[gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Henrik Brix Andersen]

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A friend of mine just alerted me to the fact, that I am featured in
this weeks Gentoo Weekly News. Odd, I thought, noone had asked me
anything regarding the GWN...

So I fired up a web browser and there it was - first section in the
GWN [1]. Seems the GWN authors have read my blog entry [2] and decided
to bring their own version of it to the public.

* The GWN talks about WiFi Protected Access (WPA). My Blog talks about
  IEEE 802.11/wired authentication in general.

* The GWN talks about "my plans" for deprecating xsupplicant. My blog
  doesn't say anything about this.

* The GWN talks about removing xsupplicant from Gentoo Portage. My
  blog certainly doesn't say anything about this.

* The GWN doesn't even link to my blog entry, from which they must
  have gotten the initial idea for this article, thus not allowing
  their readers to see that the information provided is incorrect.

Now, why wasn't I contacted prior to quoting my blog in the GWN? A
simple "will this be ok?" kind of mail would have sufficed. I could
have pointed out the wrong assumptions in the article before it was
spread to thousands of users world wide, and instead we could have had
a concise article which reflected the truth.

Instead I now face the possibility of being flamed in my inbox for "my
plans to remove xsupplicant from Gentoo Portage". I've already been
approached twice on IRC about these "plans"...

I suggest that in the future, all developers who are directly quoted
in the GWN are contacted prior to posting the quotes. I realize that
this will put a bit more work load on the GWN authors, but it should
be as simple as sending a mail with the relevant section quoted for
the developer to accept.

Regards,
Brix

[1]: http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20051128-newsletter.xml
[2]: http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/brix/2005/11/25/wpa_supplicant_vs_xsupplicant
-- 
Henrik Brix Andersen <brix@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Metadistribution | Mobile computing herd

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Simon Stelling]

Is there a good reason for sending this to -dev? You basically complain 
about the way the GWN authors handled the issue, so why do you tell it 
all the devs? It seems a bit like a lame attempt to blame them in public 
for their faults.

Other than that, I agree with you.

-- 
Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 Operational Co-Lead
blubb@gentoo.org
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[George Shapovalov]

On Monday, 28. November 2005 12.30, Simon Stelling wrote:
> Is there a good reason for sending this to -dev? 
Because he wanted to let users know of corrections? At least the ones who 
care.

As for the original issue, isn't this the policy and how it has always been in 
fact? Back in earlier days (in just early days we did not have GWN :)) 
everybody that I know of was contacted, well I even so pings on -dev by GWN 
people asking for an "interview" :).

George
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Henrik Brix Andersen]

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On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 12:46:47PM +0100, George Shapovalov wrote:
> On Monday, 28. November 2005 12.30, Simon Stelling wrote:
> > Is there a good reason for sending this to -dev? 
> Because he wanted to let users know of corrections? At least the ones who 
> care.

Exactly.

Regards,
Brix
-- 
Henrik Brix Andersen <brix@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Metadistribution | Mobile computing herd

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:48:01 +0100 Henrik Brix Andersen
<brix@gentoo.org> wrote:
| A friend of mine just alerted me to the fact, that I am featured in
| this weeks Gentoo Weekly News. Odd, I thought, noone had asked me
| anything regarding the GWN...

Not the first time this has happened...

| I suggest that in the future, all developers who are directly quoted
| in the GWN are contacted prior to posting the quotes. I realize that
| this will put a bit more work load on the GWN authors, but it should
| be as simple as sending a mail with the relevant section quoted for
| the developer to accept.

Also, why not bring back the "post to -core" requirement? Make it a
rule that it can't be labelled as an official Gentoo publication unless
it gets some review...

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (The one that looks before leaping)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Patrick Lauer]

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On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 17:54 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:48:01 +0100 Henrik Brix Andersen
> <brix@gentoo.org> wrote:
> | A friend of mine just alerted me to the fact, that I am featured in
> | this weeks Gentoo Weekly News. Odd, I thought, noone had asked me
> | anything regarding the GWN...
> 
> Not the first time this has happened...

Not the first time that people whine. Meh.

> | I suggest that in the future, all developers who are directly quoted
> | in the GWN are contacted prior to posting the quotes. I realize that
> | this will put a bit more work load on the GWN authors, but it should
> | be as simple as sending a mail with the relevant section quoted for
> | the developer to accept.
> 
> Also, why not bring back the "post to -core" requirement? Make it a
> rule that it can't be labelled as an official Gentoo publication unless
> it gets some review...
Why not bring back the "the GWN is a community thing and YOU can also contribute!!!" mentality?

That Ulrich and I have made some suboptimal decisions in the past is a
fact, but why aren't there more contributors to the GWN so that we two
aren't single points of failure?

