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LinuxToday Editor Apologizes For Astroturfing
Thanks to Dean Pannell (and Paul Ferris for the initial head's up) for pointing out the apology and statement of fact from Kevin Reichard, the Executive Editor of LinuxToday. I think the argument that people would know that "George Tirebiter" was merely a contrivance is weak, but whatever. You can read the previous stories in the astroturf [?] ing saga.
> Plus it contains grammatical mistakes, which looks kind of bad when your job title includes "editor".
Nod a nissue, far Linux-friendly geek cites.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Don't know what this refers to?
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
For this reason I think there should at least be an option for disabling the e2 tags, or the /. editors should leave them out entirely. Just as we an honest person wouldn't want MS's definition of Linux, why should we go to e2 for, say, Microsoft?
/. editors don't have an interest in promoting.
Its pushing e2 when I don't particularly want to visit it.
"Smart tags" might be handy sometimes, but not when its an annoying ad for another website disguised as journalism, and dictionary.com has a perfectly good definition of astroturfing that the
Those who would respond "its their website, they can do with it what they want," should ask themselves if the same applies to MS's smarttags.
Maybe it was him trying to make you think that it was someone else trying to make you think that it was him.
I'll stop now.
I went to school with a guy (I can't remember his first name) who's last name was "Boner". But that's not all. I know you won't believe me, but nonetheless, I have to share: His dad's name was Richard.
324006
Linux Today is not responsible for the content of the message below.
Maybe they should clearly label the astroturf articles written by their own editors differently:
Linux Toady is responsible for the content of the message below.
-Don
Linux Toady
Main Entry: 1 toady
Pronunciation: 'tO-dE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural toadies
Etymology: by shortening & alteration from toadeater
Date: 1826
: one who flatters in the hope of gaining favors : SYCOPHANT
synonym see PARASITE
====
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
If it's the latter, /. is the single longest field of astroturf in existence, and I'm no MicroSlave: just calling it as I see it.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
How about mentioning the fact that he's been doing this for years, or that he caused others to be fired when they complained. Maybe he could talk about this being common practice in the industry. Links to every single false post would have really shown some remorse.
Seems to me that this is an attempt to wind down the negative spin, without really understanding what has been done wrong, or really wanting to/feeling the need to apologise. As my mum always said, if your not really sorry then apologising is worse than saying nothing.
If he had posted this on /. and I had mod then I'd be modding him down for facuous statements and insincere apologies.
Alan Cox - Subject: Astroturfing ( Aug 8, 2001, 20:13:51 )
So you've now publically admitted impersonating people in public and making libellous comments about me and other community members. Can you clear up one detail - why are you still working for internet.com/linuxtoday ?
Alan
I didn't say it was right. But it's also no more wrong than being an IRS agent. People have to work. Other people get screwed. It's the nature of capitalism.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Having worked for a major (i.e. Media Metrix top 10) news and links portal, I can honestly say that this practice of "astroturfing" (as I understand the word) is not limited to small sites like LinuxToday.
Part of my job description as the maintainer of a chunk of the site hierarchy was to use a whole stack of pseudonyms and basically wander around doing just this in the interest of generating page views, responses, and "positive" discussion for advertisers and reviewed products in a number of areas. This was not optional, it was expected.
I'd be surprised if this is a rare practice.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Then there was the 'heres a rant someone posted about Apple' that was front page news yesterday. Thanks for keeping me up to date, guys.
I will never accept an apology from someone on this subject. I mean, real grass vs Astroturf? Football hasn't been the same since. I rue the day! Heh.
-- Dan
My goodness aren't people getting upset here.
Sure, It wasn't honest but this sort of thing happens everywhere, all the time.
Yes, people will dishonestly post messages. Yes, about their competitors. Yes, even in journalism. But do you think the collectively honest people of the world can flush out every journalist lacking integrity? Where would we get our news from?
Open your eyes, use that massive brain of yours to scrutinize what you read and hear.
-
I mean, editors want to post too! Sometimes I like to jump into a discussion, and post some thoughts without everyone knowing who I am!
CmdrTa^H^H^H^H^H^H"Fred" Tirebiter
Did anyone notice that the editor's grammar needed editing (besides his ethics, of course)? I predict a short career for this dude.
"Come on baby, bite my tire." - apologies to The Doors.
i thought it was good practice to explain what new/made up words meant. You know, so people can understand them? I`ve clicked on about 5 links and none of them say.
Anyone?
let's just go back to comp.os.minix :)
"George Tirebiter" (or some variation thereof) is a character from one of the great Firesign Theater albums, such as "Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers", "Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him" and the always-popular "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Really Anywhere At All?"
Unfortunately they're not all available on CD - you'll need what the ancients called a "LONG PLAYING RECORD" (a.k.a LP) to dig the best. Some are available on CDNOW.com (if you hate Amazon).
Highly recommended. Of course it helps to be well and truly stoned before (during/after) you listen.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
On the student lists of my engineering school, there was a guy named 'Bongo Bongo' (First and last name).
I would not assume that any name is fake.
Cheers,
-fred
and you really trust their stories now? They have no integrity left. Infact, I don't think this so-called "Linux community" does. This "community" looks more to me (and probably outsiders) as a continuation of the dot-com gold rush. Which it is, in many cases.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
He is trying to blow this off as a misunderstanding between a well-intentioned editor trying to liven up the site and a few stodgy killjoys who didn't get the joke immediantly. He seems to think this is like some practical joke that went awry and that a smirking apology will fix the situation.
He still does not understand that deception has no place in responsible journalism.
well it seems like it'd be a real big tremptation to watch a forum all day and not interject something randomly to stir the coals... how about it, has it ever happend here?
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
I have to say - SO WHAT. Every one is entitled to their opinion whether others agree with it or not. If he wants to vent at the opposition then let him. I bet half the people on Slashdot have done the same at one time or another. I know I have.
I doubt that this weak apology will restore the site's credibility, either.
