Firefox Community, Sickly Out of Control

darlingbuddy writes "After users started reporting Firefox's 150 million+ downloads, this article mentions why it's a bad move on the community's part. The author writes, "I'm proud of the community that pitched in enough donations for Firefox to get a full-page advertisement in The New York Times print edition, and I'm delighted to see them think of creative ideas for promotion, but reporting total downloads every so often and immaturely degrading Internet Explorer is ridiculous. The thing with these numbers is that they are misleading at best, and the only thing they accomplish is immature fanboyism. It's a fact that Internet Explorer is inferior to Firefox with its extensive collection of extensions and ability to support qualified web standards, but does the community need to resort to using third-class promotional tactics with total downloads number?"

Comments

Re:I call troll

[KarateExplosions]

And then the question becomes... Is McDonald's more immature for advertising how many billions they've served (obviously meaning burgers, not people), or for having a clown for a spokesman?

Soylent Green

[KarateExplosions]

The burgers are people!

And with 175 Billion served, they have done us a wonderful population-control service.

Re:I call troll

[Bogtha]

I wish that there was a way to eliminate the editors entirely and put everything on autopilot. Let the readers choose the stories, let the readers decide what topics are important.

This is exactly how Digg operates. Unfortunately, you are overestimating just how useful other readers are in determining which topics are important. Turns out, most people are idiots, and this is reflected in the stories that make it to the front page. The only real difference with Slashdot is that you can hold somebody accountable for the idiocy.

I think a hybrid approach would be better. Let Digg-style voting filter the unpopular articles away, and then let a group of site editors fix the writeup and decide which make it to the front page.