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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 ;))
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.
Sorry, forgot to include the link
Eric S. Raymond: Remember Astroturfing? Now, Microsoft wraps itself in the flag
Funny thing is, that article is on Linux Today...
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Your source for commercial free 80's music!
Of course, a couple years ago Consumers Union had a bit of a problem where their Director of Purchasing was found, and prosecuted for, taking kickbacks from vendors. This is exactly the sort of corporate governence and conflict of interest problem that "Consumer Reports" claims should be fully reported, and which CR blasts corporations for regularly.
So - where did we read about this little embaressment? In the Wall Street Journal, of course. To this day not a single word has been published about it in CR.
Integrity is a great concept - for the other guy.
sPh
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)
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)