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LinuxToday Astroturfing Explained
cigarky sent us Paul Ferris' account (fwiw, Paul is a good guy) of the LinuxToday astroturfing that we mentioned a few weeks ago. Much more explanation about how Executive Editor Kevin Reichard was posting numerous comments under numerous aliases on the LT forums. Even more scary is the editorial war regarding linking outside content. My opinion is that LT's only value was the outside content they linked: until Dave and later Paul left, they were the best url for finding comprehensive Linux news. A real eye-opening piece about "Journalism" and Internet.com. (Note: LT and Internet.com are sorta competitors, although I never really cared much. My opinions are probably skewed somehow because of that ;))
But my point is why use M$? If I was contracting it out, I would not sub to somebody who puts my data or process at risk. This issue came up once before and it was possible to find out what the system runs. Now, they hide it from netcraft, even though a simple telnet does the job. My question is why hide it? I use to think that this would only happen in a M$ type operation. Now, it appears that LT operates like ZD/M$ as does OSDN. So, what will it take to get OSDN away from M$? What is missing?
This is an on-line discussion board. Practically everyone, from "CmdrTaco" to "Hemos" is using a pseudonym. So what. And so what if they have multiple pseudonyms so they can get in debates with themselves. The words and the ideas are the most important thing. The name is not important at all.
Unfortunatly the person who told the author that this happens all the time was extremly correct, and just not on internet sources.
A story to illistrate from what I know. When I worked for a local paper they used to run what was called a "readers choice" award. The idea being that people would vote on what places around town they liked the best. categories included best place to eat, best pizza etc. I had a friend who worked for a regional pizza chain. He told me that he had been directed by the boss, along with several other employees to fill out these forms to be sent in. I , of course, reported what I had heard to the editor of that section of the paper and she said that she would look into it.
When I spoke to her a week later she told me that yes that she had found massive evidence of ballet fraud. Random samplings of ballets with this store on them had turned up the people who had their name on the ballot had not filled them out. She said that she had personally seen over 100 ballots filled out with the same pen and handwriting. I felt vidicated. Then the awards were anounced. The number one spot was that pizza chain! I spoke to the editor and asked how this could be, she told me that it was a marketting decision from above. Basically they bought so much ad revenue they were given that spot.
This just illistrates the porblems that any news repoting agency faces. If you moderate you are going to slant the moderation to the bias of the viewer, what I consider a troll you may consider a witty comment. The first time you remove a post for any reason the news starts to slant, even if the post was trash pure and simple. It is a slippery slope that once started down cannot be stopped.
The same goes for advertising, you may think that they are the worst people in the world but you have to generate ad revenue and therefore accept their ads. Some ad revenue is turned away but once accepted it does flavor the news that it supports.. A final fact about this from my expereinces at the local paper. We where told that out of our 100 million dollar revenue from the previous year 11 million had come from news paper sales, the rest had come from advertising. In the four story building I worked in one third of one floor was for the news department, the rest of the building was for the advertising departments. Journalism has alwasy been subjugated to market forces. It's almost a good sign that online journalism has started to feel these effects themselves. It is a sign that online news is growing up.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
To my knowledge LT has not posted a single article on this. I wonder what that says about it. And even more interesting. Kevin used to post stories on the front page, and I haven't seen a post from him in a while. You would think Michael Hall was the only one working at LT now adays.......
Although this still is /. , I find it odd that there isn't more harsh criticism for this apparent black eye for Linux journalism.
If this was say "Windows Today" magazine, we'd have a 1,000 post article of how magazine's based on closed-source stuff is evil. Rah! Rah! Linux journalism isn't like this, we don't have to be...we're superior! Yet no one seems to care about this and is willing to sweep it under the proverbial rug.
People flaunt their ethics("I would never use a M$ OS or work for a company that does) and morals(I refuse to write anything but open-source code), but I wonder, what was wrong with this guy that he just didn't leave. Doing something unethical as this should qualify as a comprimization of ethics. If things were as bad as he said they were, then to me it's time to cash out my options and jump ship.
They are not "upright business people." They are downright scum.
Ha! Almost as good as "War doesn't determine who's right, but only who's left."
Did you really forget or is a subtle karma boost the reason???
