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Blogging and Sponsorship and Openness
Jane_the_Great writes "In an article in the Wall Street Journal it is "revealed" that during the 2004 primaries, the Howard Dean campaign hired bloggers hoping that positive things would be said of Dean in the blogs. The news is from the horse's mouth." It's hard to believe that the WSJ is equating prominently disclosed campaign consulting with secret payments from the U.S. Government treasury to TV personalities in order to promote Republican policies, but they are. (Obeying media rule #1, "Both sides are equally bad", even if they aren't.) Nevertheless, there's an interesting, deeper issue: how transparent should blogging (and all media) be? How could transparency possibly be enforced?
No clouding the motives there, michael, that's for sure. I guess the man just itches for a good 'ol flamewar once in a while, so why not start one right in the article post?
So, are they suggesting that Bloggers should be held to journalistic standards? Absolute rubbish. The journals that are given away freely here on /. are nothing but blogs. To even think that these should be bastions of journalism is just mind boggling.
Why not criticise People magazine, or the Enquirer? Same thing, I think. Even Jon Stewart of the Daily Show calls his show "fake news".
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
It can't be enforced
When people stop going to a blog for information because they don't think the person tells the truth, or is otherwise misinforming them (purposeful or otherwise) then the blog will die. The process is self correcting. There are plenty of blogs out there that no one reads because it's a pack of lies or it provides no information. Blogs that are discovered to be propoganda machines will suffer the same fate.
Since I'm not a conspiracy follower, please provide some sources for this reference.
Amazing. My mind has just been blow. I though the democrats were the untouchable good guys, fighting the evil nazi republicans. Now I have no idea what to believe... must flip back and forth between Fox, CNN, and the BBC to understand how I should feel about this... and then blog about it...
Markos addresses it Here
He was transparent about it and kept a constant reminder about it at the top of the page. Hardly close to the Williams scandal.
- gtaluvit (prnc. GOT-tuh-LUV-it)
In fact, the WSJ article explictly makes the same point - that in one case, governement funds were used (although there is a mention that the funds may have been used for media buys and not as direct compensation.)
So that's a big difference in the conduct of the payers: one used tax money and the other used political contributions. But it makes little or no difference in the ethical lapse of the payees - people who represent themselves as presenting their honest opinion and who are taking money from one of the parties about whom they opine.
We wouldn't think a stock analyst could be unbiased if he was on the payroll of one of the companies he reviewed, even if he'd been favorable before he got on the payroll and continued to be so afterwards. Why is Markos any different? A political opinion writer secretly on the payroll of a campaign is an ethical problem, slice it however you want.
+5 insightful
Surely bloggers that are willing to accept payment from a candidate would support that candidate and say 'good things' about them anyway.
I may not be from the US, but if I were I would certainly not be a Bush supporter and it would take a very large sum of money for me to publicly support Bush, far more than the value of my 'blogged opinions'.
It doesnt sound very well thought out to me.
This is interesting because it doesn't matter what Daily Kos thought it was getting into with an advisory roll. The Dean folks intended to get good, free press from it, and milked the blogs. Read more about it here.
For those who think the issues with the Dept. of Education paying off a journalist are new, it was actually more common under the Clinton administration, and equally bad.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Thank you, Michael, for going out of your way, and out of the story's way to point out Republican "badness". (That was a sarcastic remark)
Why can't the same be done for liberal-biased articles from the NY Times that get posted on Slashdot? Or why can't Michael Moore writeups highlight his twisting of the truth?
Yes this is flamebait, but so is the article writeup.
I hereby moderate this story -1, Flamebait. Also, due to bad posting from Michael's subnet, he's hereby banned from posting any articles for 48 hours.
are only good for gadget news and celebrity nip slips.
There are literally, millions of blogs out there. The only enforcement needed is competition, which can be much fiercer in the blog world than in traditional media. Honest blogs are trusted, dishonest blogs are dumped.
PimpMyMazda.com - Crazy mods to a 2002 Mazda Protege DX.
We have to learn a new vocabluary in this country, or we will never be able to talk about fairness and accuracy properly.
What appears to be evolving in the crucible of American politics is a startling robust form of doublethink. Conservatives have unquestionably mastered it; it's not clear if other political groups are for the moment less able or less willing.
Fox News is a propaganda organization; it is so biased as to basically redefine the concept of bias in the U.S. media. But how does it defend itself? By exclaiming that it is the most fair, and the most balanced. In fact, by going even further accusing everyone else of bias.
This kind of audacity is more associated with religious figureheads and communist states. But regardless of who is using it most effectively this week (and believe me, I am cynical about all American professional politicians, regardless of professed ideology), the problem is that the approach is sound, and based on good cognitive psych. It exploits a weakness in the way people think and reason. In layman's terms, it short-circuits the brain. Sadly, vehemence and a threatening posture do figure deeply into the calculus of our decision-making.
When you see through it, you realize it's an extraordinarily cynical trick. The problem is that many, many people are confused by it. In fact, much as Orwell observed, the lie is embraced especially well by people who know it is a lie. These are the people who, for instance, engage in revert wars in Wikipedia over the Fox News entry.
It is the human's great strenght and weakness: we are fully capable of lively psychological engagement with paradoxes and contradictions.
In order to prevent societal free-fall, it will be necessary for each of us to learn to see through this kind of technique, call a spade a spade. To not be confused or intimidated by hypocrisy, in other words.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
For fuck's sake, blogging is not "the media" any more than me telling my friends about the CD I just bought is "the media." Am I the only person who puts absolutely no stock in what some schmuck on the internet has to say? Or at least, take it with great big grains of salt?
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Hasn't it always been the case that the
guy with the ink/camera/microphone/blog
gets to write whatever he pleases.... including
what will make him some $$?
