Abraham Lincoln once said “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Apparently, Tuttle, OK city manager Jerry Taylor never got the memo. Barely a week after his humiliating brush with celebrity after the CentOS fiasco, Taylor has definitively proven that arrogance and ignorance make a humorous combo. The Tuttle Times covers the embarassing incident, along with Taylor’s gotta-see-it-to-believe-it response.
Followup: Tuttle Times Covers the Jerry A. Taylor Debacle
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive • Web Developer • Father • Foodie • Music Snob • OS enthusiast
Follow me on Mastodon @[email protected]
And after all that, he still remains thick:
““I was just frustrated,” he said. “I’ve got a strange website coming up, and I don’t know who caused it.” Taylor said that he also did not regret threatening Hughes with FBI action, since he believes that was what prompted Hughes to start treating him seriously.
It’s frustrating to see people with such a lack of people-skills hold a public office.
In all fairness, the city manager often isn’t a public office, but one appointed by the mayor. However, the point of the city manager is to know a lot about a lot of things, to keep all aspects of the city running smoothly, and to also know when he doesn’t know something, and to then consult someone else about it. That’s the only way to make good decisions in an office as broad as that one. He obviously doesn’t know how to do the second one, and for that alone should no longer be in his office, because with anyone, the stuff they don’t know is a much larger set than that they do know.
“It’s frustrating to see people with such a lack of people-skills hold a public office.”
I think Taylor should make a public apology to CentOS, I’d love to see that get on international news. The linked article felt like a euphemism in comparisson to the real thing. While it’s true that he didn’t resort to vulgarities as I recall, he was still rude and arrogant and couldn’t stop posturing with FBI threats. Simply refusing to get help from someone who knew what they were doing by claiming that he knew enough with his supposed 22 years of experience is nothing less than arrogance, god forbit his geek pride gets hurt when he has to admit he doesn’t know everything. Even after CentOS sorted his problem out for him he still implied that the fault lied with them by telling them that if they had come up with the information sooner he wouldn’t have had to threaten them.
And of course when you think the guy’s finally finished, here comes this article with the monkey flinging yet more poo around: ““This is just a bunch of freaks out there that don’t have anything better to do,” he said. “When I came in to work Monday morning, I had about 500 e-mails, plus anonymous phone calls from all the geeks out there. [CentOS is] a free operating system that this guy gives away, which tells you how much time he’s got on his hands.””
If that guy was working for me a simply firing wouldn’t be sufficient, I’d be pretty tempted to boot his ass into orbit. It’s funny how he insulted CentOS for making the OS he gets to enjoy for free, yet if the same thing had happened with Windows he would be paying for the whole experience, what an ungratefull asshole.
I found this and posted it in a comment on another site earlier. It’s pretty telling. My comment then was that I’m glad that my town (which is also rather small and rural) doesn’t have an adminstration such as this one, one with more arrogance than actualy knowledge or ability. The fact that Mr. Taylor would not appologise for any of the remarks he made, or even consider that he made someone completely univolved do his work for him (finding the provider, etc.) unfairly shows a complete lack of even a simple understanding of common courtesy. Really, one shouldn’t expect a small town city manager to know everything about computers, and he has a point that it is drilled into the layman that pretty much everything they do online can “cause a virus.” However, the fact that he could claim 22 years of IT background, and not understand simple server terms, nor appologise when he was a complete ass to the person who tried to and eventually did help him, shows that he is unfit for leadership, at least IMHO.
Taylor said that he also did not regret threatening Hughes with FBI action, since he believes that was what prompted Hughes to start treating him seriously.
“After that, he called me Mr. Taylor,” he said, “And he got me the information I needed.”
This is proof that you can put a spin on anything.
Of course, the Mayor has to support the City Manager, they are probably friends.
The worst thing about “Mr. Taylor”‘s response is his insistence that it is CentOS’s responsibility to fix his problem. If I were Hughes, I would send a bill for the time spent on fixing the problem.
Then Mr. Taylor would see that there is indeed money in giving an OS away.
Plain and simple…this guy is an idiot. With 22 years of computer experience you would think he would have had some sort of knowledge or insight as to what is happening on the web server..assuming he knew what a web server is at the time!!!