I'll sign no petition. I'm voting with my feet. Bookmark deleted.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
/. and LT have been two of my favorite sites since I started reading them in '97. I have never really put much stock in the talkbacks. They are sometimes fun to read, but more often they are just frustrating. It doesn't really surprise me that something like this would happen. I would expect more integrity from people like Reichard, though. I find this behavior to be extremely childish and sad. But I don't read the site for talkbacks.
The things that really burn my buttons are his insitence that there is no Linux community and his stance on linking "external content".
First, I give proof that there is a Linux community. My proof is the kernel source. Every one of the kernel developers runs some version of Linux. They are provably part of the Linux community by their use and development of Linux. Then there are the users and the distributon makers. Not so provable, but they obviously exist. If Reichard believes that there is no Linux Community, then he should just shutdown LT right now, since the site obviously caters to non-existant readers.
Second, LT is a portal. It is all about external content. I understand wanting to keep people on their sites, but don't take it too far. They should worry about providing worthwhile news stories, not their distribution channel. If they provide quality news, they will boost readership. If there are more readers, there will be more talkbacks. Obviously, if there are more talkbacks there must be more people in the "channel". LT can not be incestuous and just link to content on sister sites and still expcet to be a vital news source and keep their readership. Reichard is being a dink with this attitude.
I wonder at their silence. Do they just not care what their readers think? Do they think that we who read and support the site are just a bunch of mindless cattle to be shuffled here and there at their whim? That we will just take what they give us slurp it up and ask for more? Do they actually think that they are better than their readership? That they can throw integrity out the window and not have to own up to it?
Do they not realize that it is the readers that make them who they are, and that by hurting their readers they are hurting themselves.
It really saddens me that someone in our community would stoop as low as they have in mindless worship to the gods Page View and Almighty Buck.
Is there anyone left in this failing democracy called the United States that isn't compltetly self-serving?
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
What you didn't know (until now) is that everyone in the world is an alien except you. That's why we all act so... peculiar.
i am so confused? do you just chilland wait for some d00d to post a bullshit post and then you taunt them. I mean it seems like a fun plan.. but kinda anti-progressive..
Producing satire is kind of hopeless because of the literacy rate of the American public. - Frank Zappa
I don't think I'll go back to LT until KR makes a public apology. And it had better be good. Shame really because it is a good newswire and I have always used it for keeping me up with kerneltraffic, lwn, mozilla releases... thats what a newswire is for. But I just went be to LT to see what Tirebiter, Dooley, Smith and the other psuedonyms of KR have been saying. LT lets you search their old talkbacks, go try it (unless they now delete them of course). Anyway it left a bad taste in my mouth. Sometimes there are three of them backing each other up, totally changing the balance of the talkbacks. And you know what the "best" bit is? It looks like the it was the WillSmith alias submitted the following to slashdot... http://www.slashdot.org/articles/00/09/07/1546229. shtml
page hits anyone? :-(
Slashdot is different because it is both user moderated, and it is possible to go back and see the moderated posts.
IMO the only places where Slashdot has real problems are where the user moderation isn't implemented. In the posting of articles for instance, or in the relatively rare cases where the slash authors get involved in moderating posts themselves.
Anyway, I've hardly ever read the talkbacks on LinuxToday articles. Whenever I submitted a correction to some difference of opinion with an editorial, my submission was never posted. When I agreed it was. I figured out pretty quickly that the dice were loaded at LinuxToday, although they are still an excellent source of news headlines.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
Welcome to the real world.
There are only two journalistic sites on the web that charge a fee and make money - The Wall Street Journal and Consumer Reports. Both are generally considered to have high journalistic standards. Both avoid publishing press releases. Both make money. This should tell you something.
My experience with most datacenters is that they hire idiots and/or contractors in order to avoid paying reasonable salaries, and therefore the face presented to the customer is one of "duh...". While barging into the NOC and making long distance calls on someone else's phones (!) is obviously way out of line, there are procedures and processes at Exodus and Above.net which just plain don't work.
;-).
FGC (now part of Exodus) required customers to sign a contract that stated no customer UPS units were allowed. Then FGC's "failover" UPS system did not fail over and customers in several of their datacenters had entire sites go down when there was a power outage. It is not unreasonable to be unhappy with the shitty service offered by most datacenters. In fact, it's something of a running joke.
