Not so sure about the troll [LWN.net]

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 16, 2008 22:37 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Don't feed the troll by sbergman27
Parent article: SCO to continue the fight?

I have argued with Mr Bergman before, but I have to agree with him here. PJ does excellent research, explains things great for us non-lawyers, is an excellent writer and has a gift for attracting non-techies to free software. But sometimes she is overenthusiastic and too trigger-happy.

His comments may be a bit harsh, but I think your troll-o-meter is a bit too sensitive. What I know is that I would like to see hard evidence this time before Microsoft takes the blame, something along the lines of the Halloween memos. And I don't doubt that Microsoft might be involved, but if we ask for fairness in others we should hold ourselves to the same standard.

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Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 16, 2008 23:00 UTC (Sat) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link]

She didn't blame Microsoft per se, she merely pointed out that the present funder has had a personal multibillion-dollar business relationship with Bill Gates in the past, made a joke about "Waldo," and left the conclusion about the relevance of this relationship to the reader. I don't object to people disagreeing with her about whether this relationship is relevant, but I do object to putting words in someone's mouth, distorting their evidence, and unconscionable namecalling.

You're right that I don't think he is a classic "troll" in the sense of someone who tries to provoke a flamewar for fun. But his behavior was trollish and unacceptable in dragging down the level of discussion to incendiary straw men and ad hominem invective. Readers looking for that sort of thing go to Slashdot, not LWN, and my implication was that it was pointless to argue with him as long as the discussion continued at that level.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 16, 2008 23:41 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

"""
She didn't blame Microsoft per se,
"""

She continued her silly "Where's Waldo" game.  That was the point of that paragraph in her
article.  "Proving" (in the Groklaw sense) the Microsoft involvement.  Groklaw is all about
presenting evidence.  But none is actually required to convict anyone there.

"""
You're right that I don't think he is a classic "troll" in the sense of someone who tries to
provoke a flamewar for fun.
"""

Well, you got that right. I've been advocating Unix since 1988, and Linux since 1996.  I'm
someone who is basically on your side, but who thinks that one of the well meaning members of
our community, whom I guess happens to be one of your personal heroes, goes out of bounds and
hurts the team rather frequently.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 17, 2008 1:22 UTC (Sun) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link]

She reported a factual multi-billion-dollar relationship between the new funder and a major player in the SCO/Linux saga; why is this not a reasonable thing to report? She didn't claim to have "proved" anything.

Speculation about my "personal heroes" is yet another attempt to sidetrack this discussion in to ad hominem considerations. Even if she were someone whose opinions were antithetical to mine, I would find gross distortions of her arguments in order to discredit them to be obnoxious. I was raised to believe that you should characterize even an opponent's position fairly before you attempt to refute it.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 17, 2008 2:57 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

"""
Speculation about my "personal heroes" is yet another attempt
"""

Uh.. right.  It's not that I really care that much about who your personal heroes might be.
If you wish to carry on believing that PJ presents the facts, and only the facts, without
interjecting any sort of silly and obvious biases which destroy what could otherwise be be a
sterling record of credibility, well... I guess that's your business.

But I will point out that you are distancing yourself from her Waldo game almost as much as I
am, claiming that she is just reporting the news like Walter Cronkite.  

But to me, her style has about as much in common with Walter Kronkite's as... oops, if I said
that we'd end up on a tangient about ad hominems... even though it's quite true and relevant.

At any rate, I don't beieve in flame wars.  I state my case, and then elaborate and repeat a
few times if it seems warranted.

Any more than that and it is just rude to the other readers.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 17, 2008 4:20 UTC (Sun) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link]

There you go again, playing rhetorical games, putting thoughts into my head and arguing against them.

Certainly, PJ interjects editorial commentary in many of her articles, and I've never claimed otherwise; she's entitled to her opinions, and one can judge them on a case-by-case basis. But right now, we're talking about this specific issue of her reporting on the investor's relationship to Bill Gates. And in this case, her entire allusion to her running "Waldo" joke, the joke that you've been going on and on about as a "psychotic" "conspiracy theory" that discredits our entire community, is three words ("So, there's Waldo."); horrors, what a baseless accusation! Otherwise, she merely gave a link to and a quote from an article on the business relationship in question (a relationship you grossly misstated, which was my reason for responding to your post in the first place).

It may be that you don't believe in flamewars, but as long as when you "state your case" it is based on hyperbole, gross distortion, and rhetorical sleight-of-hand, and evaporates completely when one compares your description of reality to the actual words in the original source, as long as you never admit to your fallacies when they are pointed out, you're going to generate flamewars.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 17, 2008 11:16 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

If I may inject something... I don't think Steve Bergman's case relies on distortion; it seems just a mocking understatement. Groklaw actually said:

Gates and Alwaleed have collaborated for at least two years. After attending a dinner at Gates's home in Bellevue, Washington, in early 2004, Alwaleed agreed to explore ways to assist Microsoft's expansion in Saudi Arabia.