Give the guy some flack. I suppose that he got the message after last week’s media coverage. If he did not he will probably not get it. There is a large gap between who have in-depth knowledge of computers and networking, and those who do not. And from the other side it is possibly hard to comprehend to see what is going on.
At any rate, it isn’t useful to reiterate the whole story again. Mr. Taylor will only get more hatemail, and it hurts the image of the GNU/Linux community. We are not a bunch of obsessive zealots. So, let’s not act like one.
Edited 2006-04-03 13:21
Give the guy some flack.
That’s what we’re doing.
What kind of arrogant S.O.B. threatens to call the FBI? Have you ever been in an IRC channel where some idiot comes in, and threatens to call the FBI or police on you when his internet connection keeps dropping? This is almost exactly the same thing, and I’m kind of annoyed that the CentOS people responded at all to him, even before the threat.
I mean, if they had just politely steered him towards Apache troubleshooting, they would have done their job. He could call the FBI all he wants, but chances are that their investigators have more of a clue than he does – at the very least, I’m sure they have a direct line to their IT guys.
“There is a large gap between who have in-depth knowledge of computers and networking, and those who do not. And from the other side it is possibly hard to comprehend to see what is going on.”
Indded, and and that is why, as the city manager, it is his *JOB* to consult people who *DO* know. It’s not his job to be an ignorant a$$.
He could have avoided a lot of the bad publicity that followed by doing the professional thing and say he got in over his head and that he made a mistake. He didnt and now what has happened is noones fault but his own.
here is a large gap between who have in-depth knowledge of computers and networking, and those who do not. And from the other side it is possibly hard to comprehend to see what is going on.[/i]
True, but this is a guy with supposidly 22 YEARS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EXPERIENCE!
Lets translate this into ‘Joe Blogs’ speak; it would be the equivilant of saying, (setting in New Zealand), “how can you be out of bacon! with 60million sheep!” (yes, a league player visiting New Zealand actually said just that).
Can’t say I got 22 years of experience. I’m just a few years older than his 22 years of experience myself.
I would be ashamed of myself if I got 22 years of experience and make a gigantic mistake like this. I wonder which idiot school of computer engineer he got a degree out off? (and I’ll sure to avoid those people).
I would be ashamed of myself if I got 22 years of experience and make a gigantic mistake like this.
I’d guess that these “22 years of experience” of his are turning the computer on, using Word and Solitaire and shutting it down. With maybe one or two extra courses in “How to use the Internet Explorer”.
[CentOS is] a free operating system that this guy gives away, which tells you how much time he’s got on his hands.
I don’t think I like Mr Taylor’s tone there. What is he implying? I suspect that even now he still doesn’t understand the background and what the fuss is all about. I get the impression he’s just burying his head in the sand, waiting for the news around his stupidity and rudeness to blow over.
No. That’s not how these people react. No matter how big it gets, it will fuel him and convince him evermore that he was right. He will never understand.
22 years huh? Didn’t know solitaire was that old
It’s a good thing that I’ve never been put into any sort of role where I’d have to deal with people like Jerry. I’d have replied *once* and would have done so in such a way as to make Theo de Raadt look like a saint.
Johnny Hughes is a better man than I.
Edited 2006-04-03 13:38
I think you guy misunderstood the poor man. He did 22 years of IT and suddenly stopped for even more maybe. When he found an occasion to raise a flamewar he just jumped on it! 😀
Edited 2006-04-03 13:39
FTA: “Hughes is a developer of CentOS, which stands for the Computerized ENTerprise Operating System.”
Actually, it is Community ENTerprise Operating System.
Jerry Taylor appears to be the “Basil Fawlty” of city managers.
More like Basil Fawlty’s bellhop really.
No, Manuel isn’t an a$$. He’s just a guy who tries his best. Mr Taylors arrogance and ignorance is much more like Basil.
Gee… I feel really bad for the developers who make all of this (CentOS) possible and get treated like this. Let’s forget about complaining to Tuttle (wasting our time on a hopeless cause) and give these guys a bit of positive reinforcement eh?
http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=23
API
Oklahoma residents were surprised to find the town of Tuttle replaced by a cryptic message:
“If you are seeing this sign, it is because the city manager has misconfigured the space time continuum in the surrounding area. Please contact your system administrator or deity.”
