Dvorak Admits To Trolling Mac Users 354
jalefkowit writes "Tech pundit John Dvorak has long been known for his inflammatory opinions. Many have suspected that these opinions are just a way to drive up traffic to his column. Now, we have it straight from the horse's mouth: Dave Winer has Dvorak on video describing his methodology for trolling the Mac community to pump up his stats."
I have to admit I'm also guilty of posting the occasional inflammatory story, but I find it's usually best to suffix the title with a question mark, and let our ever-knowledgeable readers hash out the issue and decide for themselves.
Trolling the Mac community? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:5, Funny)
An elevator with the Mac UI would have just one button "THERE". I mean, after all, I'm already HERE.
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:5, Funny)
Reportedly, Ballmer now prefers to take the stairs
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:5, Funny)
there, i fixed that for you
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:2)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:2)
Actually, for an elevator with only two destinations, this would be a pretty cool UI, IMO.
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:2, Funny)
And the button would be in the middle of a big touch-sensitive circle that makes the elevator go up and down at varying speeds.
Actually, that might be kind of cool...
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:3)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:2)
Hey wait a minute! I thought we were supposed to be razzing that hack Dvorak here, not Mac users??
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:5, Funny)
And if you want to exit the elevator, you intuitively drag the picture of the elevator to the trash can!
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:3, Funny)
And they go, like, beep-beep-beep-beep... and the doors open up and the floor you were on is, like, gone!
--Ellen Feiss
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad Apple does not include a sense of humor with iLife. Even now when Dvorak's let us all in on the joke, they still don't get it.
meta-troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about it, if you were doing well by professional trolling (and I'm not saying he's not) would y
Re:meta-troll (Score:2)
Everyone is pretty much on to him at this point, so by admitting it, he can troll the Mac users one last time. In a few years, everyone will have forgotten about it and he can start the cycle by trolling them again. This happened before when he was fired from MacWorld.
Most of the stuff that Dvorak
Apple on Itanium (Score:2)
1) They must come out with an interesting version eventually.
2) A great time to announce that they'd made the things interesting would be with a huge splash announcement like Apple adopting it.
The roadmap of desktops now, laptops shortly would be pretty consistant with a technology breakthrough.
Pity it didn't happe
Re:Apple on Itanium (Score:2)
But to be fair, the ultimtely correct Apple/Intel rumors were swirling around and he was just trying to spice them up a bit.
re: sense of humor? (Score:2)
I don't find Dvorak "funny"
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you'll realize that time and life are precious, and reading Dvorak is a complete waste of both.
Re:Trolling the Mac community? (Score:2)
Are those the same mac users who have in the past done themselves injuries by trying to cram a graphite powermac [wikimedia.org] into their mouth and suck on it, believing it to be a throat lozenge?
Torrent download (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, Dvorak will just say that it's not true -- he was just trolling on that recording, thus completing the prophecy and dooming mankind.
Re:Torrent download (Score:2)
Could someone please torrent this?
http://69.3.167.6/~zav/Dvorak-3ivx-streaming.mov [69.3.167.6]
Cheers. Please don't melt my server.
I've said it before (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I've said it before (Score:3, Informative)
I think you meant:
Dvorak is nothing other than the worlds most successful internet troll.
(see Stern, Rush, etc etc)
Re:I've said it before (Score:5, Interesting)
Overtonnage Overkillers (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a simple way to force the public debate "spectrum window" to your end of the spectrum by trolling unthinkable statements in public. Successful trolls create only predictable responses, not any further development of the ideas. So the "unthinkable" is now part of the public conversation, without risking rejection by anyone actually thinking about it. Changing the ideas in the public window of the spectrum moves the window closer to the new idea. Now the window includes more of the thinkable ideas that were excluded or marginalized, while the window excludes or marginalizes the ideas previously more in the "center", but further away from the troll.
