Re: Wagner: "Actions speak louder than words:They're saying 'Linux Sucks'"
On Fri, Apr 11, 2003 at 02:40:36PM -0600, Art Lemasters wrote:
> "...page impressions?" Is that a new marketing term? I've been involved
> in a socio-political struggle while studying and advising on convincing
> political speech for over ten years--and quite succesfully so. How long
> have you studied propaganda?
How long have you been asking rhetorical questions and playing the
victim instead of actually backing up your statements with logic and/or
facts?
> A few hundred hits from one list won't make that much difference to an
> online news publication. The millions of readers of a publication like
> worldtribune.com will make a difference--a negative difference after reading
> Wagner's spew.
I'd like to some references for those "millions of readers". According
to google, www.worldtribune.com has 764 pages linking it. Many of those
are www.worldtribune.com itself. Contrast that with cnn.com(103,000),
nytimes.com(47,500). I know that this is by no means a scientific
indicator of readership, but it is a rough indicator of popularity.
> Our response to such a slam as Wagner's in political activism would be
> to threaten the publication with boycott and to publish opposing viewpoints
> in a competing publication. It wouldn't be to flame the messenger and
> poke our heads back in the sand.
In doing so you would lend legitimacy to a quite meaningless article.
It's obvious that the style in which the article was written was
intended to provoke, not inform. The author doesn't care if 300 people
read his story and hate it - 300 people *still read* his story.
Our "activism" should be to act like rational adults, not fanatical
zealots that embark on shrill protests over a third rate article that no
one would have even read until it was called to their attention.
> I've run Debian Linux for eight years and subscribed to the list again
> (after several years off the list) last night.
Have you also been off the 'net for several years? These articles have
been popping up for a quite some time now. Linux advocate baiting is
practically a profession these days.
> After my first post (heads'-up about Wagner's story slamming Linux
> security), I'm flamed with false accusations that I spammed the
> debian-user list with off-topic material.
You have a an odd concept of "flame". I was telling you what I thought
about the matter. In the future you may want to include a disclaimer to
your messages that indicate that you do not want to hear from people who
might disagree with you.
> Is there another list for Debian public relations issues?
There's always comp.os.linux.advocacy. I don't really see how this is a
debian-specific issue, and I assume the purpose of of any debian hosted
list is to deal with issues directly related to the
project.
> We once discussed public relations, occasionally. Is this list coming
> to the youthful rudeness we once saw on the FreeBSD list?
Who's "we", and what does FreeBSD have to do with anything?
Nothing wrong with public relations, although it's really to the point
that Linux itself should stand on its own merits - but we do have to
defend against the stereotype of all linux users being reactionary,
angry people. That's why it's important to exercise some restraint
before flying into a tizzy over yet-another-linux-bashing-article by a
columnist with a history of them.
I honestly did not think I was being rude to you, although I do consider
your needless proclamation of being an authority on "propaganda" as well
as your repeated allusions to being some sort of "old timer" to be, if
not rude, then a little immature. Instead of trotting out your
credentials amd acting victimized, why don't you either rebut what I
wrote, or realize that what I wrote was merely my intpretation of the
situation, and not a personal attack.
Rob
Rob
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