Talk:Groklaw

message: Is there anything to corroborate this Brenda Banks' involvement?  She's currently listed as something like a co-founder.  I've been reading Groklaw for a very long time now, and I've never heard of that person.  You could chalk that up to censorship, but it's not like I haven't noticed AllParadox or Marbux vanishing.  I'd like to see some independent citation for her involvement, or something more substantial.  I mean, anyone could claim contributions like that.  I could claim to have submitted almost all of the anonymous Slashdot stories citing Groklaw, and no one could prove it.
Also, someone should probably update the part about PJ's health break.  PJ is back full-time at this point, as far as I can see.
209.188.20.15 04:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Brenda  Banks used the moniker br3n. She was a contributor since Radio Userland and a very early moderator. Br3n left Groklaw soon after the controversy over censorship. Some people believed the posts were deleted not due to offensive content but because they didn't parrot the opinions of the mob. In particular, jgabriel had his account banned despite breaking none of the rules of posting on Groklaw. He had however expressed disgust over the OSRM indemnity offerings on a completely different forum (Yahoo forums). Br3n asked PJ about jgabriel's account removal and later found her moderation powers stripped without any discussion or warning. Her story is at http://linux-blog.org/index.php?/archives/62-Disagreements-+-Groklaw-Deletion.html  220.245.220.41 23:18, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Brenda Banks

message: I'm not entirely sure I understand the intent of this sentence:
:It became a web site in September 2003, when its popularity caused it to outgrow the blog software.
Isn't Groklaw both a blog and a web site simultaneously, as a novel is a book? Is this meant to refer to a change in content management software, or hosting, or getting a separate domain name, or...? --Brion 08:08, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's probably just as you guess, meaning it is no longer blog software being used for personal notes but instead more of a news/research site. Perhaps a rephrasing is in order. OlofE 10:41, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Website vs blog

message: This really needs to be worked over.  This article is more about Pamela Jones than about Groklaw, and it seems
that a lot of critics and trolls are pushing their POV on the article to force it in that direction.
I suggest the whole thing be rewritten removing Pamela as the focus and concentrating on the features of the Groklaw website. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 168.253.135.142 (talk) 05:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: An Article About Groklaw

message: Groklaw obviously belongs in :Category:Weblogs, but I also added it to :Category:Linux and :Category:Law.  Should it be in :Category:Free software instead of Linux?  Or in :Category:Legal resources rather than Law? -- Khym Chanur 05:32, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
The following: ..However, all the attacks have one thing in common: they never attack content of the site in any specifics; it so far has all been personal attacks on PJ.. is just pure BS, in my opinon. Nobody ever voiced a single criticism of Groklaw which wasn't a personal attack on PJ? Even a cursory search on Google gives reason to believe otherwise 1 2. Also the reference to the "alleged" (who alleges otherwise?) suicides and the implication that they were not is not NPOV, but also distasteful, direspectful, morally reprehensible and sensationalist. I am deleting that entire paragraph. BluePlatypus 16:56, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories

message: This article is written with sarcastic bias that is damaging to wikipedia.  Knowing nothing about this topic, I still feel compelled to edit this article to remove the overt bias.  What's scary is how much subtle bias there must be.  This is an embarrassment.--Njerseyguy 22:39, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Rewrite finished - I think that 90% of the text is new. Comments please. UrbanTerrorist 02:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just read this and I'm fairly impressed with the text at large.  I fixed a few grammatical things, but everything seems objective and informative.  However, I never read the original article, so I'm afraid I can't provide any comparison views. Daniel Lindsäth 11:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: sarcastic bias

message: This is ridiculous.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.69.214.26 (talk) 
Feel free to follow the standard deletion process if you believe it should be removed. DMacks 17:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Remove this article

message: I removed one recent edit, but it was because it didn't conform to Wikipedia standards.  I was tempted to raise the matter with Wikipedia myself since the language of the section was heavily biased and not with a neutral POV.  Now the section has been returned, and it still includes leading language.  Fine, leave the criticism section in place and let people see how un-Wikipedia-like it reads.  I have no bone to pick either way.  I was merely trying to enforce POV standards.  I thought about first rewriting the section, but I saw so many changes to make to make it neutral that I gave up.  Maybe someone else wishes to try who has more direct knowledge of the facts involved.
:For what it's worth, I see nothing egregiously wrong with the section, from a POV standpoint. These are allegations against the site made by actual persons. They seem to be of significant importance to be worthy of display on Wikipedia. And they seem to have factual citations. So I fail to see the problem here.
::I think an article like this should stick to the facts.  The criticism section needs to go.  This article should not be treated like an open discussion forum.  It should just describe what the groklaw website is about.  I don't care what your opinion about groklaw is; it's irrelevant to this article.  Moreover, we don't need links or references to everybody who has an opinion (whether it's pro or con) either.  Just say in the article that the website is controversial.  This article should be about Groklaw itself, not about the controversy surrounding it.  It doesn't even need to be that long of an article.  Groklaw is just a website that happens to cover certain ongoing litigation among other things.  It's bound to be controversial.  130.94.162.61 10:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a quick note, I removed a criticism from the lead paragraph just now, not because it may not be true, but because it's tangential to what groklaw is. No strong objection to the content (assuming cited) somewhere in the article. DMacks 22:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