The only risk with overtonning the window is that the troll discredits its entire end of the spectrum by association. Which is why it's important that the troll make as extreme, ridiculous comments as possible. And frequently defend their statements with "I was just kidding". The associates who benefit from the troll in their neighborhood must also not even repudiate the troll, as any association (positive or negative) is contagious. The troll must work alone. Though of course they can be paid by the same beneficiaries, or have their "home markets" all subsidized by the same beneficiaries.
Now Ann Coulter actually makes sense, probably for the first time. As do her fellow trolls like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and most of the rightwing talkradioheads.
Re:Overtonnage Overkillers (Score:2, Funny)
See? It works, even in response to an overton attack. Of course, when opposing ends of a spectrum overton, the arms race makes the rubble bounce.
Re:Overtonnage Overkillers (Score:2)
You've gone too far! They shouldn't have to cannibalize each other!
Re:Overtonnage Overkillers (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that you bring him up as a possible counter troll to Ann Coulter shows just how far on the right the US sits.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I've said it before (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've said it before (Score:2)
The funny part is, he writes 'inflammatory' articles about every tech company. Hell he wrote one about microsoft a few weeks ago. Some mac users just get pissed off because they define their l
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's called advertising. (Score:2)
Slashdot owes it's success to posting trolls on it's front page all day, every day.
These Dvorak columns got huge comment responses across every Mac-oriented tech site, ZDNet would be really stupid to be paying people to post them. The slashvertisements are for the random hardware products that get posted or the crappy unknown hardware review sites.
Re:I've said it before (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is backwards. The unwashed masses will never be collectively smart enough to distinguish a troll, statistical certainty and all that. This is the purpose of editorial control, to go beyond the bell curve. Dvorak can be kept off
Re:I've said it before (Score:2)
Re:I've said it before (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, Dvorak has been trying to force the monitor companies to bring new technologies to market for at least the last 20 years. That is why he hypes-Hypes-HYPES any rumour of a new display technoloy (seen that 300 dpi Texas Instruments display he reported "almost ready for production" in 1995 yet?). 40% truth, 40% exaggeration, 20% Dvorak-generated spin.
But as I said, that is how gossip columns of any kind work. Don't like it, don't read it.
sPh
Re:Michael Moore (Score:2)
Disgraceful (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now
Re:Interesting ... (Score:2)
Interesting. You know another way to make "moniey"? Have sex with strangers who will pay you.
... if only there was a word for the kind of person who does that.
Now
Of course there is. Following the well-thought-out logic of the GP, the word you are looking for is caterer [reference.com].
Re:Disgraceful (Score:2)
I have no doubt that she is merely doing what Colbert does, only staying in character more and taking the winguts for a very profitable ride.
She gets $30,000 per speaking engagement and the wingnut 'think' tanks buy tens of thousands
Who hasn't (Score:3, Interesting)
Cowboy Neal in Slashdot troll shocker! (Score:5, Funny)
Trolling? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately the thing that gives us all a bad name are the very vocal ignorant users that for example simply flat out refuse to accept any criticism of Apple or it's products whatsoever - in fact I'd go as far to say it becomes a religious issue as no matter how much evidence they are confronted with, they either are not capable of comprehending what is being presented to them or if they are, refuse to even consider it as this could mean Apple *might* be wrong and as they know, this cannot possibly happen as they consider Apple infallible.
Very, very odd behaviour and quite annoying as for example, should I attempt to get someone to consider a Mac, all it takes is someone they know who has 'heard about those Mac zealots' to put them off.
Consider also that any comment on apple.slashdot that however truthful, might mention a bug or vulnerability or other otherwise is perceived as a criticism gets modded as troll or flamebait (like this comment for example), tells a lot about the community.
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting post. If you look at the Mac Community 10 years ago, the "Top technical elite" had almost entirely bailed off the platform.