/me returns to lurking in some dark caves
-- 
Stand still, and let the rest of the universe move

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 19:46:57 +0100 Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 17:54 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
| > On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:48:01 +0100 Henrik Brix Andersen
| > <brix@gentoo.org> wrote:
| > | A friend of mine just alerted me to the fact, that I am featured
| > | in this weeks Gentoo Weekly News. Odd, I thought, noone had asked
| > | me anything regarding the GWN...
| > 
| > Not the first time this has happened...
| 
| Not the first time that people whine. Meh.

Yes, surprisingly enough people tend to get upset when they're
misquoted and have their views utterly misrepresented in something
which most users think is an official Gentoo publication.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (The one that looks before leaping)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Grobian]

On 28-11-2005 18:54:14 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 19:46:57 +0100 Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> | On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 17:54 +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> | > On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:48:01 +0100 Henrik Brix Andersen
> | > <brix@gentoo.org> wrote:
> | > | A friend of mine just alerted me to the fact, that I am featured
> | > | in this weeks Gentoo Weekly News. Odd, I thought, noone had asked
> | > | me anything regarding the GWN...
> | > 
> | > Not the first time this has happened...
> | 
> | Not the first time that people whine. Meh.
> 
> Yes, surprisingly enough people tend to get upset when they're
> misquoted and have their views utterly misrepresented in something
> which most users think is an official Gentoo publication.

Being quoted: ok
Being misquoted: very bad
Having an unofficial Gentoo publication on official Gentoo
infrastructure: priceless.

Seriously: reading the blog entry, I made more or less the same
conclusions as the GWN author, but the problem is just that the blog
item was rephrased and made 'stronger', whereas the official blog was
very careful in wording.  (Possibly an attempt by the GWN author to make
it more easily readable?)  This was just wrong because it was not agreed
on with the respective author, hence resulted in this thread.  GWN
authors need to be a bit more careful with this I think.  However, I
don't think that GWN authors should need permissions to grab exact
quotes which are to be found elsewhere publicly available on the web.
It is just sad to see that (what I assume to be) a "running out of time
and having no content issue" results in such unpleasant misquote for the
respective quoted person.
One can criticise the use of newspapers, but somehow they seem to be
useful for many people.
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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Lance Albertson]

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Patrick Lauer wrote:

>>Also, why not bring back the "post to -core" requirement? Make it a
>>rule that it can't be labelled as an official Gentoo publication unless
>>it gets some review...
> 
> Why not bring back the "the GWN is a community thing and YOU can also contribute!!!" mentality?
> 
> That Ulrich and I have made some suboptimal decisions in the past is a
> fact, but why aren't there more contributors to the GWN so that we two
> aren't single points of failure?

That doesn't justify the reasoning of misquoting him. This could have
been caught if it would have been sent to -core like its been done in
the past. How can we contribute if you don't post what you're going to
send before you send it?

Cheers-

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

---
GPG Public Key:  <http://www.ramereth.net/lance.asc>
Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1  4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742

ramereth/irc.freenode.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Stephen P. Becker]

>>| I suggest that in the future, all developers who are directly quoted
>>| in the GWN are contacted prior to posting the quotes. I realize that
>>| this will put a bit more work load on the GWN authors, but it should
>>| be as simple as sending a mail with the relevant section quoted for
>>| the developer to accept.
>>
>>Also, why not bring back the "post to -core" requirement? Make it a
>>rule that it can't be labelled as an official Gentoo publication unless
>>it gets some review...
> 
> Why not bring back the "the GWN is a community thing and YOU can also contribute!!!" mentality?
> 
> That Ulrich and I have made some suboptimal decisions in the past is a
> fact, but why aren't there more contributors to the GWN so that we two
> aren't single points of failure?


Errrr...since when did the number of people working on the GWN have 
anything to do with horribly misquoting somebody's blog?  Are you 
suggesting there is a critical number of folks working on the GWN which 
will automagically prevent this sort of thing from happening?  Sorry, I 
don't buy that.  The issue here is that Brix was never contacted to 
review the GWN content prior to having his blog publically twisted into 
inaccurate bullshit.

-Steve
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 19:46:57 +0100
Patrick Lauer <patrick@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Why not bring back the "the GWN is a community thing and YOU can also
> contribute!!!" mentality?

Release early, release often?


     JeR
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Misquoted in the GWN

[Grant Goodyear]

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Patrick Lauer wrote: [Mon Nov 28 2005, 12:46:57PM CST]
> > Also, why not bring back the "post to -core" requirement? Make it a
> > rule that it can't be labelled as an official Gentoo publication unless
> > it gets some review...

