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Microsoft PR Paying to "Correct" Wikipedia
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Jan 22, 2007 05:33 PM
from the what's-left-is-right dept.
from the what's-left-is-right dept.
Unpaid Schill writes "Over on the O'Reilly Network, there's an interesting piece about how Microsoft tried to hire people to contribute to Wikipedia. Not wanting to do the edits directly, they were looking for an intermediary to make edits and corrections favorable to them. Why? According to the article, it was apparently both to let people know that Microsoft will not 'enable death squads with their UUIDs' and also to fight the growing consensus that OOXML contains a useless pile of legacy crap which is unfit for standardization."
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Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a policy of let's make as much money as we can!
I mean, come on, this is a corporation, and you're complaining about ethics? Perhaps you're suggesting that they would make more money if they didn't have "unethical" policies like this... but that's not at all clear from your post. It is unclear why, in all situations, a blanket policy of honesty would be expected to maximize profits for corporations. (Let me rephrase that: this is obviously not the case.) Microsoft's goal is not to make you like them; it is to make lots of money. So far, they've been very successful at that. Probably their PR department played at least some small role in that. Don't get me wrong, I despise them too, but let's be clear that they're all doing exactly what they're "supposed" to.
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations as they exist today are a mistake. A way of gathering investment money needs to exist, in order to fund things that need massive startup costs (for example, processor design). But the idea that it should be done by a pseudo-person with no sense of morality, whos only goal is to amass money and power, and with no accountability for its actions is horribly flawed.
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its worth noting that it used to be that governments were far more restrictive about the corporate charters they would approve, and far more willing to revoke charters for corporations violating the public interest. The special privileges granted with a corporate charter were viewed more as a privilege granted in the public interest and conditioned on good behavior than as a virtual right the way they are now.
What we have now is not some intrinsic necessity for the corporate structure, a remnant of late 19th Century subservience to big business.
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
A slightly less rose-tinted view of history suggests that corporate charters were granted when there was an assurance that the ruling prince of the city-state, or his cronies, would get a cut.
Parent
Re: Honesty.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Somewhere, deep inside the twisted corridors in Redmond, some person must have actually thought of the idea to hire third parties to edit Wikipedia. He must also have presented it to his boss (unless it was some boss who thought of the idea himself), who in turn must have ordered someone to carry out the plan. Shouldn't an obviously unethical plan such as this have been stopped at some point in this chain? Shouldn't that boss figure have some kind of conscience which should have stopped him from doing this? Another problem may be the current inability (real or imagined) of "peons" in a corporation to themselves stop such plans when being ordered to carry them out. Generally, I believe that the lack of personal responsibility for actions being carried out "in the name of a corporation" is the real culprit.
Also, aside from the ethical standpoint, must they not have realized that this would leak out?! I mean, this cannot be considered positive PR, right?
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the grandparent denounced corporations while acknowledging the necessity of a corporation-like object by saying: A way of gathering investment money needs to exist, in order to fund things that need massive startup costs (for example, processor design).
It's incredibly short-sighted to say "X sucks and should be banned", when X provides a useful service, and when no alternative is proposed. Say we banned corporations. Because of the necessity of a corporation-like object, it is very likely that such an object would quickly appear, and over time would evolve into something indistinguishable from today's corporation.
It's appropriate that you likened the argument to the argument over intellectual property. Again, IP sucks in many ways, but has useful consequences. If IP laws were repealed, and nothing replaced them, it is likely that content creators would re-create something similar to the IP system using complicated contracts (e.g., you would have to sign a lengthy agreement prior to purchasing an album at a music store).
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll tell you that I've known about ten unbelievable programmers, and five of them would never have said, "I have programmed in over 20 languages." Of the other five, I am absolutely sure two are regularly unemployed and the last three aren't unbelievably famous.
Of course, you're welcome to call me an idiot all you like. I majored in Philosophy, I can take it. AND I work primarily in VBScript, meaning I have developed balls of steel from being kicked in them again and again and again.
As a side note, your resume is impressive, and if you moved you would have no trouble finding more interesting work. Not many do software development in Medford. I can think of three or four companies offhand in downtown Portland that would be completely happy to have you. A few tips on the resume:
"Minor Tech Support for legacy apps I have written," should probably not be on your resume. Don't tell anyone about things you will end up doing in your own free time. Are they supposed to pay you for it?