text: There was a link to a Linux Blog story that supported the above statements. However the link got removed from the article with the comment "this link no longer works". It does work. No idea why the link was removed. 220.245.220.41 23:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: POV/removal of criticisms

message: Groklaw's Mission Statement should be added in this article...   http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20040923045054130
Perhaps it might be used to answer the criticism ?  "It's primarily a working site, not a discussion forum." is one of the first lines of the mission statement of Groklaw.
That section seems a little too much... some people disagree with her... ok... so what?  No one agrees with everyone on every point they make !  We all have are opinions.
--Kebron 21:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mission Statement

message: User:Frodo42 removed the section about the alleged SCO subpoena.  I think this section is important because it shows that Groklaw is more than just a web site commenting on SCO v IBM, but has actually become entwined with the case, at least in the media's opinion, if not actually SCO's.  While the rumours are only rumours at this point, they are still verifiable (e.g. here). JulesH 10:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Subpoena

message: This section is looking a bit sparse now.  There are accusations of pro-open source bias, and I think we should include a mention of these.  The same article I linked above (this one) contains the following paragraph, for example:
:Coverage on the website shows a bias towards open source interests, and Jones has openly declared herself an open source proponent.
I don't think anybody really denies that this is true, and the prevalent attitude seems to be "so what? all reporting is biased."  See (e.g.) this ZDNet article: "[Groklaw] is what it is; and if it turns out to have been IBM funded from the gitgo, so what? - the site stands on its own [...]" JulesH 10:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right that Jones/GL does veer towards the Free software school of thought, rather than open source. Most of the rest of what you're saying appears bogus. I seem to recall that most of the criticism of Sun related to the proprietary stuff in that Linux distro that used the Java trademark, and some worries about the freeness of the CDDL license, and the lameness of their patent pledge - there's been very little criticism of OpenSolaris or OpenOffice. Criticism of Sun because they're not 'open source' enough doesn't make you less of an open source supporter. I also dont recall any 'very negative articles about BSD', and I can't find one on a site search - the closest is a pro-BSD copyleft rereading of the license - are you making some of this stuff up?  And a Microsoft fanboy like Miguel decides to criticise Groklaw? Colour me surprised. --Aim Here 11:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Of course the site has a pro-FOSS bias.  This is implicit in the Mission Statement, which states in part that Groklaw is "a journalistic enterprise, with interviews, research, and reporting of legal events important to the FOSS community".  Just as a site that reports news important to, say, the Pit-Bull owners community could be assumed to be pro Pit-Bulls, a site that reports on items important to the FOSS community can safely be assumed to be pro-FOSS.  I have expanded the initial paragraph with a sentence and a link to the mission statement. -- Vancouverite 12:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality / Bias

message: There was a criticism section with two criticisms.  One was just silly "Groklaw sucks now", and the other was an out-of-context quote.  The latter was Miguel de Icaza saying that Jones doesn't understand free software development.  That would be fine except that de Icaza is getting a lot of stick within the GNOME community for his defense of the OOXML format.  So, normally, de Icaza could be read as representing the GNOME developers, but that is not the case in this context.
"In general, making separate sections with the title "Criticism" is discouraged."  This lousy quality example is the sort of reason why criticism sections are discouraged. --Gronky (talk) 14:28, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Lousy criticism section

message: The analysis that is cited is fatally flawed. If you read the page, he got a total of 5 lines of log files. How one can deduce a DoS attach from a total of 5 lines of logfiles is beyond me. Also, the reference is a blog, which I thought was frowned up as a source for Wikipedia.
Given the above, I believe that the reference to the claimed DoS attack should be struck from this page.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Captain Nemo III (talk • contribs) 01:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The source is Forbes, and the system administrator merely backs the conclusion up. Cool Hand Luke 01:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh, I see. When someone claimed that there was no source for hassling advertisers, I moved it there. I'll cite it for both propositions now. Cool Hand Luke 01:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