It was the "very vocal ignorant" zealot-type users that pulled Apple through their dark days. They felt that Apple was getting a bad rap in the press (although it was deserved IMO), and formed this "Evangilista" group which involved flooding the airwaves with denials and counter-arguments to any bit of news which might be perceived as a negative to Apple. The fact that Apple rebounded just validated this behavior and mandated that it must continue.
So, when the technical users returned for the nice UI and Unix-underpinnings of OS X, they're probably scratching their heads over why every silly little Apple lawsuit is worthy of essays worth of Brand-Loyalist attention, or even makes the papers at all. But at this point everyone in the computing press (not just Dvorak) understands that riling up Mac users = Page Hits and Attention. That is why ever little bit of minor Mac news becomes a major trade story.
Another issue is that Apple themselves thrives off these super-loyalists. A key element of their product strategy is based on the fact that there's a large group of wealthy Appleites that will buy anything they put out for a maximum premium. I saw these stats [omnigroup.com] recently that showed that over 40% of Omni users are already running on Intel Macs. Omni is a small developer favored by the super-loyalists, but that's an astounding level of uptake even among that crowd. So, tossing the zealots an occasional pile of red meat really only helps Apple.
I suspect, but can't prove, that the "Evangilista" still exists (formally or infomally, sponsord by Apple or not). There's several Slashot users that one can count on only seeing when there's some bad Apple news to spin.
Re:Trolling? (Score:2)
and the macbook is running two OSes at once via parallels
Re:Trolling? (Score:2)
But even in the PowerPC dark days I observed this behavior among certain users. There's several people I know who continually rotate through multiple Macs and iPods, just because that's a convienent way to spend their (inherited) savings. I don't care what the resale value is, selling a PB 1.3Ghz and buying a 1.5Ghz, or buying a G4 Mini "because
Re:Trolling? (Score:2)
Re:Trolling? (Score:2)
Hey, I post at other times too!
"Technical Elite" and Macs (Score:2, Interesting)
There's some truth to this, but only some truth..
Of the senior people I work with who were on Macs 10 years ago, at least 50% are still there, and recently some that moved on to Windows are seriously considering moving back. And I'm talking about people like chief engineers, tech directors, etc; not just "old farts" who were unwilling to learn new technologies. Where I used to work, on a "p
Re:"Technical Elite" and Macs (Score:2)
Anyway, thank you for providing an object example to my point about Applenuts that will post essays to counter the slightest infraction.
Mac Users list had an avera
Re:"Technical Elite" and Macs (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a little simplistic. Even in the Mac OS 8/9 era (before OS X became usable for mainstream purposes with Jaguar), which is when Mac OS was technically most embarrassing, there were legitimate uses for i
Re:Trolling? (Score:3, Funny)
Yep. We were all on NeXTSTEP.
Re:Trolling? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with most all of your post, but on this point I'd like to make it clear that there are Slashdot users that can be counted on both pro and con. Every story brings out the apologists, the attackers and the defenders, as well as both the informed and the uniformed.
Re:Trolling? (Score:2, Funny)
Seriously, expecting any historical consistency out of this crowd is pointless. Intel processors suck because they are "CISC", remember.
Re:Trolling? (Score:2)
A lot of my friends accuse me of being a mac fanboy, or even a zealot, because I strongly believe the platform is superior a
Re:Trolling? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Trolling? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Like bugs to a bug-zappin light (Score:2)
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's sort of like accusing a congressman of creating and passing good legislation because he has a secret desire to get re-elected, or accusing someone of going to work to get paid. Imagine the nerve of some people!
advertising, not "stats" (Score:3, Insightful)
[SNIP]Dave Winer has Dvorak on video describing his methodology for trolling the Mac community to pump up his stats." [SNIP] I have to admit I'm also guilty of posting the occasional inflammatory story, but I find it's usually best to suffix the title with a question mark, and let our ever-knowledgeable readers hash out the issue and decide for themselves.