Life goals make poor career objectives. Pick something you'd like to do (in your and my case, "Work with a small, tight knit team to produce revolutionary technology grown out of the extensive background I have developed with a lifetime of computer work and training," might be appropriate, except I omitted the lifetime of training)
Some of your wording can be compressed. A good resume is MAX 2 pages long, and your HTML one seems to be about four.
I'd suggest dividing your resume differently - put a summary of your skills at the top, then divide it by important project.
Classes are great to have taken, but they don't mean much elsewhere. Link to source code if it's particularly brilliant, in an addendum to your resume called, "More interesting code projects."
Link to projects if possible, or make the source code available. This can be done in an Office document of any type you choose. Throw some code samples in text format on your website. Remember to document these samples a whole bunch.
Overall, your resume reads a little like a tech reference book; this is kinda bad.
As a disclaimer, I don't know what kind of companies you're applying to. Generally, you tailor your resume to the position you apply for. They want Java? Write a resume that shows all the things you've done with Java. They want C-based driver work? That's when you say, "I loves me some math." But don't complain when people pad their resume; just live up to yours in your interview.
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just stupid.
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And murderers are doing what they're "supposed" to, after all, thats why we call them "murderers". Who decided that the profit motive was supposed to be superior to honesty? I think you'll find that fraud is not accepted in standard definitions of "free market" or "Capitalism", so where has the idea that lying for money is permissible come from?
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Informative)
As a matter of fact, yes they are. Corporations (and therefore their various departments), by definitions, only have in mind the interest of their shareholders, therefore if being unethical furthers their interest and a corporation can get away with it, they will be.
I suggest you watch a documentary called The Corporation [amazon.com]: they very clearly demonstrate that the laws governing corporations make then sociopathic by nature.
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The quotes around the work "Correct" in the summary headline is just another Slashdot spin...
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Funny)
Are they *that* ethically challenged?
Or is it that they are *that* desperate to be cool and loved?
How about a policy of honesty
Yes.
That's their job.
That would be the anti-thesis of marketing.
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You did read the link, right?
This isn't some random anonymous goofball being paid to insert text Microsoft gives him; he's an (apparently) recognized figure, not especially MS-friendly, being paid to provide corrections in his area of expertise, with his reputation on the line. I'd trust that more than edits made by the PR people. He certainly made his case a lot more credibly than the Slashdot submitter made his.
I mean, I can still see where there are questions to be raised, but the write-up here is completely dishonest.
Parent
Re:Honesty.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Third parties are usually where corporations finds impartiality, even if the third party receives a cheque from the company on a monthly basis. Most other industries use a third party for impartiality--e.g. auditing in the financial industry, security audits, etc. are essentially asking a third party to review existing data for disrepencies. Why can't Microsoft do the same with their products and/or standards?
Parent
Bit of FUD Himself (Score:5, Informative)
That would be because respondants have had over 4 years to respond to the OASIS specification. Since it's already a standard that has been reviewed by the industry, the ISO committee can choose to adopt it on a fast-track as a way of putting their own stamp of approval on it.
Re:Bit of FUD Himself (Score:5, Informative)
Answer: 1 Month vs. 1.5 years respectively.
So, Microsoft rams a specification through the ECMA in a quarter of the time as ODF was moved through OASIS, significantly increases the volume of the standard over their original specs, at least one major partner voted against it [heise.de], then gives everyone exactly one month to review it before it becomes an international standard, and somehow that makes the industry a bunch of whiners for complaining about having only one month to review their standard. Right.
Parent
No wonder there's a problem ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful my eye. (Score:5, Informative)
Howso? From TFA:
"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."
Wow -- that sounds shady AND underhanded. No wait -- not even close. He admits he's been hired, AND he is only going to correct errors. Wow. Sounds EVIL.
>>1. There is public information Microsoft doesn't like.
No, this is public MIS-information that Microsoft doesn't like on a PUBLIC forum. They have every right to correct those errors, but they've gone one step further and hired a third party to examine the validity of the articles and correct any errors he finds.
Parent
Apple gets its truth squad for free (Score:5, Insightful)
My evil brain... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm impressed by Microsoft (kind of off-topic) (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have ever worked in a moderately sized organization, you will know how difficult it is to get anything slightly unusual through the bureaucracy. Yet a clearly outside-the-box proposal like this apparently got through. Presumably, it is even encouraged. That would never have happened in any of the organizations I worked in, except maybe for the small 3 employee upstart.
Would you take the job? (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, being paid to do something you would gladly do for free, if you had the time?
Re:For or Against? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent