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LinuxWorld Editorial Machinations
James Turner writes "The editors of LinuxWorld Magazine have been fighting a quiet war with the publishers (Sys-Con Media) for half a year, trying to get hack-journalist Maureen O'Gara purged from their site. Well, with O'Gara's recent vile attack on Pamela Jones (which I won't give any more free publicity by linking to), enough is finally enough.
In my latest blog, I've basically told Sys-Con that it's either her or me. I suspect, given the amount of page views O'Gara's tripe brings to the Sys-Con sites, that they'll choose her." James isn't the only one either.
Although journalism should be an unbiased thing, journalists are still part of a buisness whose incentive it is to make profit. Supply and demand. So do we blame the sensationalist writer, or the thousands of sheep reading the articles and demanding more. How are such articles from O'Gara tolerated in a trade mag like this. You would think the linux community would be more educated and less susceptible to this type of journalism, then again noting the anonymous cowards on slashdot, i take that back...
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
...to have another job lined up first before this sort of "line in the sand" comment to your employer. Of course this being the net, you and your other disgruntled editors can just start your own zine pretty easily.
Its a techy site. I bet the owners spend more time reading slashdot than reading their mail.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
You do realize that the more people who view the offending article the more they are likely to publish stuff like this again.
They get paid by the viewer. The more viewers the better. This is why a lot of web news is no better than tabloid journalism, it brings in the page views.
Better that we all go cold turky on all sys-con links for a week or two.
Can be found in this article.
Apparently the Dictionary Search extension for Firefox, when you do a context menu search on the word 'hack', gives you this page:
2 0o'gara
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=maureen%
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
I've picked up and flipped through LinuxWorld magazine on several occasions. On all occasions I put it back right where I found it. LinuxWorld Magazine looks like yet-another journal trying to capitalize on the Linux hype. With a writer like Maureen O'Gara still on the payroll, their fragile credibility crumbles. James, if there's anywhere that will have you, run with a quickness to it.
He's not telling the employers, he's telling the readers. That way, when Sys-Con management fires him and the new editor gives us a line of BS about how happy he was here, but has left for bigger and better things, we will know the truth.
Well, the fact that he says that the LinuxWorld staff have been calling for O'Gara to go for a while suggests that they already know his objections and, I assume, he has told them this in person by now.
I think he's just trying to protect his professional reputation by stating, openly and publically, that he is challenging LinuxWorld on this issue. That's quite brave, but if they do "call his bluff" and let him go, his reputation will be intact... he stated an ultimatum in public, they refused. Much better than giving the ultimatum in private, being pushed out and then loads of rubbish being wrote about why he'd left.
or even the redacted text, ******* out the home address for a start.
It's obvious that this is well beyond the phase where talking to whatever holding company that controls the publication would have an effect. Rather, this is just a step below slander... It's a strong word, and this is the same effect, just that in this case there is more than enough evidence against the party that they are really trying to get thrown out, and the holding company probably saw no reason to take action (ethics? HA!) until there was the possibilty that advertising clients would take notice to bad stuff going on over there.
Why is it that common people always use the word hack in a negative sense? If you mean to say that she lacks ability, why not just say inept, unprofessional, clueless or some similar word?
It's been a popular term amongst journalists for quite a while now to refer to a talentless writer.
A few weeks ago I went looking for the elusive harridan who supposedly writes the Groklaw blog about the SCO v IBM suit.
The now-famous opinion-shaping open source leader Pamela Jones, aka "PJ," doesn't give conventional face-to-face interviews. Never has, near as anyone knows. All communication is virtual. Only one person in the world has ever claimed to have met her - in the pressroom at LinuxWorld in Boston complete with a Pamela Jones badge - and described her as a fortyish reddish-blonde who giggled a lot.
304 North Central Avenue, Hardsdale, NY[Photo: May 7, 2005 12:37 PM - 304 North Central Avenue, Hartsdale, New York. The last known address of Pamela Jones, as the superintendent of the building calls it, Ms. Pam Jones.]
Oh yeah? Wonder what cold crème she uses.
Pamela Jones is a 61-year-old Jehovah's Witness who lives in a shabby genteel garden apartment in desperate need of an interior decorator on a heavily trafficked commercial road at 304 North Central Avenue in Hartsdale, New York. Hartsdale is in Westchester and Westchester is IBM territory.
See, even though Groklaw treats cell phones like they were Kleenex and changes its unpublished numbers regularly, one number it left with a journalist led to this flat and - wouldn't you know it but - some calls from there had been placed to the courts in Utah and to the Canopy Group so obviously this just isn't any Pamela Jones.
Pamela has lived in apartment 1A for 10 years at least, according to the super, who says he's watched people move in, have children, and the children marry and move away.
Now, this isn't your usual anonymous New York apartment. It's practically a self-contained village where the super goes for the old ladies' groceries when there's snow on the ground and people know each other's business.
[Photo: May 7, 2005 12:41 PM - 304 North Central Avenue, Hartsdale, New York. The last known address of Pamela Jones.]
But the super didn't know much about Pamela except that she had a computer, worked at home (maybe sometimes) for a lawyer, was "paranoid" - his word - and "sensitive to smells."
He remembered how he was cleaning paintbrushes one day and she came running down the stairs screaming "Fire."
She was also missing and had been for weeks.
Nobody there knew where she was.
She had up and disappeared one day, and the super was worried about her. He said her son had dropped by and he didn't know where she was, and that some strange man that "nobody knew," as the super described him, had tried to get into her apartment while she was gone - the Medeco lock she had had installed on her door - something nobody else in the complex seemed to feel a need for - was more expensive than the door. But, as it happened, the super said, she had just sent in her rent in an envelope postmarked Connecticut.
Like an episode out of "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego," the trail led to 10 Bittersweet Trail in Norwalk, Connecticut, 24 miles away. Sure enough, parked in the driveway was Pamela's car, just as the super had described it, a dark gray '90s Japanese number with a bunch of Jehovah Witness pamphlets tossed on the backseat.
The woman at the house, Barbara Jones Sharnik, told a disjointed story. She didn't know Pamela, Pamela hated her, Pamela wasn't there, Pamela left her car there because it got bumped, Pamela left her car there because she left town, and so on.
Afterwards Barbara called the cops, and then the cops called the number we left with her and the cops said that she was Pamela's mother and that Pamela was on the run and had shacked up with her mother because she had gotten "threatening mail" weeks before and that she had just gotten spooked again because "people were getting hurt around [my] stories" and had lighted out for Canada.
[Photo: May 7, 2005 2:24 PM - 10 Bittersweet Trail in Norwalk, Connecticut. Mom's house, where PJ's car was last seen on this driveway.]
Odd, the subject of my stories - or any
I am amazed that Sys-Con would continue to allow Maureen O'Gara to write. They must be desperate for the controversy that her articles cause, because I really see no value in them after reading a couple of them this morning. The worst article , and the one in question, tries to paint quite the negative picture of Pamela Jones' sanity and lifestyle. Instead it leaves me questioning O'Gara's ethics and sanity. Quite the smear campaign on the part of O'Gara.
So, Pamela Jones could perhaps be a 61-year old Jehovah's Witness who lives in a not so nice apartment. What does that have to do with anything? O'Gara finishes the article hinting that perhaps it is all stolen identity, though she didn't present a news story that would lead you to that conclusion.
I spent the first 23 years of my life as a Jehovah's Witness. I do not believe I am scarred in anyway because of it. If anything, I think I have a lot more respect for my fellow human beings and in general have a deep desire to be a good person. Sure the methodology of learning about the religion is a bit like brainwashing, but they have their religious beliefs like most religions. They just are more strict about the belief and the punishment if one does constantly violates them. If you are going to have faith, I think most religious people would appreciate the JW's strictness.
Did the religion make me paranoid? No. Does it take a lot of your time? Yes, but if you are going to devote your life to being religious then it probably should take a lot of time. Personally I appreciated science too much to put so much faith in religion. I still believe that if any religion has it right though, it is probably the JW's. They read the bible and do what it says. They refuse to pick up arms against another human, they punish sinners through disfellowshipping (total cut off until they have repented of their sins), and they make worship the primary thing in their life not allowing anything else to come first. There are obviously more devoted JW's than others, but that is true of any religion.
So, after reading the crap that passes for journalism from O'Gara, I personally can't wait to see her unemployed. Perhaps she can go get a job at the National Inquirer.
Perhaps as a boss, you would understand that by submitting a story to Slashdot, this statement becomes a very public and potentially very embarrassing situation for the publisher involved.
This bold move on the part of the Senior Editor in question makes his ultimatum quite clear to his employer and at the same time makes his ultimatum something clearly in the public space. By doing so, we will very clearly know why he or the alleggedly offensive reporter (I have never read any of her work.) changes employment status.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Eat any good marine iguanas today?
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
It's been down since somewhere around 2am.
--
BMO
Don'y give them any unneccessary page hits.
Use the Google cache of the article instead.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
I'm sure they already know all about his issues with them. This is making it public, putthing THEM on the spot for their behaviour. As he says, he's making it clear to the community at large that he doesn't want to be associated with them/her. How better to do that than in public?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
First, thanks for doing that, I assume you showered afterward.
Second, this actually a very good thing. Previously, whenever people would claim she wasn't professional, it sounded mildly of whining and an ad hominem attack intended to discredit the reporter. Even though the claims were probably true.
Now, one need only point to this article, which is absolute filth, and clearly betrays something substantially beyond bias.
It seems likely that Maureen O'Gara (or someone) employed a private detective to investigate Pamela Jones. The article shows that quite a lot of information was obtained from the super of PJ's apartment building.
Perhaps someone should have a gentle word with this individual not to be quite so open when discussing the affairs of the tenants. After all, a portion of their rent money is used to employ him, and I'm reasonably certain that no part of his job description includes making private details about his (indirect) employers available to anyone who just happens to turn up and asks him politely. However, if he was paid for his information, he really should be terminated.
From MOG's description of PJ's apartment, I'm wondering if the super even let someone look around.
Here - without advertising revenue
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
So I just read the article (thanks previous poster for the link). I can't believe that Sys-Con would publish this trash. What sort of lowlife reporter is O'Gara, that she would stoop to ripping up someone like that in an article? There isn't a single thing about linux in there, it's all about Pamela Jones' personal living arrangements (with her home address!) and her religious leanings. There is no story there at all.
I think if I read this article on the site without looking at the other articles I might have though I was reading some of the lowest form of tabloid.
WTF has O'Gara being a money grabbing slimeball got to do with her being "liberal" or otherwise? What has any of this got to do with Abu Gharab? Or your apparent xenophobia? This is about journalistic ethics and personal decency. She is not being criticized for reporting her opinion, she's being criticized for publishing a personal attack complete with personal details and even a home address!
Newspapers would be very boring indeed if all they contained were hard facts. Some informed opinion is what turns a dry list of times & events into something worth reading, and worth thinking about.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
WHAS Radio (and Clear Channel Entertainment) fired John Ziegler a few years ago because of similar personal attacks against a fellow "personality".
Up until that point, his talk-show was the highest rated program in the market, and he was getting a pass on a lot of his attitute because he did bring in the advertising money.