Heh.  Personally, I've never really been all that fond of the GWN being
"an official Gentoo publication"; I'd much rather see it as a true
community news source.  I've always thought that by making it an
official publication it _appears_ to be more propaganda than news.

> That Ulrich and I have made some suboptimal decisions in the past is a
> fact, but why aren't there more contributors to the GWN so that we two
> aren't single points of failure?

I suspect that the devs most likely to write an article for the GWN are
also those most likely to have a blog on planet.g.o.  Given the latter,
there's not much incentive for the former.

-g2boojum-
-- 
Grant Goodyear	
Gentoo Developer
g2boojum@gentoo.org
http://www.gentoo.org/~g2boojum
GPG Fingerprint: D706 9802 1663 DEF5 81B0  9573 A6DC 7152 E0F6 5B76

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Misquoted in the GWN

[Duncan]

Henrik Brix Andersen posted <20051128094800.GA32340@dmz.brixandersen.dk>,
excerpted below,  on Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:48:01 +0100:

> So I fired up a web browser and there it was - first section in the GWN
> [1]. Seems the GWN authors have read my blog entry [2] and decided to
> bring their own version of it to the public.
> 
> * The GWN talks about WiFi Protected Access (WPA). My Blog talks about
>   IEEE 802.11/wired authentication in general.

Prefacing my comments with a big **IN** **MY** **OPINION** as a Gentoo
user and (now) reader of that blog entry and this thread, for whatever you
take such reader/user opinion to be worth (or not worth).

Your blog does indeed mention IEE 802.11/wired authentication.  However,
it parallels xsupplicant and wpa_supplicant, saying they do the same
thing, without making clear that (implied) wpa_supplicant does more than
wpa.

Thus, a reader not familiar with the technical details (such as myself,
and apparently the GWN folks) could very easily fail to account as
important the "general" reference, and equate WPA to the general case,
where you (above, but not in the blog) make clear there's some difference.

This certainly doesn't excuse their not running it by you, as they should
have done, to clear up exactly this sort of error, if any, but it's a very
reasonable error to make.  Reading the blog, I made exactly the same
error, and Grobian says he came to more or less the same conclusion.

Not running it by you is a serious mistake, but given you asked for
comments in the blog entry, you are now getting them, even if part of them
have to do with a misunderstanding /of/ that blog entry.

> * The GWN talks about "my plans" for deprecating xsupplicant. My blog
>   doesn't say anything about this.

Not in so many words, no, but the meaning is clear, <quote>

To justify having to maintain two packages (along with rcscripts) with the
exact same purpose,

</quote>.  Reading between the lines, as one in a newsweekly may
legitimately need to do in ordered to summarize a statement, what /other/
meaning could be taken from that, than that should such justification not
be forthcoming from the feedback/discussion, deprecation of the now
unjustified package would be the result?

Again, no excuse for not running it by you, certainly no excuse for not
linking the blog entry directly (that one I can't see at all, as sourcing
is /always/ a mark of reputable journalism, and it would have been /so/
easy, in this case), but it's certainly what your blog implies the
ultimate result will be, barring something legit coming up in the feedback
you are now requesting.

> * The GWN talks about removing xsupplicant from Gentoo Portage. My
>   blog certainly doesn't say anything about this.

Same as above, the  ultimate result of deprecation would be removal, altho
with open source, where one never knows what else is out there depending
on something, ultimate removal of deprecated items is normally something
done on a timeline of years, not months, so this could reasonably be
assumed to be well in the future.

> * The GWN doesn't even link to my blog entry, from which they must
>   have gotten the initial idea for this article, thus not allowing their
>   readers to see that the information provided is incorrect.

This, IMO, was the gravest error.  I believe they reproduced the gist of
the blog entry entirely faithfully (note that said gist of what's actually
there may differ DRASTICALLY from what was intended, the reason running
any official commentary by the original author is a VERY GOOD idea), but
there remains /no/ excuse for not linking it, however faithful their
summary may have been and regardless of whether it was run by you or not.
Again, quoting source is one of the marks of reputable journalism, so
failing to do so /also/ has strong implications on the reliability of the
journalism.

Failure to link the source is IMO inexcusable.  The take appears to be
entirely logical and reasonable, and what I got from reading it as well. 
However, that doesn't change a journalist's responsibility to at least
link the source, where possible (as it was here), and to run the article
by the subject in question where time and opportunity permits.

I'd say chalk it up to a learning experience.  GWN, as is customary with
such things, should print a correction and apology next issue, and one
would hope such a mistake isn't made again.

Again, the above is simply IN MY OPINION as a reader of all three
locations (this thread, the GWN entry, and the blog entry, in that order),
and a Gentoo user, simply trying to "read the tea leaves" <g> well enough
to get some sense of what's ahead for him on this journey that is Gentoo.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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