Fact is, it doesn't really matter if the magical prince only had lunch with Bill Gates or was a close personal friend. You would not expect a SCO founder to be a Red Hat stockholder; the fact that this guy was a business associate of Mr Gates would not surprise anyone. Big money talks a lot between itself. If we are going to mistrust everyone who does business with Microsoft then I think the entire computer industry is tainted. Ditto with Gates.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 17, 2008 19:15 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

Thank you, man_ls, for the accurate clarification.

In the long run... credibility is more valuable than the facts.  PJ does a great job of
presenting the facts.  But she either does not realize how badly she compromises her own
credibility (which would not be surprising considering the like-minded crowd which surrounds
her on her site) or does not think that it matters.  Or perhaps she is overconfident enough to
think that we do not need to maintain credibility as a precious resource.

I, personally, have found that being surrounded by a like-minded community is, in the long
run, a liability.  While I am a fervent advocate of Unix, Linux, and OSS, I tend to shun
Linux-only news sites, these days, in favor of sites which cater to a very multi-platform
oriented community.  I consider LWN to be an exception due to the notably high quality of
original material here.  But even so, this thread has been an effective reminder of why I
don't hang out with the choir as much as I used to.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 0:34 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link]

Did you follow the link? Alwaleed didn't just have dinner at Gates' house and discuss using Microsoft software. He personally, along with Bill Gates and one other guy, pooled 4 billion dollars to buy a hotel chain. He's not just a Microsoft customer and one-time Gates dinner guest, he's a multi-billion-dollar personal business partner.

Whether you think this is relevant to Alwaleed funding SCO is a matter reasonable people can disagree about. But at least get your facts straight; this is like the fourth or fifth time in this thread that I've had to point out the above fact.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 0:58 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

"""
this is like the fourth or fifth time in this thread that I've had to point out the above
"""

Perhaps that is a good indication that "the above" is unconvincing, and that declaring
"There's Waldo" based upon "the above" is unwise and compromises one's credibility.  And if it
is unconvincing on a site as biased against SCO and Microsoft as we are here... how convincing
do you think it would be to more objective observers? 

Where's Waldo is a children's game, and should remain so.  It's not a license for adults to
jump to wild conclusions without reasonable evidence.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 16:35 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link]

It's not a question of whether you're convinced of anything, it's a question of whether you can describe the facts of the situation without gross distortion. Nor, apparently, are you able to acknowledge any correction that disagrees with your preconceived opinion.

Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. And if you have to be corrected multiple times on the same point it says more about you than anything else.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 20:30 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

"""
Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. And
if you have to be corrected multiple times on the same point it says more about you than
anything else.
"""

I consider that the evidence which you and PJ wave around, making declarations that "There's
Waldo" is so far from conclusive as to qualify as comical.  Your "facts" simply have a very
limited relevance. I absolutely despise Microsoft.  I want to see them gone.  

But please... come back with some real, relevant, conclusive facts.  And then I will be more
than willing to use them in my own advocacy of FOSS.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 20:53 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

Well, there's your problem.  You confuse facts with opinion.  "There's Waldo" has never been
thought a fact by anyone, except apparently you.  No wonder you have so much trouble.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 20:55 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link]

You are, of course, free to opine that the evidence is inconclusive, or (more to the point) dispute the relevance of the funder's relationship with Gates. But that doesn't give you license to misrepresent what the evidence was.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 18, 2008 21:17 UTC (Mon) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]

Ok, this looks like it has gone about as far as it needs to, doesn't it?  I don't think anyone
is changing anyone else's mind at this point and the thread is becoming annoying to some.

jake

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 20, 2008 2:55 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]

Nor does it give him the right to call her psychotic. Psychotic is skinning your cat, putting
your PJ's on it and putting it in your bed. Psychotic is also showing up at your home in the
middle of the night with five or six knives, a shovel, a bag of lime and a bunch of trash
bags. 

Making allusions to an alleged scheme between multi-billionaires is simply biased journalism,
or more commonly, blogging. Personally I was always under the impression Groklaw was a blog,
although there is some stupendous information there it's always been colored by PJ's feelings.
Right or wrong that's just the way she runs her site, personally I don't mind. But calling her
Psychotic for it is way over the line. Personally I think the OP owes her an apology for such
a blatant public libel. 

psy·chot·ic  [sahy-kot-ik]
–adjective
1.	characterized by or afflicted with psychosis.

psy·cho·sis  [sahy-koh-sis]
1.	a mental disorder characterized by symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, that
indicate impaired contact with reality.
2.	any severe form of mental disorder, as schizophrenia or paranoia.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 17, 2008 20:20 UTC (Sun) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

"""
There you go again, playing rhetorical games, putting thoughts into my head
""" 

I really and truly think that you are taking this thread too personally.

Not so sure about the troll

Posted Feb 17, 2008 21:25 UTC (Sun) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]

No, I really just think he's tired of you deciding what people think for them, and then attack
it.