You do it for the same reason Dvorak did it. Not to boost "stats"- to boost advertising revenue by increasign page hits. A 300-post thread is thrilling advertising-wise compared to a 30-comment thread. It's always about increasing advertising revenues.
The evil "main stream media" has a term for it: sensationalism. You should attract readers via the quality of your content, not its controversialism. These days I see the average tech story on the homepage of my city's newspaper 1, 2, 3 days before it hits slashdot- and half the time, it's an AP wire story! Gone are the days when the media outlets didn't have contacts in the tech industry or didn't "understand" it. Slashdot's become a real bore, and the quality of commentary both on the part of editors and readers has gone straight downhill.
Slashdotted, see it on YouTube (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Slashdotted, see it on YouTube (Score:3, Funny)
The question mark (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is, unfortunately, the case with many Slashdot (and most Digg) stories. As soon as I see a sensationalistic title ending with a question mark, I automatically skip to the next story.
Re:The question mark (Score:2)
He fooled you this time by leaving off the question mark.
KFG
Question Mark ? (Score:4, Funny)
Brace yourselves (Score:5, Funny)
REPENT I SAY!
Breaking News! You won't believe it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Except, of course, we didn't all know it before, we suspected it, and assumed it was true. Every once in a while you find out that something "everyone knows" isn't true after all [snopes.com], so getting confirmation does have value.
Has CowboyNeal stopped beating his wife? (Score:5, Funny)
Two things (Score:2)
First, do we have a confirmed source for this? The YoutTube video is INCREDIBLY out of sync. Can anybody confirm that it is indeed him speaking and not someone doing a voice-over?
My second question is, now that Cowboy Neal himself has commented on this, does that mean Slashdot editors will stop posting his stories finally? Something inside tells me it won't change a damn thing because much like Dvorak, Slashdot also gets large amounts of revenue from posting his trolling stories.
The irony... (Score:2)
-ch
Trolling Nothing New (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trolling Nothing New (Score:5, Insightful)
Can Not Compute! (Score:2)
Dave Winer has Dvorak on video
Calculating hatred ratio, Winer:Dvorak...Warning: overflow
Warning: overflow
Warning: overflow
Warning: overflow
DOES NOT COMPUTE! ERRORRR!!@@
As UK tabloids columnists know.. (Score:2)
Horse's mouth? (Score:3, Funny)
Stop posting stories by or about Dvorak (Score:2)
Just stop. There is plenty of tech news from legitimate sources.
Dvorak Screws PC Advertisers (Score:5, Interesting)
Dvorak publishes on PC-centric websites, but he trolls Mac users for hits. The PC advertisers are getting screwed, they pay for advertising to PC buyers, Mac users aren't the target audience. The trolling articles draw a massive influx of Mac users, the PC advertisers pay for all those hits from people that will never buy their products.
The only way Dvorak is going to stop trolling is if the PC advertisers wake up and realize their money is being wasted by a maniac that values his own ego more than he provides value for advertisers.
Re:Dvorak Screws PC Advertisers (Score:3, Insightful)
OK everyone, let's shed a tear for the poor advertisers.
Hey, where did everyone go?!?
Advertisers aren't innocents. If they get hurt, they went in with their eyes open.....
Is this really shocking? (Score:2, Funny)
What is this "trolling" you speak of? (Score:2)
What's the right course of action (Score:4, Insightful)
When John Dvorak writes his typical troll stories, potentially millions of people not familiar with the phenomenon John Dvorak take the article at face value and form opinion of people and products that affect their purchase choice and they also share the misinformation with other people.
Tell a lie enough times, and it stops being a lie in people's minds.
So are "Mac zealots" to be mocked about reacting strongly to lies spread in the media, or should the liears not exist in first place?
It's not so funny that media use misinformation just to drive ad impressions up. That's really low of them.
Mac Users Admit To Ignoring Dvorak (Score:3, Insightful)
If Slashdot didn't occasionally regurgitate his vapor I wouldn't know that he was still around.