FWIW, the company I work at now has built our own goddamn datacenter and its uptime is far, far better than the nearest Exodus (Herndon). We've been pulling machines from Exodus for a while now, not because Exodus is particularly bad, but because if they go under or have to keep firing their best people, we won't have to notice
Nonetheless, there's something to be said for civility, and apparently internet.com hasn't figured that out yet. (Even when dealing with FGC I always tried to be professional, as did everyone else I worked with... they ARE people.)
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
There is a petition going around. The idea is to try and put some pressure on the LT staff to put out some answers. To date it's had little effect. We've had a very hard time getting the normal outlets to take notice of us.
Many of them feel that this story should die.
Other think that it's not really a story, that it's not important.
And still others seem to think that the community needs to be "protected."
It's linked at the bottom of Paul's article, but I'll include it here too.
LT Petition
Myddrin
anyone remember that weird cnet article about 6 months ago that spoke of massive corruption and media manipulation by Linux companies? I found it particularly amusing when the article charged that Mandrake was giving reviewers free copies of it's operating system... in fact, the article's only charge against linux companies was that they were giving reviewers free software... (the irony of this article being on CNet should not be lost on the reader...)
Now this seems to flip it around a bit... but can anyone explain something to me... WHY?
sorry... at this point, this makes as much sense to me as SONY's marketing team inventing a reviewer to rave about the last Rob Schneider movie does...
parent of the parent is the spewage of a moron. parent is wasting his time.
I would imagine no Linux House is nearly as monolithic as MS. If 'Windows Today' was being astroturfed by MS, it would implicate a much larger entity at work. LinuxToday's incident would simply register as a bump on the fabric of the Linux World. It's landscape has a few peaks spread over a wide area as opposed to MS whose terrain is shallow and dominated by a tall spire.
E.K.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
I agree with you. I am Anon (dev@null.com), the one that annoys you so much, and frankly wonder how and why so many of my posts get through.
I guess I provide enough upset Linux users posting to serve their purpose.
BTW, I will come clean...I use Linux everyday and have for over 5 years. Don't tell anyone over there though. I might swing by for a flamewar every noe and then.
Thanks.
Still going strong. The rest has always been flashy imitations gussied up in fluff and hype.
**>>BELCH
That seems very curious. I don't believe in God, because there's no evidence of its existence. God is some far-off transcendental entity about whom no reliable information can be gathered. But a community here on earth is a different matter. It leaves traces, it walks around; it can be photographed. Why would demonstrating its existence be anything like proving the existence of God?
I'm not sure how to take this, exactly. Is Paul Ferris just bad at documenting the evidence of his senses? Why would it be so hard for people professionally engaged with the "Linux community" to even muster evidence that the community exists? If there isn't something better than a religious assertion to fall back on, then it seems reasonable to say that it does not exist.
One piece of evidence is the source code for the kernel. That seems to be the work of less than a thousand people, spread out all over the world. That would be a tiny community by anyone's standards, but it does seem to exist. If it's just a few people on a mailing list, though, it may stretch the term "community" to the breaking point. There's no question that people contribute software to Linux, but is there a community of any significant size? What's the evidence? I ask this in all sincerity.
Tim
I was once astroturfed by LinuxGram.
. shtml
2 -2001Feb8.html
2 -08-002-20-NW-SS
http://www.slashdot.org/articles/01/05/01/1936218
I was saying that LinuxGram sometimes posts a lot of Crap. Specifically an interview with Volker Wiegand by Maureen OGara where she took everything he said out of context and misquoted him in several places. I cant find the story on their site right now. But here is a summary from fairfax it.
http://it.mycareer.com.au/breaking/20010208/A2055
Here is a link with Volker Wiegands responce where he says that Maureen OGara deliberately misquoted him. http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-0
When I posted the comment on Slashdot, two people created new Slashdot logins and replied. One was called SuSE_Rulez and the other was called ingenuity7. You can tell they were knew logins because they hadnt posted before or since. And Slashdot gives the UID numbers out consecutively and I checked to see what slashdot UID I would get on that day and it came right after theirs. Also look how ingenuity7 refers to LinuxGram as CSN which is its less well known parent company. To me he seems to know a lot more than normal people do about LinuxGram.
