LinuxToday Editor Apologizes For Astroturfing

Thanks to Dean Pannell (and Paul Ferris for the initial head's up) for pointing out the apology and statement of fact from Kevin Reichard, the Executive Editor of LinuxToday. I think the argument that people would know that "George Tirebiter" was merely a contrivance is weak, but whatever. You can read the previous stories in the astroturf ^[?] ing saga.

Didn't this guy use more than one alias.

[thebitninja]

Hmmm, this doesn't really sound like an apology, more a forced statement. And isn't he missing out the other alias's he used! Why no mention of "Tom Dooley, Clark Addison and Will Smith". Also people use fake names on websites all the time, so why should we assume that Tirebiter is the papers editor rather than someone else with a weak sense of humour.

How about mentioning the fact that he's been doing this for years, or that he caused others to be fired when they complained. Maybe he could talk about this being common practice in the industry. Links to every single false post would have really shown some remorse.

Seems to me that this is an attempt to wind down the negative spin, without really understanding what has been done wrong, or really wanting to/feeling the need to apologise. As my mum always said, if your not really sorry then apologising is worse than saying nothing.

If he had posted this on /. and I had mod then I'd be modding him down for facuous statements and insincere apologies.

Astroturfing? This is normal practice.

[aussersterne]

Having worked for a major (i.e. Media Metrix top 10) news and links portal, I can honestly say that this practice of "astroturfing" (as I understand the word) is not limited to small sites like LinuxToday.

Part of my job description as the maintainer of a chunk of the site hierarchy was to use a whole stack of pseudonyms and basically wander around doing just this in the interest of generating page views, responses, and "positive" discussion for advertisers and reviewed products in a number of areas. This was not optional, it was expected.

I'd be surprised if this is a rare practice.

This is an editor?

[jpellino]

Forget the fact that at any traditional news outfit you'd be the new copy boy for pulling a stunt like this - where I come from, editors know how to write. To wit:

> "I participated in Linux Today talkbacks anonymously in the past using a pseudonym."

> "It is too important you can trust what you read here."

Judging from the reaction at Slashdot, you went from simply evil to under-qualified and evil.

Wrong type of apology, bucko

[fobbman]

I sincerely apologize to those of you who were offended by my actions.

Mom: Now Kevin, apologize to Suzie for what you did!

Kevin: I'm sorry that you don't like your pigtails dipped in permanent ink, Suzie.

He's apologizing that we were offended by his actions, not for his actions themselves. Big difference there.

thank you

[FreeUser]

Thanks. That was very interesting (and the slashdot editors deserve to be called on the carpet for that sort of thing). My critique of your logic in your previous statement stands, but my personal opinions as to the veracity of your accusations against the slashdot editors has been modified from "yeah, right" to "hmm...there may be something to what you say."

Hopefully the /. editors will take this sort of criticism for what it is and modify their behavior in the future, rather than "bitchslapping" (is that your term, or theirs?) posts like these down. People do fuck up, and it is through being called on it, and changing one's behavior, that not only goods and services such as slashdot are improved, but so are we as people.

Re:that forced sound

[Miles]

Maybe not under other circumstances, but certainly in this case. What kind of editor issues an apology that is not checked for errors, or at least flow? Hell, even intent?

"It is too important you can trust what you read here."

I guess in English you can omit the 'that' between 'important' and 'you', but that sentence doesn't roll off the tongue very easily. It might also be more convincing if it were to say,
It is important *to me* that you can trust what you read here.

As it stands, I'm not convinced that it is important to him--just that it was important in a vague sort of way.

George Tirebiter

[JWhitlock]

For those out of the loop, here's a link to the entry for Tirebiter [earthlink.net] in the Firesign Theater lexicon.

In RealSpace, he was "the doughty unofficial mascot of USC (Univ. South. Calif.) athletic teams in earlier times, renowned for his devotion to attacking the spinning wheels of large American automobiles...."

In the Firesign Theater world, he's the Everyman protaganist of the comedy album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" (which appears to be out of print, although I found a cassette in a local record store). It's high comedy from Firesign Theater, a team that was known for a counter-cultural radio program in the sixties. It's very funny, but requires FULL attention, a strong liberal arts background, and occassionaly several listens, to get a large percentage of the jokes.

Check out the entry for DWARF [earthlink.net] to get a feel for the humor.

That said, even though I got the reference, I don't think seeing a post under the name George Tirebiter would make me think "Oh - It's the editor!" or "He's just joking!". I would instead think "This guy is a pretty poor satirist - it's like posting under 'Chaucer'".

Circular reasoning anyone?

[FreeUser]

The really sad thing is of course that this is completely true, as has already been demonstrated.

ahem. Basic logic please.

It does not follow that, because moderators have moderated the parent to your post down to zero, that those moderators were slashdot editors. Far more likely that slashdot readers with moderator priveleges modded the post down as the flaimbait it certainly appeared to be (to me at least, although I do not have moderator priveleges right now).

The slashdot editors are the ones who decide which stories get posted (decisions I disagree with as often as not BTW), not those readers who happen to have moderator priveleges at a given moment.

Re:astroturf[?]ing ????

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but it is a good example of how SmartTags might be used. If everybody wasn't so blinded by the ubiquitous Microsoft hate, people would realize SmartTags can be a Good Thing.

that forced sound

[benedict]

The apology has that forced sound of someone who doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand why their actions were wrong.

Plus it contains grammatical mistakes, which looks kind of bad when your job title includes "editor".

Serious matter

[doomy]

An editor of a respected news portal should never have commited something like this. In paper media it would have been much better to resign and safe face afterwards. This person using psudonames trolled LinuxToday's talkback forums and flamed Linux, Linus, SlashDot etc. Often he used anti-linux and sentiments and questioned the existance of an opensource/linux community. He should resign IMHO. If LinuxToday is to be respected, this is the only way out for this publication.

Doesn't sound like much of an apology

[fetta]

It doesn't sound like the editor is acknowledging that he did anything wrong, just saying "I won't do it again because other people misunderstood."

There are good reasons to post anonymously under some circumstances, but I don't think he gives any here. How would the debate have been any less "lively" if he had acknowledged the source of his comments all along?

Excuse me?

[crowchild]

On reflection, I have to admit that anonymous posting by an editor at a news site was wrong. I stopped months ago and vow to LT readers that I will never engage in the practice again. It is too important you can trust what you read here.

As if we should believe him? I'm well aware of the current state of today's media. Journalistic integrity is a word that most media reporters and editors seem to have forgotten.

However, this is totally out of line, even by today's standards. Someone looking at his apology would think that he had just committed minor infractions. No, he was busily posting nastygrams about competitors and rivals [linuxjournal.com].

He should just resign and get the heck out.

'crow

Re:George Tirebiter

[geomcbay]

Huh? I think you are missing the point. Kevin seemed to miss the point too in his "apology" post.

I doubt anyone thought George Tirebiter was someone's real name...

Nobody cares that these troll posts were made using an alias, per se, they care that the person using the alias to post trolls was also an editor. The name he used, and its ability to be easily recognized as a pseudonym are totally irrelevant.

Not much of an apology...

[MrEfficient]

Thats a pretty poor excuse for an apology. He didn't mention all of the pseudonyms he used and I don't think he came clean as to why he did it. "fostering lively debate" my ass. He was trying to influence the debate and in a dishonest manner. Anonymous postings are fine for readers, but an editor should be held to a higher standard, at least where his own paper/website are concerned.

A lot of the talkbacks left on the page so far really astound me, how can these people be so quick to forgive something like this. Personnaly, I would find it hard to trust anything this guy, or Linux Today publishes.

Re:As if a /. editor has ANY room to talk

[reflective recursion]

modding down? haha. I remember times when posts and even whole _threads_ were removed completely. ("technical difficulties" I believe was an excuse)

Reichard should be fired.

[maynard]

Here is the talback I sent to LinuxToday.

I'm not just offended by your anonymous postings, Mr. Reichard, I'm personally offended by your regular censorship of content in talkback posts which refuted your editorial positions. You personally censored some of my talkbacks on an editorial that you wrote, so I speak from experience. I note that many others have claimed the same, so I am not alone. I've worked as a journalist for a local small time paper and I *never* saw that kind of behavior by our editorial board. Both censorship where you have an obvious conflict of interest and anonymous postings in your own forum show you lack the ethics required for the position of Sr. Editor. Personally, I think you should be fired for breach of trust to the Linux community, and for breach of journalistic ethics overall. Until this happens I will not consider LinuxToday a reputable source for news.

J. Maynard Gelinas

This speaks for itself. I have no respect for this man, or how he has behaved on their forums. Internet.com should fire the man posthaste.

--Maynard

Re:astroturf[?]ing ????

[Hammer]

While I agree that /. is not exactly neutral in the way things are presented, at least I know that a lot of things tend to be slanted (not always justly). If something is presented to me on /. I would filter it through an anti-anti-MS filter. So if a link is pro MS it must be true....

Those who would respond "its their website, they can do with it what they want," should ask themselves if the same applies to MS's smarttags.

It is their site and therefore it is NOT up to MS (or SmartTags) to modify