Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
I'm sure everybody has seen what happened when a mailinglist post by Bruce Perens got "leaked" to Slashdot. I see part of the problem that the "news" people are seeing a dearth of news from the Debian Project, so are skimming the mailinglists as a substitute for timely information from the Debian Project. For example, both Potato's attempted freeze and its subsequent delay should've been released to various outlets while it was still possible to "spin" the story, for want of a better term. Instead, in both cases, the news got leaked out via the mailinglist posts, which were written in technicalese and in an informal style that is fine for mailinglists, but lousy for press releases. The next instance of the dearth of information from the Debian Project causing damage actually DID cause Bruce Perens possible legal damage and entirely too real damage to his Good Name. My suggestion is that the Debian Project nominates/elects (an) Official Spokesperson(s) to Slashdot, LWN, and all the "geek news" outlets, said spokesperson to maintain membership in all Debian mailinglists, and to provide timely, edited information about all topics that may interest the relevant communities (the Linux community most obviously, but the BSD community is saying many things about the Debian/FreeBSD project based again on the information from mailinglists as well, among others), and also tell the mailinglists affected what's going out under their AEgis. Another idea that may have merit is to subdivide the task either by interest group or list--a slashdot commentator, a LWN commentator, etc. The outlets are already looking at the mailinglists, the only thing we can do about it now is to provide a better alternative than publicly airing what were supposed to be semi-private messages. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Who is John Galt? Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product. -- Ferenc Mantfeld
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Gal t writes: > >I'm sure everybody has seen what happened when a mailinglist post by Bruce >Perens got "leaked" to Slashdot. I see part of the problem that the >"news" people are seeing a dearth of news from the Debian Project, so are >skimming the mailinglists as a substitute for timely information from the >Debian Project. ... My suggestion is that the Debian Project >nominates/elects (an) Official Spokesperson(s) to Slashdot, LWN, and all >the "geek news" outlets, said spokesperson to maintain membership in all >Debian mailinglists, and to provide timely, edited information about all >topics that may interest the relevant communities ... this is supposed to be in two places: one is Joey Hess' DWN post, and the other should be [EMAIL PROTECTED] The problem with [EMAIL PROTECTED] is that we can not monitor everythign that is going on in debian in a sufficient amount of detail to be able to know when and when not to make information releases to our press distribution lists. This information needs to come from the people who know what's going on with a particular subject. Hence: if someone has someone that they think is worth releasing, drop a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with _all_ relevant details so we can put together an announcement (or writ ethe announcement, we'll jsut put it into a standard format in that case) and it gets taken care of. The problem to date has been that we don't receive this information, so we can't release anything. We have the debian-announce, debian-news, and debian-commercial lists, and they're far underused at the moment. Regards, Nils. -- Nils Lohner E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian Press Team Press: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 04:13:11AM -0700, John Galt wrote: > > [ lots of good words] How about putting a kind of disclaimer at the end of every message which is sent through some of our lists? We could adopt the following unsubscribe message: > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Joop -- Joop Stakenborg PA4TU, ex-PA3ABA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Linux Amateur Radio Software Database http://radio.linux.org.au
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
John Galt wrote: > I'm sure everybody has seen what happened when a mailinglist post by Bruce > Perens got "leaked" to Slashdot. I see part of the problem that the > "news" people are seeing a dearth of news from the Debian Project, so are > skimming the mailinglists as a substitute for timely information from the > Debian Project. For example, both Potato's attempted freeze and its > subsequent delay should've been released to various outlets while it was > still possible to "spin" the story, for want of a better term. Instead, > in both cases, the news got leaked out via the mailinglist posts, which > were written in technicalese and in an informal style that is fine for > mailinglists, but lousy for press releases. The next instance of the > dearth of information from the Debian Project causing damage actually > DID cause Bruce Perens possible legal damage and entirely too real damage > to his Good Name. My suggestion is that the Debian Project > nominates/elects (an) Official Spokesperson(s) to Slashdot, LWN, and all > the "geek news" outlets, said spokesperson to maintain membership in all > Debian mailinglists, and to provide timely, edited information about all > topics that may interest the relevant communities (the Linux community > most obviously, but the BSD community is saying many things about the > Debian/FreeBSD project based again on the information from mailinglists as > well, among others), and also tell the mailinglists affected what's going > out under their AEgis. Another idea that may have merit is to subdivide > the task either by interest group or list--a slashdot commentator, a LWN > commentator, etc. The outlets are already looking at the mailinglists, > the only thing we can do about it now is to provide a better alternative > than publicly airing what were supposed to be semi-private messages. I think you're profoundly underestimating the influence of DWN. Nearly everything that appears in LWN about debian, and about 50% of what appears in slashdot about debian refers to DWN. So if you want something "spun", you mostly just need to get DWN to spin it. Which might be difficult, as I dislike trying to put a spin on things and try to report objectively and factually. Like it or not, debian is an open project. -- see shy jo, editor, Debian Weekly News
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
> Like it or not, debian is an open project. In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is published. I would argue that while a link to the DWN or similar doesn't really need us to comment further before somebody else "publishes", would it be so hard for Slashdot (or anyone else) to at least ask for a comment (from the person concerned, or at least from "Debian") before printing a link in a mailing list? Has anyone (other than Bruce) discussed this with the Slashdot crew? From my understanding of the situation, they are also anxious to avoid a repeat of this unfortunate incident. -- --- Robert Merkel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. -- Tom Robbins ---
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
Robert Merkel wrote: > > Like it or not, debian is an open project. > >In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press >release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation >concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is >published. Slashdot ain't the media, conventional or otherwise. Nobody published a story. >I would argue that while a link to the DWN or similar doesn't really >need us to comment further before somebody else "publishes", would it >be so hard for Slashdot (or anyone else) to at least ask for a comment >(from the person concerned, or at least from "Debian") >before printing a link in a mailing list? That's not the way Slashdot works. It's equivalent to an old-fashioned BBS, or a newsgroup or public mailing list (like this one). Anyone can post anything they like with no need to consult anyone first. And that's the way it should be. >Has anyone (other than Bruce) discussed this with the Slashdot crew? >From my understanding of the situation, they are also anxious to >avoid a repeat of this unfortunate incident. I fail to see what they can do short of making Slashdot fully moderated, which would ruin the spontaneous element that is one of its few saving graces, and open up the moderators/editors to potentially massive liabilities to boot. If Bruce is interested in avoiding a repeat of this incident, he should in future avoid making inflammatory statements in open public forums. Frank
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
On Dec 03, Frank Copeland wrote: > Robert Merkel wrote: > > > Like it or not, debian is an open project. > > > >In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press > >release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation > >concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is > >published. > > Slashdot ain't the media, conventional or otherwise. Nobody published a > story. This isn't a story? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/26/1450245&mode=thread Chris -- = |Chris Lawrence |Get Debian GNU/Linux CDROMs| | <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>| http://www.lordsutch.com/cds/ | | | | | Debian Developer|Join the party that opposed the CDA| |http://www.debian.org/ | http://www.lp.org/| =
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
Chris Lawrence wrote: >On Dec 03, Frank Copeland wrote: >> Robert Merkel wrote: >> > > Like it or not, debian is an open project. >> > >> >In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press >> >release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation >> >concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is >> >published. >> >> Slashdot ain't the media, conventional or otherwise. Nobody published a >> story. > >This isn't a story? > >http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/26/1450245&mode=thread Nope. It's someone starting a thread in a discussion group by forwarding a message from another discussion group. It happens all the time in newsgroups and mailing lists. Characterising Slashdot as "the media" and trying to put the blame on them for not applying irrelevant journalistic standards is an exercise in messenger-assassination. Frank
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
On Dec 04, Frank Copeland wrote: > Chris Lawrence wrote: > >On Dec 03, Frank Copeland wrote: > >> Robert Merkel wrote: > >> > > Like it or not, debian is an open project. > >> > > >> >In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press > >> >release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation > >> >concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is > >> >published. > >> > >> Slashdot ain't the media, conventional or otherwise. Nobody published a > >> story. > > > >This isn't a story? > > > >http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/26/1450245&mode=thread > > Nope. It's someone starting a thread in a discussion group by forwarding a > message from another discussion group. It happens all the time in newsgroups > and mailing lists. Characterising Slashdot as "the media" and trying to put > the blame on them for not applying irrelevant journalistic standards is an > exercise in messenger-assassination. Yes, but the top level of Slashdot isn't a "thread"; it's an article. And it is moderated, because only certain people can approve stories for the front page. This isn't the first time /. has gone off half-cocked, turning five lines of text into a flamefest. The people there need to start exercising some quality control on what they post, instead of jumping on the first message in a thread in a mailing list. Chris -- = |Chris Lawrence |Visit my home page!| | <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>| http://www.lordsutch.com/chris/ | | | | | Debian Developer|Are you tired of politics as usual?| |http://www.debian.org/ | http://www.lp.org/| =