Of course, when I was astroturfed by LinuxGram I was hardly surprised but this story about LinuxToday is disapointing. Other journalists have replied to my face if I disagreed with them and thats the way it should be done.
For me to get out and add a bit to this story. I worked as a freelance writer for internet.com over a period of a few months. I stuck to simple administrivial details and the occasional story about programming. For the most part my articles were not that great but they were of technical nature.
I worked for Kevin directly. I also submitted invoices to him directly as well.
As time went on, communications between Kevin and I diminished slowly. I did not mind because that was during the summer of 2000 and a lot was happening. I wrote it off as he was busy.
Finally, towards the end of last summer, I was beginning to get worried, I had submitted 2 rather large articles which they had in their possession but had done nothing with. It worried me since technically the material was mine until they decided to print it and (for some reason) I feared they were never going to do anything with it.
As time went on, I tried to make contact again and again (a few times I used some choice words I probably should not have). Finally I contacted Kevin's boss about the issue after waiting almost 2 months.
I was fired the next day. Interestingly, I was only ever harsh with Kevin, so I sort of did not understand why I was fired since I had been pretty professional in the email to his boss. Needless to say my confidence dropped thru the floor and I sort of walked away from the whole issue - citing myself as being a luser.
It was shortly after that I was offered work in books with a well respected publisher (whom I still work for every now and again). I began to feel a little better about my writing, but was still confused as to why I had been let go from internet.com.
Around that time I also noticed that the internet.com kludge was getting worse, external sites were not being linked to, forums were obviously being heavily edited/censored - basically it was going down the crapper. Also many internet.com stories were changing from technical to more inflamatory (go figure).
In the end, a little bird told me my firing had been arranged. I no longer fit the content model of internet.com. Most likely my contract would have been discontinued anyway whether I had lobbed a few balls at internet.com or not.
I had asked Kevin not too speak of what happened, I also asked if he would be a reference for me, which he never responded to. I wanted not to have it come up again because my charachter/credibility could possibly come under fire. In retrospect after working on several books and writing for other sites I think it is quite possible that I was not the one with the credibility/professionalism issues.
I still do not speak to Kevin and frankly I do not ever want to see/hear anything about him again unless it concerns his resignation from internet.com and perhaps the field in general.
I would like to say there are still many good editors and writers at internet.com, I do not know how deep seeded this problem is within their management, but I suspect it starts and ends with Kevin.
Thought folks might like that little addition.
---
The two click system is to keep you on their site for a bit longer, so that their ads will get more face time. This is related to the concern on Reichard's part, mentioned in the article, about promoting material that would be hosted on their site rather than going elsewhere.
Of course, I know I tend to go to a LinuxToday story, click through to the external resource, and then come back to LinuxToday for another link to another site.
For me, LinuxToday's greatest value was always the sheer number of links they posted. If I was bored and looking for distraction, I could always hit LinuxToday and read a few interesting links and/or talkback discussions. They have noticeably reduced the number of stories they link to, recently, presumably due to their staff cutbacks.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
When that kind of attitude goes clear down to the subatomic level, that's pretty bad.
Are you part of a plot by the government to track me?
Take this personaility test.
Well put. What I've been wondering is whether this astroturfing constitutes fraud...
Hey..how you doing? I think my anti-Linux trolling days are over at LT. The sad part is that some of my best stuff never made it through. To be fair, it is tough sometimes to come up with some really good flamebait.
My favorite time is when someone actually accused me of being paid by Microsoft to troll there. They were completely convinced and asked how much MS paid me. I told them $100 for each post and $250 for each lamebrain reply like his.
Hehehe. I got the same... I replied that Microsoft were paying for my holidays! And I've used Linux for 5 years, Linux exclusively (at home) for three.
Good memories, I remember stoking up the huge flamewar when some of the KDE developers slagged off Ximian over the google adverts. I really had them all jumping then, even Shawn Gordon from TheKompany - you know, the shutty company LT plugs all the time.
It got boring after a while through - LT started being totally fascistic, and biased, with moderating.
Has anyone seen upnp.org ?
LT is a fine news site. In the strictest sense. Just links to various linux around the net. Not a community with an agenda (not thats good or bad) but just a place where all the linux news of the day wether big or small importance are collected together.
