected the working environment and productivity of their shops. Squadron Commanders affected the interaction of those shops and the culture of the Squadron. Base Commanders affected the quality of life and feel of an entire base community - from military members to their civilian families.

I thought perhapse this was a reflection of military life (so much of military life is completely foreign to the civilian sector). I was wrong. When I found myself as a contractor for a large US Government agency, I could begin to trace how the environment was affected by various leaders that made up its leadership. Right up to the highest levels.

Perhapse its a reflection of Government beucracy? Not so. I'm now in the corporate sector working for one of the most successfull US corporations in its industry. Its culture is amazing - and it is a direct reflection of the man in charge. The company's corporate culture is key and is actively tended by its leadership.

An organization is reflection of the personality and attitude of its leadership. It doesn't matter what sector of society that organization is a part of. Sure, its not exactly "Borg mentality". But as alienmole points out - its not random.

oh please

[josepha48]

While it is true that employees are usually the last to know. Certain companies are known for certain behaviors. Microsoft is known for certain things, which I wont get into. If you work for Microsoft you are one of their drones. You do what they say. The only difference between you and a borg is that you can quit while a borg cannot. If you dislike a companies policies then you need to leave the company when you find out wyhat kind of company they are.

It took me 2 years in my last company to find out what kind of company they were and they are involved with several law suits, for failing to deliver a product. Since I did not agree with there business practices I left. My suggestion is taht if you find yourself working for a company and you do not like the way that they are then you have 2 choices. Oneis to change them the second is to leave. IF you aare in a position to make the changes then do so. If not then leave. It may take you a while to find a new job but it will be worth it in th elong run. I know that leaving M$ may be difficult as I have heard that they have great benifits and probably pay the best in the Seattle are, but I think that you have to ask your self is the money worth it? If you can live with yourself because of the money then you are a borg / drone. If not then get out and stop complaining about what people are calling you.

Lets face it people you are and always will be associated with who you work for. Microsoft is a company that has a reputation for swallowing up little companies like the borg. Resistance is usually futile, just look at all the companies that they ate. Viseo, Frontpage (yes they were a company), web TV, lets see any more ..yes! This is who they are. If you work for them don't pretend that you don't know.If you are saying but I need the money then you are just using the money as an excuse to justify there behavior and you are just as bad as they are. If you say, but I like what I do, then again you need to find that job at a company that you can live with the reputaion of. This is not just M$ that I am refering to either. Any company has corporate culture and a 'way of doing business'. YOu have to find out these ways an dthen get in a company that fits how you are and what you want to be associted with.

QYB

send flames > /dev/null

Tech media sucks per se, no need for a conspiracy

[w00ly_mammoth]

In comparison with news coverage of say politics, or war or international news, I've found the tech. media to be quite pathetic and both uninsightful and inaccurate. (Is it any wonder we flock to a web message board to feed off each other?).

There are many reasons for this - it's an esoteric field, so the journalists often don't know what they are writing about. It's a dull field in comparison to hollywood or missile defense, so journalists have to spice it up with as many witty Steve Jobs quotes as they can.

When all else fails, the tech media resorts to flame baiting as a defense mechanism to survive; it's not exactly a big secret that the more you can stoke flames from your online readers, the more hits you get. It's a positive feedback cycle, and quality suffers.

Obviously, companies tend to feed off this phenomenon as well. They need positive reviews, and reviewers need more access to the company. The odd thing is that both sides have been so incompetent at this game that in general, the quality of this cycle has been quite low - in technical coverage, good writing, and general marketing of the product being subtly pushed. Perhaps this is because if you're a good journalist, you don't end up in tech. journalism, and if you're a good marketer, you don't end up marketing computer products. So we get the worst of both worlds.

True, this may sound harsh, but look at what we really get - crappy flame baiting from journalists trying to score page hits, badly written press releases begging for attention, sensational reporting about security breaches riddled with more inaccuracies than TV movies on the same subject.

This is why /. is like an oasis - we get to escape both sides of a bad story. We know more than they do, and guess what....that's why *they* feed off us now.

w/m

PS - If you're a journalist, email me. I'm really curious about what you think of all this. :)

I think we all know the truth.

[Now15]

Slashdot have become part of the conspiracy, and this is just some pathetic attempt to make us think otherwise.

Evidence: Notice the sharp increase in bright, flashing advertising recently? Like the "B12" ad I am viewing right now...

