“A software engineer in Australia has said he was offered payment by Microsoft to edit certain entries in the Wikipedia online dictionary, opening a heated debate about the ethics of such a move,” Nancy Gohring reports for IDG News Service.
Gohring reports, ‘Rick Jelliffe, chief technology officer of XML tools company Topologi, said he will probably accept a contract from Microsoft to edit Wikipedia entries on ODF (OpenDocument Format) and OOXML (Microsoft Office Open XML), competing document format standards.”
“In a blog posting on the O’Reilly Web site, Jelliffe said he recently received an e-mail from Microsoft saying that the company wanted to contract someone ‘independent but friendly’ for a couple of days to provide ‘more balance’ on Wikipedia concerning the ODF and OOXML formats. Jelliffe said he rarely uses Microsoft products and does not imagine he is viewed as a Microsoft enthusiast,” Gohring reports.
Gohring reports, “His disclosure unleashed a heated debate about the ethics of a company paying someone to edit Wikipedia entries, and the effect such payment has on the credibility of the site. ‘From now on we should take the Wikipedia entry on OpenDocument with a grain of salt,’ wrote Daniel Carrera, an ODF developer, in an e-mail.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Doug” for the heads up.]
Even forgetting all of Mafiasoft’s ugly history, anyone who saw the ridiculous over-proliferation of Zune-related “enthusiast” websites before the device was even available – and still hobbling along today with so few of the ill-fated Zunes in use – should not be surprised by this move from Microsoft, the king of astroturfing.
::::: eyes roll :::::
So I was a little surprised to receive email a couple of days ago from Microsoft saying they wanted to contract someone independent but friendly (me) for a couple of days to provide more balance on Wikipedia concerning ODF/OOXML. I am hardly the poster boy of Microsoft partisanship!
I think I’ll accept it: FUD enrages me and MS certainly are not hiring me to add any pro-MS FUD, just to correct any errors I see. If anyone sees any examples of incorrect statements on Wikipedia or other similar forums in the next few weeks, please let me know….
Why not? Take the money and sic ’em, Rick.
MW: “pay” – as in get some…for a change. You need it if you live in the big smoke.
Yikes. honestly, what goes through their heads? these types of stories are almost always quashed by them before they get to the mainstream press, but wikipedia? that is for unbiased information purposes! i hate them, i am not using microsoft products anymore, and that includes office for mac.
Not possible. Microsoft has a solid history of honesty, straightforward answers and fair play. They have <u>never</u> been motivated by ego or greed.
“Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was called “evasive and nonresponsive” by a source present at a session in which Gates was questioned on his deposition. He argued over the definitions of words such as “compete”, “jihad”, “concerned”, “ask”, and “we”. BusinessWeek reported, “Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying ‘I don’t recall’ so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft
Oops. Never mind.
Now, as for Microsoft…heheh…caught with its fingers in the cookie jar again! Booo…!
This is what Microsoft is all about.
They have the money to pay (bribe) anybody in this world. The last thing they need is INNOVATION.
Big surprise.
Microsoft will NEVER excel…
… except in scabrous behavior.
MDN: Magic Word: TRUTH… hah!
“independant but friendly”
Great stuff! And what a wonderful euphemism for buying positive publicity – i.e. bribery!
It reminds me of Nixon’s way of saying (back in the 60’s) he’d been lying up until now : ‘all previous statements are now inoperable’.
MDN. You should read the article before you rattle off the same old anti-MS rant. He makes some good points in his blog posting. You complain about journalists not getting their facts right and spreading FUD with regards to Apple and then do exactly the same thing.
Whoops! That should have been ‘independent’.
You missed MDN’s point. The fact that MS, who is the largest software company in the world, would bribe somebody to say something nice is really deplorable.
I can be your ‘friendly’ friend, just show me the money..
If you’re going to quote, copy and paste: it’s “independent” and not independant.
And I might as well address all the native English speakers who spell “definitely” as definately. I’ve seen it spelled wrong so many times that I’m afraid it might become accepted as common practice.
No worries, Gavron, so many people spell it as independant that it’s acquiring stickiness.
Calling Zune Tang!
That seems to fit the way they do things. Check out the headline “Microsoft Tech Evangelist Viewed Industry Analysts as Bribable” on daring fireball (http://daringfireball.net/).