Calls to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security went unanswered as of this morning.
With statements like this, it’s obvious CentOS people haven’t been in the enterprise business for long. Instead of replying in a calm matter, Hughes replied in full anger.
” With statements like this, it’s obvious CentOS people haven’t been in the enterprise business for long. Instead of replying in a calm matter, Hughes replied in full anger. ”
Absolutely not. How can you contend such a thing with a straight face? I’ve dealt with plenty of large organizations and received far less favourable responses. Let us not forget that he was being baited by someone who wasn’t even a “customer”. His response was commendable and anything more pandering on his point would have only encouraged Jerry into worse behaviour than he was already exhibiting.
@boots
Absolutely not. How can you contend such a thing with a straight face? I’ve dealt with plenty of large organizations and received far less favourable responses. Let us not forget that he was being baited by someone who wasn’t even a “customer”. His response was commendable and anything more pandering on his point would have only encouraged Jerry into worse behaviour than he was already exhibiting.
Had Hughes answered proberly, all this fiasco would have been avoided. His response wasn’t “commendable” at all. What Hughes did was a classic newbie error. He replied with throwing more gazoline onto the fire.
“Had Hughes answered proberly, all this fiasco would have been avoided. His response wasn’t “commendable” at all. What Hughes did was a classic newbie error. He replied with throwing more gazoline onto the fire.”
What are you talking about? What would have been a proper response in your opinion, a full bendover? Jerry sends off an ill-tempered email, making demands and threats and you suggest that Mr. Hughes very restrained and even helpful response was inappropriate and caused the issue? It sounds to me that you need to review the facts a little bit more objectively and without the bias that “the customer is always right”. Jerry was not and is not a customer of Mr. Hughes nor did he claim to have any desire to be. He demanded satisfaction from someone who had no responsibility to provide any service to him at all. In most places, if you glove slap someone you are asking for much worse than the helpful responses that Mr. Hughes provided.
Edited 2006-04-03 16:07
I agree with whoever said he replied like an ass. He did. He spoke down to the man and guys like that hate that. It just escalated it to the next level, and the fool didn’t know enough to close his trap before he uttered “FBI”.
He replied extremely kindly to Taylor.
The mere fact Taylor claims 22 years of experience and doesn’t even know about index.html shows how stupid he is, and how wonderfully calm and nice the reply from Hughes was.
“I feel sorry for your city”
Oh yes, the KINDNESS is overflowing!
Give me a break. It was a bitchy response (however warranted) to an idiot.
Whatever..
The real sinners in this story is hosting company. They said they weren’t running CentOS while they actually were.
Taylor should give CentOS an apology and find another company to host the website of Tuttle.
Hughes replied calmly to all the nonsense coming from Taylor.
Of course the reply wasn’t overly kind, but it’s not supposed to be.
If somebody blames you for the errors done by other persons, you probably won’t be capable of answering as nicely as Hughes did.
The mere fact you can Hughes for doing so much to help Taylor shows how much of a Tuttlemoron you are yourself.
The only better thing Hughes could have done would have been to reply: “Not our problem. Contact your host.”
And simply keep replying that.
Considering how ignorant Taylor is, I too feel sorry for the city.
“If somebody blames you for the errors done by other persons, you probably won’t be capable of answering as nicely as Hughes did. ”
Don’t you remember what Thumper said?
“My Mom says ‘If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.'”
What holds true in cartoons from yesteryear hold true today.
Well, that’s all fine. But one thing is principle, another thing is reality.
Your rule means, he shouldn’t have replied at all. However, that would have been very rude.
Besides that, Hughes were pretty kind towards Taylor. He actually helped him, instead of giving him the reply most people would have given Taylor (incl. various mothers): “F*** off, moron!”
I don’t want to live in your world, buddy. No, most people would not have said that to him. Perhaps you and your Mom would have, but most people would see the VAST possibilities of there being a cluster-fudge as a result of this being escalated and calmly directed him to talk to his ISP.
When the guy came back with an answer and STILL had problems, I would have invited him to call the FBI. The FBI does not like fools bothering them with idiotic, podunk questions. Let THEM yell at him.
So basically. You would have done what Hughes did in the first post, but after that post you would have turned rude on him.
Hughes were being helpful all the way through, including guiding him towards the ISP. That’s where Taylor started screaming for FBI.
Nope, if you had read my post, after the initial help, I would direct him away from me and the potentislfor a fight that might make OSS supporters look bad.
Hughes _did_ direct him away. But Taylor just wouldn’t listen.
Hughes replied in full anger.
No he didn’t. Read the e-mails.
@archiesteel
“We hope you are happy with it, since we produced it for free and you are able to use it without paying us … and are even threatening to have us arrested for providing to you free of charge.”
He did reply in full anger. He should have just pointed out the obvious problem and shut his mouth (aka no side remarks).
“We hope you are happy with it, since we produced it for free and you are able to use it without paying us … and are even threatening to have us arrested for providing to you free of charge.”
He did reply in full anger. He should have just pointed out the obvious problem and shut his mouth (aka no side remarks).
———————
His reply is not “in full anger”. He probably shouldn’t have thrown in the two side comments (“I feel sorry for your city” and the one you cite above) in his first e-mail. However, considering the tone he got from Jerry Taylor – who certainly could’ve acted more professionally throughout this whole exchange – I think his initial reply was fairly calm. “In full anger”? No way.
Why should Mr. Hughes have to shut his mouth and put up with that kind of crap? He’s a human too. Not only that, but CentOS is provided for FREE. He has no obligation to be polite in the face of abuse. None. He’s not a public servant – unlike Mr. Taylor who, ironically, was rude from the very start.
@BigZaphod
Why should Mr. Hughes have to shut his mouth and put up with that kind of crap? He’s a human too. Not only that, but CentOS is provided for FREE. He has no obligation to be polite in the face of abuse. None. He’s not a public servant – unlike Mr. Taylor who, ironically, was rude from the very start.
The Open Source aspect doesn’t matter in this case. The City is paying for hosting services. Replacing Apache with IIS would have amounted to the same thing.
Hughes could have just not replied. Or give out a canned reply telling the user to referring Taylor to their IT dept or the CentOS forums for further help in web server trouble shooting. But Hughes didn’t. He filled that reply with a big cup of “We hope you are happy with it”, “we produced it for free”. And then, if Taylor kept it going, Hughes should have reported Taylor to ISP abuse. PERIOD.
Hughes could have just not replied. Or give out a canned reply telling the user to referring Taylor to their IT dept or the CentOS forums for further help in web server trouble shooting. But Hughes didn’t. He filled that reply with a big cup of “We hope you are happy with it”, “we produced it for free”.
But Hughes DID tell Taylor to seek out an IT personnel in his own department. Taylor refused that suggestion, very likely because there is no IT person in his dept. I’d be shocked if Taylor IS the IT dept…
Oh and, reporting Taylor to ISP for abuse… sound familiar?? Replace ISP with another 3 letter acronym. Yeah, you got it
“Oh and, reporting Taylor to ISP for abuse… sound familiar?? Replace ISP with another 3 letter acronym. Yeah, you got it
“
Reporting someone to their ISP for abuse is a minor event and serves to make the internet a safer and friendlier place. Abusing someone and threatening to report them to the FBI because you couldn’t find your way out of a closet with a map on the other hand is malicious and qualifies someone as being the dangerous type who should be reported in order to keep the internet safe.
For that matter I don’t know how people can sympathize with Taylor who, rather than simply reading the very clear page sitting in front of him (like this one: http://centos.hughesjr.com/testing/noindex_new.html ), resorted instead to having a temper tantrum.
At the very least maybe this will teach Jerry Taylor some manners and self restraint.
The Open Source aspect doesn’t matter in this case. The City is paying for hosting services. Replacing Apache with IIS would have amounted to the same thing.
Actually, that would have been funnier, because Microsoft wouldn’t even have responded without a $35 support fee charged to his credit card. Imagine poor Jerry’s outrage then.
He did reply in full anger.
No he didn’t, and especially not in the passage you quoted. At the very worst he is slightly sarcastic, which is quite understandable given the circumstances. But even then he managed to retain a polite, diplomatic tone.
You’re just using this incident as an excuse to further your own anti-Linux agenda.