But he also went too far, and ultimately got punished for it.
So, here's how we help get rid of Ms. O'Gara:
Check the local bookstores and supermarket magazine racks. For any company that carries this magazine - write them a letter of COMPLAIN about Ms. O'Gara.
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
Some people here appear to be assuming that there is some truth in the O'Gara article. It seems much more likely that everything in it originated in her imagination.
It's barely possible that she investigated a Pamela Jones: the wrong one.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
See, in a democracy (or even in a republic), when the government violates the law, the people need to know so they can decide whether it's time to change governments. When an individual criminal violates the law...well, it's still news, but it doesn't have the same level of import and urgency.
To be "employed" would require payment, and no LinuxWorld editor, senior or otherwise receives any money. That's right, they work for free. There is no office.
The big problem with the Maureen O'Gara articles is while she has no affiliation with LinuxWorld, all of the Sys-Con Linux subject articles from other publications show up on the LinuxWorld website, giving readers the impression she writes for LinuxWorld. Every time O'Gara writes an article, not only do the Linuxworld editors get all upset that her crap is showing up on their website, they receive a boatload of nasty email that assume they ok'd it!
Why don't the editors just do something about it? Well, in the new world of "journalism", Sys-con central decides what goes on the websites, and the magazine editors only have a say over what goes in the print version.
Technical magazines never used to pay much for articles-- when I was writing articles $750 was average, but I'd spend weeks working on it. Now there's so many people still out of work they'll work for free just to keep a foot in the tech. industry somehow.
Morally repugnant acts undertaken in front of the world by soldiers who are supposed to be carrying out the democratic will of the American people, in breach of international law - and the question of how and when they will be held account for those actions - seem like they add up to a pretty big news story to me. Bigger than the fact that there are individual evil people in the world who individually do evil things and they sometimes get caught and punished for doing so. Reporting on specific incidents of domestic crime should not generally be the stuff of frontpage NYT news, because it isn't world-changing.
The fact that, to you, the immigration status of a murderer (or an accused murderer - I'm not familiar with the case, so have no idea if a verdict has been handed down) seems to be of greater import than their mental state, or possibly even guilt, leads me to suspect that you believe that this appalling individual act should have been reported more widely to draw attention to what you maybe perceive as a wider problem with illegal immigrants. Sadly, that simply suggests you have a fundamental problem figuring out what facts are relevant, and makes me glad that it's not you in charge of editorial policy on a major international newspaper.
Apparently, no one has realized yet that Maureen O'Gara is actually Jeff Gannon/Gucket in a dress.
from http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&si d=20050507193419581&title=&type=article&pid=311460 #c311509
PJ's take lets move on:
Authored by: PJ on Sunday, May 08 2005 @ 10:45 AM EDT
I agree. The person who originally suggested you all
go and look used a Long Island, NY, IP address, and
guess where you-know-who lives?
If we make the above assumption, we may deduce that
this was done for one of the following reasons:
1. to get you guys mad so you would act like "extremists" so
MOG and the mob can attack you again;
2. to get me mad so I sue her for slander, thus revealing
where I really live;
3. to set me up for the next "suicide" -- over my
"distress"
over "losing" my privacy. I have had some, including one
ex SCO employee, suggest this latter scenario as being
plausible. It seems not everyone in Utah thinks the
"suicides" were suicides.
Just in case 3 is true, let me state for the record that I
couldn't care less what MOG thinks of me, even if what
she wrote were true. I also don't care what anyone else
thinks. I'm proud of who I am and the choices I've made
in my life. I don't even care if Groklaw came to an end
tomorrow. I have no ambition, never have, didn't do
Groklaw to become famous or rich, so I truly don't
care. I would never commit suicide over anything, because
I think it's wrong, and I surely wouldn't over anything MOG
wrote, for I hold her in the deepest disdain, when I'm not
laughing at her.
From a dictionary:
Those silly "common people"...
Sorry, I mistook the MedAbiliti portion as an ad. See? One reason to read articles in full, even if they enrage you...
Sorry again...
mods, please can you nuke the copies of the article posted with addresses and phone numbers.
From the Google cache of the original page:http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:t5F0lsD5UW sJ:jdj.sys-con.com/read/83267.htm+read/83267.htm&h l=en&lr=&client=firefox&strip=1
Exclusive: Who Is 'PJ' Pamela Jones of Groklaw.Net?
Pamela Is A 61-Year-Old Jehovah's Witness Who Lives In A Shabby Genteel Garden Apartment In Hartsdale, New York
By: Maureen O'Gara
May 7, 2005 09:15 PM
A few weeks ago I went looking for the elusive harridan who supposedly writes the Groklaw blog about the SCO v IBM suit.
The now-famous opinion-shaping open source leader Pamela Jones, aka "PJ," doesn't give conventional face-to-face interviews. Never has, near as anyone knows. All communication is virtual. Only one person in the world has ever claimed to have met her - in the pressroom at LinuxWorld in Boston complete with a Pamela Jones badge - and described her as a fortyish reddish-blonde who giggled a lot. [address removed], NY[Photo: May 7, 2005 12:37 PM - [address removed], New York. The last known address of Pamela Jones, as the superintendent of the building calls it, Ms. Pam Jones.]
Oh yeah? Wonder what cold crème she uses.
Pamela Jones is a 61-year-old Jehovah's Witness who lives in a shabby genteel garden apartment in desperate need of an interior decorator on a heavily trafficked commercial road at [address removed], New York. [removed] is in Westchester and Westchester is IBM territory.
See, even though Groklaw treats cell phones like they were Kleenex and changes its unpublished numbers regularly, one number it left with a journalist led to this flat and - wouldn't you know it but - some calls from there had been placed to the courts in Utah and to the Canopy Group so obviously this just isn't any Pamela Jones.
Pamela has lived in apartment [removed] for 10 years at least, according to the super, who says he's watched people move in, have children, and the children marry and move away.
Now, this isn't your usual anonymous New York apartment. It's practically a self-contained village where the super goes for the old ladies' groceries when there's snow on the ground and people know each other's business.[Photo: May 7, 2005 12:41 PM - [address removed], New York. The last known address of Pamela Jones.]
But the super didn't know much about Pamela except that she had a computer, worked at home (maybe sometimes) for a lawyer, was "paranoid" - his word - and "sensitive to smells."
He remembered how he was cleaning paintbrushes one day and she came running down the stairs screaming "Fire."
She was also missing and had been for weeks.
Nobody there knew where she was.
She had up and disappeared one day, and the super was worried about her. He said her son had dropped by and he didn't know where she was, and that some strange man that "nobody knew," as the super described him, had tried to get into her apartment while she was gone - the Medeco lock she had had installed on her door - something nobody else in the complex seemed to feel a need for - was more expensive than the door. But, as it happened, the super said, she had just sent in her rent in an envelope postmarked Connecticut. Like an episode out of "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego," the trail led to [address removed], Connecticut, 24 miles away. Sure enough, parked in the driveway was Pamela's car, just as the super had described it, a dark gray '90s Japanese number with a bunch of Jehovah Witness pamphlets tossed on the backseat.
The woman at the house, Barbara Jones Sharnik, told a disjointed story. She didn't know Pamela, Pamela hated her, Pamela wasn't there, Pamela left her car there because it got bumped, Pamela left her car there because she left town, and so on.
Afterwards Barbara called the cops, and then the cops called the number we left with her and the cops said that she was Pamela
You're "telling" your employers that you're quitting via a blog? And you're a "senior editor"? Wow. When my employees are ready to leave, they tell me face to face, as opposed to writing it on some virtual diary that nobody reads.
First, he's not telling them he's quitting. It's an ultimatum: Do X or I quit.
Second, given the phenomenon of the Slashdot Effect, I'm thinking that somebody has now read it.
Third, this is known as an open letter and is a common technique when there's a public aspect to a private issue.
Agreed, and it's definitely working. I don't even know him, but if I was running a company in his line of business I'd bump his resume' near the top based on that alone.
Taking a principled stand against O'Gara's over-the-top shill work and credibility that rivals only the Weekly World News, I've wondered just why the heck LinuxWorld hasn't dumped her years ago.
Number of hits, you say? That's eating your seed corn. Short term hits at the expense of long term credibility isn't a good survival strategy in today's flood of Web-based alternatives.
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Domains in the same netblock, according to Netcraft:
c om
/etc/hosts mapped to 127.0.0.1 shortly.
sys-con.com
linuxworld.com
linuxbusinessnews.
linuxbusinessweek.com
java-buyerguide.com
And various sub-domains of these. These will be added to my
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
It's quite simple: Darl McBride and SCOX hired a PI, which then fed O'Gara. You just have to listen to that last bizarro-phone conference with SCOX to see that this is no paranoid delusion.
Comparing O'Gara trash vs. PJ's response is probably the best meta-summary of the whole debacle.
Linuxtoday editor thinks so
6 OPBZ
Editor's Note: Screed Attempts to Silence Voice Against SCO
http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/200505090092
There is _nothing_ newsworthy about this story. It consists of personal and private information about a person who may, or may not, be the PJ of Groklaw. And, even if it is, who cares!?
Does it add anything about SCO vs. IBM? About how Groklaw works? About the relationship of Groklaw to the parties involved in the lawsuits? No, no, and no.
Those points might be newsworthy. This story doesn't touch though. This story is not news. It's an offensive invasion of privacy.
Steven
The article begins:
So, I wonder where she got the idea to "attack the person, not the argument".
A real gem is later:
Sentence fragments aside and obligatory "pot calling the kettle" comments aside, some "opinions" are back by evidence, at which point they become "arguments". Others remain merely the flatulence of mind.
Seriously guys, if someone's writing crap like that, she's clearly on a payroll. If you pretend to some sort of journalistic integrity, you don't work with them. The outcome of this can only be Mr. Turner's resignation; this is like the bouncer of a tittie bar writing the manager, threatening to quit because the girls are prostitutes. Who do you think is profiting from the arrangement?
They were working for the government, therefore they were the government.
I think it's worth mentioning here that the copyright system punishes and rewards in such a way that that promotes hype over substance. I think it's unfair to "blame society", while at the same time holding this system of punishment and reward in place. In a copyright society, it is always the information that turns the most heads that gets the most money, where in a non copyright world the information that has the most value is rewarded the most.
Of cource I know people would say, well Linux Journal is copyrighted too, to which I would respond - most people who are subscribing would do so as a sign of support for the authors and not because they are the cheaper that the competitors. Besides, I don't know of anything in that publication that couldn't be gotten online anyhow, but people still support it.
I used to purchase a number of journals off the shelf just to check their content, quality, etc. The best were then turned into subscriptions. However, it was my distinct impression that Linux World was just along for the ride for the cash. Their staff writers that did not even know the meaning of free software. In their reviews of products they equated free with no cost.
Perhaps a year ago - I was quite surprised to even find them still publishing, though they seemed a bit higher quality than previously I still have no urge to read their content. This incident just confirms my gut estimation of those backing the publication: I am glad they got minimal support from me.
Hmm. Whichever side of the argument you come from, that article was shameful rubbish. It's the kind of thing that even a freshman gossip magazine would baulk at publishing (and I know, I edited one once). I've no problem with righteous vitriol against opponents, but was just grubby stalking.