--

Conspiracy by company or by media?

[robogop]

I would agree that there are few genuine real conspiracies by companies and by the media but that does not mean that the whole tone of the coverage of certain stories may not be very lopsided. How many times have we heard people bashing Microsoft? Why? because it is the popular thing to do. Microsoft may deserve it, but they aren't the only one or perhaps even the worst computer company out there. (Apple seems even more proprietary and monopolistic than Microsoft) Since Microsoft bashing is popular the whole tone of the coverage of their trial was not whether they were guilty but rather how were they going to be punished. No conspiracy but certainly not independent thinking and reporting either.

Reminds me of the Woz interview

[pohl]

What were your thoughts back when Microsoft was declared a monopoly?

Woz: I totally agreed with the thinking. I was asked back in the early days of the lawsuit to write an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, but they didn't print it. I got a letter back from the editor months later saying that maybe they'd run it, but it needed a little fixing. So, [I said] re-write it. I wrote 'Microsoft's a monopolist' and the Times wanted to edit it to say, 'Microsoft is innovative.' The funny thing is that I had started out in my own head without having a bias. I thought Microsoft did a lot of things that were good and right building parts of the browser into the operating system. Then I thought it out and came up with reasons why it was a monopoly. I specified the strong penalties they should undergo. Eventually I found out that the New York Times had tight friendship ties with Microsoft and that one of Microsoft's key people had an editorial column in the Times. They were trying to use me. But I know newspapers. They have the first amendment and they can tell any lie knowing it's a lie and they're protected if the person's famous or it's a company.

Re:Reminds me of the Woz interview

[ajna]

Where is that interview found?

http://www.failuremag.com/failure_interview.html

Conspiracies in the general media

[jguthrie]

Microsoft is necessarily biased in favor of their own products. Windows Magazine and Slashdot are also necessarily biased toward what they're set up to cover. That's kind of their purpose in life. In my opinion, it is unreasonable for someone to expect that either Windows Magazine or Linux Journal would be, in some sense, "fair" or "unbiased" from the perspective of those involved in the events reported by them. What is more interesting, at least to me, is the potential for bias in more general media

A long time ago (as I recall, I was advocating the use of OS/2 2.1) conspiracy theories (and accusations) abounded concerning the coverage of OS/2 in the general computer-oriented printed media (at that time, mostly Byte and PC Magazine). Although I thought it was kind of fishy that Computer Shopper stopped running lists of the best selling application software after a couple of months of Excel for OS/2 outselling Excel for Windows (by something like 2:1) I saw no real evidence of a conspiracy among the more general computing media.

The real problem was not the lack of journalistic integrity of the writers or editors, but what could be described as laziness. The general computing media are supposed to cover all significant developments in microcomputing and they did a pretty good job of that. Unfortunately, many places had a tendency to define everything Microsoft did as significant and other developments, many of which had the potential for having an even more profound effect on computing, as necessarily less so.

I suppose there's even some justification for that. After all, when a company that dominates their chosen markets the way that Microsoft does, the tendency is for their news to be significant and for news from other companies to be less so. But still, markets change and, sure as death and taxes, sooner or later Microsoft will lose its dominance, maybe even through death and/or taxes.

The moral of the story is obvious: If you want your stuff to be reported as significant,, you need to make it easy for it to be reported. I suppose this is what a well-organized PR effort does for you: It makes it easy for journalists to pay attention to what you're doing.

Tom Tomorrow's take....

[invenustus]

I know one slashdotter quotes Tom Tomorrow 's cartoon This Modern Worldin his sig, but I've often been surprised at how they've never made it into Quickies or Humor. Here's a brilliant piece he did on the subject of media bias:
http://www.freespeech.o rg/tomorrow/pages/rar/rar_bBrill.htm

Don't be so naive!

[satanic bunny]

There may be companies comprised of "ordinary folks" out there. But Microsoft isn't one of them. Plus, rarely do those ordinary bods "just trying to get through a day" set company policies.

If /. was really part of the mainstream media, or if you'd ever had to deal with interviewing Gates or his personnel, you wouldn't be so blithe. The MS press department may not be some kind of conspiracy. But it certainly tries to exert the maximum of control. Their brand of control goes way beyond that of Rolling Stone or the most notorious Hollywood PR firm like PMK.

They even make sure even your interviewee is fully intimidated. At "private interviews" an MS press person sits alongside whoever interviews, taking down everything said by everyone in shorthand. If you do a radio interview, they stick you in their own sound studio. Then, they record you recording - very solemnly. If it's Gates, he will call sudden, arbitrary halts. Everyone present then has to pause until he speaks again.

Yes, it's hilarious - to any professional press person. But, as MS has evolved, the press has mostly knuckled under. What English-language paper reported the scandal of their Spanish-language thesaurus? (The one that turned out to be filled with strange Ayran synonyms). Who has gone on to monitor their plan to finance "grassroots" letters-to-the-editor throughout the country? (That one was exposed by the LA Times) Who's ripped the lid off FIN...the "Freedom to Innovate Network"?

Certainly not the people you'd expect to be doing it. Microsoft coverage stinks in both Seattle papers. Each religiously fawns over Gates' house, his riches and charity. But even here the story runs a little deeper. Actual journalists know (thanks to the San Jose Mercury News) that the bigger paper's chief "software critic" also wrote Bill's biography. It was the News who finally made that writer admit publically that he spent seven hours taking deletions and changes from Bill.

Yet, as those royalties continue to roll in, he is the one assigned to big critiques of MS products. Nor does his paper publish any kind of disclaimer.

/. writers don't answer to editors and publishers. So please: don't fall into the trap they (and MS) have set for you. It's very easy for the media to go soft on anyone - as long as they keep readers believing "companies are really just folks."

Anyone who's actually reported on Microsoft knows that's a crock. They aren't "just folks" by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, despite the home-y Bill and Ballmer ads on TV, they reserve a special contempt for anyone who buys that line.

And before you decide where there's no "editorial agenda", better try working UNDER actual editors, owners and publishers. /. has many pluses, but independence is one of the biggest. You just don't realize how rare that really is in the media.

Perhaps we need a new word

[ContinuousPark]

No human-run organization operates with Borg-like singlemindedness. People are incapable of that kind of groupthink.

I believe this is exactly the problem, that there may be no (central) direction on the actions of some organization. There's no conspiracy in the way that top executives at a company or a bunch of employees sit around a table and say "Hey!, let's put this new crappy product down everyone's throat by having it appear on (and only on) media that's been favorable to us in the past" or "Why don't start forcing OEMs to only install the software we want?". So what's perceived as a Borg-like organization (MS, DOJ, the FMI, World Bank, you name it) conspiring to take over the world, may just be a bunch of single individuals pursuing its own best interests (like the PR example Roblimo gave). And because what exists is just a set of local behaviors, no one is actually responsible of the global behavior. And that may be a problem when, for instance, a company is accused of illegally enforcing a monopoly. Following this line of thought, if no collective decision (that is, a conspiracy) was made, whether aroung a table or via email or whatever, no one is actually responsible if the whole company misbehaves. That, I think, is a problem, specialy when faced with a court, where a responsible has to be found. But if the alleged guilt is distributed, what do you do?

I realize this logic has many holes but the general idea is that, imho, it may be more dangerous (and harder to correct) if an organization behaves like a conspiracy is going on when actually there isn't (no decision to do so was explicitly made). It may be the case that the organization doesn't even know (or can't understand) why it's being accused of conspiring, it's not being conscious of its own acts and can't stop itself even if it wanted to (or were forced to do so by law). That's why, if this phenomenon is not a conspiracy, we may need to use another term to refer to it.

Or maybe I'm just further along the conspiracy theory way of thinking =)

Re:Wow,

[doonesbury]

As to employees not being responsible for the actions of their companies? Well, I believe the excuse "I was only following orders" went out of fashion in 1945.

Hardly. This statement's being used every day, in every business & military situation all around the world. Besides, I think you're taking the point too far as well. Microsoft isn't pure evil. Microsoft products are not killing anyone (outright, in of themselves. You don't pick up a Word box and get ebola.) Microsoft products are just poorly made, and their business tactics leave a lot to be desired, namely competition & innovation. Don't haul up your own, bigger straw man to kill some smaller ones - especially when the truth is with your opinion anyway.

Full-time Microsoft employees have blue badges.

[cpeterso]

Contractors have yellow badges.. badges of shame. Blue badges will get you access to any Microsoft building, any day/time of the week. Yellow badges are only allowed in a few buildings during business hours.

Another point worth considering:

[AndrewD]

... is the fact that conspiracy theory is a lot more satisfying than admission of impotence, failure or procrastination.