Also some people dis the way they have a shortened quotation and summary of the full article before offering a link...personally i think this is good, makes it very convienient to suck it down on a palm pilot in the morning for the train ride into work.
Hey Anon (dev@null.com) I am, or rather I used to be, Anon (anon@anon.com).
After some prodding, I received a message back that was something like "This is common practice in the industry." I'm still ashamed that I didn't ask the obvious question: "By whom?".
Microsoft has admitted to doing this a few years ago.
http://www.club977.com/ - The 80's Channel!
Your source for commercial free 80's music!
I've worked with the people from Internet.com (I worked at the datacenter they used to host their servers). They are the most obnoxious and overall CRAPPY people you could ever meet. Not only do they think they are the God's of the Internet, they also feel that rules don't apply to them. (This symptom seemed to be company wide, from the pions up to the CTO/VP).
I cannot count the number of times in which they would try to break the rules and claim they weren't informed of these rules. Nothing applied to them. They would walk into the monitoring room (which customers aren't allowed) and act like they lived there, picking up phones and making long distance calls. They were asked EVERYDAY to not do that and when we had site security escort them out, they called one of our VP's and threatened to not buy their $1 million worth of Sun boxes this month.
It was completely ridiculous. They are not "upright business people." They are downright scum. This article only confirms my belief in their ethical practices as a business and as a news agency.
why do you give "news" more status that editorials? Because its on the first page?
Take this personaility test.
Astroturfing... that's another sick gay reference. If I was president instead of that pussy Texas liberal Bush I would bomb the holy hell out of Slashdot's offices. This is SMUT! Federal money has paid for this SMUT! God is against gay commie liberal crap.
-- Slashdot is SMUT!! Is federal money going towards this?
Editorials are, quite simply, the opinions of someone at a given newspaper. They can do anything from tow the news corporation line to come in direct conflict with the stated goals of the paper. That's why every newspaper I've ever read includes a disclaimer stating that "...the opinions of [someone who wrote an editorial] are not the opinions of [news corporation]"
Editorials were designed to provide a means for editors of papers to voice opinions that dissent from those of the paper and its advertisers. Advertisers pay papers, and threaten to pull advertising monies when the paper blasts them. If a rouge editor writes and editorial, however, it's not the paper's fault...
Applying journalistic integrity rules to editorials is like trying to apply the rules of boxing to a street fight. They're completely different things, and should be taken as such.
Nth adj : last or greatest in an indefinitely large series ...but feel free to bugger me arse again if it improves upon your self image.
It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I was a regular reader of LT (20-30 times "refresh" a day).
I just deleted my bookmark and I think that is what all people should do (YMMV). When there comes a reaction to that petition, I'll see what to do.
But untill then, no more hits from me.
Good by LT.
Monster.com runs on IIS. Hotjobs.com runs on Netscape/Enterprise (don't know what OS). dice.com runs on Apache/Unix (don't know what variant of Unix, but probably Solaris). None of them try to hide what web server they run. Netcraft is a survey site, and is not 100% accurate at reporting on any one particular site, though if they sample thousands of sites the errors tend to average out so you can pretty much trust their aggregate numbers.
If OSDN is partnering or contracting out jobs.osdn.com, they have a limited number of people to partner with. None of these people appear to be running Linux.
There you have it. You wouldn't happen to be an employee of Internet.com, would you? :-).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Sometimes the talkbacks are OK, but I actually think they're less worthwhile since they're moderated. The one time I cared enough about something to post there, there was no immediate way to tell if my comment would be accepted, or when. As a result, I feel less a part of the LT community and am less motivated to post there, even if I have what would be a good point on a story there. I much prefer the /. system where your comment goes up immediately, and then if it's crap it's moderated into the floor immediately :)
I'll still be keeping my LT slashbox, though, if for no other reason than they tend to post the Kernel Times and Kernel Cousin stories when they come out, and their slashbox is usually fairly up-to-date with some other stories as well.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
been suspicious of these so called 'message boards' on news web sites. Seems simple enough, post a news article that doesn't push the particular publishers 'agenda', and then influence public opinion by letting the 'common people' speak out about it.
