Re: push back on negative articles

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me>]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl> wrote:

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 12:01:20PM -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 5:42 AM, Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 07:54:44PM -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> > > seriously.  What the hell.
> >
> > It is just a troll. Probably to generate clicks or make the site name
> > known by hoping people link to it.
> >
> > Not sure what to do. I suggest someone should get media training.
> >
> >
> The problem here is that i don't want people to frame this debate on their
> terms like that.

Calling attention to the article would do exactly that.

There are a lot of sites out there whose only intention is to cause
controversy. This article seems exactly about that. How to deal with
this: no clue, but IMO it has to be a positive reaction.

We can do that in the comments I think.
 

> We can either complain to the magazine, or we start pushing back on the
> comments.  At the very least we should say something on comments.  Starting
> with this one.

If you start responding point-by-point, you give the control to the
person whose only intention is to spur controversy.

Not responding will perpetuate the same myths.  Not responding is ceding the battlefield so to speak.
 

I'm not sure what the right approach is, but I think you should be
careful. It is quite easy to spin any response as e.g. 'GNOME doesn't
like to hear the truth'.

Having argued up and down on a lot of the major sites and on google+ in general I've found that people appreciate that they can talk and get things off their chest.  Most people just want acknowledgement.  That seems to mollify them and we can do something similar.  Sure it might give page hits to the troll sites, but that's how the press works these days.  We have to live in that world.

Right now, bitching about GNOME makes them money. 

On the flip side, you'll notice that we have a sustained media presence good or bad and we can continue to highlight our accomplishment and turn it to our advantage.  /r/linux for instance has a lot of GNOME articles and every update creates more speculation of where GNOME is heading.  Like I said it's kind of like following Paris Hilton in the tabloids if you want my cynical view of this.

 

I do think something should be done about the level of inaccurate
reporting, but just doing something could really backfire.

What kind of scenario would you envision?
 

I think it is best to give short generic statements. Maybe something
about Files. But don't directly respond to the inaccuracies, but say
something short that a) negates the crap indirectly b) is more about
what GNOME wants to achieve.

I don't know, that's not how I would do it.  I've called crap on a lot of people in forums (politely mind you).
 

I'm not political enough to write such statements. But I think I can
predict beforehand what won't work. And that is trying to have a
discussion with sites which have no intention at all to have a
discussion.

You don't have to be political in this case, just sincere.  That wins people more than anything.
 

Think Phoronix. Almost all GNOME articles are either inaccurate or
intentionally misleading. I think for sites which are intentionally
misleading but furthermore get quoted by other newssites, we best do
send out generic statements (but leave out specifics).

I think though we have certain individuals at these magazines that are doing this.  Alternatively, we could offer to write articles for these magazines instead thus providing an alternative view at the same level.  It will give page hits but in teh other direction.

 

Anyway, how to deal with this is usually part of media training. I think
it is time someone gets trained on this. IMO Karen.

Is there some place to learn about media training?  I don't know.  I go with my gut on some of this stuff and I haven't had any negative consequences, but then I'm not dealing with the press, I'm dealing with people in forums which is a different altogether.

sri
 

--
Regards,
Olav
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