P.
If people really want to see O'Gara gone, they should contact the companies that advertise in Sys Con Media publications, and let them know that you will not read any Sys Con Media publications while O'Gara is writing for them. If you contact Sys Con Media directly, they'll be overjoyed at the amount of free publicity that's being generated. If enough people contact the advertisers and let them know that the situation is unacceptable, they'll pull their ads. It's pretty hard to run a magazine with no advertising revenue.
PJ's writing does tend to have a bit of that paranoic edge, though.. as this post shows.
It's not paranoia if the really are out to get you, as O'Gara's "article" shows.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Don't give them the hits. Above is a text copy of the info, read that instead.
-Charlie
True, but PJ has had that thread in her writing for quite awhile now on her site.
I read PJ and enjoy her analyses, and I bear her no ill will. Some of the things she puts into her writings have a paranoiac/persecuted edge that has struck me as a bit odd, though.
Now, there's no doubt that Maureen O'Gara has gone over the edge..
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
it appears that Maureen O'Gara would be more qualified; after all, PJ hasn't published MOG's home address and that of her mother. Perhaps MOG's miffed that PJ has torpedoed virtually every article she's written. So, now it's gotten personal.
I stopped looking at LW's web site long ago specifically because of MOG's poorly researched pieces and her bitter style. Why they allowed her to publish details of a journalist's personal life when it's entirely possible that there really were threats to that journalist's life is beyond me. Now, of course, if anything does happen to the woman (PJ or not) whose mother lives at that Connecticut address the cops there will certainly have something to say to MOG. And lawyers will be involved. What if publication of those addresses led to someone being killed?
PJ's articles stand on their own merit without regard to the age, gender, religion and lifestyle of the writer. MOG just can't stand it that she is constantly upstaged by someone who shows her to the world for the twit she is.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Two before. Three After.
Lets do a 30 day boycott of any advertisers that fall within five pages of an article written by Ms. O'Gara.
Imagine the chaos this would cause....
Yea, I'll advertise in your magazine as long as I'm not within five pages of that woman!
Note to idiot moderators: Parent is actually a copy of O'Gara's article and is Informative. It's not parent's opinion. Get your heads out of your asses and stop modding parent as flamebait/overrated.
I am upset. If you write quite a bit, you learn a rule: you must never, ever write when you are upset. In such a state, clarity simply goes and what you thought was a masterpiece in truth was in fact... a pile of incomprehensible, misspelled crap.
I am going to do it anyway. I shall add a disclaimer: I am going to publish this article "as is" - no spell check, no Dave guard which turns my atrocious English into... well, English.
I am deeply upset and saddened by O'Gara's article on Pamela Jones at GrokLaw. To the point that I am absolutely speechless. I mean it. I don't know what to say.
I don't share O'Gara's ways nor approach. She seem to hate Groklaw, and the secrecy around this web site. Hatred is not a nice nor constructive feeling; it doesn't help anybody, and in fact it often goes against you (as it's going against Maureen right now); unfortunately, we all experience it and we all act out our anger sometimes.
This "pill" is here for two reason. The first one, is to ask you to... to forgive Maureen O'Gara. What she did was vile; but it was out of frustration and anger. She is a human being; she has made a great mistake; and she will pay for it. I ask you to forgive her because she is unforgivable, and it is right now that we all have to take out the best of ourselves and feel that even the unforgivable is... well, forgivable.
The second, more important reason why I am writing this (dangerously) unedited "pill", is to ask the question: why is Maureen's article unforgivable? I asked this to myself. In a way, you can even see where she is coming from: there is this wonderful site which is helping the demolition of SCO's absurd case, and it seems unlikely that a single individual could possibly run it all on her own. It is also true that if Groklaw were run by a bunch of IBM's lawyers, well, it would loose at least some of its credibility. I think I have reasons to believe that this is exactly what Maureen wanted to find out. Again, then: why is Maureen's article unforgivable?
Because there is a chance (and for a lot of us that's a fat chance) that Groklaw is run by a wonderful 40 or 60 year old woman or man who is a Christian or a Jehovah's Witness or a Buddhist, who believes in what she does to the point that she is willing to put herself in a dangerous position by doing so. Yes, I said dangerous, and I mean dangerous. There is a (big) chance that Pamela is in fact a woman who lives her everyday life, has a job, does what she has to do, and runs Groklaw thanks to the support of the whole Free Software and Open Source Community.
This paragraph is for you, Maureen: if that were the case, Maureen, you hurt somebody beyond belief. You hurt somebody so much, that I can only hope you will never, ever find out quite how mad the damage was. Because if you did find out, you would never be able to forgive yourself.
Well, that's a big weight out of my chest. But I am not quite finished yet. I want to talk about myself for a minute.
I am an ex-cracker born in Italy and living in Australia. When I was 18 and 19, I cracked quite a few computers and nearly went to jail for it. My phones were tapped, and only an amazing series of coincidences saved me. I didn't go through a trial, but a lot of people around me did. I never destroyed a system, but I did read files I should have read. If one day I made somebody very powerful really angry, I can see how they would be able to dig in my past and find all sorts of things that I would find "embarrassing" at least, compromising at worst. They could pick on my past as a cracker, on my religion (I am a Buddhist), on the way I live my life (I don't shop and yet I am not stingy), or on another million things.
Maureen, this is another paragraph for you. I am sure you haven't been a cracker, but if I were to look very, very thoroughly into your l
But that's ok. I'm not basing this off of anything in O'Gara's story, because I'm not going to read it, but PJ does enough to make herself look bad on her own website. Her tone is often just on the edge of snide and unprofessional. She is extremely partisan.