I also have to wonder about the validity of these emails and message board posts that show up on shows like CNN's 'talkback live' or 'news site'. Not trying to sound like a conspiracy nut, but we know the media massages news to their liking, how are we to know that they dont try to portray joe six-pack as being in favor or against said subject?
this is why it sends shivers up my spine when people talk about 'your one source for news' etc etc...
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
More accurately, jobs.osdn.com is a "partnership agreement" our marketing people got into with an existing jobs-type Web site operator, and we have nothing at all to do with its operation.
Seems to me Hemos covered this a long time ago... using his usual, well-known nom-de-net, just as I am using mine here.
For what it's worth, I've never thought, even for a second, of posting comments on Slashdot, NewsForge or any other OSDN site under any name other than my own.
- Robin "Roblimo" Miller
Editor in Chief, OSDN
There's been a gradual decline, but it's hard to say exactly when or where it happened. At the same time, there's now so much news that it's hard to keep track of it all. And it's not all as important as it was a few years ago, so I don't feel the need to keep up with EVERYTHING in Linux any more. There's more I just don't care about on LT than there used to be. And there's stuff I'm interested in that doesn't get covered. (Slashdot has the same problem.) So what's a reader to do?
Personally, I've added a few more sites to check in on regularly, and I've subscribed to a couple of mailing lists.
Paul did write some informative and amusing articles (and rants!). I'm glad he's found a new "home." Wonder if LT can get over their attitude long enough to link to varlinux?
But that is not to say that dishonesty is warranted. If you are a commercial organisation, admit it. If you do "advertorials", then call them advertorials. At least most journalists try to be honest, and pointing out where they are not is a good thing, I think. Michael
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
Trying 216.138.211.59...
Connected to H59.C211.tor.velocet.net (216.138.211.59).
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 16:32:11 GMT
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Length: 41966
Content-Type: text/html
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDGQQGQNMY=CECCFLMBNIDDPJMFPCILNIDB; path=/
Cache-control: private
Connection closed by foreign host.
Yes, does appear to be IIS on Windows, but it also appears that they do not themselves operate jobs.osdn.com, but rather farm it out to a subcontractor.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Ok, I am now truly sceptical. Am I real? Are you real? Are all messages posted on /. in fact the work of 2-3 individuals who quickly create replies containing various opinions?
Who is really posting this message?
Suggestion: have each message posting require authetication via finger print and/or smartcard validation. Then, we'll know for sure where these posts are coming from...
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
I much prefer Linux Weekly New's Daily Page for finding out what's going on in the linux world and their weekly summaries for commentary.
If I want to hear what people are saying about a story, Slashdot is much more useful.
I still check LinuxToday every other day or so to see what stories fell through the cracks at LWN.
The linux community was really exciting in the years past....New software, big advancments, corporate acceptance on the fringe, break neck development cycles, etc...etc.. Now it seems that everyone has dug foxholes, climbed in --- and now they are throwing grenades. I can't remember the last time I saw something that really made me go -- "Wow, this is neat...." -- now it is just talking about failed business plans, companies going bellly up, stock prices, amd backstabbing....Kindly like some mariages after the honeymoon period is over.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
But if you're just a consumer waiting around for some company to convince you that something is neat, then you may be out of luck during the current corporate contraction. If you want excitement and new stuff, get involved for real - subscribe to some mailing lists related to packages you're interested in, contribute, and help build the next exciting thing. If you can't program, try testing, documenting, or compiling faqs.
I exchanged email with Reichards over my suspecions that he or Dennis Powell were astroturfing several months ago.
But, I ask you, who do you go to? Dinotrack and Mydrrin began asking after the Barr article was printed but had the same problem of effectively getting the story out. They finally got it published at varlinix.org (Petreley's site), but then some folks (maybe Riechard posting with pseudonames again?) claimed it was merely two Linux news sources fighting each other?
I don't think so. KR and DEP were, if nothing else, trying to spike LT's hits by constanting posting inflamatory anti-MS articles and then acting as the 'voice of reason', as they chided posters for being 'fanatics', just as they did with Barr.
I saw the 'George Tirebiter' posts and considered them pure M$ troll. Someone mentioned that email they got from KR & DEP were always from M$ platforms, until about the middle of the spring, then they started using an RH platform.