text: As above, the source is Frobes. I've recently become aware that PJ also thinks Daniel Lyons is some sort of Microsoft shill, but it should be noted that reliable sources seem to assume it happened. For example PC Magazine, and the interviews of Sys-Con's publisher. It might be that Sys-con is making it up for some reason, maybe they were embarrassed to be slashdotted into oblivion, but no reliable source questions it. Cool Hand Luke 09:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The open letter to Forbes Magazine from the Internet Press Guild questions whether or not there really was a DoS attack. The letter can be found at the blog of one of the signatories. Given the low threshold set by Forbes, I would be inclined to consider this a reliable source by that standard. As one who has operated a webserver and analysed its logs while working for a boss who was utterly clueless about the technical issues I would be quite ready to believe that a businessman or journalist might honestly believe that the failure of a site was due to a malicious attack when in fact it was just the traffic spike you get when your site is mentioned in a well known place. Note also that it is a common practice for sites mentioned on Slashdot to be mirrored by readers with well connected web hosting so that traffic from other Slashdot readers can be directed to the mirror in order to mitigate the effect of the sudden interest which can bring down all but the most well resourced sites. The obvious tool for creating such a mirror is, of course, wget. The supposed sign of the attack could have been someone trying to help by taking some of the load. Unless we get real data from someone who has access to the log files and knows how to interpret them I doubt if we will ever know. As for sticking to a ridiculous position arrived at through technical ignorance, we have the example of Tuttle, Oklahoma so I would not consider Sys-Con sticking to their claim to be any kind of supporting evidence.  GrumpyOldWebmaster (talk) 17:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Alleged" is fine. I'm aware of the letter having posted it below. We can't reject them as a reliable source just because PJ does, but it's not essential to the story. Cool Hand Luke 17:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Claimed DoS attack on sys-con.com

message: :In the latter part of PJ's referenced comment, she alleges that some of the stuff is libelous:-
:It's like SCO's smear campaign has been enshrined there, which is a real distortion of Groklaw's place in history. Neither Lyons's smears or O'Gara's have any place there. There is no reason to list materials I consider libelous. You can quote me, if necessary. And why is there so much about the Sys-con allegations? They have been completely disproven. Again, that is in the end, the references. If you have to give a reason, state that it's libel. Because Groklaw didn't report on the O'Gara article until after the alleged DDOS supposedly began, so even if there was one, which I don't believe, Groklaw had nothing to do with it, obviously. So the only reason someone put it there is to smear Groklaw.
:
:Please someone remove that libelous junk. If they put it back, show them the letter the journalist group sent to Forbes in protest. I'm tired of being unjustly smeared.
:I'll have more of a look at the Sys-Con stuff.  If it's going to be in the article, it should at least be accurate.
:Simon G Best (talk) 10:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's accurate to my knowledge. The letter's here, among other places. Cool Hand Luke 11:01, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean the "OPEN LETTER TO FORBES MAGAZINE"?  Simon G Best (talk) 11:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think that's the letter PJ means in her comment. Cool Hand Luke 11:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh yeah!  Thanks!  (I didn't realise you were referring to a letter she'd referred to in the very comment of hers I'd referred to.  Oops!)  Simon G Best (talk) 11:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem. I'm going to bed. Happy Thanksgiving (assuming you're a Yankee). Cool Hand Luke 11:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Okay, I've read that letter now, and it doesn't particularly support the following: "After threats of legal action for slander and invasion of privacy, lobbying of the site's advertisers, and allegedly a denial of service attack, Linux Business News' publisher Sys-Con issued a public apology and dropped O'Gara and her LinuxGram column."  The "threats of legal action for slander and invasion of privacy" and "lobbying of the site's advertisers" don't seem to be supported at all, and only the fact that allegations of an allegedly related "denial of service attack" were made is supported.  And Lyons' referenced piece is part of his notorious "Attack of the Blogs" piece anyway, as I said above.  I'm going to go ahead and edit.  Simon G Best (talk) 02:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Incidentally, O'Gara's jaw-dropping last Sys-con article can be found by searching for the string "She had up and disappeared one day, and the super was worried about her." Cool Hand Luke 11:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Libelous?

message: I can't find any sources for the information in Editorial Policy. Please provide citations or remove this section, in any case the precise terms of anonymous comment posting on a website is hardly encyclopedic. 81.98.244.201 (talk) 22:22, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that section was just reversed. I'm not sure which version is true; the policy doesn't say. I'm inclined to agree with you that it's not an important aspect of the site. Cool Hand Luke 22:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed editorial policy section

message: I've removed some of the material in the media controversy section about Maureen O'Gara. The conclusions drawn in, or suggested by, the text aren't really supported by the sources - and, not incidentally, the source for most of the information is Groklaw itself (perhaps not the definition of RS on this topic). The bit about the story planted by Microsoft, for instance, was wrong in several ways. First, the source says Microsoft planted the story, but the article text said O'Gara planted it. Second, whether Microsoft claims to have "planted" it has no particular link with O'Gara's motivation or intention in printing it (if I tell you a recall has been issued on your car, and you go bring your car in for service, I've "planted" the issue with you but that doesn't say much about your integrity in getting the service). On the issue of the "war pay" and "jab at PJ" - in the source, the meaning of the "jab at PJ" isn't deeply explored, and O'Gara denies that it was linked to her expose. You can argue that, but any treatment of it should at least mention her denial. Additionally, the "war pay" e-mail evidently came before, not after, the "jab at PJ" e-mail - the opposite of the timeline described in the article. In any case, as O'Gara is a living person, text describing her must meet the stringent sourcing standards set out in WP:BLP etc. etc. Nathan  T   20:02, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Media Controversy / O'Gara 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified