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A Cautionary Tale of Open Source Social Technologies
eweekhickins writes "The 'country' drop-down menu on one organization's donations pages omits Israel as a country and includes 'Palestine.' Among other things, this means that Israelis can't donate to the organization from these pages; it also presents the risk of a PR nightmare for the organization. This EWeek story cautions that while basic Web 2.0 technologies combined with open source can be incredibly powerful and productive, they can also lead to disastrous results for an organization that isn't paying close enough attention."
I don't know why EWeek is specifically highlighting open source software. I don't see how closed source software is immune from this concern.
If you're a nonprofit, you need to look at all the software you're, open-source or not. If you're using software you need to examine it to make sure its not sending a message at odds with your organization.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
It's Open Source... How hard can that be! I mean really. it might be 2 lines of code more, or (if done right) just another database entry.
It isn't rocket surgery people. that's the strength of OSS, you *can* fix it without having to beg for a fix from your vendor!
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
I pointed out that this isn't just any omission and addition. When you omit Israel and add Palestine (which is not even recognized as a country by the United Nations) to a country drop-down menu, you seem to be making a very loaded political statement. Ugh, this is not a story. This isn't the case on the agency's own site, but it was the case on the pages for Causes, which puts widgets... Facepalm.
neither why is open source per se or social networking potential culprits there.
- Palestine appearing in the countries list because is a (valid?) short form of "Palestinian Territory, Occupied". If isnt valid is not Web 2.0 or open source fault, was a developer decision that could had been taken in any part of the chain (i agree that the chain in this particular case is pretty long).
- Israel not listed because, as with other 14 countries, their IP space is very used by fraudsters. Maybe with spam is easier to understand... If Israel were responsible for 80% of world spam, and because of that becomes filtered from a lots of mail servers (lots of countries used to be widely filtered because of spam coming from them), that would be anti-semitism of those servers admins? Maybe a bit worse, if an israeli ISP a lot of spam is being sent, and it ends a rbl (if behaves badly that way, will end in most), would be antisemitism too?
Is a nice spin to blame web 2.0 and open source for things that dont implies them to happen. Next big hurricane, if being tracked by web 2.0 sites and with open source software, will be blamed to them too.
Please don't bring the Israel/Palestine mudwrestling into slashdot. The walls have just been freshly painted, and it's not fundamentally a technology issue anyway, since those lobby groups will latch onto anything for publicity.
FUD. The pro-Israel activists are more annoyed that Palestine is recognized and is in the drop down menu more than Israel being omitted.
They spend a lot of time discouraging recognition of Palestine as an independent state and at every opportunity. Re-read the article again with that in mind. Palestine certainly IS a country and is recognized by many others around the world. The UN reference is a red herring. Israel occupies Palestine with military force.
Take note that it was a pro-Israel pressure group that started this 'controversy' with immediate threats to the developers.
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beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
So you would be happy if they replaced "Israel" with "The Zionist Entity"? Whether or not you think it matters, it's important to many people. Maps are political statements, as are lists of countries and their names. Pretending that Israel does not exist is a common practice in the Middle-East.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It might as well read: "A Cautionary Tale of Closed Source Social Technology". Go check ten random sites with nationality registration. Chances are, "Israel" is on the list, but "Palestinian Territory" isn't. They are no more indicative of the failure of closed source than this is of a failure of open source.
I wonder how many times they've bitched about the omission of Palestine... gee, none? What a surprise. Hypocrites.
I'm a little bitchy, but one can't play the anti-semitic card every time Israel is omitted/criticised. It devalues everybody.
The courteous way to deal with people is to assume that they've made an honest mistake before throwing around conspiracy theories and wild accusations of rascism and religious hatred.
What their stance: that a product should be boycotted and that an organisation must be anti-Semite and anti-Zionism, based on a country options drop-down box is reasonable?
Someone who isn't acting like an arrogant, spoilt child would simply point-out the error and ask that it be fixed. Then if nothing happens, perhaps send a stronger letter. Sending a threatening flame-mail, right off the bat, makes this group look like a bunch of arseholes (in my opinion).
They look even more antagonistic and stupid when the reason for the ommission of Israel is taken into account. It is due to being on an online fraud black list:
That's not how the Zionist lobby operates. They don't rely on courteous behaviour and goodwill. They bully people into submission by crying 'anti-semite!' and threatening to 'go and tell the whole Jewish community'.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
The inital list was "feature" complete.
Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Russia and a couple of other countries were ommited via the credit card processor.
( professedly due to exessive fraud.)
The person from israel who could not donate
found instant and easy issue with Palestine
being included.
The author blew it up for clicks or a donation
from Bill of Borg.
End of story.
G!
MACC