I now use other sources for my daily dose of Linux news,P> What the Linux Community needs (yes, Reichard, there is a community!) is to apply the principles of Open Source to Linux news: full disclosure of all equipment and software used by the news org and it's employees, and a Linux vita of all employees who affect the decision on what news is published.
"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf."
-Tug McGraw, asked whether he preferred grass or Astroturf
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
All the posts are from mhall and there is a sharp dropoff in the number of talk backs. hhmmm? I just signed the petition and saw that most of the regular posters to LT were there. I remember when LT was acquired by internet.com and there was a lively discussion with a lot of posters expressing misgivings about internet.com. Sad to see that those feelings were justified.
1000 SlashDot sigs
Hello,
LinuxToday did have some value, outside of all of this. It's not terribly well known, but they did help to sponsor and keep me updating the "Wonderful World of Linux" summaries, even when my job and my financial situation made it increasingly hard to do so. Admittably, they were repayed in click-throughs, but they were always very supportive of my writing (and Paul's, too)
Oh well. I don't know whether I should find someplace new to post to, or not...
Joe
....fuckem' & feed them fishheads.
I was a big fan of LinuxToday for a few years now, because it was a smaller weblog with far less trolls than our beloved /. (even with their astroturfing) They do moderate the posts, though, which may help account for that. But it always struck me as strange that a bunch of blatantly anti-Linux seemingly blindly-in-love-with-MS posts would consistently make it through.
Since Slashdot first reported on the astroturfing, and especially because I haven't noticed a response from LinuxToday admitting to this, I have lost a good deal of respect for them. It's a shame that Linuxtoday had to resort to posting flames in order to get more visitors to come to their site. It's the same tactic that's often attributed to eWeek and others. If they would at least publically admit on their site that they were astroturfing, then maybe I can respect them again...
Other than these philosophical issues, it is a decent news site if you're interested in some of the noteworthy linux headlines.
make world, not war
What really bites is that the whole system just ignores things like this. One decent guy goes, whoa this is wrong, I'll tell the people in charge, I'm sure they'll do something about it. Haha life ain't like that. The guys in charge probably put him up for it. Do you have to take a ethical zombie test to make it into management these days? I've seen many people take genuine grievences up the corporate ladder, only to get thrown off and swept under the carpet. But one day, one day (and it looks like it's happening now for these guys) the genuine grievence comes back and bites the whole corporation on the a%*e. =)
Is how long these LT changes have been going on without anyone noticing or speaking up.
Personally, I've noticed huge changes in LT editorial policies and implementation. It sucks how Linux news coverage has shrunk in quality and quantity over at LT these days. It's practically dead, subsisting on random flamebait and karma whoring from time to time. The manner of censorship of the talkback forums have also often quite bothered me.
I have had friendly exchanges with the editors in the past, but that was about it unfortunately. I'm glad someone is finally shedding light on all this. Finally, we know what happened to Marty Pitts (I never got an answer about that from anyone over there). Thanks, Paul.
-N.
I also have to wonder about the validity of these emails and message board posts that show up on shows like CNN's 'talkback live' or 'news site'. Not trying to sound like a conspiracy nut, but we know the media massages news to their liking, how are we to know that they dont try to portray joe six-pack as being in favor or against said subject?
This happens in dead-tree publications on a routine basis, so I'd be surprised *not* to see it in online publications that let the admins - as opposed to the users - choose which replies have prominence.
[User-moderated boards have their own problems, as we all know.]
In the publications around here (Toronto, Canada), papers will typically print "letters to the editor" that either a) continue an existing argument amongst readers, or b) provoke a flood of replies. Note that sanity and accuracy are not listed as requirements; they're an incidental side effect. Sometimes.
The purpose of the letters section is the same as any other section of the newspaper (other than ads) - to get people reading and keep people reading. Not to be accurate for accuracy's own sake.
Astroturfing and other message forgery is still illegal, but selective filtering is standard practice.
hawk
I can't say I've ever been particularly impressed with either Reichard or Joe Barr. Barr has been around a long time as a kook, he was a known antangonist in the OS/2 community.(I wouldn't be surprised to learn he owned an Amiga)
But if you want to express outrage, the best thing to do is plain stop visiting Linuxtoday.com.