That's the beauty of the first amendment.
Provided I'm the one being paid, of course...
Anybody who thinks weblogs, in general, convey useful information is an idiot; they're like newspaper columns with no editors.
Have you read my blog lately?
...don't mince words. Tell us how you *really* feel. We can take it.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Guess what: the article DOESN'T equate them. They in fact specifically point out the difference between campaign funds and government funds.
Christ... You'd be fired from a high school paper.
You are an asshole. Please do us all a favor and kill yourself.
They weren't "secret" US government payments.
A more important question is how much money did slashdot get from the Dean campaign to setup politics.slashdot.org?
Your hero Dean turned to intellectual dishonesty and media manipulation to prop up his campaign.
All politicians do this.
What's the difference. If your opinion is swayed by a hipster blogger, it's time to look in the mirror.
How could transparency possibly be enforced?
Easy. With shady guys wearing black and grey uniforms, wearing insignias in the style of two bolts of wotan on their shoulder.
Transparency needs to be with the government, not the media. If someone's stupid enough to listen to "Fox News Live" as if it were unbiased fact, they deserve what they get.
Unfortunately, that also means we deserve the president they vote for.
I'll support just about anything.
How many seconds before your post gets modded down out of view? 3...2...
Thanks for saying out loud what so many of us think.
Slashdot posts blogs as legitimate articles....then bashes blogs for not being transparent. Then tommorow we will see a new blog followed by Slashdot bashing it's own practise. Brilliant folks!
Is there any kind of an arrangement behind the scenes between Roland Piquepaille and the Slashdot editorial staff? Judging by the comments that get posted whenever Slashdot links to Roland's blog, I'd say there's a lot of people that would like to see some transparency in this area. Does Roland Piquepaille provide any "sponsorship" payments to Slashdot?
RE: (Obeying media rule #1, "Both sides are equally bad"
YES!!!
democrats are bad...
republicans are bad too...
politics is too important to be left to the politicians..
- You must lean left.
But what if your... well... you know... thingie... leans to the right?
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Hmm, I wonder if those bloggers might have posted any response to this story? After all, they've only had 12 hours so far today. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/14/02014/6287 ,
http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/1/13/231623/665 , and
http://www.pandagon.net/mtarchives/004427.html
(Reality reasserts itself sooner or later.)
Here's the story. Not in an exactly, but roughtly chronological order.
Kos and Jerome run MyDD. Endorses and is are VERY avid supporters of Dean.
Dean's campaign hires MyDD to do various technical consulting of various types.
Jerome, who starts to blog for Dean stops his own site. Everybody pretty much goes over to Kos' site, and Kos lets it well known that he does consulting for Dean. Nobody in the community (and DailyKos is a political version of Slashdot. It's a community site) cares.
Skip ahead a year and a half.
Zephyr Teachout (lead blogger for the old Dean campaign) is upset that the ethical people are taking all the money and bribe taking out of political blogging and writes a slash piece in the WSJ accusing Kos and Jerome of not being corrupt ENOUGH.
What Kos and Jerome did is basically equivilent to what Gabe and Tycho do over at PA, getting paid for various side projects, a lot of whom they endorse/give good reviews/whatever. Is there any problem with that?
Of course not.
Every source, no matter how impartial it claims to be, is bound to have some sort of bias.
/. is "news for nerds who dislike microsoft and sco and hold apple on a pedastal", and with that in mind i can find useful stuff here sometimes.
The key to finding value in those sources comes from being able to identify the bias and interpret around it.
For example
Post the lamest, most obvious, and most unfunny jokes imaginable. They will be modded up "+5 Funny."
Metamoderation be damned, but seeing the parent modded up to +5 Funny (it's 1:Funny now) would be hilariously ironic.
Yes, Dean hired bloggers. One of the bloggers they hired stopped writing his own blog during that time. The other blogger continually posted on his original blog saying that he was salaried by the Dean campaign.
So let's not blow this out of proportion folks. If they had concealed what they were doing, that would be an entirely different beast. They met the basics of journalistic integrity, revealing that they were in fact being paid for their work.
Read more about it here.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Man, Dean really screwed up on THAT judgement call.
(good laugh on this one, heh)
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
This was covered pretty well I think by one of Simpson's political cartoons: http://idrewthis.org/2004/bothsides.html. Its sadly accurate.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
people don't want the truth. They want affirmation from a homogenious community that tells them they're a valued member. People LOVE propaganda. They're crying out to be lied to. Reason only wins out over large time scales on the order of decades and centuries.
Yep...you got that.
This isn't intended to start a freedom of speach flame... want that? Don't bother replying. Pure opinion here...
preface
I was asked just today to provide links to a commercial website, who apparantly feels either my google pagerank is beneficial to them, or they feel I get enough traffic to help them. Did I do it? Absolutely not.
I get a few of these.
Why don't I?
I don't think it's ethical. I base my blog on myself. I consider it a reflection of me. Anything I post, I believe in. I post sources I trust, things I find interesting, beliefs I hold, ideas I want to share.
If I don't believe, trust, rely on it... I don't post it.
why a law?
Because the media is growing. Bloggers are clearly part of the information fabric of our world. And that's not changing. IMHO if your sponsored by someone, it should clearly be stated. Same if you talk about your employer.
A simple "(my employer)", or "(sponsor)" covers it perfectly.
Fark has also been said to link to stuff that's it's paid for. No clue if that's really true or not (though sometimes I do question).
IMHO we should hold the net to the same standards... were geeks, we believe in the net to it's full potential (I know I do).
Slashdot does it all the time. They link to a NewsForge article.... they say that.