It was, for example, a lot nicer for an unemployed german in 1932 to believe that nice Mr Hitler who told him that the reason he was unemployed was that the International Jewish Conspiracy had stitched him up, than to believe that the world happened to be in poor shape at that time.

Functionally, no difference - if there really was a secret world government of money (and anyway, if there was, it'd be the scots running it, not the jews) - you'd not stand a chance, people's willingness to do anything for money being what it is. Similarly with being out of work when world capital is depressed (as in the early thirties) is not something you can do anything about.

But how much better you feel! Here is the bogeyman - hate him, rise and revile him! Makes you just want to get out there and vote for the guy who drew your attention to this demon incarnate.

How the foregoing principle applies to the situations and organisations mentioned in the above article I leave as an exercise for the interested student.

some diversity, but they stay

[jetson123]

Indeed, Microsoft employees are not all alike. Some came to Microsoft as part of acquisitions and some are in research. But the largest part appears to be long time employees whose stock options have vested and who stay because they believe in what they are doing, and new, often inexperienced, hires who stay because Microsoft gives them great opportunities, gives them a lot of responsibility, and promises riches through stock options.

It's the latter two categories of employees that give Microsoft its Borg-like quality: they haven't seen much of the industry, they truly believe that Microsoft is doing innovative stuff, and they aren't part of a professional community that spans companies (other than, perhaps, Microsoft spin-offs). Their lack of breadth and experience and the "learning on the job" shows in their products. Microsoft hires them early and molds them their way (just like previous monopolies and the military). Those people truly believe in the "Microsoft way" and they truly believe that Microsoft is bringing something valuable to the masses.

In order to agree with the overall vision, people don't have to agree with the company in each and every way. And it is Microsoft's overall vision and pretense that is at issue, not a few glitches in execution. People stay at Microsoft, despite having lots of other good jobs available to them, and that tells us pretty much all we need to know about their views and ethical choices.

Re:My $0.02 from my talks with pals who work at MS

[mav[LAG]]

This is dead on. I'm not sure if your friends have always worked for Visual Studio team but I know several people who used to work for other companies and then were hired by Microsoft. Within a few months, they seem to lose a few capabilities: rational thought, the ability to respond to objective criticism and large portions of their Sense-Of-Humour centres. It's like watching a CPU implant take over the brain over time. I'm not trying to be funny or frivolous - just stating what I've seen first-hand.

They believe they are always right.

This is just one of the company mantras - others include:

• Bill Gates is always right
• 100% share is an acceptable figure to aim for in any market we compete in
• Bill Gates is always right
• Product passion - no matter how bad the product
• To win, everyone else must lose
• Bill Gates is always right

Most MS employees I know are exceptionally bright, motivated and talented in their fields. But with these doctrines permeating nearly every aspect of the company culture, it's not surprising that some of it sinks in. As a result the feedback I get from them is almost one of childish wonder like: "why should the nasty big government be threatening us when all we want to do is make computing easier?"

Lets not get too compfy with the media yet...

[pschmied]

I found this article a little disturbing. I understand Slashdot's desire to be viewed favorably by both the suits (Andover et al), and the geeks (we loyal readers). This article seemed to me to be an attempt to reconcile the two by simply saying, "Any lapses in journalistic ethics that you may experience are not the result of a conflict of interest."

Well, don't get too compfy with the media yet. They have their problems, and many of them are not limited to greedy freelance writers, or "small and understaffed publications."

I will add that I found that assertion to be rather amusing. I've generally found that the best reporting comes from "small and understaffed publications" simply because they are not afraid to report the stories that go against the advertising grain. In fact, I've noticed that journalistic integrity almost ensures that publications remain small and understaffed.

As for the assertion that most advertising departments and reporter segments of news organisations are highly separate, I believe that they are at the lower levels. However, you'd better believe that if it comes down to exposing a giant agribusiness company or "Joe Bob's Burger Barn" most big news publications will kill the little guy first, because the little guy doesn't buy big advertising. Is this a concious choice by reporters? No. But the senior editing staff is more likely to run the stories that keep their organisation alive.