He'd be barred from having any editorial job at any publication for something of this sort. This is like cheating in college and getting caught.
"I thought you all _knew_ I was a liar!"
>I guess its okay for the /. editors to mod a
>post pointing out their flaws down into the nine
>realm of hell - but its bad that this LT guy
>astroturfed?
The really sad thing is of course that this is completely true, as has already been demonstrated. (you're at 0, Troll at the time of this posting).
The Somethingawful debacle is another nice example. Everything that remotely indicated slashdot could have done something wrong was -1 within seconds.
'We are slashdot. We are hypocrites'
--
GCP (come on, mod me down, see if I care)
> "I participated in Linux Today talkbacks anonymously in the past using a pseudonym."
> "It is too important you can trust what you read here."
Judging from the reaction at Slashdot, you went from simply evil to under-qualified and evil.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
That post could also be from someone who wanted to make you think he was still astroturfing...just a thought.
qslack.com
I sincerely apologize to those of you who were offended by my actions.
Mom: Now Kevin, apologize to Suzie for what you did!
Kevin: I'm sorry that you don't like your pigtails dipped in permanent ink, Suzie.
He's apologizing that we were offended by his actions, not for his actions themselves. Big difference there.
So, what's Hemos doing here? Well, at least he signed his article.
1) The editor at a publication repeatedly and knowingly lied in the publication.
2) The editor at a publication intentionally deceived many people about a range of different matters, frequently to his own benefit, and to the detrement of others.
3) The editor at a publication published without identifying himself as an editor.
4) The editor at a publication (allegedly) censored user feedback to make his posts look more supported by the community than was in fact the case.
I submit that when a new site publishes without regard to the truth, then it should cease to be considered a news site.
Warning: IANAL
To the extent that money was paid, this appears to me as a form of fraud. Actually, it definitely appears to me to be fraud. To the extent that money was involved, it looks legally actionable. The question is probably, who had jurisdiction and does anyone who paid want to make their association with this explicit. So he probably won't be charged.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Esoteric geeks and nerds from which part of the world?????? I'm not from the US; never heard of the 'Firesign Theater' before. Is there an URL where I could find any information afout it?
This is precisely the kind the bush-league, wannabe journalism that Linux doesn't need or want. It makes everyone associated with Linux look amateurish.
He doesn't even mention the other points, like trying to avoid linking to competing sites.
LinuxToday used to have value because they posted *everything* and you could go there to quickly find anything going on in the Linux world. Now that's no longer the case.
Not surprisingly Internet.com has ruined them, and just about every other Linux property they touched. Reichard should be promptly fired, but instead he'll probably stay there until Internet.com folds or does away with the Linux channel. I hope this indiscretion travels with him so no one else is foolish enough to hire him.
Interestingly, the apology is under "normal news" so they don't even seem to consider it important enough to put at the top of the site.
Just like the Third Reich
OK, so how should "Microsoft" or "proprietary software" or "DMCA" or "RIAA" or "MPAA" be explained by OSSmartTags?
Thanks. That was very interesting (and the slashdot editors deserve to be called on the carpet for that sort of thing). My critique of your logic in your previous statement stands, but my personal opinions as to the veracity of your accusations against the slashdot editors has been modified from "yeah, right" to "hmm...there may be something to what you say."
/. editors will take this sort of criticism for what it is and modify their behavior in the future, rather than "bitchslapping" (is that your term, or theirs?) posts like these down. People do fuck up, and it is through being called on it, and changing one's behavior, that not only goods and services such as slashdot are improved, but so are we as people.
Hopefully the
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So what? The potential for some people to not fully understand a product on first use does not allow us to prevent a company from releasing said product. Last I checked this wasn't Red China.
Hiya Shoeboy!
To be honest, from what I've seen Smart Tags aren't really that devious. They certainly have the potential, but in my experience (yes, I am using a version of Windows XP which still has Smart Tags support, and yes, I've screwed around with it a bit) it looks like Microsoft took pains to be as neutral as possible. The only words that I ever saw Smart-Tagged were company names and university names. Company names were linked to the company's homepage and stock quotes; university names were linked to the university homepages.
Of course, it was still pretty damn annoying, but just because I really didn't like seeing all those extra links.
While I agree that MS's smarttags are not exactly neutral in the way things are presented, at least I know that a lot of things tend to be slanted. If something is presented to me on IE's smarttags feature, I would filter it through an anti-pro-MS filter. Content /always/ has to be digested in the context of the source. I see no reason why MS is any more biased than /.
As for the copyright argument that S.Tags are modifying a work of another, congress has said that the ephermal copies of websites & downloaded music are not "copies" of the works unless they're fixed. Copyright law doesn't apply, and I'm sure you're not implying that manipulating a legal copy of data that someone gave you on your own machine is illegal. Noone handed me a static png screenshot of the information, so I'm going to manipulate it before viewing. This might include addition or removal of certain items, possibly using a nonstandard browser or no broswer at all. You have no guarantee when you open up 80 of creating a single approved experience for your users.
Just because we might find it an annoying feature doesn't mean we have the right to prevent it from becoming a product.
And how is it that you've seen it happen? Were you in the same room as Taco when he clicked a button and screamed "die troll, die!" ??? Because If it just from being a user like myself, there is no way you can tell who is doing what.
Man, that cracked me up
a first post
is modded down
leaves blow in the wind
(fuck 5-7-5, btw)
Forgot the line breaks...
Considering THIS post, to the LT talkback:
Thank you for the apology. Here is one reader who appreciates it and will continue to recommend Linux Today as _the_ premier news site for all things Linux.
Cheers,
Caleb
How much do you want to bet Kevin Reichard is still posting under assumed names? I mean c'mon, at least be more subtle!
This site has become a parody of itself. The "your rights online" editor hijacks an anti-censorship project, the founding editor spends more time watching anime and writing reviews than he does improving slashdot, every 'editor' seems to be incapable of performing a standard editing practice known as a spelling and grammar check, the moderation system is nothing more than a hive-mind circle jerk, and don't even get me started on Jon Katz.