But she keeps publishing true shit. O'Gara can trash talk as long as she likes (I think Jehova's Witnesses are idiots too.) but that won't change whether PJ is providing timely factual information. Sure, she might be completely batty. Doesn't matter. She's batty and she's still more on top of it than Ms. O'Gara. Show us that she's a habitual liar (like... O'Gara) and then maybe she'll get less credit. Don't care if she's a religious nut.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
But at the same time - wouldn't that edge be warrented? PJ has been attacked personally before. This particular case is just another incident - though certainly an escalation over pervious attacks. Little wonder her nerves might be getting a bit raw.
You make a fair point - it'd be nice to see no indication that these attacks are taking any toll (assuming they are). But I'm not so sure it's really that remarkable. That is, unless you're claiming that this edge you're noting is affecting her judgement; that PJ's claims are beginning to stray from the truth?
Syscon has lots of advertisers. Call them, write them, and politely tell them that you find their support of Sys-Con so repugnant that you will not longer buy their products. Be polite and be firm, don't rant, don't threaten.
Make the connection that advertising on any Sys-Con related publication will lose your business. A hundred of these, and they will think twice.
I write for The Inq, and on a given story, I get ~5 letters out of 20K reads. If any advertisers get 100, they will sure as hell sit up and take notice. Spend the time, write up why you find MoG and Sys-Con so repulsive, and go from there. The more articulate you are, the more effect you will have.
Happy hunting, I have already pulled out the rolodex, and I have sent a few off to some choice individuals. If you know anyone, write them, if not, you can always look things up on the web site's contact or press info pages.
-Charlie
I am Quatermass who fairly regularly posts comments on Groklaw. I do not usually post on Slashdot, but I have a few words to say about Ms. O'Gara's article.
I do not know whether the "facts" alleged in Ms. O'Gara's article are correct or not, and whether or not she (or whoever supplied her the information) is describing the correct PJ or not.
For the sake of argument, in this post, I will assume that Ms. O'Gara is describing the correct PJ (if she did not, that makes her O'Gara's article even worse in my view).
If you boil down Ms. O'Gara's article to the essentials the "facts" alleged about PJ are this:
1. Ms. O'Gara doesn't like PJ's residence
2. Ms. O'Gara doesn't like PJ's car
3. Ms. O'Gara doesn't like the locks on PJ's apartment (Ms O'Gara then criticises PJ for these locks, but then goes on to also criticise PJ for having strange men apparently trying to break into her apartment - rather an odd and self-contradictory position don't you think?)
4. Ms. O'Gara alleges that PJ has been involved in business with her son.
5. Ms. O'Gara alleges that PJ has a fear of being stalked, and criticizes her for this (at the same time PJ tells us that PJ is being pursued if not stalked by Ms. O'Gara herself, as well as two strange men apparently trying to break into PJ's apartment - again, another odd and self-contradictory position, don't you think?)
6. Ms. O'Gara says PJ is older than Ms. O'Gara thought. (Well more fool you O'Gara, PJ never claimed to be any particular age, so who cares what O'Gara thought PJ's age was?)
7. Ms. O'Gara implies criticism of PJ's religious affiliation. (so what? Who cares what PJ's religion is)
8. Ms. O'Gara notes that PJ lives within a few miles of IBM's headquarters (without mentioning so do about a million or more other people too)
9. Ms O'Gara alleges that PJ has a brother with an expensive apartment.
10. Ms O'Gara says she questioned PJ's mother and didn't get clear answers. (So what?). I'd also point out that if PJ is 61, then PJ's mother must be in her 80s or 90s
Well, none of the above, have anything at all to do with the validity or otherwise of PJ's writing. PJ's writing stands for itself, and everybody should judge it on that basis.
The majority of the above, when striped of implied criticism are not particularly unusual - and not one is divergent with any fact that PJ has told us about herself.
The attack on PJ's age, car, religion, housing and brother, are purely gratutious personal attacks. All play to the lowest common denominator and people's prejudice. I really do not care what O'Gara thinks of PJ's car or house.
The self-contradictions in O'Gara's article abound, some of which are noted above.
I note that somebody else on Slashdot has alleged that O'Gara's information comes from SCO's private detectives seeking PJ. I do not know if this allegation is true or not.
I would note however the following:
1. In January 2003, O'Gara published an article about SCO's plans to monetize their IP allegedly in Linux. This was two months before SCO sued IBM. This was six months before SCO announced their Linux IP licensing program. This was long before SCO had made any public statements about their plans for licensing Linux, or alleged infringements in Linux. So where did O'Gara get this information from?
2. On September 18th O'Gara published an article claiming that SCO would sue IBM for a fraud claim, in Monterey, by putting SVR4 code (as opposed to SVR3 code) into AIX5L. [Maureen O'Gara misnames the UNIX versions in her article).
At the time that this was written, the only court document that mentioned fraud, and the AIX 5L was *sealed*, SCO's supplemental memorandum on discovery. This was filed with the court, without permission apparently in August, and properly filed on 13 September 2004.
We have not seen this document, but we know that it exists, because IBM's reply memo has recently been unseale
To: sales@barracudanetworks.com, press@barracudanetworks.com
Date: May 9, 2005 11:10 AM
Subject: boycott of your products due to SYS-CON
I'm writing to inform you I am engaging in a personal boycott of all your publications due to your affiliation Maureen O'Gara, who is
currently stalking the Groklaw author Pamela Jones.
O'Gara's most recent "article" consisted of personal information about Ms. Jones, including her home address and disparaging comments about
Ms. Jones' living conditions.