Conclusion
It's the only way to make sure people view the internet as a somewhat legitimate news source. We don't allow it on the air, or tv, or in print. Why allow it online? Accurate information is essential the the internet's viability as a useful medium.
This isn't a hard concept either. If you recieve a kickback, or have a relation to another site.... note it clearly.
That is the difference between a reputable website, and one that isn't.
We have to learn a new vocabluary in this country, or we will never be able to talk about fairness and accuracy properly.
What appears to be evolving in the crucible of American politics is a startling robust form of doublethink. Conservatives have unquestionably mastered it; it's not clear if other political groups are for the moment less able or less willing.
Fox News is a propaganda organization; it is so biased as to basically redefine the concept of bias in the U.S. media. But how does it defend itself? By exclaiming that it is the most fair, and the most balanced. In fact, by going even further accusing everyone else of bias.
This kind of audacity is more associated with religious figureheads and communist states. But regardless of who is using it most effectively this week (and believe me, I am cynical about all American professional politicians, regardless of professed ideology), the problem is that the approach is sound, and based on good cognitive psych. It exploits a weakness in the way people think and reason. In layman's terms, it short-circuits the brain. Sadly, vehemence and a threatening posture do figure deeply into the calculus of our decision-making.
When you see through it, you realize it's an extraordinarily cynical trick. The problem is that many, many people are confused by it. In fact, much as Orwell observed, the lie is embraced especially well by people who know, on some level, it is a lie. These are many of the people who, for instance, engage in revert wars in Wikipedia over the Fox News entry.
It is the human's great strenght and weakness: we are fully capable of lively psychological engagement with paradoxes and contradictions.
In order to prevent societal free-fall, it will be necessary for each of us to learn to see through this kind of technique, call a spade a spade. To not be confused or intimidated by hypocrisy, in other words.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
nothing is ever as good as it seems and nothing is ever as bad as people say it is. moreover, conspiracy theories rarely pan out and sweeping generalizations about, well, anything are, in most cases, a bad idea.
The Dean campaign used their money to pay bloggers. The bloggers fully disclosed the payment.
The Bush administration used your money (assuming you're a USian) to pay off Armstrong Williams. Williams didn't disclose a thing.
This whole tempest in a teapot is an attempt by the right to blur the issue by creating some kind of he-said/she-said equivalency.
Don't fall for it.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
To repeat the previous poster without being crass, michael, you can make your comments on the comment page. We really don't care about your opinions. At all. And they really aren't insightful enough to justify you ranting about the article on the front page.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer had a discussion on the declining trustworthiness of the media in various opinion polls. Turns out that they think the public either cannot or chooses not to distinguish between reporters who report facts and pundits & commentators who offer opinions. They also pointed out that a lot of so-called reporters (the Anderson Coopers, Christiane Amanpours, Wolf Blitzers... recognizable names from CNN, Fox News, etc.) have gone out of their way to inject opinion into what they report.
I think this trend can be found throughout all media. I understand blogs to be purely opinion-based; I would not rely on them for any pure factual reporting. Same can be said of Armstrong Williams, although that says to me more horrible things about the Bush administration than it does the media. The media has always been a tool for manipulation by politicians and governments, even here in the land of the "free press". Ask Valerie Plame how she feels about it.
The most popular blogs out there are mostly packs of lies. People like hardcore partisan blogs that will always spin their side as good and their opponents as bad. There are few (no?) blogs that take nuanced, case-by-case views of the issues, and support whichever side they think is right in each given situation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's all liberal hokum designed to cause controversy where there is none. I like how the liberally biased USA Today agrees with the liberally biased Washington post, but neither of them are revealing exactly who their sources are or how they got their information. Rathergate part II, anyone? We already know that Democrats and liberals will say anything and do anything to attack the republican majority. THe only question is how long with it be before this who "controversy" is uncovered as yet another fabrication by the elite liberal media machine.
Wow, finally some clarity and truth here at Slashdot. Well said, you hit the mark on several points including Slashdot's 'follow the leader' mentality, be secular or else, be anti-Republican or else, be running Linux or else, be running Firefox or else, you pointed out the obvious Roland connection, the hypocritical unethical nature of Slashdot and slashbotters, you pointed out, damn well if I might add, how people here don't argue based on facts but on biases and prejudices.
Amen man, good to see some truth posted on this site for once.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
What they did was equivalent to paying someone in the media for some consulting time so he/she could explain how best to do press releases. Then the person in the media mentioning it to those that view their "show".
Granted, it's not a huge deal, but I imagine liberals would be throwing a tizzyfit if it was Bill O'Reilly consulting the Republicans. I don't really see conservatives giving crap about two bloggers drumming up support for their favorite candidate, who they happened to also work for. The only people who would get upset about this are pompous liberals.
Is there something wrong with me if I don't see a problem with what these two bloggers did?
I wish this wasn't AC, because this compares with Luther's 95 Theses although on a much smaller and completely insignificant scale. This post is dead on and deserves to be modded as insightful.
Don't worry, Slashbot mods and owners will mod this thing down to -1 flamebait page before you can say 'censorship'.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
http://mediamatters.org/ is a good place to start if you are interested in just how twisted our "unbiased" media has become.
in reality, this is no different than what the MSM has been doing since at least cronkite and vietnam. no the republicans shouldn't have paid williams to carry their water, but is that any different than what the news orgs have been doing for free for the democrats for years? neither is good. the media, at least the news, should be objective, and it is far from it. i have a blog, mostly political stuff (warning: conservative analysis) blogs and talk radio are just an evolving media, whether we like it or not. at least there's more information out there. it's up to the individual to discern the truth.
shameless plug: my blog
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Let's see....
CBS "faulty intelligence including a forged document" lead to decisions which didn't kill anyone, and left their reputation in tatters, so they fired four people directly responsible.
This Administration's faulty intelligence including forged documents lead to decisions which directly killed creeping up on 2,000 Americans, and a great many Iraqis, and left the Nation's reputation in tatters, so they gave people medals for their outstanding service.
What did the american people see through again?
I don't have a problem with people being shills/whores so long as they admit they are being paid... bloggers or salesmen alike. It's when they pretend that they're "analysts" or the like that they become unethical.
We need to make it possible to be honest in the US. It's more acceptable to lie and be hypocritical than to tell the truth when that truth is uncomfortable. That's what got Clinton in trouble: he simple was not allowed to tell the truth. It's what's gotten El Presidente in trouble too... I don't much care of his "take care of the corporate cronies" foreign policy, but if he had simply _admitted_ that he was "trying to stimulate the ecomomy" or "damnit, I just want to depose that furner EyeRackee", I could have at least respected the moron a little. He just just admit that he's a puppet, and let it go at that. We all know he is, but there's nothing that can be done about it. The NeoCons have purged anyone who could challenge them even in their own party, so there wouldn't be any impeachment even if Bush declares himself President for Life.
There's just no way that can possibly work. It's also a mistake to assume that mere disclosure of wrongdoing on the web will have an effect on a more popular blogger.
- moral.php
For example, if a popular liberal blogger were to claim that e.g. Instapundit was being funded by the republicans, they would simply not be believed by his readers. Things have got that partisan, and people believe what they want to believe.
Or, for example, malfeasance by a Slashdot editor: http://sethf.com/freespeech/censorware/project/jw
Shut up.
We're all back in the village green. Anybody can yammer.
So, we all have to figure out who's the village idiot and who's the sage. And who's yesterday's sage but now today's idiot.
We all have to think. Shocking, disappointing, I know.
Reputation matters. Those of you with good reputations, please don't pull a Pierre Salinger.
Remember, all your sources of info are biased, somehow. Some grossly, some negligibly. Find the bias, find the reputation, take with a grain of salt.
Just because some taxi driver, somebody you met in a laundromat, your lunatic {right,left}-wing officemate said it, you Read It On The Internet doesn't make it so. Even if it had cool graphics on the page.
Why should the blogsphere be any different? Why should anybody be surprised? Geez.
>:(
John.
Mod parent up, this is funny and absolutely true.
This Administration's faulty intelligence including forged documents lead to decisions which directly killed creeping up on 2,000 Americans, and a great many Iraqis, and left the Nation's reputation in tatters, so they gave people medals for their outstanding service.
A few people think free elections are worth more than human life. These people include the president, Benjamin Franklin, and me.
for me, anyway.
I've never liked Markos "screw them" Zuniga, but what you're all focusing on is a non-story. He disclosed to his readers that he was taking money; Williams, who made no disclosure, deserves whatever happens to him.
What interests me is the difference in what those involved thought they were doing:
Zuniga thought he was taking money to be a "consultant" and give advice.
The Dean campaign thought they were paying him to be a shill and say good things about them.
See the difference? I think bloggers who take money should disclose that fact to their readers, ahead of time and not after the fact. But ideally, bloggers should not take money (except for explicit advertisements); it can lead too easily to a situation where the blogger is being taken advantage of.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
You may not be familiar with this concept, but people of similar opinion often hang out together. I know it's a pretty strange concept, but it's true - no, really, it's not leftist communist linux propaganda, but something your father would understand.
Slashdot is a place where many people who use linux and lean left tend to hang out, but I assure you that there is no paucity of the kind of rants you posted here in lieu of factual information - oh, you didn't realize your post was as devoid of factual support as those it purports to lambast? Well, news flash, kiddo. Yes, I'm going to say it - you posted a significant amount of FUD up there... please give me a minute while I wipe the FUD off my shoes.
Thinking outside my Head
You *were* joking right ? .. right ?
I mean....
A few people think free elections are worth more than human life. These people include the president, Benjamin Franklin, and me.
Ben Franklin would never approve of America invading a nation that was no threat to us (though our govt said otherwise), oust our former ally, killing gobs of civilians in the process, pouring billions and billions of taxpayer dollars in some Arab shithole, all to force elections on a people that are still living in a 15th century mindset. Don't diminish Franklin's ideals by comparing him to our dimwit president.
The subject of debate in this article concerns media representives(blogger or otherwise) selling out and representing an opinion that may or may not reflect their own opinion.
Why should this concern anyone who thinks for one's self. For example, I don't judge a political candidate based on what I hear Bill O'Reilly or Dave Stuart say on their shows. My opinion is formed from hearing what the candidate says in his or her speeches and debates, and to a lesser extent, the combined information gathered from multiple media/news sources.
Who cares if the media has no integrityYou must base your worldview entirely on Slashdot headlines. You must ignore the innaccuracy and editorial shortcomings of the Slashdot staff. You must buy into the groupthink of the comment threads. This is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE.
... Anything involving Mozilla is flawless and perfect.
This guy knows that unlike many stifling, practically religious, communities, iconoclasm gets modded highly here, or he wouldn't have penned this screed (who reads zero-level AC's?).
Post the lamest, most obvious, and most unfunny jokes imaginable. They will be modded up "+5 Funny." Even Malda couldn't stand it any longer and made Funny mods not count toward karma.
No sense of humor: check.
Everything involving Linux is flawless and perfect.
Yeah, intelligent criticisms of systems never get a fair hearing here. Duh... Maybe he hasn't been around long. Critical ideas get modded highly all the time... and everyone knows it, including you.
What if something is actually good, or actually bad? Better not reach a strong consensus on it, otherwise we might be subjected to flamebait from ignorant wannabe-elitists...
Whenever someone has a criticism of the current moderation system, refer to Taco's "future moderation system."