The only thing that makes this site worth coming back to is the trolls. I've been browsing at -1 nested for over a year now.
I'm insulted. It's over, Anonymous Coward.
-Mrs. Anonymous Coward
Have you looked at Tacos code lately? That may have actually been a legitimate excuse :-)
Gam
"Karma Hell Here I Come"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
I am the troll sniffer. Fear me.
Vibrating Heat Beads and Crystal Meth. Jimmy, I'm the DEVIL!
Dude. His name is Reichard. Slashdot and almost everyone here seems to be mis-spelling it.
His e-mail address taken from the signature of his apology: kreichard@internet.com. See? Reichard not Richard.I'm pretty sure back then I wasn't even yet a sperm/egg couple living separately.
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
like George Tirebiter which I believed readers would understand was a contrivance.
Well, since I went to high school with a guy named Mike Hunt, a name would have to be extremely obvious, much more so than "Tirebiter," to make me suspect a fake-that's-obviously-fake name. (His full name was Michael Steven Hunt, and he went by Steven.) There was also a family at a different school with the surname Homo. There are many, many interesting and different names out there, and as always: Ass-U-Me.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
And yes, they do moderate: I remember Hemos telling the WPI ACM that they spend time moderating down the trolls after a story goes live.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
With all the people posting under names like "Commander Taco" (see user 85921 right near here) one needs to look pretty close to be sure that the editors are posting themselves. So why would anyone need to astroturf. Just create a new account with your handle as the name, and post as someone pretending to be yourself.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I don't believe there is a "Linux community." The term "Linux" has been co-opted and coerced so much that it looks like any old bandwagon ("Hop on everyone! We will give you a ride to greatness!"). From IBM to Sun, and even the "friends" of Linux such as Red Hat and Caldera. Free software ideology itself was co-opted by "Open Source(TM)" and ESR (free software being more "pure" and idealistic, while "Open Source" being oriented towards corporate America. A distinction many still do not grasp today). Even you toss "Linux community" into "Open Source," which "Open Source" can be considered even FreeBSD. Note that it is not "O'Reilly Free Software [or Linux] Convention." The word "open" does not have the connotation of "freedom," which is the whole purpose of GNU and FSF.
Any "Linux community" will most likely include FreeBSD users, Mozilla (MPL license) users, etc. And it most likely will include people who do not use Linux, but like the GPL. Then there is probably a few who actually do not like Linux or the GPL.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
But the name "George Tirebiter" is so outrageous sounding as to be ludicrous. It's obviously contrived...
I can think of a couple of ways that that name could happen, imagining that a family with the German term "Arbeiter" in their name came through the Ellis Island Name Scrambling Office. (And yes, I know about the Firesign Theatre reference.)
But if you have a name like mine, you *never* assume that others' names are faked.
Joe Zitt
I understand the difference between a regular underline link and a squiggly underline SmartTags link. You may do so. But Joe Sixpack? Not bloody likely!! Microsoft does not care about you and me, we are few and a lost cause. Joe Sixpack are many and easy to manipulate and a huge revenue potential. That's what MS is going for.
With a link to my own damn URL [and hell, my own real home information in the WHOIS db]? I think not.
-- Geof F. Morris
Maybe not under other circumstances, but certainly in this case. What kind of editor issues an apology that is not checked for errors, or at least flow? Hell, even intent?
"It is too important you can trust what you read here."
I guess in English you can omit the 'that' between 'important' and 'you', but that sentence doesn't roll off the tongue very easily. It might also be more convincing if it were to say,
It is important *to me* that you can trust what you read here.
As it stands, I'm not convinced that it is important to him--just that it was important in a vague sort of way.
I agree, but they are hard to find. I find many on cassette, in small counter-cuture record stores where they haven't got the message that they are out of print...
There are some on Amazon (maybe that link will work, maybe not...), and a few places where you might find other stuff.
Of course, if all else fails, a few people have made some albums availible by alternative means
I don't know it from anywhere. But the name "George Tirebiter" is so outrageous sounding as to be ludicrous. It's obviously contrived...heck, if you want to all our nicks are. But I'm happy to post my real email address and URL here on /. Hell, I'll even inquire as to whether cafepress does dartboards and start selling dartboards with my smiling mug on 'em on IJSM if you like...=P
-- Geof F. Morris
In RealSpace, he was "the doughty unofficial mascot of USC (Univ. South. Calif.) athletic teams in earlier times, renowned for his devotion to attacking the spinning wheels of large American automobiles...."
In the Firesign Theater world, he's the Everyman protaganist of the comedy album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" (which appears to be out of print, although I found a cassette in a local record store). It's high comedy from Firesign Theater, a team that was known for a counter-cultural radio program in the sixties. It's very funny, but requires FULL attention, a strong liberal arts background, and occassionaly several listens, to get a large percentage of the jokes.
Check out the entry for DWARF to get a feel for the humor.
That said, even though I got the reference, I don't think seeing a post under the name George Tirebiter would make me think "Oh - It's the editor!" or "He's just joking!". I would instead think "This guy is a pretty poor satirist - it's like posting under 'Chaucer'".
Apparently Kevin didn't want ot stick around to see how his apology goes over.
I don't know what else to write. I expect that LinuxToday and the other internet.com branded Linux sites will probably close pretty quickly, and the community will lose what was once a useful web portal. All because Reichard, along with his senior management I must assume, took it upon themselves break the most basic of ethical standards in journalism. Reichard refused to respond to the allegations at first, and when He did he assumed the issue was readers being offended by his posts, rather than the underlying ethical implications of his behavior. Reichard should be fired, the owners should apologize, and at the very least hire an independent editorial board. But I doubt it will happen -- and that will be the end of Internet.com.
It's just plain sad...