The article contained a number of offensive comments about the Jehovah Witnesses, under the guise of "accusing" Ms. Jones of being one.
I will not purchase any products or services from any firms who do business with SYS-CON while a paranoid, delusional pseudo journalist such as Maureen O'Gara remains on your payroll.
I am writing your advertisers to inform them of this decision, so they are aware that their use of your site for advertising purposes is
costing them business.
From: Michael Perone
To: *********
Date: May 9, 2005 11:24 AM
Subject: RE: boycott of your products due to SYS-CON
Michael Perone
Call me 650 292 1523
To: Michael Perone
Date: May 9, 2005 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: boycott of your products due to SYS-CON
I'm afraid I can't call you during the day today, as I am at work and need to keep my line available for client calls.
I have noting against Barracuda Networks aside from your advertising with a company that employs a stalker disguising herself as a journalist.
You can see a copy of the article in question at
http://www.clientservernews.com/
The above link does not contain the photographs of the home of Pamela Jones that ran in other online publications running the article.
So long as Maureen O'Gara is employed by SYS-CON, I will not purchase any products from any company that advertises on their sites or in their publications. If SYS-CON fires Maureen O'Gara or a company ceases advertising with SYS-CON sites and publications, then I would have no reason to avoid their products.
From: Michael Perone
To: ***********
Date: May 9, 2005 11:46 AM
Subject: RE: boycott of your products due to SYS-CON
We don't emplyy this person according to our records.
To: Michael Perone
Date: May 9, 2005 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: boycott of your products due to SYS-CON
I know you don't employ Maureen O'Gara, however, you advertise on web sites owned and operated by SYS-CON, who does employ her. So long as your advertisements run on SYS-CON owned sites, and Maureen O'Gara remains a SYS-CON employee, then I will not purchase your products.
This is nothing personal, I'm informing all of the companies that advertise on SYS-CON sites of the same thing.
Matthew Miller
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
After the "bozo sues open source" story last week from O'Gara, I sent an email to SugarCRM, whose ad was running next to the story. For those not in the know, SugarCRM is an open source CRM suite that is highly regarded in the CRM market. I figured they might like to know that they were advertising in a journal that is constantly attacking open source while claiming to be about "Linux Business News".
Well, their marketing person got back to me and said they don't run ads on Linux Business News - only with Sys-con's LinuxWorld site.
So I wrote back explaining that I just checked and the ad was right there, and described the ad.
She got back to me saying that they didn't even KNOW the ad was running on that site, as they only had a contract with Sys-con to run on LinuxWorld - and she would be checking their ad rep at Sys-con about it.
So it looks like Linux Business News is running ads unbeknownst to the companies involved (either that or SugarCRM never understood their contract). I find that somewhat bizarre. Is there some business benefit to LBN running ads without the knowledge of the companies involved?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
So, the "story" is how a pro-SCO "journalist" digs up the phone records of someone running a different web site.
And how that "journalist" posts the address (with pictures?) of the other person's home.
And tracks down someone who may be the other person's mom.
And the police get involved.
This is a HUGE story not only for the invasion, but for the implications it carries for anyone who comes out against SCO.
I knew it. I tracked her down like 6 months ago but wasn't sure enough it was her to post it. She's a really great girl. I have a lot of respect for her.
I guess Linux is ready for grandma.
Absolutely! Most advertisers request a minimum number of impressions for a placed AD. Putting an AD on multiple sites will increase the number of impressions.
Is SYS-Con defrauding advertisers*
* unfounded and unresearched claim (C) MOG 2005
is not journalism at all. it is commercial advocacy.
now that we have that cleared up, journalists , like everyone else, do have biases. however, it is their job to report objectively despite their personal bias. in other words, they have a duty to report the story accurately even if it goes against their personal bias. and no, accurately does not mean simply picking two sides and giving them equal credence as is so common these days.
what mog does is not journalism, as noted above, and any publisher that drives their periodicals with her tripe is not a news organization, but rather an entertainment tabloid or propaganda machine.
as for blame?
you can easilly frame an objective piece so that it has hooks and intrigue and whatnot. it is not necessary to abuse the process to generate revenue based on what you think your readers might like to hear.
clearly mog is has to take the responsibility for what she writes, especially if she wants to continue abusing the notion that she is a journalist. the established and verifiable facts do not correlate with mog's reporting and too often she resorts to personal insults, threats and innuendo.
sys-con clearly have to take responsibility for what they publish and have an obligation to accuracy if they are going to continue to abuse the notion that they are a news publisher. the attitudes of sys-con's owners regarding the veracity of mog [they don't feel they are responsible as they are just a "publisher"- this from an email response] and their emphasis of mog's articles despite widespread and vocal fcat correction from their own readers shows that they lack the integrity needed in a news publisher.
blaming the readers for a person or company's lack of journalistic integrity is incredibly weak. this is journalism and you really shouldn't apply market-force supply and demand arguments to discussions about it [that would be propaganda].
sum.zero
# Here are the lines for your /etc/hosts file
# to boycott sys-con sites
127.0.0.1 coldfusion.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 dotnet.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 eclipse.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 issj.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 itsolutions.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 jdj.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 linux.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 linuxbusinessweek.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 mxdj.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 pbdj.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 symbian.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 weblogic.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 webservices.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 websphere.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 wireless.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 www.sys-con.tv
127.0.0.1 xml.sys-con.com
127.0.0.1 www.linuxworld.com
127.0.0.1 www.sys-con.com
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Don't bother writing to individual advertisers, until you have gone after the after networks (which show many different ads)
l ick
For example: If you go to www.google.com and look at the info on their AdWords and other advertising programs, there should be a page which has terms of service for publishers (i.e. sites like LBN) displaying their ads.