Troll is right. So many independant loosers definately need spell Czech.
wikipedia has its flaws and some of the philosophy behind it is politically correct.
they list dates as bce and ce rather that the tried and true bc and ad. I tried to edit that in an entry and it was edited back to the politically correct method of dating.
that is revisionist history. that is political correctness. approach with a grain of salt (if they allow that phrase in wikipedia since it is a biblical term – written first century ce.)
Microsoft pays for good press…what ? Noooooo…what the ????
Look, anbody who reads the web for techie stuff this last 4 years can clearly see 1 common theme. Today’s tech consumer is NOT the scared 50- something that wanted to email & surf, that jumped in during the web boom of the 90’s. Today’s consumer is much more savy and at home with tech. For the most part any kid who is in his/her early 20’s has grown up with computers all their life. These will not be afraid of other products than the “stuff we have at work”, err, I mean stole from work. Google, Apple, Firefox and a host of Linux and open source stuff is out there. People use quality digital cameras & video cameras. People upload pics to walmart etc. for printing. People skype.
Summary = Microsoft is in deep trouble and knows it. The iPod was the catalyst that really moved it forward. Most people do not know yet. But millions do. You don’t need a Microsoft dominated tech world. Microsoft wants to squash this fact asap. But it’s too late.
BCE=Before Common Era, CE=Common Era Not politically anything, just right. Referencing Jesus birth as the dividing point in time.
You must be clueless, sooner or later you need to stop listening to R. Limbaugh and have your own opinion.
Yeah, how about “the ridiculous over-proliferation of Zune-related “enthusiasts…” (such as Zune Tang on this very Web site — MacDailyNews).
Come clean MDN. Did Microsoft also pay you to manufacture the Zune Tang alter ego and provide “independemt but friendly” commentary as part of a “grass roots” campaign to improve the image of the company’s and products?
Seriously, Microsoft has to rank in the top ten in one important category — the worst American PR teams in history. The company probably ranks somewhere just behind the O.J. Simpson legal team, Major League Basball’s steroid plan, the George Bush and Richard Nxon White House media teams, the entire U.S. Republican party in the 2000 election and Bill Clinton’s self-managed attempt to parse the meaning of the words “is, sexual and relations.”
Now that truely is a rogue’s gallery of the clueless trying to manage public opinion, and Microsoft is among the leaders.
BC-Before Christ. Leave it alone you libs.
I pulls out my bones. You knows which ones. The ones that makes things happen and people do things. Yeah, those bones. Gonna roll them bones, gonna call the one they calls Zune Tang. Gotta do the Zune Tang dances. Gotta do the Zune Tang Thang. Gotta move my bones to the rhythm of the Zune Tang…. “Oh, Great Zune Tang! We summon thee from the depths of MS to be within our midst! Oh, Great Zune Tang, quench our thirst for wisdom!”
No surprise here. This is standard operating procedure for this very “ethically challenged” corporation. Remember the free laptops for Vista reviewers? Microsoft’s management would not know how to act otherwise. It is in their DNA. I suspect a corruption gene.
WHAT????? We have to take things on Wikipedia with a grain of salt???????
I thought everything on there was 100% true!
Here I thought that was Before Christian Era and Christian Era. Silly me.
Daring Fireball on Microsoft and Bribery. A link to a scanned document, “Effective Evangelism” [ pdf ] makes interesting reading.
Analysts are people who are paid to take a stand, while always trying to appear to be disinterested observers (since the appearance of independence maximizes the price they can charge for selling out). Treat them as you would treat nuclear weapons — as an important part of your arsenal, which you want to keep out of the hands of the enemy. <strike>Bribe</strike> Hire* them to produce “studies” that “prove” that your technology is superior to the enemy’s, and that it is gaining momentum faster.
* the strikethrough is in the original document
I suppose AD is “after death” …you retard. Buy a clue and do a bit of research on what it is really saying.
When Microsoft has to compete on a level playing field with independent, open, industry-approved standards they come up short. Redmond constantly tries to base the rules of the game on their “standard”.
Will Microsoft’s OOXML (Microsoft Office Open XML) really offer more end user benefits than an industry consortium derived ODF (OpenDocument Format)?
Are you comfortable with only one company making this standard?
How can a company with such a huge majority market share have so little confidence in their product that they have to resort to these tactics?
Why would I reward them for this behavior and give them my money?
Remember stuff like this when people tell you how Apple is proprietary and limits your choices. My Mac uses things like PDF, TIFF, RTF, JPG, PNG out of the box. Freely exchangeable formats for greater possibilities.
Majority market share ≠ standard.
Stop this crap about libs and BCE…I am a hard-core lib and I believe in a CHRISTmas tree…not a HOLIDAY tree and I believe in BC vs BCE. Some people are short, or stupid, or crazy, not vertically or mentally challenged, or even emotionally insecure or unstable. Don’t paint us all with the same brush.
Having said that, is ANYONE here surprised here about MS astroturfing…..anyone? If so then you are just….mentally chall…errrr stupid!
Typical Microsoft. Sad, how sad.
Troll said: “And I might as well address all the native English speakers who spell “definitely” as definately. I’ve seen it spelled wrong so many times that I’m afraid it might become accepted as common practice.”
You are going to have a hard time trying to correct the spelling and grammer of Americans. Whatever the younger generation decides to sloppily use often becomes the accepted usage.
Case in point: “alot” is of course not a word but it is ‘becoming’ a word.
Technical jargon is probably the most abused, such as the word “chip” being used in place of the phrase “memory module”. Even the suppliers of RAM modules are referring to a SIMM or a DIMM as a “chip”. Then of course the younger generation use other slang such as “stick”.
I have noticed that when writing in online forums many younger folks cannot begin a sentence without “OK”, “Hey” or “So as the first word. The word “like” may be the most commonly abused word in the English language in America, i.e. “he was like…… and then I went like….. and then she was like….” etc. The sad part is that I am seeing many younger adults (20’s and 30’s) displaying similar sloppiness in their speech.
My point is, get used to it. I doubt very much that the general usage of language, grammar and spelling, is going to do anything but degenerate yet even further. I hope I am wrong.
Buster doesn’t get it.
How dare you accuse Microsoft of astroturfing? In my estimation such people are short, or stupid, or crazy, not vertically or mentally challenged, or even emotionally insecure or unstable.
The quality, design and popularity of Redmond’s magnificent creations speak for themselves. Just look at Zune. It’s awesome. Larger screen than your iPods, robust and liberal WiFi sharing. Fact is, Microsoft doesn’t have to astroturf.
Look in the mirror, Apple lemmings. What about all the false praise for the iPod and vaporware iPhone? All that gushing on CNN was the worst. Do you really believe that crap? Cupertino is pulling the strings of media outlets & blogs because they know they don’t have anything that comes close to competing with Microsoft. Plain and simple.
Hey Apple take a page out of the George W. Bush playbook. He had the guts to bring town hall conferences all over the U.S. during his campaign where the free exchange of ideas was promoted above all else. No planted questions. No building an audience of only friendly participants. Democrats, independents and Republicans alike were invited to let the debate fly, much as Microsoft is does. Liberals like Buster just don’t understand.
Your potential. Our passion.
Thanks for the explanation, Joe Blow’s mom. May you never forget the apostrophe in your nickname.
As for unsquirted’s comment, I appreciate your doing a Zune Tang on that.
Kinda makes you wonder how much Zune Tang is getting paid, doesn’t it?
Re: BC/AD versus BCE/CE
If BC is Before Christ, are we now not now counting down to Christ Coming Back (CCB) so we’re really in BCCB?
And if – as you’re Jewish – you don’t recognise Jesus as The Anointed One, why would you be interested in how many years have gone past since a carpenter’s son started causing some umbrage in the Middle East prior to being crucified, especially when your religion has been persecuted ever since the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire and decided to shift the blame onto your culture.
There’s goes Zune Tang, idolizing George W. Bush. What did I just say about the rogue’s gallery of the worst U.S. PR teams? I rest my case.
Zune, do you really believe Bush’s Town Hall meetings were populated with a fair cross-section of friendly and unfriendly participants? I assure you, most Americans do not believe this…
Like your employers at Microsoft, the Bush White House gradually has become inept at trying to manage the news…
” . . . I appreciate your doing a Zune Tang on that.”
