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Dvorak Admits To Trolling Mac Users
jalefkowit writes "Tech pundit John Dvorak has long been known for his inflammatory opinions. Many have suspected that these opinions are just a way to drive up traffic to his column. Now, we have it straight from the horse's mouth: Dave Winer has Dvorak on video describing his methodology for trolling the Mac community to pump up his stats."
I have to admit I'm also guilty of posting the occasional inflammatory story, but I find it's usually best to suffix the title with a question mark, and let our ever-knowledgeable readers hash out the issue and decide for themselves.
Dvorak is nothing other than the worlds most successful troll. As much as everyone here complains about him, we eat it up and come back for more. We used to be able to pretend it was the editors foisting him upon us... but lo' and behold, democratic Digg comes along, and he still makes the front page!
The thing is though one has to understand that the Mac community is a tiered structure. At the top there are we Mac users who are experienced computer users, who understand what we are doing and how computers and operating systems work and accept the existence of things such as 'bugs' and 'vulnerabilities' etc.
Unfortunately the thing that gives us all a bad name are the very vocal ignorant users that for example simply flat out refuse to accept any criticism of Apple or it's products whatsoever - in fact I'd go as far to say it becomes a religious issue as no matter how much evidence they are confronted with, they either are not capable of comprehending what is being presented to them or if they are, refuse to even consider it as this could mean Apple *might* be wrong and as they know, this cannot possibly happen as they consider Apple infallible.
Very, very odd behaviour and quite annoying as for example, should I attempt to get someone to consider a Mac, all it takes is someone they know who has 'heard about those Mac zealots' to put them off.
Consider also that any comment on apple.slashdot that however truthful, might mention a bug or vulnerability or other otherwise is perceived as a criticism gets modded as troll or flamebait (like this comment for example), tells a lot about the community.
Actually, this does remind me of one of those stories where someone does a scientific study to find out something that "everyone already knows."
Except, of course, we didn't all know it before, we suspected it, and assumed it was true. Every once in a while you find out that something "everyone knows" isn't true after all, so getting confirmation does have value.
Ann Coulter is the rightwing Anchor Troll in their "Overton Window" strategy.
It's a simple way to force the public debate "spectrum window" to your end of the spectrum by trolling unthinkable statements in public. Successful trolls create only predictable responses, not any further development of the ideas. So the "unthinkable" is now part of the public conversation, without risking rejection by anyone actually thinking about it. Changing the ideas in the public window of the spectrum moves the window closer to the new idea. Now the window includes more of the thinkable ideas that were excluded or marginalized, while the window excludes or marginalizes the ideas previously more in the "center", but further away from the troll.
The only risk with overtonning the window is that the troll discredits its entire end of the spectrum by association. Which is why it's important that the troll make as extreme, ridiculous comments as possible. And frequently defend their statements with "I was just kidding". The associates who benefit from the troll in their neighborhood must also not even repudiate the troll, as any association (positive or negative) is contagious. The troll must work alone. Though of course they can be paid by the same beneficiaries, or have their "home markets" all subsidized by the same beneficiaries.
Now Ann Coulter actually makes sense, probably for the first time. As do her fellow trolls like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and most of the rightwing talkradioheads.
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make install -not war
I said it before and I'll say it again: Dvorak is deliberately screwing the advertisers that pay for his web hits.
Dvorak publishes on PC-centric websites, but he trolls Mac users for hits. The PC advertisers are getting screwed, they pay for advertising to PC buyers, Mac users aren't the target audience. The trolling articles draw a massive influx of Mac users, the PC advertisers pay for all those hits from people that will never buy their products.
The only way Dvorak is going to stop trolling is if the PC advertisers wake up and realize their money is being wasted by a maniac that values his own ego more than he provides value for advertisers.
"Mac" is the brand name of a product line (of computers) made by Apple. Products do not troll. Apple is a company, so if trolling is being done, it is Apple (or more specifically Apple Marketing) that is doing it. Choose your nouns carefully!
Apple's OS X v. Windows XP ads are hardly trolling. It is not trolling when a company compares their product line against their competitor's in a non-subjective way.
When I pull up the terminal window and type 'uptime' my Mac will return a date figure which is in months (and for a while there in years + months!) I have owned a PC running Windows XP and this was never the case. So memory fragmentation and frequency of rebooting are a legitimate comparison between the two platforms.
The iLife suite of applications, like iPhoto, iTunes, iEtc, is far better integrated, reliable and functional than any of the lifestyle applications that Microsoft bundles with Windows. So again, the point that Apple is making is legitimate. Just because you don't like the comparisons being drawn does not make the act of doing so flaming any more than my debate with you is flaming. Too often people call out others for flaming simply based on the fact that they don't like what the other party is saying.
This is not the case with Dvorak. I've been reading him since the late 80s/early 90s. While not being as overtly ridiculous a buffoon as someone like Bill O'Reilly, Dvorak's idea of "fair and balanced" is about as legitimate as that of Fox News. He often chooses which facts to include in a story to give it the slant he wants. He is consitently anti-Apple and makes little attempt to hide the fact. He reminds me of 60-Minutes' Andy Rooney or that idiot on ABC News, John Stossel. (Note: That bit about John Stossel was flaming. The man has the epistemological skills of a turnip and regularly makes an ass of himself on national television.)
The point isn't to hate Dvorak or harbor any emotion toward him whatsoever. The point is that he exists and has the right to voice his opinion, just like when skinheads march or Rupert Murdoch distorts the news. The only way to make people like them go away is to stop listening to them. How many times is a guy like Dvorak going to cry wolf (or inferior product) before people learn to roll their eyes at him? How many people in this country listen to writers like him because they're simply looking for someone they perceive to be in a position of authority (paid writer) to legitimize the things they already want to believe? It is not about facts, truth, or knowledge, it's all about spin.
It was only about 20 years ago that Z-D tasked Dvorak with trolling Mac users as the inside back cover columnist for the old MacUser, where he openly admitted to writing things to inflame Mac users enough that they'd have to buy the magazine just to have reference for their 10-page crayon screeds to the editors against him. And if ancient history and paper is too hard, he has said what he said to Winer oon at least a half-dozen TWiT podcasts over the past year. This is not news, it is Dvorak stating an obvious truth for the umpteenth time. He is apparently still getting a chuckle from the fact that some people who take everything too seriously (e.g. Dave Winer) still don't get the joke after having it explained to them repeatedly over decades. If Winer really thinks this is some great revelation of sin, he's got his head further inserted than ever.
It is the job of anyone who writes for ad-supported media to attract eyeballs, and Dvorak has never been ashamed of doing that job. Being scandalized by his honesty says a lot more about the intelligence (or maybe integrity) of those who are scandalized than it says about Dvorak.
He mentions that in the first five seconds of the vid.
If Dvorak was a serial killer, he'd be the one that's caught because he's just so damn proud of his body of work and smug enough to want to get caught so that he could explain to the great unwashed masses how brilliant he really is (not that it would help, because there's only so much the great unwashed can comprehend...).