--Maynard
"George Tirebiter" is rather obvious. Get out your Firesign Theater album and sing along.... "George-eee Tirebiter..." What, you don't have any Firesigh Theaterver LP's? Where were you in the drug induced cloud of the '60s? If I had anything important to say, this .sig would say it.
----- Lotus Super 7 - A real car.
[wagging finger] I did not troll LinuxToday as that woman!
Hmmm, not quite the same :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I accept that if I read the NY Times or Wall Street Journal editorial pages (or listen to Rush Limbaugh or Dan Rather), that these news sources have biases. I can take those biases into account. In the case of the comments we're talking about here, the writer was deliberately trying to mislead his audience about his biases.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
Why couldn't George Tirebiter be the name of the poster's dog, or something like that, though? Whether or not the name is contrived, surely the content of the messages are more important, yes?
OK, so how should "Microsoft" or "proprietary software" or "DMCA" or "RIAA" or "MPAA" be explained by OSSmartTags?
E2 nodes contain neutral, pro-individual, and even pro-business writeups. If you're not happy, register (only need name, email, and desired login/password, no personal information) and add your own. (If it's not well written, it will be voted down and deleted.) Here's how they'd look:
- Microsoft[?]
- proprietary software[?]
- DMCA[?] and the politics of copy protection[?]
- RIAA[?]
- MPAA[?] mostly talks about the ratings and doesn't even mention DeCSS[?]
- Napster[?]
- Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[?]
Here's the rule: http://everything2.com/?node=(URL escaped node title)Will I retire or break 10K?
Dijkstra Considered Dead
so Kevin Richard must be both Mike Moore and Eric Kiersky because all three of them misspelled Kevin Richard's name as "Reichard"!
Can't get off it..
One of *my* favorite Firesign Theater moments was when they did a live simulcast voice-over naration for the Pasadena, CA, Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's day, about 1970-71...
It was on an FM station in LA..
They broadcast live from a booth somewhere out on Colorado Boulevard..
You watched on TV, and listened to their naration with headphones, for full effect...
Later that afternoon my landlady kept asking me what I was laughing at so hard, all morning long.
I didn't even *try* to explain..
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
I guess its okay for the /. editors to mod a post pointing out their flaws down into the nine realm of hell - but its bad that this LT guy astroturfed?
/. went down (the OSDN router outage thing). /. editors were modding down anti slashdot posts LEFT AND FUCKING RIGHT to -1 within seconds of their posting.
Im sorry - thats just BS. You people ought to check up on what happened with the string of articles last time
A good example would be what will happen to this post within around 45 seconds from the time it hits the article. It'll be down to -1 and my karma will keep on sliding down down down.... (Im already at -5, can it get any lower?)
Gam
"Flame at Will"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
Yeah, I could see "George Tirebiter" being a contrivance. It's about as blaringly screaming "ignore me, I'm a mo-ron" as "Anonymous Coward". But for someone in charge to be doing it...guh.
A few years back when I worked for TOTK.com Sports, I had a fellow staff member fake some email [or so he thought] from the current President of the United States. It sounded just a bit too much like this one guy...and when I traced it out, it was him. I "fired" [in the sense that I never let him write again] him on the spot. Though we were "new media", I wasn't going to put up with pointless bullshit. Scary to think that a college sophomore [at the time] had more balls than a "major new media company" like internet.com does at present.
Oh well, I never read LT much anyway. This just assures that I never will.
-- Geof F. Morris
The really sad thing is of course that this is completely true, as has already been demonstrated.
ahem. Basic logic please.
It does not follow that, because moderators have moderated the parent to your post down to zero, that those moderators were slashdot editors. Far more likely that slashdot readers with moderator priveleges modded the post down as the flaimbait it certainly appeared to be (to me at least, although I do not have moderator priveleges right now).
The slashdot editors are the ones who decide which stories get posted (decisions I disagree with as often as not BTW), not those readers who happen to have moderator priveleges at a given moment.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So will all the names being used be apologzing?
a first post is modded down leaves in the wind (fuck 5-7-5, btw)
George Tirebiters around the US
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
Wrong!!
This is why SmartTags are a BadThing (tm). Slashdot is pointing to a site of their choice to explain the word. In the SmartTags world it would point to a site of Microsofts choice.
The words Open Source Software could be explained by this in a SlashTag and this way by SmartTags...
I guess he went to school at the Derek Zoolander Centre for Kids Who Can't Read Good.
What a flocking crock of shite. Are you people all on glue? Who gives a flying flock of seaguls if the guy posts pseudo-anonymously? We all do this right? Isn't that right, Mr (or Ms. or Mrs.) Boinger?
Sometimes I just don't understand this fucking world at all when assholes like George W. Bush can become president by worming his way into office and yet the common behaviour of an editor at LinuxToday somehow commits an idictable offence.
Really now!
:wq
I'm with you all the way Rob...I mean Jeff, yeah, that's it. Jeff.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
quite frankly i agree. i dont see the big deal. that site is great for news. its a link page for news. how does this make a bit of different in the quality of the news articles? absolutely none. Get over it and find a different scapegoat. if you are incapable of that, dont visit that site, its as simple as that.
Damnit, all the esoteric geeks and nerds out there an none of you have ever listened to Firesign Theater??????? If you had you'd all know this guy and all his aliases... George LaRoy Tirebiter, Porgie Tirebiter, etc etc ad infinitum. :)
;)
You must ALL go out and buy all the Firesign Theater tapes/CD you can find and listen to them now, and you'll never have this problem again!
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Well, people might have said things like "What's an editor of Linux Today doing criticizing /.?". Not that there aren't sometimes decent reasons to criticise it, but it's usually out of place of a rival (sort of) to do so. Does the Times criticise the Inquirer? (I'm assuming not, without sufficient evidence.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Second Post ya Gimps!
yayfpyay
I personally think that these fine gentlemen have, by virtue of their effusive apology, proved themselves to be well and truly sorry, and that we should all forgive them their minor trespasses. Who's with me?