Can you fill this one in for me? Not even sure what the joke is here.
You must lean left. You must obsess over George W. Bush and make Bush jokes whenever possible, no matter how irrelevant to the topic. In political articles, you must upmod anti-Bush comments and downmod independent or pro-Bush comments. Use the "Overrated" moderator whenever possible.
Let me go out on a limb here. Criticism of our current political administration is a sign of a healthy, intelligent community.
The fact that they have not yet really succeeded in gaming the slashdot moderation system frustrates the repulican net squad to absolute conniptions.
I am actually willing to go out on a limb here and say leaning left is perfectly good for any community. If slashdot is not prone to victimization by America's latest naked emperors (faux libertarianism, excessive religious interference in state affairs, energy-driven imperialism, etc), so much the better for them - and it obviously really galls you that any "bias" here is the result of a democratic process and not something you can just blame on a "biased" editor.
Use the term "FUD" religiously in everyday conversation.
Sign of the times.
Demonization is far easier than debating the issues.
Don't you know it!
Whenever Linux Torvalds says anything, it is newsworthy and infallible... Linus does not make mistakes... arrogance and closed-minded attitude.
Lies... straw man fallacy... and disengenuousness.
Believe articles like "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China," based entirely on the idea that Microsoft is evil because Windows is used by the government there. Ignore the fact that China has its own custom Linux distribution called Red Flag Linux. Slashdot is unbiased and holy.
This is a whopper. I think he's actually suggesting we would not demonize a company collaborating with a totalitarian regime on the basis of its products source license.
Wow man, you hit that out of the park. Not.
Ignore that Slashdot is corporate-owned, by a company called OSTG that employs Rob Malda and makes money off selling OSS products. Ignore the conflict of interests in running a "tech news" site that coincidentally posts articles critical of competitors. Ignore that if Microsoft owned a tech news site that did the same, it would be criticized for it.
Oooh... wave the word "corporate" around like it's a shrunken voodoo head.
No single news outlet could pass your implied standards. And by the way, Microsoft does run a news organization, and we do criticize their biases, when they arise.
All part of this the
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
I don't think there's anything wrong with a news site running opinion stories, as long as they're marked as such. So, if Michael really thinks he has something to say and that we should care about his opinion, he could try writing his very own editorials (hey, Slashdot even has a corresponding topic icon).
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Michael wasn't ranting about conservatives, he was ranting against Bush.
See, Bush's actions prove he isn't a conservative.
But they are the ones who are driving people away.
Don't try to blame it on blogs. Blogs were never trying to replace them. But many people don't trust FOX and CNN and ABC and CBS or even PBS anymore.. Its like the 'choice' between Coke and Pepsi, its no choice at all..
I can see where this is going..
It won't wash. China may try to censor blogs. Look where it has gotten them.
They are an international laughingstock.
Lets get real..
Lets just assume that EVERYTHING on the Internet (and - especially- the mainstream media) is a LIE, because it often is.
Everybody has an agenda. To think anything else is stupid.
Especially the huge corporate media moguls like Fox and CNN etc...
Europeans laugh at us because of how gullible we are about politicians and the media.
This last election is a perfect example. How many times did you see the US mainstream media (owned by only 5 mega-corporations) ignore important stories that were unfavorable to their favorite politicians. Look at the Swift Boat media circus. And the way the media tried to spin the debates.
Look at the lies of our glorious leader, for example.. Why don't the media point it out when he lies? After the 2004 election, the US mainstream media lost a lot of credibility with the American people. Now that they are turning to alternative sources of information, like blogs, the mainstream powers-that-be want to outlaw or censor them, it seems. Well, thats just a good way to guarantee that the brain drain out of the US will accelerate. The Internet is bigger than any one country, and the politicians and 'professional journalists' in the US better learn to accept that.
They are driving people away, yes. IF the mainstream media and old-school 'respectable journalists' want credibility, WHY don't they try something really radical for a change, telling the TRUTH?...
The current size of the federal government alone should be a good indicator that Republicans are not "conservative" at all.
The centralized corporate media have been challenged and occasionally lost credibility to the mass of Free Presses found (and run by) any computer attached to the internet.
It is a bit hard to maintan credibillity when you don't notice the documentation you reproduced as from 1972 was likely the product of Microsoft Word.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
They lie...all the time..
At this point, many people are realizing that and so, people are deserting them because they are tired of being treated like idiots.. Blogs are just taking up the slack. And now that they see people flocking to blogs, the 'respectable' journalists and especially, the politicians are up in arms.. They hate things they cant control.
But you're not nearly as popular as sites like FreeRepublic or DailyKos.
(Although of those two DailyKos is, IMO, somewhat more analytical, but you still know before reading any article on there which side it's going to take.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
He seems to believe he was doing technical consulting, but it seems he was paid twice as much as the non-famous-blogger technical consultants, and from the Dean campaign's point of view the reason to hire him was to influence his writing.
So not unethical on his point of view if he didn't realize that was the goal, but it does seem to be influence-buying under the guise of hiring a technical consultant.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I agree with everything you've said. The things that Slashdot really needs to consider.
It's a shame that you will be modded down into oblivion. Squelching dissent is another awful aspect of how Slashdot works here.
I know that PA gets paid by game companies, and I wouldn't trust them as an unbiased source of reviews for the companies and products they're paid by. Even if they're not being explicitly bought off, there may be a tendency to be nicer to the people who are nice to you by giving you money (or free stuff). I might follow their link to something, but if I was really interested in unbiased reviews, I'd look elsewhere. Anandtech, for example, makes an attempt to avoid this sort of thing so they can remain as unbiased as possible, both in fact and appearance.
Similarly, knowing that a blogger is on the payroll of a political campaign, in any guise, would make me avoid getting my political news from them, or at least taking it with a large grain of salt, as they may have a tendency to be nicer to the people who are paying them, even if there was no request to do so.
So, in terms of giving people confidence in your reporting, I think it'd be better to avoid taking money from the people you're reporting on. For Penny Arcade this is not really a problem, because they're primarily a web comic, not a source of game-industry news.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
These blogs only get the coverage they do because of the sexiness of new technology. In terms of readership, they're below many literary magazines, and the most well-known part of literary magazines is the fact that their readership is rather small.
Hell, The Nation has orders of magnitude more readers than DailyKos.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I wasn't aware that in journalism it was considered appropriate to be paid by the subject of your reporting even if you disclose it. You don't see the oil-sector analyst for CNN Money holding down a consulting gig with Exxon, even an openly-acknowledged one.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
On k5 we'd vote this sort of crap down and it'd never get posted.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
How's censorware.org coming?
Don't get me wrong: I'm not offended from an ethics standpoint. I'm simply annoyed with michael, who seems to believe his own little predictable rants are deemed more important than everyone else's, and in fact need to be attached to actual news stories on the front page.
And as you mention, slashdot has a corresponding icon if he's so inclined.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Seriously we used to be able to count on the insanely partisan aspects of the WSJ left on the Op_Ed pages at the back of Section A. But it's creeping all over the paper now until it's practically the print version of Fox News. WSJ is about as partisan as the official Egyptian press now.
Does this shock anyone?
It doesn't mean I shouldn't cram my cock in it though.
michael:
"It's hard to believe that the WSJ is equating prominently disclosed campaign consulting with secret payments from the U.S. Government treasury to TV personalities in order to promote Republican policies, but they are."
The Wall Street Journal Best of the Web column:
"The Dean campaign, unlike the Education Department, didn't spend tax dollars. But the bloggers who benefited from its largesse appear to be as compromised ethically as Williams."
I could find no statement in the Wall Street Journal equating the two scandals, notably in the article which michael links. The editorial opinion expressed in the Journal in fact does not equate the scandals, rather it points to a prominent difference between the two: the use of tax dollars.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
We here in South Dakota witnessed a pretty awful campaign between Tom Daschle and John Thune. The Thune people, in particular, were very skilled at paying high-profile and articulate conservatives to run blogs attacking the state's leading newspaper, the Argus Leader (whose editorials supported Daschle), attacking people who worked for Daschle, and attacked Daschle's policies.
In FEC filings from the Thune campaign, numerous bloggers received between $500 and $1500 per filing to blog. T-shirts, printed using Republican party funds, were given free supporting these blogs.
In most cases, the people getting paid to bash Daschle were already going to do so, for free. But by paying them, they could spend more time ripping the guy apart. I suspect it didn't have much effect in the end, but the money the Republicans spent on PR blogs was puny compared to what they spent on other stuff.
It's a fundamental assumption that underlies open communcation. The notion that a blogger has less responsibility to be honest, as some people seem to be arguing is absurd. As others have said, the Armstrong and blog cases are (a little) different from payer standpoint (but I don't believe that everyone who donated to Dean hoped that their money would be put toward corrupting the free exchange of ideas on the internet.) But from the payee standpoint they're exactly the same.
oh wait ...
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
http://www.mrc.org/ You need balance in your diet foo. The Media Research Center covers the liberal media. Also, Media Matters covers commentary only. They do not cover the self indentified "mainstream" media like NBC or CNN.
from Kos's own statement he said he was going to have (I
paraphrase) 'a bigger role in other campaigns' and that 'I
have none disclosure agreements so can't tell you who they
are'. Right ok. And we are to believe he didn't shill for
them or their issues? Please.
I'll give you the same answer that Bob Jones felt appropriate to give to the Democrats following Bush's election:
There's more leftists, more liberals, and more Linux users on this site than your foul ilk, and since we're the majority now, shut the fuck up, bend over and take it without one fucking peep or we'll mod your fucking ass into oblivion.
If you don't like it, move somewhere else that will take your lousy right-wing ass in.
How's that feel, Republican?
Show me one documented instance (pointing to a blog is not documentation) where Michael Moore has twisted the truth.
Like him or not his material is thoroughly researched and he's got the documentation to back it up. But I can see why people desperately want to think he doesn't tell the truth. I mean, if he's telling the truth, then you're living a lie and not any smarter than a common dupe.
So, yeah, it's perfectly understandable why you'd feel that way. Nobody likes admitting they're a chump. It's almost like admitting we don't have a good reason for being in Iraq.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
http://www.memeorandum.com/05/01/14/#wsj--dean_cam paign_made_payments_to_two_bloggers
Daily Kos also said:
"On some of the other races we are/will be working, our role will be much bigger. But Dean already has a capable web and technology team. We are just being plugged in to that already successful group of people." (emphasis mine)
So, these guys were technical advisors to Dean. Fine, but they also were or still are working to promote other races in a much bigger way. Apparently, the Dean link is the only part they are able/allowed to tell. The rest is still hidden as far as I know.
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
Uhhh...this story is a year old. Were you not paying attention then? They fully disclosed this. It's just a distraction from the government's problems.
-JP
If the republicans want to hire republicans to win an election against other republicans that's fine too.
The only person I'll ever promote on my webpage is myself.
Oh, and the Brobdingnagian Bards. Them too. But that's because one of the guys is one of my best friends, and I steal their songs for remixes... not because they pay me.
When you look at Kos' behavior, it's actually worse. He claimed he was paid for "technical" support, but apparently provided little or no such support and was overpaid for such work to boot. I suppose being a lefty it seemed only natural he was being paid to do nothing, but he still had to realize this was de facto "payola," as he calls it.
