What's the problem?

Posted Aug 5, 2009 9:49 UTC (Wed) by Cato (guest, #7643)
In reply to: Demand More. by mmcgrath
Parent article: CentOS turbulence and enterprise Linux tradeoffs

I don't see where the subjective parts are - this was simply pulling together some publicly available comments with a helpful and considered analysis of the tradeoffs of the 'RHEL rebuild' approach used by CentOS. I don't agree that LWN should have to interview people on articles like this - maybe a good idea as a followup, but the CentOS team were blogging publicly anyway so I don't see the need.

It was pretty clear from the article and the links that CentOS itself was not crumbling, but did go through a shaky patch that might have required a new website and that users change their repository pointers. If LWN can't report and analyse events like this, what can it cover?

There was some data about CentOS being slower than RHEL in delivering updates - since it depends entirely on RHEL updates this can hardly be a surprise, but it's useful to have this data compiled.

People seem upset by an implicit criticism of CentOS in the article, but it was simply looking at the drawbacks of a community run project, and highlighting some of the weaknesses in project organisation that it seems are being rapidly fixed.

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What's the problem?

Posted Aug 5, 2009 21:55 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (4 responses)

"I don't agree that LWN should have to interview people on articles like this - maybe a good idea as a followup"

I think this points to a general problem with the technical laypress that goes well beyond the reporting here. The technical laypress lacks well established journalist standards, nor does its readership expect them to apply any. Technical articles tend to blend fact based reporting and editorial content with no effort to distinguish either.

But on to the point about the need for personal interviews. They are important if your goal is to provide a clear summary of events or is meant to be constructive analysis. Any time you plan to "make news" with an interpretation of a set of public record events its a reasonably good idea to talk to as many of the individuals involved. Communications have context and the assumption that you can cobble together snippets of public record communications and paint an approximate picture of reality may not actually be adequate. It's like charting a course through icebergs just by relying on spotting the tips of the icebergs without knowing where the ice is beneath the waterline.

At the very least LWN could give the key individuals in this article like Dag Wieers a free subscription (if they don't already have one) and an opportunity to rebut any editorial content the Corbet put in to fill the gaps they feel was inappropriate.

-jef

What's the problem?

Posted Aug 5, 2009 22:42 UTC (Wed) by jake (editor, #205) [Link] (2 responses)

> Communications have context and the assumption that you can cobble
> together snippets of public record communications and paint an
> approximate picture of reality may not actually be adequate.

While I think there is some truth to this, quotes are certainly not a panacea. Humans can't really help themselves from "spinning" things the way they think they should be, as opposed to the way they are (or *were*), especially when they know they are being quoted. Quotes *can* add to a story, but don't always. The public record of what went on is often much more enlightening.

> At the very least LWN could give the key individuals in this article
> like Dag Wieers a free subscription (if they don't already have one)
> and an opportunity to rebut any editorial content the Corbet put in
> to fill the gaps they feel was inappropriate.

While that might not be a bad idea, there is a far simpler solution. We provide a means for subscribers to send a link to anyone they might wish to. That way, a non-subscriber who is involved in a particular article can read and comment if they so desire.

jake

What's the problem?

Posted Aug 6, 2009 0:03 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (1 responses)

Everyone spins...journalists...historians...person-on-the-street...everyone has bias.

There was a point in time, before the 24-hour news cycle, when journalists were trained to try to demarcate the boundary of subjective bias from verifiable fact. A lot of journalistic content nowadays does a very poor job of keeping those concepts separate. This article is most likely mediocre in that regard. But that being said, it's a bit hypocritical to imply that its not worth the effort to contact individuals for comment because of the bias such comments might inject.

A journalist's bias in cherry picking from the public record is no better than anyone else's, if anything its less meaningful and more damaging than other sources of bias. Well trained journalists hedge against their own bias by making sure individuals in a story get a chance to comment. It's something old-fashioned newspaper readers expected..it's something new-media readership seems to no longer value. So the readership is as much to blame for the general quality of the technical laypress reporting as the reporters are. It's unfair to reasonably expect journalistic content to rise above established expectations on what qualifies as newsworthy or informative.

-jef

What's the problem?

Posted Aug 6, 2009 0:42 UTC (Thu) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]

> A journalist's bias in cherry picking from the public record is no
> better than anyone else's, if anything its less meaningful and more
> damaging than other sources of bias. Well trained journalists hedge
> against their own bias by making sure individuals in a story get a
> chance to comment.

Hmm, I don't think I can agree with that. A journalist's job is to try to portray an accurate picture of the events and issues at hand. The reader's job is to decide whether they believe that, on the whole, a particular journalist generally does that. If not, the journalist loses credibility and readers, perhaps eventually their job as well. Then, perhaps, they go into talk radio :)

More seriously, it is up to the journalist to determine what the right tools are for the job at hand. And, again, for readers to judge them on those choices.

In a 100-post thread, who should be contacted for comments? The fact is, they had a chance to comment, and did.

Everyone certainly has biases, but the journalistic tradition that quotes must always be sought from those engaged in the debate certainly has its limitations as well. Just the choice of who to ask for comments injects a bias into things. Bias can't be escaped.

I guess I just don't see the quote issue as black and white as you seem to.

jake

What's the problem?

Posted Aug 11, 2009 12:25 UTC (Tue) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

Umm, you recognize that Dag is commenting in this thread, do you? (account name "dag-") And he doesn't see Jon's report as FUD.

FWIW: I very seldomly use CentOS, but as an independent and infrequent user, I couldn't read any FUD into that report either. For me it read as: "Seems there were some turbulences that were taken care of, as in so many projects."