Transcript of the video (Score:4, Informative)
---------
(Dvorak):
First, I write something that would be semi-innocuous, with just enough insulting stuff to get a lot of attention from the Macintosh community. So then they would write in -- and by the way, it would always be done in such a way that I had outs -- in other words, I would write in kind of a leisurely way. That would get me one column with a lot of numbers.
Then I'd get a lot of hate mail, and all kinds of weird Macintosh reaction. And then, I would react to it as though I was flabbergasted that everybody misterpreted me, and that they hated it, and I don't get it, and what's wrong with these people
So I'd get like huge hits
(Interviewer): So what was the point of all this?
(Dvorak): Now wait a minute. For numbers!
(Interviewer): Which numbers -- exactly, what numbers are you looking for?
(Dvorak): I get them. Believe me. Lots of numbers.
Now, then I let it simmer down for a while, and then whatever position I took originally, I would change the position exactly the opposite, and tell the Macintosh people I was completely wrong, and they were write all along, and the numbers would go through the ceiling!! Haha!
The speed of news reporting on /. is amazing... (Score:4, Interesting)
It was only about 20 years ago that Z-D tasked Dvorak with trolling Mac users as the inside back cover columnist for the old MacUser, where he openly admitted to writing things to inflame Mac users enough that they'd have to buy the magazine just to have reference for their 10-page crayon screeds to the editors against him. And if ancient history and paper is too hard, he has said what he said to Winer oon at least a half-dozen TWiT podcasts over the past year. This is not news, it is Dvorak stating an obvious truth for the umpteenth time. He is apparently still getting a chuckle from the fact that some people who take everything too seriously (e.g. Dave Winer) still don't get the joke after having it explained to them repeatedly over decades. If Winer really thinks this is some great revelation of sin, he's got his head further inserted than ever.
It is the job of anyone who writes for ad-supported media to attract eyeballs, and Dvorak has never been ashamed of doing that job. Being scandalized by his honesty says a lot more about the intelligence (or maybe integrity) of those who are scandalized than it says about Dvorak.
And the Nobel price for egoism goes to... DVORAK!! (Score:3, Interesting)
He mentions that in the first five seconds of the vid.
If Dvorak was a serial killer, he'd be the one that's caught because he's just so damn proud of his body of work and smug enough to want to get caught so that he could explain to the great unwashed masses how brilliant he really is (not that it would help, because there's only so much the great unwashed can comprehend...).
And in other news, Dvorak discovers meta-trolling. (Score:5, Insightful)
So this is why... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Everything in this post is SO OS9 (Re:O RLY?) (Score:2)
Who are you replying to?
Companies vs Their Products; The Nature of Flaming (Score:3, Interesting)
"Mac" is the brand name of a product line (of computers) made by Apple. Products do not troll. Apple is a company, so if trolling is being done, it is Apple (or more specifically Apple Marketing) that is doing it. Choose your nouns carefully!
Apple's OS X v. Windows XP ads are hardly trolling. It is not trolling when a company compares their product line against their competitor's in a non-subjective way.
When I pull up the terminal window and type 'uptime' my M
Planet Spin (Score:2)
It is not about facts, truth, or knowledge, it's all about spin.
It is funny, isn't it? In this age of abundant information, understanding seems to be slipping from our (collective) grasp. Since everything is subjective anyway, apparently we should all simply abandon to even attempt objectivity.
That seems to be the gestalt: In essence, the world is too crazy to figure out. Too many facts. Too many opinions. Just give up and read stuff that makes you feel good about your own assumptions. Dvorak obviousl
Re:Companies vs Their Products; The Nature of Flam (Score:3, Insightful)
C'mon. You and everybody else knew what mfh meant. This isn't English class.
I would agree that it's hardly trolling (depending on one's definition of "trolling"), but to say Apple is comparing "Mac" to "PC" in a "non-subjective way" is laughable.