I guess we Republicans will just have to pass laws having you Dems carted off to gas chambers to be "modded out" of existence. That'll be a "realignment," eh?
How'd that feel, shortlived Democrat?
Here are Zephyr's two contradictory points:
1. I hired Kos and J. Armstrong so they would write nice things about Dean
2. Kos and Armstrong should have had "better" disclosures
I call bullshit. If she really hired Kos and Armstrong to get good press for Dean, the last thing she would have wanted is for Kos and Armstrong, to disclose that fact.
Not much different, actually. Pretty much the same threats we've been hearing out of you for the last 25 years.
But thanks for asking.
Ben Franklin would never approve of America invading a nation that was no threat to us
You mean like Canada in 1783?
He should be fired.
THIS ACCOUNT IS OFFICIALLY RETIRED/RETARDED.
They didn't fully disclose this. They disclosed that they were technical advisors to the campaign. Now the campaign has said that they were paid for support.
You think it's just a coincindence that KOS is backing Dean for DNC chair, don't you?
So you think that political media should be required to be 100% factually correct? You'd plan to enforce this, admittedly laudable, ideal through what? Force of arms? Oh I know, the honor system!
Hahaha. Seriously. People running for office don't take an oath not to lie. But when the President gets there he takes an oath to serve the American people and the ideals of this great nation, not send them to die for no reason, or a reason that turns out to be a lie, and wipe his ass with them respectively.
If you want to make the contest about political honesty, the Republicans are only slightly ahead of the Nazis and Stalinists at this point.
michael is the most vile partisan nutjob on this entire site. He's worse than just about any of the trolls. You shouldn't be suprised at all, not at his editorial license, not at his inserting his two cents in to the point that it exceeds the length of your own submission, and lastly, that he should engage in this kind of editorial dishonestly while blasting right wing media for the exact same thing. But of course, he pardons KOS because it came clean.
This pretty much prove how completely unhinged the left has become.
OMG Canada has WMDs! We'd better invade and force democracy on to them! Your Canada remark isn't a retort at all to what I said. Care to try again?
but didn't need to: now, please, assembled comrades of the Great Party, demonstrate what I'm talking about.
You're hardcore, huh? I love you guys!
Please, tell me the next most recent thing that Dan "The Man" Rather did that could qualify as lynching?
For bonus points, do it yourself, without googling party headquarters for a crib sheet first!
Come on, reply... pretend you don't have to answer that minor question to look credible.
Hey, if you eke out two instances of bias, that's only about a mile and a half from "a long series..."
And yes, you really have failed to take attention away from the fact that Fox News is 100 times more biased than CBS on the same day Dan Rather threw himself a little going away party.
The FNN must have had a little chuckle over CBS's contrite attempts to correct themselves. Fox News never issues a correction. And they must have howled over the senior staffers fired over that story. Man, imagine if FNN fired employees for bias. That must have been a weird feeling, watching CBS employees get fired for something you do every day, usually before your morning coffee?
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
I love how when someone points out how by liberals condoning the latest Howard Dean action they are effectively hypocrits and the liberals refuse to think about the implifications and just imply that there is a flame war afoot.
Blank-Out
But Media Matters has its own transparency problems to surmount, particularly regarding where their money comes from and where it goes. For instance:1 /media-matt ers-for-america.html
http://seandoherty.blogspot.com/2005/0
...so...it's about time. I've posted some pretty vile and defamatory accusations against michael in the past, and the worst has been an instantaenous mod-bomb. I guarantee the arrogant bastard googles himself five times a day.
Who fucking cares where the money is coming from or where it's going for Media Matters? If they point out bias or "mis-information" then they do, if they are wrong then other sites will surely call them out on it. Whether rich liberals or rich conservatives pump some money in some "media research" website is not relavent. For every watchdog site there'll be a counter-watchdog site. Pick whichever one best fits your worldview, pretend you're always right, and get on with your life.
It's missing the "Claim Macromedia Flash is evil once a week" topic.
Also, the grandparent is wrong. I find that people who argue against religion (in general) are moderated down fastest because that's not "PC".
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Your Canada remark isn't a retort at all to what I said. Care to try again?
It's called a "refutation", where I take your comment and show how it's factually incorrect. Our founding fathers, which you said would "never invade a country that meant us harm", invaded Canada in 1783. Get it? You were wrong. Care to try again?
"who seems to believe his own little predictable rants are deemed more important than everyone else's"
Seems to me we all do this. Its called being human. What's the big deal? Why give the little guy a hard time, when the big schmucks do the same thing all the time?
Besides, this Wall St.Journal article was obtained straight from a Karl Rove fax machine. So what else is new?
It's interesting how the rightwingers dart out to First Post, attacking the messenger (Michael). Michael reports on how their darling Wall Street fascist Journal is lying about (disclosed) sponsored blogging, to defend (undisclosed) sponsored fake TV commercials featuring Armstrong Williams spreading political fear through the media ("terrorism"). The rightwingers lurking around Slashdot naturally have little to say defending Williams, or the WSJ for that matter. Since their fragile fascist fantasy has been threatened, they must just fight back, so their delicate sensitivities aren't offended by the truth. Sad little fascists, scared of the truth.
--
make install -not war
Who the hell is Armstrong Williams? I had never heard of him before all this. Honestly it doesn't surprise me though. Of course, the Bush administration wouldn't have to pay for good press if they ever got a fair shake from the likes of CBS.
"Go to a mall or coffee shop sometime and see what people actually talk about."
./, the probability that someone will have something intelligent to say seems higher than it would be if you randomly try to start a conversation at a mall or in a coffee shop.
Relax friend, your getting a bit wound up.
