"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! Apparently they are frustrated at the amount of spin from some ODF stakeholders on Wikipedia and blogs. 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." So basically, it seems as if Microsoft is trying to 'hire' people to edit Wikipedia.
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Member since:2006-02-15
Bias is bias, whether it's bought, or comes to the table through enthusiasm for a cause.
This level of nonsense can only mean that you hope people are stupid enough to buy it. "Money talks" is a harsh and ubiquitous truth that puts to shame your suggestion that money does not matter. One need not show that "everyone who is paid has an agenda" to see that money is prone to systematic worsening of bias; just consider politics.
It is difficult to "shame" a suggestion I did not make.
Of course money matters, but it is naive to assume that it is any more a shaper of bias than any of the other many blinders that humans use to distort reality.
Besides, you've made the common mistake of confusing money with power.
Member since:2006-08-26
It is difficult to "shame" a suggestion I did not make.
Of course money matters, but it is naive to assume that it is any more a shaper of bias than any of the other many blinders that humans use to distort reality.
Besides, you've made the common mistake of confusing money with power.
Your suggestion was that whether it was money or enthusiasm behind bias, that what really mattered was the bias itself, right?
It's not a stretch to say that people tend to already have various enthusiasms and that these enthusiasms often conflict, i.e., conflicting points of view. This collection must be sorted out. Money can be converted into the power to generate, direct, and distort enthusiasm within a person. We can speculate about who might be spending, but here we have a real case of monopoly money being spent to influence the revision process of not just any topic, but one central to supporting the monopoly in question.
Any bias clearly is of concern, but concern is more or less immediate. Which causes of bias are likely to be more damaging and should be dealt with sooner? Microsoft's unflattering record and the potential stakes are of greater concern than, for all else we can tell right now, mere feuds between enthusiasts.
If you want to make a big deal about power in general, then be prepared to delineate to what degree its various forms matter here compared to the concentrated form that is Microsoft's.
Edited 2007-01-23 17:45
Member since:
2006-08-26
Please tell me you don't really believe that everyone who offers up edits to wikipedia but isn't paid is acting without an agenda or that everyone who is paid has an agenda.
Of course not, that's why I was careful to qualify with "typical" and did not even claim that there was an agenda at all.
Bias is bias, whether it's bought, or comes to the table through enthusiasm for a cause.
This level of nonsense can only mean that you hope people are stupid enough to buy it. "Money talks" is a harsh and ubiquitous truth that puts to shame your suggestion that money does not matter. One need not show that "everyone who is paid has an agenda" to see that money is prone to systematic worsening of bias; just consider politics.
Indeed, Microsoft is an expert practitioner of monopoly money abuse:
"Money talks, Microsoft walks"
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/col/rose/2002/11/02/microsoft_decis...
Edited 2007-01-23 13:50