Everyone should check out Norman Solomon's new book, "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media." I'm a journalism major, and it sure as hell changed my outlook on this topic. He'll give you the specific examples that I'm sure everyone was looking for :-)

Roblimo mentions watchdog organisations that "help keep editorial content free from business or outside influence." Right. How much press time devoted to watchdogging has anyone seen? Following Dateline NBC, do you see follow-ups where someone like FAIR shreds Dateline for factual inacuracies? I thought not. The reasons that watchdog groups aren't terribly effective (Yes I do think that watchdog groups are quintessential to accurate reporting), is that a small minority of people read them. Why does such a small number of people read them? Because they simply don't have enough money to get out to a wide audience. Why don't they have the money? Because most businesses prefer to remain outside the hard scrutiny that such watchdog groups provide.

Roblimo talks about these watchdogs saving news organisations from business intervention (which I don't think is true). But Roblimo prefaces this article with the statement that we shouldn't waste our time with such watchdogging activities! Then he implies that any such activity is simply "makeing up fake [conspiracies].

Sorry Roblimo, Slashdot (by nature) has built-in watchdogging. Some of it shoots from the hip but some of it is absolutely biting. This story is not the panacea for curing people with the urge to look for conflict of interest, be it in Andover or any other news mag.

I'd just like to say that I really appreciate the watchdogging that Slashdot readers do. I'd like to see more of it. Not less. Watchdogging is especially important in the tech industry! Slashdot is a great source of it. Why is it so important to watchdog technology publications? The simple fact is that computers are changing the face of communication (duh). There is a lot of interest at stake in this media. Take an active role in making sure that its reporting is honest.

-Peter

Conspiracy Theory

[dr_strangelove]

"I dissapprove of any conspiracy of which I am not a part."

-- Ben Franklin, I think...
or someone as clever with words

Microsoft is a typical corporate developer

[Junks Jerzey]

I have seen how Microsoft works from the inside. It is on par with the way any other large, corporate developer works. Some things of note:

1. Internal teams are always one or two generations ahead of what's on the market. They're focusing on "what will be" rather than "what's out there." So when somebody moans about a certain feature on Usenet, those team members know it is being worked on and will show up in a future product. This leads to a complete disassociation with the users.

2. Teams are working on project cycles that have relevance within the company, but not necessarily outside it. For example, Microsoft has a manufacturing division that , in effect, has other parts of the company as customers. You need to set up a pressing date with manufacturing, and they give you a window that you need to hit. If you miss the window, then another pre-scheduled product needs to be produced. There is pressure to push back bugs and cut features in order to make the arranged date. This is just one example. More commonly bugs and features are booted in order to make internal project milestones. Making milestones is more important than delivering a good product.

3. Developers tend to be isolated from the users. They live in an abstract world, in which they focus on what they're working on and don't really see the big picture or how certain features will be promoted. When I worked at a large company, we used to laugh at the promotional videos and commercials that they put out when we saw them at company meetings. They always made the company seem goofy and clueless. Yet that's all the public ever saw from us. They had no idea what was going on behind the scenes.

All of these items are not specific to Microsoft. They're standard practice at any medium to large company.

Re:Groupthink? Yes! Here's how it happened...

[alienmole]

You got it!

Roblimo assumes unthinkingly that all organizations are as chaotic as Slashdot. However, successful large organizations share a characteristic which can be rather disturbing to us more individual-minded types: they have a culture, which dictates to a large degree how their members behave, even in the absence of orders from above. People behave in ways which they know their peers and superiors will approve of. It's ultimately this herd/peer pressure behavior that leads to, or at least fails to prevent, all human group atrocities - up to and including excessive accusations of conspiracy on Slashdot...

The interesting thing is that really successful organizations often take active steps to encourage this natural human trait, and consciously harness it in the interests of the organization. At Microsoft, for example, this was done to excellent effect by Charles Simonyi. There are descriptions of this in various places, like biographies of Gates, but to give the flavor, here's a quote from Red Herring magazine:

"Microsoft is not a cult of personality, but the company is peculiarly dependent on [Bill Gates]. When Charles Simonyi, Microsoft's chief architect, devised the organizational structure in the early '80s, he made Bill the "metaprogrammer" to whom every group product manager reported. No other software CEO is so intimately involved in his company's product development, because no other software CEO has Bill's combination of technical smarts and business savvy."

The point is, Microsoft's culture, like that of many other organizations, is not an accident - it was carefully created, by the hiring and deliberate indocrination of large numbers of impressionable young programmers, and by building an organizational structure designed to reinforce desired behaviors. One result of this is the attitude described in another message posted to this article: Microsoft programmers "believe they are always right", and are (in general) unlikely to give much weight to opinions outside the organization on which they depend for their livelihood and culture. This is what leads to "embrace and extend", even without specific instructions from above.