I appreciate you’re doing a Zune Tang on that. Right?
P.S. “Doing a Zune Tang” is illegal in many countries and is probably too big of a strain on ankles and shoelaces anyway.
@Zune Tang,
What I do ‘get’ is that all liberals on this site are ecstatic that you are a conservative and that all conservatives on this site are…well….horrified at the news.
I for one am happy you are getting more into politics rather than harping all the time on MS products. Its refreshing to say the least.
Welcome to the Mac Social.
Your drivel. Our fun reading!
@ Joe Blow’s mom…spot on. I correct university exams and am depressed at the grammar in essay questions. Patheric and getting worse.
From wikipedia
Anno Domini (Latin: “In the year of (Our) Lord”[1]), abbreviated as AD, defines an epoch based on the traditionally-reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Similarly, Before Christ (from the Ancient Greek “Christos” or “Anointed One”, referring to Jesus), abbreviated as BC, is used in the English language to denote years before the start of this epoch. Some prefer the alternatives ‘CE’ and ‘BCE’, arguing that they are more neutral terms (see below).
The designation is used to number years in the Christian Era, conventionally used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars. More fully, years may be also specified as Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi (“In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ”). ‘Anno Domini’ dating was first calculated in 525 and began to be adopted in Western Europe during the eighth century.
The numbering of years per the Christian era is currently dominant in many places around the world, in both commercial and scientific use. For decades, it has been the global standard, recognized by international institutions such as the United Nations and the Universal Postal Union. This is due to the prevalence of Christianity in the Western world, the great influence of the Western world on science, technology and commerce, as well as the fact that the solar Gregorian calendar has, for a long time, been considered to be astronomically correct.[2]
Traditionally English copies Latin usage by placing the abbreviation before the year number for AD, but after the year number for BC; for example: 64 BC, but AD 2006. However, the placing of the AD after the year number (as in 2006 AD) is now also common, while, analogous to the use of BC, the abbreviation is also widely used after the number of a century or millennium, as in 4th century AD or 2nd millennium AD, despite the inappropriate literal combination in this case (“in the 4th century in the year of Our Lord”).
…are we now not now counting down to Christ Coming Back (CCB)…?
Who’s coming back? What’s he waiting for? The “son” of the omnipotent – the fella who is everywhere at once and knows everything beforehand – is too busy to send him back now? That is one looong lunch break. AD is obvious: After Dinner. And by the looks of it that’s not before 4007 unless he needs to drop a zune after.
You almost had me at “loosing,” unsquirted. As for ZT, looks like he’s scored a few pelts again.
“Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Doug” for the heads up”
And Cubert, MDN, and Cubert.
from wikipedia
Political correctness (also politically correct or PC) is a term used to describe language or behavior which is claimed to be calculated to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to racial, cultural, or other identity groups. The concept is not exclusive to the English language. A text that conforms to the ideals of political correctness is said to be politically correct. In broader terms, it could also be said that political correctness refers to the implied or perceived expectations, imposed by the politics of society, in order not to offend the minority or majority, with certain words, phrases, actions or attitudes.
Thus wikipedia describes itself.
again from wikipedia
regarding revisionism
Historical revisionism is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. In its legitimate form (see historical revisionism) it is the reexamination of historical facts, with an eye towards updating historical narratives with newly discovered, more accurate, or less biased information, acknowledging that history of an event, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate.
“Historical revisionism” (also but less often in English “negationism”[1]), as used in this article, describes the process that attempts to rewrite history by minimizing, denying or simply ignoring essential facts. Perpetrators of such attempts to distort the historical record often use the term because it allows them to cloak their illegitimate activities with a phrase which has a legitimate meaning.
In some countries historical revisionism (negationism) of certain historical events is a criminal offense. Examples of historical revisionism (negationism) include Holocaust denial and Soviet history. Negationism relies on a number of techniques such as logical fallacies and appeal to fear. Examples of negationism and its effects can be found described in literature, for example Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and is used by hate groups on the Internet.
and again wikipedia describes itself
Ah, yes, the voodoo Zune Tang has arrived! Oh, Great Zune Tang! Annoint me with your Zune Thang! Please quench my every hungering pang! All powerful Zune Tang, we bow before your Zune Thang! Whack me upside the head and down, your Zune Thang power all around! Come forth Zune Tang and slay the knave, the road before you has been paved!