-Kevin Richard... I mean, uh Ben. That's it. Ben.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
All "Tirebiters" around the US accounts for 9 total, of which 7 are "George Tirebiter", and the other two are "P Tirebiter" and "Porgy Tirebiter". Which leads me to belive "Tirebiter" is a made-up name, such as "Xyzzy", "Zz", or even "Dogsnout Beast".
Unlike some other web sites - I can trust that Hemos^h^h^h^h^h the Slashdot editors will alway strike a carefully balance between editorial honesty and bad spelling.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Cuh- cuh- coming, mother...!
Oh, that Georgie.. he's so good with the help!
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
This is very true. My point is that he and LT aren't claiming that they have done nothing wrong. I don't think that they have much integrity, but it does take a little to publicly admit wrong doing and to face the inevitable tidal wave of flames and rages to follow.
This is just a start. There may be more to come. I personally want to see all of the allegations answered for.
Just because I think that the guy is starting to do the right thing doesn't mean that I forgive him, or don't think that he is a sleaze.
My thought is that we should pat him on the back for comming out into the open, encourage him and any others involoved to make amends, and then encouragage Internet.Com to fire the bastards.
I don't think that I am being unreasonable of wishy-washy here. I am just not getting angry about it.
-LN
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
He admits he did wrong, while saying he didn't see anything wrong with it. Then he says he understands why nobody liked it/why no one would trust him, but he also says that it's important that people are able to trust him/his site. Fucking loser cock-sucker.
Stupidity never felt so good.
that Cmdr Taco is just a contrived name of somebody who doesn't exist too :-)
one of mine has a karma of -8 and the other 37 :)
but when will we hear an apology from the Slashdot editor who seized Signal 11's account?
(Notice, I'm not naming names here. Please keep the tone civil.)
w00t first post
No, but it is a good example of how SmartTags might be used. If everybody wasn't so blinded by the ubiquitous Microsoft hate, people would realize SmartTags can be a Good Thing.
1st?
Tim
The apology has that forced sound of someone who doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand why their actions were wrong.
Plus it contains grammatical mistakes, which looks kind of bad when your job title includes "editor".
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
An editor of a respected news portal should never have commited something like this. In paper media it would have been much better to resign and safe face afterwards. This person using psudonames trolled LinuxToday's talkback forums and flamed Linux, Linus, SlashDot etc. Often he used anti-linux and sentiments and questioned the existance of an opensource/linux community. He should resign IMHO. If LinuxToday is to be respected, this is the only way out for this publication.
It doesn't sound like the editor is acknowledging that he did anything wrong, just saying "I won't do it again because other people misunderstood."
There are good reasons to post anonymously under some circumstances, but I don't think he gives any here. How would the debate have been any less "lively" if he had acknowledged the source of his comments all along?
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
My name is Billy Evans. I am a very sick little boy. My mother is typing this for me, because I can't. She is crying. The reason she is so sad is because I'm so sick. I was born without a body. It doesn't hurt, except when I try to breathe. The doctors gave me an artificial body. It is a burlap bag filled with leaves. The doctors said that was the best they could do on account of us having no money or insurance. I would like to have a body transplant, but we need more money. Mommy doesn't work because she said nobody hires crying people. I said, "Don't cry, Mommy," and she hugged my burlap bag. Mommy always gives me hugs, even though she's allergic to burlap and it makes her sneeze and chafes her real bad. I hope you will help me. You can help me if you forward this email to everyone you know. Forward it to people you don't know, too. Dr. Johansen said that for every person you forward this email to, Bill Gates will team up with AOL and send a nickel to NASA. With that funding, NASA will collect prayers from school children all over America and have the astronauts take them up into space so that the angels can hear them better. Then they will come back to earth and go to the Pope, and he will take up a collection in church and send all the money to the doctors. The doctors could help me get better then. Maybe one day I will be able to play baseball. Right now I can only be third base. Every time you forward this letter, the astronauts can take more prayers to the angels and my dream will be closer to coming true. Please help me. Mommy is so sad, and I want a body. I don't want my leaves to rot before I turn 10. If you don' tforward this email, that's okay. Mommy says you're a mean and heartless bastard who doesn't care about a poor little boy with only a head. She says that if you don't stew in the raw pit of your own guilt-ridden stomach, she hopes you die a long slow horrible death and then burn forever in hell. What kind of cruel person are you that you can't take five freakin' minutes to forward this to all your friends so that they can feel guilt and shame about ignoring a poor, bodiless nine-year-old boy? Please help me. I try to be happy, but it's hard. I wish I had a kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty that wouldn't chew on me and try to bury its turds in the leaves of my burlap body. I wish that very much. Thank You, Billy "Smiley" Evans
As if we should believe him? I'm well aware of the current state of today's media. Journalistic integrity is a word that most media reporters and editors seem to have forgotten.
However, this is totally out of line, even by today's standards. Someone looking at his apology would think that he had just committed minor infractions. No, he was busily posting nastygrams about competitors and rivals.
He should just resign and get the heck out.
'crow
..."from Kevin Richard, the Executive Editor of LinuxToday"...
I thought it was 'Reichard'
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
Can you imagine most other companies (say, Microsoft, for instance) ever apologizing for anything? I would expect the standard "mistakes were made...steps have been taken to prevent...blah, blah, blah". It's refreshing to see someone in the public light in the commercial side of this industry with humility.
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
One has to wonder, since the appology seems--well to be nice--weak, if it was more or less a ploy to get more traffic to their site. I am sure getting /.ed will do nothing but serve more ads for them which, in this day of hard to get money from advertisers, will be nothing but a good thing for them.
--MD--
Heh.
I've said something similar to my wife more than once. I wonder if LT readers are sharper than she is...
I don't give a shit. Linuxtoday is still a good news site, i don't think anyone visits there for the forums anyways, they're just an after though.
Way to make a big deal out of nothing.
I second him being fired. This is the Linux Community afterall, we should have a say in what happens here.
There's a *lot* of acusations of sensorship on the talkbacks. Until now, there's no apologies or explanations. And I think it stinks.
Also, I noticed Kevin Reichard seemed to be having some really weird friends posting under his Talkback.
A certain Mike Moore posted this under the subject of "Excellent", A couple of posts below that, Eric Kiersky writes with subject "Kevin shouldnt apologize", At first look this all seem to be optimistic well wishers giving their support to Richard. But if you ever visted the Borg, you might wonder why those names seem so familiar.
Well, it just so happens that Kevin has some very good friends working backstage at one of the best authorites on Austroturfing.
With friends like that who needs enemies? Now, I wonder how far deep the fangs of corporate monopoly sinks in our community....
Trust the source!
A Slashdot editor would be easy to identify from the spelling and gramatical errors.
A lot of the talkbacks left on the page so far really astound me, how can these people be so quick to forgive something like this. Personnaly, I would find it hard to trust anything this guy, or Linux Today publishes.
Check out AbiWord.
karma capped
I'm so sorry you folks couldn't make the connection.
Gam
"Flame at Will"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
Backreferencing to earlier stories is a cheap
....
way to generate future stories.
Story n ; story n+1 ; story n+k
Proved.
Respectfully,
Woot_spork!
People don't contribute to a board unless there are interesting topics to lend discussion to; which requires people who contribute, etc, etc.
I'm sure he saw it as a way to seed the discussion boards, and not as a fraudulent act.
That's not entirely the case. See my explanation in another thread in this story.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Why don't you take that 'e' from argu(e)ment and use it in R(e)ichard. Then take an English course.
The only place I know the name "George Tirebiter" from is from the Firesign Theater album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers". Do you know of it being used in some other context? Or were you giving a cold impression of the name? Or, are you being sarcastic, and neglecting to use the <SARCASM> tags?
I'm not being facetious - I really want to know.
I don't think he's really apologizing to the people for astroturfing per se, it's more of an apology to the stockholders that he got caught.
... is the name of the Firesign Theatre album I listened to hundreds of times, featuring Mr. George Tirebiter as a key character. Maybe Mr. Richards listened one too many times, or assumed more people had heard of it than actually did. His practice was foul, but more people should hear the record. Highly recommended.
You missed the point.
Moderation is users "censoring" (if you want to use that word at all) EACH OTHER. Now, if you're implying that Taco and company downgrade themselves messages that criticizes them, that's another thing entirely. But you'd be have some sort of proof before making that claim (like an insider blowing the whistle or something)
I would like to thank Kevin Reichard for finally swallowing his pride and admitting to wrong doing. I agree that his excuses do seem a little weak, but at least he is not acting like the second comming of Richard Nixon ("I am not a crook!").
However, there are still many concerns which were brought up by Paul Ferris in his Linux Journal article that need to be addressed. The most important of these being LT's stance on linking to external content. Like I have said before, LT is a news portal therefore most of the relevant content that they should be printing is going to be found on external sites. As a journalist and editor Reichard should be more worried about boosting readership through quality of content, rather than keeping people "in the channel" to boost ad dollars.
It sounds to me like LT and Internet.Com have greater problems than a little bit of astroturfing. At least they still have enough integrity to own-up to the responsibility they have to their readers.
-LN
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
1. He got caught
2. People get upset
3. He gave a semi-apology
4. We all continue on with life as if nothing had happened.
Well, that is the strategy Bill Clinton used several times, and it worked out pretty good for him.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
This speaks for itself. I have no respect for this man, or how he has behaved on their forums. Internet.com should fire the man posthaste.
--Maynard
Notorious slimey pitchman for Isuzu, in case you didn't know.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
George Tirebiter - Subject: i want some of what y'all are smoking... ( May 3, 2001, 02:24:38 )
because your perceptions of reality are not even close to what the rest of us deal with in the real world. I mean, getting all indignant about a speech that's not yet been delivered!!! Y'all are a hoot. I want some of the wacky tobaccy y'all are smoking, because it certainly does alter your senses. You don't even see that stunts like this allow ESR to claim a victory no matter what happens: should someone from MS give a speech that doesn't mention open source, he'll claim victory.
Wake up. You're being manipulated, and y'all don't even know it.
==== the above post is from google.. that's Eric 3rd Reich, Savior of M$, hick troll.
Gimmie a f'ing break. TOTKChief? Your as f'ing anonymous as is an "anonymous coward". Everyones an anonymous f'ing coward.
It is their site and therefore it is NOT up to MS (or SmartTags) to modify
OK, how many of the so-called Users on this site are actually pseudonyms for Malda and his cronies? Perhaps I am one myself.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
What a nice blend of moral outrage, incompetence, and vitriole! Let's see ...
1. He got caught
2. People get upset
3. He gave a semi-apology
4. We all continue on with life as if nothing had happened.
Will all those who really give a crap please step forward. Not so fast Mr. Tirebiter.
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
I fail to see why Reichard has to apologize. If people were duped by his sloppy postings, shame on them. We are supposed to be individuals with free thought.
sigh.
I would never think that a poster who uses this name would be a real person. How naive can some people be? Very much, apparently. ;-)
Call me a cynic, but I find it hard to believe a liar when they apologize.
It's a shame that people give any credit at all to people who are caught in a lie. After all, the apology isn't for the lie. The apology is for getting caught. If the apology was for the lie, it would have been issued long before it was common knowledge that a falsehood existed.
Feh...
My sigs always suck.
Above Hick troll by Kevin (not Eric) 3rd Reich was in reply to ESR's....
.NET plans (about which more later).
.NET protocols get established, if they do.
.NET, Microsoft's attempt to turn itself into the worlds's biggest application software provider. Stripped to its essence, under this plan you mostly would give up buying software and instead rent networked services from Microsoft by the month.
.NET is born out of fear. Microsoft's strategists aren't stupid. They can see the trend curves, that falling hardware margins are spelling the doom of any business model based on expensive packaged-software licenses. They know the revenues from their own software business have actually been declining for three quarters now, covered only by creative accounting practices for which Microsoft is under a federal fraud investigation separate from the antitrust trial.
.NET world, you would lose even the meager rights you have now under Microsoft's End-User License Agreement. You would own nothing. You would instead become ever more dependent on Microsoft to provide the basic services that your computer and your business rely on to function. You would have to absolutely trust Microsoft to neither deliberately violate your privacy for business advantage nor to leave your vital data exposed to crackers like those who break into Microsoft's own servers every few weeks.
===
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 17:40:03 -0400
From: "Eric S. Raymond"
Subject: Breaking story: Beware the Microsoft shell game
X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy
A few hours ago, a friendly journalist tipped me that Craig Mundie of Microsoft is going to make a major speech in New York tomorrow attacking open-source software -- specifically, attacking the GNU General Public License. This speech is probably intended to define Microsoft's party line on open source, and to shift the terms of the debate over it to one that Microsoft thinks it can win.
I haven't seen the speech; the friendly journalist told me it was embargoed. But I'm expecting it to be a masterpiece of FUD. You watch; it's going to be a studied and ingenious attempt to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the minds of software users and the public -- and to obscure Microsoft's underlying motives by cloaking them in affected concern for the public welfare.
This is a heads-up to journalists, industry observers, and the public -- as you listen to that speech tomorrow, don't get taken in by Mundie's shell game. Keep your eye on the pea. As the perceptive gentlemen of "The Economist" observed earlier this week [1] Microsoft's real agenda will be to preserve its monopoly, whatever the cost to software developers and the public.
So I can predict with fair confidence some of the things you're going to hear -- perhaps not as explicit statements that can be refuted, but as hints and allegations, a studied and careful attempt to disinform without telling explicit lies.
First off, expect Mr. Mundie to try to blur the distinctions between open-source development, use of the GPL, wholesale copyright-law violations like Napster, and outright software piracy. These are four different phenomena; a lot of open-source software doesn't use the GPL, most open-source developers are supportive of intellectual-property rights including copyright, and the open-source community as a whole has historically taken a definite stance against software piracy. We only give away our own work, not other peoples'.
Nevertheless, expect Mr. Mundie to lump all these phenomena togetber and hint darkly that Linux is the spearhead of a conspiracy to destroy trillions of dollars in intellectual-property assets. He probably won't come right out and accuse us of being Communists; that trial balloon popped when Jim Allchin floated it a few weeks ago with his "un-American" crack and got laughed out of town. But he'll let the implication hang there and hope it sticks.
What he'll hope you don't notice is that the "assets" he's mainly interested in protecting are Microsoft's -- and not just the $26 billion it has in the bank, but the far more important asset of over 90% desktop market share and tight control of its customer base through proprietary lock-ins.
It's that lock-in, that control of customers, that is what open source threatens most. With open source, customers can have real choices; they don't need to be locked into a perpetually more expensive upgrade treadmill, they can own and inspect and modify the software they depend on, they can have real security because they can know exactly what's running on their machines.
That choice is the fundamental threat to Microsoft's business model, and it's the reason they're getting clobbered by Linux in the server market (every month, more Linux installations come up on web servers alone than in Microsoft's entire Windows 2000 customer base). So it's not just individual open-source projects like Linux and Apache Microsoft has to defeat -- it's the open-source way of thinking about software.
One way to defeat it is by making people afraid of it -- by conning potential corporate purchasers into believing that using open-source software on their machine somehow means the GPL will force them to publish all their software or business secrets. Craig Mundie will try very hard to make you believe that. It's not true, but a company that blatantly falsified videotape evidence in a Federal antitrust trial is not going to balk at lesser falsehoods.
Another way to defeat open source is to co-opt it. After Craig Mundie gets through trying to make you fear and distrust open source, he will tout Microsoft's new so-called openness. He will doubtless talk about how Microsoft is willing to share source code with large customers and universities. And he'll talk up the "open" services like SOAP that are part of Microsoft's
What Mr. Mundie will hope you don't notice is that Microsoft wants all the "sharing" to be in one direction. What they're doing is what we call "source under glass" -- you can see it, but you can't modify or reuse it in other programs. They want to be able to get the huge benefit of having thousands of outside people review their code without allowing any of those people to use what they learn on other projects.
We in the open-source community see this for what it is -- a counterfeit, a trick, a scam. It's aimed at recruiting free labor for Microsoft without giving the outside contributors any stake in or control of the results of their effort. In true open source, all parties are equal. When I give you my software under an open-source license, you have exactly the same rights as I do. That's what I trade you in return for your help in testing and improving the software. That's the voluntary cooperation that built the Internet.
Mr. Mundie also doesn't want you to notice, or remember, Microsoft's long history of perverting supposedly "open" standards into customer lock-in devices, by poisoning them with proprietary extensions that only closed Microsoft software understands. A notorious recent example is the games Microsoft played with the Kerberos security protocol. It would take a really cockeyed optimist to believe that Microsoft doesn't have similar maneuvers planned for once the
Finally, Mr. Mundie will doubtless wind up his exhortations with a paean to the glories of
There are two things Mr. Mundie hopes you won't notice about this. One is that
More fundamentally, those strategists have read Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma"; they can see that open-source software in general and Linux in particular are an unstoppable technology disruption that will sooner or later reach the heart of Microsoft's business -- and that the only way for Microsoft to survive is to dodge the bullet, to be in a different business before that bullet hits home. Hence the push to become an ASP.
But the more important thing he hopes you won't notice is that in the brave new
Keep your eye on the pea, gentlemen and ladies. Because that is what Microsoft is really after -- a fast exit out of the packaged-software business, a lock on your critical data and network services, and an indefinite extension of the coercive monopoly position described in Judge Jackson's findings of fact. Higher prices, fewer choices, worse lock-in, and Microsoft uber alles for ever and ever, amen.