>This feature was impressive if only for its incredible lack of content.

The content of this piece was "I, Roblimo, am tired of being accused of being part of a Slashdot conspiracy. I know there's no Slashdot conspiracy, because Slashdot is too chaotic. Come to think of it, other places are chaotic too. Therefore, there are few real conspiracies."

I am afraid Roblimo has been hanging out (virtually or otherwise) with Jon Katz for too long, and has unknowingly assimilated Katzian anti-logic...

Re:Groupthink? I think so...

[joss]

> If you look at any organization with a microscope you will see plenty of random Brownian motion going on. But there is still a whole, and this whole moves in a certain direction.

Exactly. It's silly to single out MS for special criticism in this regard. We don't need any controlling evil mastermind to produce the appearance of a conspiracy. All we need is a set of implicit and unstated tendancies where most people do what they think ought to be done, and the mass moves inexhorably in a particular direction, irrespective of a few free thinkers trying to throw a spanner in the works.

The media prints what they believe people want to see. The strongest motivation for reading newspapers is not to obtain information, it's to seek reassurance that you know whats going on and you are intelligent and informed. People don't read newspapers - they get into them like a warm bath. Opinions that you disagree with arouse discomfort and distrust. Almost everybody reads the journals and papers whose opinions they agree with, ie they read papers that tell them what they already "know". Which means papers print what they think people already believe. There's a massive positive feedback loop. You end up with ridiculously slanted propoganda, and increasingly paranoid "weirdos" handing out pamphlets unable to understand why nobody is interested in the truth.

On the other hand, in places where there is a an attempt to control the media, (eg Soviet Union), people are naturally far less trusting of media, and far more interested in hearing the truth. I'm quite sure the average Russian during the soviet years had a far more informed and balanced picture of America than the average American had about Russia (or America for that matter).

The western propoganda machine was(is) based on self-interest, flattery and greed. Soviet propoganda was based on fear. We won the propoganda war for the same reason that we won the economic war - distributed processing is more efficient than central control.

This is pretty obvious stuff

[anticypher]

...if you think about it.

But part of the fun of /. is watching the conspiracy theories go off on wild tangents with no basis is reality. It reminds us of how ignorant and gullible the lesser-educated amongst us tend to think. The conspiracy theories are great distraction from the real issues at hand, and in that confusion there is profit.

Perhaps roblimo's post here will scare off some of the conspiracy mongering idiots who tend to dilute the conversations on slashdot. That could help make the conversations a little more focused and informative.

I've started browsing at +3 to cut down on all the useless chatter on slashdot. Maybe things will get better if people read this clearly informative editorial and glean some understanding. Naahhhhh, its more fun to flame a big mysterious conspiracy :-)

the AC

Wow,

[Richy_T]

You really took a mildly humorous and loose metaphor and ran with it, constructing a dozen straw-man arguments along the way.

The borg metaphor is about Microsoft's tendencies to assimilate software companies and standards and make them their own in the quest for every machine to run Microsoft software, not that their employees are drone-like zombies with implants in their heads and nanobots running through their bloodstream (in fact, I suspect that's something most Slashdotters aspire to ;) )

As to employees not being responsible for the actions of their companies? Well, I believe the excuse "I was only following orders" went out of fashion in 1945. Also, there is a quote which goes something like "For evil to succeed, all that is required is for no good man to stand against it". I think that applies. If you are working for a company which comits evil deeds, you *are* supporting it. Your work generates profits which allow that company to continue operating in the way that it does.

To mis-quote a famous dead guy, "If you are not against it, you are for it"

Rich

My $0.02 from my talks with pals who work at MSFT

[Carnage4Life]

I've mentioned this before but since it looks like this is a slashdot making peace with MSFT article I thought it would be relevant here. I have a few friends who work for the Visual Studio team and also know a few people from school who have worked there at one time or the other. Here are the realities I have noticed that counter (and may explain) the conspiracy theories about MSFT employees

1.) They believe they are always right. They also believe that they are on a mission to bring computing to the masses. When I say this, I don't mean a computer on every desktop but instead the elimination of all tasks that previously or currently need skilled computer help. A friend of mine waxes eloquently on when MSFT will render sysadmins and DBAs irrelevant thus enabling anyone without a CS degree or intensive computing background solve programming problems. Visual Basic, Access, FrontPage etc. are all steps in this direction.