I think that the “I feel sorry for your city” comment does come across as a little rude (not that Mr. Taylor wasn’t rude to begin with). Most of what Hughes said was very reasonable and calm. I am wondering if Hughes didn’t actually mean “I am sorry that your city’s web page is not working”. I think that fits in more with what he was saying. Of course, I can’t read minds…
You’re way off man.
Hughes replied in a very very kind way, trying to explain to a person without any knowledge whatsoever, what was going on, including pointing him to the right place for information.
Taylor started a flamewar and the mere fact that we can laugh at his stupidity makes him attack the rest of the world.
Look at the way he talks about ‘geeks’.
If anything, Taylor’s sheer stupidity and accusations forced CentOS to be defensive.
As I always say.. “you can lead an ass to knowledge, but you can’t make him think.”
Just shows what 22 years of media pampering can do to a human being.
So after he insults and threatens the CentOS dev, who helped him even though it was not his problem – he is rude to him once again.
“[CentOS is] a free operating system that this guy gives away, which tells you how much time he’s got on his hands.”
Simply amazing quite how stupid and rude some people are.
He should bill the City or ask for an apology for payment in full!
Based on the kindness of his replies I’m nominating Hughes for saint-hood. His patience is the stuff legends are made of.
He (Taylor) still hasn’t done the right thing and apologized for harassing someone who had absolutely nothing to do with his problem. He still hasn’t thanked him for solving his problem (even though under absolutely no obligation to do so) either. What a class act huh ?
those are the problems that happens when trying to save a buck. don’t accept cheap imitations insist on the best. the most trusted brand name worldwide for over 20yrs and it’s installed on 90% of the desktops. with award winning text support. and it even supports DRM, always demand on the best. demand for Microsoft products.
those are the problems that happens when trying to save a buck. don’t accept cheap imitations insist on the best. the most trusted brand name worldwide for over 20yrs and it’s installed on 90% of the desktops. with award winning text support. and it even supports DRM, always demand on the best. demand for Microsoft products.
Whatever they’re paying you, they’re paying you too much for this pityful attempt at guerilla marketing.
Grandparent is a shill? Hmmm.. sounds sarcastic for me
The correct response here would have been to send a nice thank-you note along with some local product to Hughes. Then submit the story to whatever media will cary it. It’s a waste of a perfectly good PR opportunity for Tuttle really. They might even have done their town moto justice “The place where people grow – friendly”.
Has anyone noticed a Homer Simpson look?
Don’t insult Homer!
Taylor’s bio said he had a degree in Electrical Engineer, so I wouldn’t necessarily expect him to know much about a web server.
What is inexcusable is his failure to read the default Apache page, call the city’s IT manager, and solve the issue internally.
Ay, where did my “ing” go?
Your keyboard was infected with the CentOS virus.
I have to second that.
The Apache test page reads:
“If you have issues with the content of this site, contact the owner of the domain, not the CentOS project.”
It’s that easy.
Taylor’s bio said he had a degree in Electrical Engineer, so I wouldn’t necessarily expect him to know much about a web server.
Did his little display of stupidity force the university to take back his degree?
Or soes anybody else notice that Tuttle Times is also rather clueless about all this. Not only do they not report the CentOS perspective, they don’t even clarify that the manager is a moron. They just say that the Mayor is happy with the guy and so on. I guess the fact that they got the full form of CentOS wrong kinda tells you something. I mean it’s right there on the title of the centos.org page. So maybe we are geeks and it might be strange that someone gives you software for free.
Tuttle is a small farming town of about 5,000 people southwest of Oklahoma City. I’m just taking a *wild* guess here but I doubt Tuttle has a sophisticated IT staff. As of March 2002 (according to city-data.com), Tuttle government workers averaged $22k/yr salary with 34 full time employees and 31 part time employees (this includes fire, police, gas, water, etc).
Bottom line .. this guys web site wasn’t accessible and he needed it online but didn’t have anyone dedicated to do this job. As we have all mentioned, a City Manager has a lot of different, unrelated jobs to manage. This website issue was something he really didn’t want to deal with (its technical and it sounds like doesn’t know anything about it) so he shot from the hip and was dead wrong about it being a hacker group.
Even though he could have rectified the situation the bottom line is he IS the city manager for Tuttle, OK, makes next to nothing for his effort and doesn’t have the luxury of a lot of “go to” people when things well outside of the norm impact his day-to-day activities.