Nearly always the terms of service will include clauses forbidding show of sites that are intended to be hateful, **invasive of privacy**, violative of laws, libellous, etc.
If you find a term of service that you believe LBN violates, then write directly to Google, citing the relevant term, and why you believe LBN may violate it, and asking them to investigate to have their publisher compliance team review the situation.
Repeat as necessary for any other network ads that you find ads for on LBN. In most cases, you can tell an ad is from a network by doing View Source on the web page, and reviewing which domain the ad links to, or pulls its image from.
Some other major advertising networks (I don't know which if any LBN uses) are:
doubleclick
burst
247media
fastclick
valuec
Anybody who wants to research this properly, please post which ad networks you see on LBN, as well as which specific term of their service, you believe LBN may violate. So that others may write similar emails to these ad networks.
LinuxWorld should offer to fire O'Gara if their subscriptions rise by x amount in 5 days.
Reads the same both ways:
OGARA GO
If I had been Maureen O'Gara, if I had found out this "truth" about PJ, I'd have backed away very quietly and carefully and not said a thing about what I found. It's bad enough when Darl is fuming and venting because he think some IBM front ruined his SCOsource venture with their fronted website.
Now Darl has to admit that he got bested by a single Jehovah's Witness who had hit beat on both active neuron count and morals....
Considering that people really are (or think they are) digging up details to damage her reputation, she could be forgiven if he is a bit protective of her privacy. However, her courtly restraint in this matter has already shamed the antagonists in their shrillness.
Google's cache text only
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
Quartermass wrote:
1. In January 2003, O'Gara published an article about SCO's plans to monetize their IP allegedly in Linux. This was two months before SCO sued IBM. This was six months before SCO announced their Linux IP licensing program. This was long before SCO had made any public statements about their plans for licensing Linux, or alleged infringements in Linux. So where did O'Gara get this information from?
Securities laws prohibit purchases and sales of securities on the basis of material non-public information. The sales of SCOX stock by SCOX insiders over the past 2+ years have been pursuant to so-called "10b5-1 plans" -- basically, pursuant to SEC Rule 10b5-1, a purchase or sale is _not_ deemed to be on the basis of material non-public if it is made pursuant to a plan entered into before the person involved possessed material non-public information. The idea is that an executive could adopt a plan to sell his holdings over time (say, 10,000 shares per month, every month) and not have the validity of the sales questioned as a result of the subsequent acquisition of material non-public information. If you look at many of the "Form 4" documents filed by SCOX insiders, which describe sales of securities, they state that they were made pursuant 10b5-1 plans (the first I saw was a Robert C. Bench filing of March 12, 2003). I believe (though I cannot find the reference right now) that SCOX has stated that the plans were adopted in February 2003, shortly before they "discovered" the alleged IP violations and engaged the Boies lawfirm -- the lawsuit itself was announced around March 7, 2003. If MOG published information suggesting SCOX intended to embark on the IBM and related lawsuits in Jan 03, any Feb 03 10b5-1 plans would have been adopted "too late" to immunize SCOX insiders against charges that they adopted such plans while in possession of material non-public information.
As I said below, there is a better way. Don't bitch at MoG or Sys-Con, that will only inflame their semi-masochistic sense of persecution. Instead, write their advertisers.
If 100 people write polite letters to the sys-con advertisers politely, and I do mean politely, informing them that their support of Sys-Con, MoG and others is costing them your business, it will hit Sys-Con where it hurts.
I write for The Inq, I know how the game is played. If you want attention, polite and cogent letters that hit them in the wallet are the only things that work.
Flaming them only hurts your cause, clicking on them brings them more money. It is pretty obvious that they are out for hits at any cost, that is how their bills are paid. Cut that out and you end the games, play into it, and it gets worse.
If you notice, there is nothing on Groklaw about it, that would be playing the game MoG wants you to play. Don't feed the trolls, cut off their food instead.
I personally wrote several people I know about it, and lets see what becomes of it. Do the same. If someone wants to make a list of Sys-Con advertisers and post it below, great. If you want to hunt down that and contact info, better still. You can find the contact info on most vendor's web pages under contact us or press links. Be polite and firm, and tell them their wallets are at risk. Have fun also.
-Charlie
Well, he's anonymous, but from the writing style and thorough detail, I'd say that this is certainly sounds like Quatermass from Groklaw.
It occurs to me that if O'Gara really is a sock puppet for SCO, that would certainly explain the venom toward PJ and Groklaw in her articles...
What strikes me the most about Maureen O'Gara's smear job was how much she jumped on the "Jehovah's Witness" thing. I don't like to think of myself as intolerant, but I admit to having some prejudice against JWs.
I've read through a few issues of the Watchtower, and had decided that the only people who could find it interesting are people who want their opinions spoon-fed to them by an authority figure. So until now, for me, finding out that someone is a practicing Jehovah's Witness would have been an effective means of diminishing my respect for that person. Until now.
PJ has shown what kind of person she is through intelligent analysis, tireless research, and candid admissions of even the most minor error (of which there have been very few from what I've seen). She has demonstrated unimpeachable integrity, pursuing the facts wherever they might lead.
I find it amusing that my reaction was the opposite of what Maureen O'Gara intended. Instead of lessening my respect for PJ, Maureen's allegations (whether or not they are true) have made me realize the wrongness of my prejudice towards Jehovah's Witnesses.
I am grateful to have been reminded that one should judge people by getting to know them instead of by the categories they seem to fit. At least MOG's abandonment of integrity and common sense had one tiny positive effect. I'm sorry that this contribution to my education had to come at PJ's expense.
Best wishes, PJ.
include $sig;
1;