2.) They believe they are always right. This leads to trivializing the need for compatibility or standards compliance when balanced against the request for features or functionality handed down by the higher ups. Instead of some acts being a Borg-like conspiracy (e.g. Kerberos, MSIE 5.5) many of them simply do not consider interoperability when making decisions on which direction their software will take. They do not set out willingly to break standards but simply happen to break them by virtue of the fact that standards are not important to them.

3.) They believe they are always right. This leads to the jack-of-all-trades mentality. Instead of doing a few things very well as most software houses usually do, they branch into every conceivable market and are increasingly more ambitious than the last. This leads to more of the current hodge podge of excellent products/ideas and brain dead products/ideas all residing under the same roof than at any other software house. Their good stuff is very good while their brain dead ideas are horrible.

Groupthink? I think so...

[sansbury]

It is true that a corporation cannot acheive the singlemindedness of the Borg, and that even the Soviet Union failed to eradicate the individual mind.

But the motives of the individuals are not the question; the Soviet Union was evil because of what it created as an organization.

If you look at any organization with a microscope you will see plenty of random Brownian motion going on. But there is still a whole, and this whole moves in a certain direction. There were many good Soviets, but that does not make the Soviet Union any less evil.

This feature was impressive if only for its incredible lack of content. The only people left who are surprised by the public's distrust of the media, are media people themselves.

-cwk.

Conspiracies are inevitable!

[mcrbids]

This is a somewhat informative article, but it somewhat misses the point.

People think of the "X-Files" when they think of conspiracies... and from what I can tell, it doesn't work like that.

Another word for conspiracy might be "bias". Everybody's covering their own ass, to a degree,
and everybody's conspiring, as well.

We /.'ers like to conspire against M$ because we are very critical of their actions, and we feel quite justified in doing so.

Is it really so hard to believe that Microsoft employees feel similarly?

They aren't "breaking any laws", (in their own eyes) and as a previous poster noted, they "always think they are right". Given their track record of crushing any/all competition, and their incredible stock growth, why wouldn't they?

They've won every major market battle they've ever fought! They are simply engaging open-source now, and they are well in hand in winning that one too!

(IE is up to what, 80% of the browser market?) Mozilla might end up being good, but so was DR DOS and Lotus Ami-Pro! Notice their ASP-centric announcements of recent.

To hell be damned with the DOJ and "open-source".. they are taking the Internet to the "next level" (incredible marketing!) and make the standards for which we've fought so hard for, and which empowered the Internet we know today as irrelevant as the Rich Text file format. Look at IE 5.5 for a first taste of more to come.

We'll either hear about this for years until it, in some form, is a reality, or it will disappear completely within a year. I think the former is the case.

In fact, while I use Linux on 2 of my 3 home computers, and work as a database programmer with Linux as my main development platform, I'm using IE right now on the Windows computer!

Is it a conspiracy when people "do the usual" and throw a favor or two to their own cause or their friends?

-Ben

PS: The DOJ will pass and have little/no effect long term - the DOJ is too busy tip-toeing around the egg-shells to have any real meaningful effect.

They split the company in the one way that it won't do *anything*! IE is the new devel platform, they should've had them separate IE and everything else, and force publication of *all* API calls for IE!

"But we're right!"..echoes of East German STASI

[cthompso]

I've heard before that the MS culture promotes a naive sense of knowing what's best for customers, etc. It struck me how much the Microsoft employee mindset is like that of the East German secret police (STASI). Apparently Erich Mielke, the STASI head who ordered all manner of tortures and executions, was genuinely baffled that anyone would not want to be part of the utopian new order. We've seen this mindset before, notably during the Spanish Inquisition. How the Microsoft rendition will end, it's hard to say.

Of Course!!!

[Electric Angst]

Well, if there's no Slashdot conspiracy now, there should be in the future! Or maybe just slashdot entertainment.

Say, for example... There are six of you, all at the compound, all working on Slashdot. What if you couldn't leave the compound? Now, what if, as we all watched on with webcams, you voted off on Slashdotter every two weeks?!? Slashdot Surviver! It would be genius! Whoever is the final Slashdotter left gets one-million bucks from Andover.

So, what are you waiting for, posting legitimate stories and informing us!! Get out there and entertain!!!