I really wish people in the community would think a bit before linking this to their blog (apparently over 26,000 times), emailing Tuttle officials 800+ times, plus calling, leaving voicemails, yada yada.. While the initial story was amusing, the response makes the open source community look very unprofessional irregardless of if it was warranted or not.
1. Jerry Taylor is paid $63K a year, which is public record, which you can verify.
2. No one expects him to be able to administer a Linux machine, but it’s fair to expect him to not be a complete dick via email, especially when it’s been pointed out that he’s wrong.
3. Anyone who is so obnoxious and arrogant deserves this sort of ridicule.
“emailing Tuttle officials 800+ times, plus calling, leaving voicemails, yada yada.. While the initial story was amusing, the response makes the open source community look very unprofessional irregardless of if it was warranted or not.”
Oh, give it a rest.
*I* am part of the OSS community, whatever that means, and *I* didn’t call him…It doesn’t say ANYTHING about this supposed OSS community more than Muslims burning buildings over a cartoon.
A person who claims to have had 22 years of IT experience, unable to use the simplist of tools, Google, to find out what CentOS is.
So lets recap this, the US has a moron in the white house, GM the car company who is going bust, but that doesn’t stop them from spending billions on IT, and there is a moron is some hick town where donkey’s dig for daylight who think that CentOS is a virus!
if it happens again and Hughes refuses to assist in any way. Just let Taylor make an idiot of himself.
If all the village idiots got together, and formed a village themselves, Jerry Taylor would be the idiot for that village of idiots!
…I was surprised to see Apache have those fat friendly error messages instead of a reference to some (type) of manpage or SunOS manual.
There are some obvious fixes for the iD10+ errors that belie this;
– Name the OS DOD IFARS 71.21001.41.1410 v.92 (limited domains, hard to type for IMAP domain control authentication, etc.) Dubya doubles down and does the support he should be doing, then?
– T3h 0lD3 P0Si+ readme ref3rence?
– Include size 28 MSHTML effects text explaining how to look up one’s own IP, domain hosts, etc. (Has to be done in 10 5-letter words.)
– Explain that this is as good as it gets and is exactly the text to be expected for the given date and time.
– Perhaps indicate how and why university credentials are considered derated or expired, per College Board standards…. Standard set of tests offered in order to place the expert with the correct nursing home; medication adjustment; and/or class; with all dunnage and paperwork filled out in advance.
– Find out how this Taylor fellow escaped being milled into animal feed protein in the first place, and fix that primary societal problem. Which the SOYLENT corporation…what?
Who am I?
My Computer Experience? 10^253 years based on soliton flux through BTC devices and projected string bundle lifetimes.
…I was surprised to see Apache have those fat friendly error messages instead of a reference to some (type) of manpage or SunOS manual.
There are some obvious fixes for the iD10+ errors that belie this;
– Name the OS DOD IFARS 71.21001.41.1410 v.92 (limited domains, hard to type for IMAP domain control authentication, etc.) Dubya doubles down and does the support he should be doing, then?
– T3h 0lD3 P0Si+ readme ref3rence?
– Include size 28 MSHTML effects text explaining how to look up one’s own IP, domain hosts, etc. (Has to be done in 10 5-letter words.)
– Explain that this is as good as it gets and is exactly the text to be expected for the given date and time.
– Perhaps indicate how and why university credentials are considered derated or expired, per College Board standards…. Standard set of tests offered in order to place the expert with the correct nursing home; medication adjustment; and/or class; with all dunnage and paperwork filled out in advance.
– Find out how this Taylor fellow escaped being milled into animal feed protein in the first place, and fix that primary societal problem. Which the SOYLENT corporation…what?
Who am I?
My Computer Experience? 10^253 years based on soliton flux through BTC devices and projected string bundle lifetimes.
!!!
Well, what can be said…?
Like the song says…
This guy is just an American idiot.
I bet he thinks he did the right think, and that he’s giving a good image of his country!
Don’t ever go to his town, if you go to the USA in holidays. I he catch you spitting in the street, he will call the FBI, and they will send you to Guantanamo!
!!!
Edited 2006-04-04 16:25