Anything else will just increase the hits on their advertising. As they say any publicity is good publicity, even if it is negative.
The scary part though, is that when he was found out, he did not have a breakdown. Most people have a certain level of shame. When they do something really bad and are found out, they run away or break down to confess. They can also go into denial. But unless they're far gne, they'll not do the same thing again, either out of fear of being exposed again, or ot of genuine shame.
Now this guy, every time he is exposed, he manages to get his whistleblowers fired. Only psychopaths can pull that sort of thing off. Only psychopaths have that kind of superiority, and no fear of being caught. That he had the pull to get these people fired probably only has fuelled the runaway ego of this Kevin guy.
The article writer can count himself lucky that he is out of it. There's no telling what a guy like Kevin could do if pushed into a corner.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Both the Economist and Salon charge for "premium content" as well. In the case of the Economist, if one wishes to read archived content they must obtain a subscription. For Salon, certain articles are branded "premium content" and access to those are restricted to only those who sign up. Not being members of either (though I regularly read both) I can't say if it's worth the money. Just wanted to add to the list.
--Maynard
This story has almost spawned a second story: The reactions of the Linux Press and the Linux Community and the ways in which they differ.
Since Rob Knapp and I put up our petition asking LT to come clean, I've heard from members of the LT community and members of the Linux press.
The journalistic responses I got were mostly disheartening. Most didn't want to "attack" a comrade in arms. Some said that nobody cares what goes on in talkbacks, anyway. One of the original naysayers, to his credit, did go back and check his own biases by asking what other people thought.
What this journalist found is what many members of the LT community expressed to me: Sure, we take talkbacks with a grain of salt. However, when the forum posts a policy and says that it will be fair, we expect the forum itself to play by its own rules. The people who run a moderated forum have a fair amount of power with regard to the contents of that forum. It is wrong to exercise that power cynically.
This is especially true of a site like LT, that built, and, I fear, is squandering, a valuable and positive reputation among its community members.
I would like to end with a word about Michael Hall, the current LT editor.
Michael is in a nearly impossible position. The Linux Today staff is mostly gone. So far as I can tell, the only free-lance writer still being published is Dennis Powell.
Michael is doing yeoman's work trying to keep LT useful to its community. That's a tall order for one person. I ask people not to take their frustrations with LT out on Michael personally.
As always, I speak for no one but myself.
Dean Pannell
(a.k.a. dinotrac)
Conflict of interest! Nobody else had a chance to get first post. ;)
In addition to signing the petition, if you haven't already done so -- send an e-mail to LTpetition@netscape.net --
You can also send a note to the editors at editors@linuxtoday.com explaining why this behavior is intolerable.
Thanks,
Dean Pannell
(a.k.a. dinotrac)
I would say that discussion of OSDN's ethics (i.e., discussing allegations that they are somehow "hiding" NT usage) is definitely on-topic if we're talking about journalistic ethics. You may want the topic to only discuss LT's ethics and not OSDN's, but that's not how Slashdot works, and not how Slashdot has *ever* worked.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
This will serve to determine who is really in charge - if anyone - of the so-called 'Linux Community'. Remember, you are the ones who are in charge of the information flow. It's been freed by your internet.
Inasmuch as the GPL linux model is a refutation of standard corporate practices, isn't it fitting that you all take a stand against an obviously heinous one, that of astroturfing?
By doing this you will send a message that - in the GPL/Gnu-Linux world, quality and integrity ARE synonymous with success, and traitors to that notion shall pay the penalty.
The penalty is as old as human recorded history: transgressors of the code will be shunned by the community and ostracized for their misdeeds.
One must believe that such lofty notions as free and responsible speech can prevail in the face of bottom-line control-freak adversaries; and one must have the courage to pick up the gauntlet when it is clear that the challenge has been put to them.
Never mind that this will or will not be newsworthy; hell, if Sklyarov wasn't newsworthy, what could possibly rate on the evening news. Oh, that's right: Chandra Levy gets 10 minutes every night. Never mind if anyone notices but you, the Linux loyal, but have this event serve to bring you closer to the center of your philosophy and not factionalize you. There should not be a philosophical wedge, here. No sane proponent of the GPL, aware of the evils inherent in the current alternative, would ever believe that astroturfing has its place in a free and responsible society.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.