One could just as easily say, "go to a mall or coffee shop and step back in time".
I suggest that these are the last places one might want to visit to develop and "informed or educated opinion". Yes, you can find opinions at the mall and coffee shop but one shouldn't be tempted to imply that such opinions are likely to be interesting, informative, or of consequence.
I am always amused by the generally accepted myth that the "people" really know whats going on and the various snobby, pointy-headed elitists and intellectuals, who spend time doing mathematical proofs or programming computers and the like, really don't have a clue as to what happening and that if they only listened to the sages at the corner coffee shop, all the world's problems would be solved. I strongly suspect that folks who hold this opinion primarily rely on this line of argumentation primarily so that others might believe that "many" others might share their opinion (You know, 100,000 flies can't be wrong, right? type argument).
I personally find the "coffee shop set" to be a friendly even nice group, at least most of the time, but you wouldn't want to be consulting them, say to work out the implications of the Cayley-Hamilton Theorem or the sublime aspects of Lie Algebras.
While its unlikely you will meet God on
How could transparency possibly be enforced?
One word: Skepticism.
If you believe everything you read uncritically you deserve to be treated like a fool.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Please either back up your charge or retract your claim. Specifically who was paid, how much, to flog which story, when, by the Clinton administration?
As for the NY Times, it was a chief promoter of Bush's war (particularly through its "star reporter", Judith Miller, who practically let Ahmed Chalabi write the front page). If that's "liberal bias", I'd be happy to get rid of it. In many cases the Times has been biased in Bush's favor.
And so-called liberal journalists attack Michael Moore every time they mention him. In what universe does the mainstream press write uncritical articles about Michael Moore? The Times, in particular, hates his guts; he's not the kind of guy you'd want staying over at your estate in the Hamptons.
Get it through your head. The purpose of DailyKos.com was to get Democrats elected to office. Kos was 100% open about this.
No, we all don't. Some people try to be broadminded enough to realize that their opinion - or voice - isn't more important than other people's. People like michael are arrogant enough to think that 1) they're right, and 2) everyone needs to hear about it. Front page is for news. There's a comment board for a reason.
Why give the little guy a hard time, when the big schmucks do the same thing all the time?
So what, it's better to be a little schmuck? A schmuck's a schmuck. He'd be worse if he had the outlet.
Besides, this Wall St.Journal article was obtained straight from a Karl Rove fax machine. So what else is new?
So your point is...what? If your candidate is slammed, we need to fix this? I bet you and michael don't come to Bush's aid if the NYT is a tad hard on him or omits a few facts in the way of a story.
What it comes do is that some people have no problem with shitty journalism as long as the hatchet job agrees with their opinions.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
According to Netcraft, Macromedia Flash is dead.
1) Canada wasn't a nation in 1783.
2) Great Britain was though.
3) And they did still mean us harm.
This is why should shouldn't get your American history from that copy of "The Plot Against Jesus" you picked up at the gunshow. Fuckwit.
Nearly every Army PsyOps unit creates and disseminates propaganda, by design.
As you may be aware, the Army falls under the direction of the Executive branch of government.
Let's see this phantom law you speak of.
So, it went without saying that he's a fucking idiot? LOLZZZZ
Hands up who knew beforehand that Kos was paid to influence his readers (and I don't mean "consulting" or "technical")? Not many? None? Righto, there's the trouble in a nutshell.
Oh yeah. And according to my Winamp 2.91, Apache is dead too.
It doesn't matter if Michael is an "editor." To add quotation marks in someone else's statement is misleading, especially because it's assumed the submission is in unedited form. This is different from simply cutting out some of the submission text for space. Michael is changing the meaning and intent of the submitter. If Michael wants to editorialize YET AGAIN, he should do it in a write-up; or better yet, he should write his opinion in a post like everyone else has to.
You missed one:
:P
Always blow things way out of proportion, and use superlatives at every (even if inappropriate) opportunity.
This might be a fallacy that you're guilty of, but chose to ignore.
Moderators: Please note that "bonch" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft shilling. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, bonch is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.
/. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than bonch. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider bonch and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Windows or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a
For example, in this recent post bonch not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "MS". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +0) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, bonch wants to be Bill Gates, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?
FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and more FUD. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD and more FUD instead of canned meat. Amazed yet? Don't forget that KDE and Gnome make you dumb, and it's all a Slashdot conspiracy. How low do you want to go? Maybe as low as this?
The infamous Slashdot Front Page Troll? Nuclear fireballs? It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on (troll?). Like the energizer bunny. Or take these two, which stretch the definition of weird.
It's up to you. We can get rid of this guy and make Slashdot a better place. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the trolls and crapflooders over people like "bonch" any day. And I sure as hell don't want to be categorized along with him. This is not how you advocate free software, period.
Moderators: Please note that "bonch" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft shilling. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, bonch is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.
/. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than bonch. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider bonch and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Windows or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a
For example, in this recent post bonch not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "MS". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +0) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, bonch wants to be Bill Gates, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?
FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and more FUD. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD and more FUD instead of canned meat. Amazed yet? Don't forget that KDE and Gnome make you dumb, and it's all a Slashdot conspiracy. How low do you want to go? Maybe as low as this?
The infamous Slashdot Front Page Troll? Nuclear fireballs? It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on (troll?). Like the energizer bunny. Or take these two, which stretch the definition of weird.
It's up to you. We can get rid of this guy and make Slashdot a better place. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the trolls and crapflooders over people like "bonch" any day. And I sure as hell don't want to be categorized along with him. This is not how you advocate free software, period.
On my parent post - while I appreciate the Karma, "+2 Insightful"? WTF? It was a pretty trivial question, just seeking some clarification and attribution.
Anyway, thanks, I guess...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!