[1] "A Kinder, Gentler Gorilla?"
--
The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most
governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right
within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies
are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear
arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited,
liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of
destruction."
--Henry St. George Tucker (in Blackstone's Commentaries)
Hmmm... you still post here though right? /. does the same thing. Do you know how they censor posts that are contrary to their beliefs? Thats right - its called the moderation system.
Just check out the comments on the stories that were posted relating to the OSDN router outage - you'll see what I mean.
Gam
"Flame at Will"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
Maybe it sounds like I'm oversimplifying a bit, I don't know. But I've never really gone to Linux Today hoping to find straight news, and it seemed like the editor was less an editor than a page maintainer. I guess what I'm saying is, in theory, I don't think there's anything wrong with the guy faking an alias and posting stuff to get a reaction. It's not like I give a damn who any of the other aliases are because they're all unverifiable anyway (or, I guess, considering this case, mostly unverifiable ;) -- if they post something debate-worthy, I'll fight it or support it on merit.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Didn't know this was going on at the same time as censorship of other posts. I see it now.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
So now it's not okay for editors to post links to goatse.cx? That's unfair! It's a fundamental right of every american to be an asshole. If we restrict this right, where will our freedoms be safe?
Erik
"You," Bite me.
"Each and every one of you." Bite me.
I've said something similar to my wife more than once. I wonder if LT readers are sharper than she is.
Bill? Is that you? It's me, Monica... I've missed you!
Sincerely,
Kevin Reichard
Executive Editor
Linux Today
Guess that explains it?
until they get rid of this prick.
Mod this up if you agree.
Today a new editor emerged at LT.   http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?lt sn=2001-08-09-007-20-OP
Michael Hall contends he took over from Reichard weeks ago, and then goes into an elaborate lecture on how truth and honesty and impartiality must be toned by financial considerations.
It's not enough. If he really had taken over weeks ago, he would have taken the reigns yesterday and exonerated Linux Today by putting distance between LT and Reichard. My take is he gave Reichard a last chance, who posted his lame insincere apology, posted a couple fake contributions on his own behalf, the readers saw through it, Hall noted the overwhelming opposition to Reichard at /. and everywhere, and today told him, "ok, that's it."
What gripes me is that LT still believe in Reichard and keep him on, despite what he's done to harm these communities. And Hall's article today puts more weight on financial issues to the detriment of the ones readers there find important.
Let's face it: there are no compromises in honest business. Either you can afford to do it right or you calmly tell your following you're going under and let it be at that. That's what any decent crowd of journalists would do.
And I still would like to address the issue of Reichard's mole activities, which seem more or less proven by now, but we will leave that for another time.
D
What, is this a Slashdot Smart Tag (tm)?
=)
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
my favorite is to willfully and purposely target a civilian building housing children, when advised against it many times... kill them bastards then say it was "for the children" has a nice ring to it, don't it?
However, when was the last time you heard Bill Gates or Steve Balmer apologise for all the letters they pay people to write for the Freedom to Innovate Network?
Its true that two wrongs don't make a right - but lets get this in perspective - if we were talking about a corporate portal run by a major software vendor instead of an open source website, this issue would not even be discussed.
Linux today has censored several of my posts that criticized some of their highlighted articles. In particular, comments on some of Dennis Powell's articles (one of which accused RMS in thinly veiled terms of stealing from the FSF for personal gain) were censored. These comments were in no way obscene. I have seen other people make comments on the same vein.
Today's development explains a lot. I wonder what this person's motivation is. In any event, Linux Today has lost all of my goodwill and trust.
Another "prominent" person of the Free Software community that I have reservations about is the aforementioned "journalist" Powell. I would really like to know where their money comes from.
Magnus.Notice how "Mike Moore" and "Eric Kiersky" both mispell Kevin Richard's name as "Reichard" (as do some other talkback posts). Moore and Kiersky also both omit numerous apostrophes. Moore == Kiersky == ???
Mike Moore posted this under the subject of "Excellent":
It takes a lot to admit this. I still dont believe astroturfing is anything to ruffle your feathers about, we all do it dont we? But I salute Kevin Reichard for taking this stance and explaining matters. This shows the maturity of Linux Today and the opensource nature of all their undertakings. Cheers.
Eric Kiersky writes with subject "Kevin shouldnt apologize":
I dont believe Kevin should have been preassured into apologizing about this. As I understand this pressure came from an individual who was fired from LinuxToday. I felt that individual's articles were more revenge based than anything to expose ethics on astroturfing. Kevin is an excellent individual and his work on Linux Today is second to non. I hope everyone takes a deep breath and just think before posting anymore slashdot induced flames on Mr. Kevin Reichard.
cpeterso
Making assertions doesn't qualify as evidence in my book. OTOH, I notice that some disagree. Currently your rank is 2, when I would have marked it troll, or possibly flamebait.
Still, you might recall that for the first years, before the moderator system, the editors had total control. Then the original moderators were a close group of friends. It was only later that this was widened, and then widened again, into the current relatively large group of people.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
easy to confess after being caught red fingered. we posted replies to the "story" at LT, & they were of course, deleted. probably 'cause we reminded kevin of his knead to appease mr murkle, & about his failed attempt a while back, to buy this .com from us.
we decided to use this one, to ride out the demise of the "new" fairytail "economy"
how about all those annoying XXXNNN scans? sheesh!@#$% better daze are coming.
We still haven't heard an apology from Internet.com. No admission that what they did was wrong. No assurance that they won't do it again in the future. In fact, their pronouncements have been to the opposite. They say this behaviour is perfectly normal and OK. I'll still be avoiding their sites in future now that I know where their journalistic standards lie.
this is a standard method to spark off discussion and get people to participate.
so Reichard got caught.
Many others dont.