Where’s that sulphur? I need that sulpher to bring out Zune Tang! Where is it?
Kaopectate will have to do.
i’m surprised how many MDN readers don’t get Zung Tang’s tongue-in-cheek humor. his post here should be obvious he’s being sarcastic. he probably types it out on an iMac.
Microsoft’s Competence:
Excerpt from Microsoft’s Effective Evangelism – part of “The Slog” section [guerilla marketing]:
A stacked panel, on the other hand, is like a stacked deck: it is packed with people who, on the face of things, should be neutral, but who are in fact strong supporters of our technology. The key to stacking a panel is being able to choose the moderator. Most conference organizers allow the moderator to select the panel, so if you can pick the moderator, you win. Since you can’t expect representatives of our competitors to speak on your behalf, you have to get the moderator to agree to having only “independent ISVs” on the panel. No one from Microsoft or any other formal backer of the competing technologies would be allowed — just ISVs who have to use this stuff in the “real world.” Sounds marvellously independent doesn’t it? In fact, it allows us to stack the panel with ISVs that back our cause. Thus, the “independent” panel ends up telling the audience that our technology beats the others hands down. Get the press to cover this panel, and you’ve got a major win on your hands.
Finding a moderator is key to setting up a stacked panel. The best sources of pliable moderators are:
• Analysts: Anaysts sell out — that’s their business model. But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes tem prickly to work with.
• Consultants: These guys are your best bets as moderators. Get a well-known consultant on your side early, but don’t let him publish anything blatantly pro-Microsoft. Then, get him to propose himself to the conference organizers as a moderator, whenever a panel opportunity comes up. Since he’s well known, but apparently independent, he’ll be accepted — one less thing for the constantly-overworked conference organizer to worry about, right?
Microsoft Incompetence:
Code.
MW: “There.”
@ Switcher ’05
Perhaps if you have been reading MDN posts for a long time, then maybe you would indeed understand that many of us do understand ZT (aka Peterson, aka sputnik, etc). What you mistake for humour was actually funny for the first ten posts. After 20 it started getting dry. After 30 its repetitiveness started getting irritable. Hence my post above about how I am glad he is getting into politics. I don’t mind ZT getting a rise out of people, I do mind how boring he is.
Please don’t assume people here are mentally chall…errrr….stupid.
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5: Jihad
A Jihad is a road trip, in which an evangelist visits a large number of ISVs one-on-one to convince them to take some specific action. The classic Jihad is one focused on getting Tier-A ISVs to commit to supporting a given technology by signing the technology’s Letter of Agreement (LOA–see above).
A Jihad focuses on the Travelling Salesman aspect of evangelism. As in sales, the purposes of the exercise is to close — the get <strike>the mark</strike> the ISV* to sign on the dotted line, in pen, irrevocably. Not to get back to us later, not to talk to the wife about it, not to enter a three-day cooling-off period, but to get the ISV to sign, sign, sign.
* the strikethrough is in the original document.
Ok, sure, Microsoft is being kind of ethically iffy here, but it does raise a bigger question.
Wikipedia calls itself “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” I would say that Microsoft (or someone they feel like hiring) falls into the category of “anyone.”
Are they going to change it to be “the free encyclopedia that some people can edit, if we decide they are sufficiently disinterested”?
Make makes you think Microsoft is the only player in having a favorable alteration of the facts.
“but wikipedia? that is for unbiased information purposes!”
Methinks you have not used wikipedia much for information on any controversial topic.
Unbiased? hah.
Wikipedia is exists as a competition between opposing sides battling to edit articles to put forward their biased views. That MS would want to pay somebody to enter that competition for them is not surprising.
Yes, Microsoft would qualify as ‘anyone,’ but the principle of the thing is what’s so horrible. As it is though, you can’t trust Wikipedia any further than you could throw it with one arm; I have encountered pretty blatantly erroneous information I’m pretty confident Microsoft didn’t pay for within it’s pages. Take it with a grain of salt. This is still the web we’re talking about, after all.