I'm not saying Groklaw is without flaws but I am saying that the deletion of posts that are designed to discredit the site is not one of them. This has nothing to do with a "lack of transparency" because the posts that are deleted do not reflect PJ or the Groklaw community. The deleted posts lack transparency because they are almost always anonymous and they are almost always by someone pretending to be a member of the community who is not.
The problem is the deletion and sandboxing of comments that don't discredit Groklaw and that are perfectly consistent with her rules. They are often not anonymous and often by members of the community. Another problem is PJ and some of her supporters who keep hiding and misrepresenting what is going on.
If you continue to insist that what you said is true, please explain why so many of comments in the first corrections thread to this article were hidden, causing nsomos to start a second corrections thread because no one could see the first corrections thread. How were they posted anonymously? How did they discredit Groklaw? Doesn't it look like they were posted by a members of the community in order to be helpful?
For that matter, how is the unannounced sandboxing of comments ever consistent with transparency? The intent is clearly to mislead members of the Groklaw community into thinking that their comments are visible to others when they are not.
Skimming through the comments so far, I get the impression that most people are concentrating on the argument that if a person can't pirate, that doesn't mean they will buy. TFA makes an even better point: They BSA assumed that, by value, 50% of the software in use is pirated. Otherwise a 10% reduction in piracy wouldn't result in a 10% increase in sales, even if all of the ex-pirates purchased. Gee, doesn't 50% seem a little high?
How did BSA get 50%? A questionable study said greater than 40%, and since 50% is greater than 40%, it must be the correct number. (The actual number was 43%, FWIW.
The earlier study included countries such as China and Russia and it appears (even the detailed version didn't really say) that they assumed that each piece of unlicensed software counted as much as each piece of licensed software. So every unlicensed copy of Windows 98 running on an underpowered PC in a third world or BRIC country was as valuable as any piece of brand-new business software.
One thing that makes this look like so much hoo-ha is that the "detailed studies" available as PDFs don't contain any collected data or details about methodology. It's just nicely presented conclusions and spin.
"Purity". You make it sound like the Aryan Brotherhood or something.
Well, this discussion wouldn't be complete without some mention of Nazis or Neo-Nazis, I guess.
2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League