Stowe Boyd › Likes

Crowdsourcing? Who said anything about crowdsourcing? Who said newspapers should start editing the front page based on popularity? Where did the phrase "cater to the masses" come from? Where are you getting these things from? "If you want to keep their interest, you need to be interested in them." That was his main point. Does that say "edit the front page by market survey?" Jeez-a-roni. - Jay Rosen

Slippery slope. How do you get there from here? Quoting from Dave ... "it was largely considered unethical for a reporter or editor to know which sections of the paper were most read by users of the paper. If the reporter knew, the story goes, he or she might be influenced by peoples' interests in deciding what to write about." Dave indicated that this type of thinking was a bug. I disagree. - scott anderson

It's often commonly known information that some parts of the magazines are more often read than others (while that information is based on the small sample of tests). Anyways, in most newspapers most commonly read page is comics. ;) - Daniel Schildt

Where's the switch? The switch that causes people to hear Dave Winer saying, "listen to users" and yet what the brain receives is "abandon all judgment, all intelligence to whatever people tend to consume." Where is that switch? - Jay Rosen

BTW, here's the piece people are responding to. http://www.scripting.com/stories... - Dave Winer

Jay, it's the same switch that flipped when people told us at Salon a decade ago that we should never look at our traffic reports because it would corrupt our judgment as journalists and turn us into bottomfeeding scum. - Scott Rosenberg

Yes, the same switch; and I recall that battle pretty well. By the way, is "slippery slope" considered a thought? I mean do people still think of that as an argument: "once you start down, the only option is complete loss of balance until you hit the bottom?" To me that seems more like an escape from the necessity of having to think about something, but maybe shouting "slippery slope" at a problem still sounds like a thought to some folks. If so, it's kind of sad, no? - Jay Rosen

My most popular blog post is a throw-away picture of Bruce Lee beating up Chuck Norris. Knowing my stats, do I keep posting Lee/Norris stuff? No. But the next ten most-pop posts are about science, and I notice what style and format appeals to ppl, and I may slightly modify my writing style of posts about science - making them better because of this information. - Bora Zivkovic

I can process the readers' info and not go down the slippery slope. I am still in charge, but feedback - direct through comments and indirect from traffic stats - improves my writing. Newspapers can do the same. - Bora Zivkovic

Right. "Slippery slope" can mean "pack appropriate footwear, move with caution" but too often people use it to mean "that's scary, let's just sit tight." And there *are* sometimes piles of dazed bruised people at the bottom of the hill. - Scott Rosenberg

Maybe this is what it is. When people make that equation, "to listen is to cave," they are not making an observation about listening at all. They are making an observation about other people, what scott anderson called "the masses." The masses lack discipline, the masses want entertainment, the masses want Britney Spears-- not news. Most important: the masses are not me, the observer of other people and their decadent habits. And so to challenge the equation, listening=caving, is to take "the masses" away. - Jay Rosen

But "masses" are interested in stuff other than Britney Spears. Sometimes they don't know it because all the media serves them is Britney Spears: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic

You never know what you'll learn if you listen, that's what's really stupid about arguing about whether you should listen or not. Maybe the people who want to say something to you might just make the difference between driving off the cliff and finding a new future. Maybe it's keeping *you* from having the great idea that cracks the nut. - Dave Winer

BTW, when did listening become "listening in the aggregate." If you know anything about me, you know that I don't think of users as couch potatoes, passive participants. In the 80s when I ran a software company, we used to design regcards so as to solicit original thoughts, not just box-clicking. When a new batch of regcards came in I grabbed them and studied them for interesting comments. When I had a question, I called them and asked. It's also good for business if people get that you care what they think - Dave Winer

BTW, you might have to listen to 100 users to get 1 good idea. In 1986, I had a meeting with Guy Kawasaki when he worked at Apple. I showed him an early version of one of our products, we had thrown the kitchen sink into it, every half-baked R&D idea, cause our company was failing and this was our last chance. One idea intrigued him. He said everyone at Apple was hand-designing foils to print on Laserwriters (they were new then). He took a piece of paper and drew a box around one of our pages, and... - Dave Winer

asked if we could do that. Of course we could, and we did, and we immediately sold 1K copies of the product for Apple people, but more importantly, they were so excited by it, they in turn sold many more thousands to their customers, and our company went from being in the brink of shutting down to gushing cash. All because (drum roll) we listened to a user. Ask Guy if you don't believe me, he's on Twitter. - Dave Winer

Once again, this leaves me wondering how journalism manages to be arrogant without being awesome. (The profession, not so much the people that practice it -- one suspects they've elevated a rough draft of their core values to a religion, and now can't escape from it.) - j1m

The thinking behind the slippery slope comment was that newspapers are a business that exist to make a profit. The last season of "The Wire" provides a good example of what I was referring to. Once you start down that road, these temporary bailouts become more seductive. - scott anderson

Also, I never indicated that users should not be listened to. I was referring to the actual quote related to ethics from Dave's article that you obfuscated in your twitter post. - scott anderson

Lastly, for the record I am not a journalist. I don't even claim to be a good writer. I am a user of the news attempting to communicate my concerns related to this topic to those that in my opinion appear to have a self serving agenda. - scott anderson

Who is it that you're saying has a self-serving agenda? I like the "in my opinion" part. In my opinion your mother wears army boots! Heh. - Dave Winer

@Dave: You and Jay. I believe that blogging in all its forms has a valuable role to play in our society. However, I also believe that MSM publications that maintain strict journalistic ethics, including accountability, also provide great value and that the two should not be mixed or try to emulate each other. - scott anderson

Well there you have it. You should make such accusations carefully and with evidence and back it up. What exactly is my supposed undisclosed (and unknown to me, btw) conflict of interest? (Can't wait to hear this.) - Dave Winer

@scott "The last season of "The Wire" provides a good example" of a talented auteur unfortunately working out old grievances in public, spinning an entirely unbelievable tale of willful ignorance of total disregard for the truth. Simon also managed to transplant a 1995 newspaper into the current day, an organization that apparently has never heard of the internet, either for reporting the news or checking it out before starting up the presses. - tim windsor

And I'm with Scott Rosenberg. Slippery slopes call for greater caution, but not total avoidance. - tim windsor

I've seen this careful to not listen approach in interviews, too. It seems like a lot of journalists only ask questions they already know the answer to. Of course, they want the expert being interviewed to give the answer, but they might as well be putting words in his/her mouth. - Gordon Vaughan

The line between listening and trusting your own judgment and expertise is a challenging one, no matter how you cut it. But I agree that the "slippery slope" argument is nonsense. If a journalist lacks the judgment to avoid the slide, h probably doesn't deserve the title. - Pete Forsyth

Also, @davewiner -- I've been trying to participate in this discussion on your blog, but my comments have not been making it past moderation. Can you take a look? - Pete Forsyth

It's unfortunate that the intent of my original question has gotten lost in this discussion. I blame myself for being too flippant and not tying the point I was attempting to make more directly to the exact issue I had a problem with. I'll try to rephrase the question again in a more precise manner. Dave was informed by the Berkeley J-School crowd that they believed it was unethical to use the data about which sections of a newspaper are most popular in decisions papers make about where to invest resources. - scott anderson

I responded to Jay's post because he had generalized and distorted the opinion of the "J-School crowd". In hindsight I should have called him out on this and left it at that. All of my comments have been directed to how this specific type of data is collected and used and this issue alone. In regards to the more general question of whether newspapers are listening to their users or not,... more... - scott anderson

That said, for those that believe it is beneficial to use the data about which sections of newspapers are more popular than the others, how should this data be compiled and applied in an ethical manner? Do you survey all the potential users of a paper like the NY Times (aka the masses, the aggregate, etc.) or do you isolate a sample group based on some criteria? What is that criteria?... more... - scott anderson

The problem with the letters to the editor is that they are designed to protect the existing power relations. See this dust-up about the inappropriateness of letters to the editor in science publications: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic

There are much better ways to listen to the readership than letters to the editor. News outlets have many opportunities -- some more legitimate than others -- to shape the public discourse and influence public opinion. In reporting, in the structuring of the medium, in the archiving of information. Proactively seeking out feedback is important -- and is commonplace in other industries. Some approaches clearly have ethical implications, while others don't. - Pete Forsyth

@davewiner If your claim is simply "news outlets should listen to their users," it seems there isn't much for anyone to argue with. I think that's pretty uncontroversially true. However, it's seemed at several points that you are taking a stronger position than that. - Pete Forsyth

I don't equate listening to caving or that listening will result in bottom feeders but I do not discount the effects that come from the pressures related to being a profitable business, especially in tough economic times. A blog or a niche publication is a much different animal than a news corporation. Are there specific processes or firewalls that exist in the news industry that... more... - scott anderson

I think knee-jerk or reactive answers come out of a specific context, and to suggest that news organizations are dumb or naive misses a more nuanced point. The kind of influence that advertising directors etc. sometimes try to exert over editors can be extreme, and so editors' developing a tin ear to that sort of thing can, in many cases, be a very good thing. It's important hear feedback, but it's also important to not waste one's time hearing repetitive feedback that you can't ethically act upon. - Pete Forsyth

When Obama said he was not against all wars, just "dumb wars" people seemed able to handle it. Their heads did not explode from having to make a distinction. So...There's smart listening and dumb listening. I think everyone can handle that too-- including everyone looking in on this thread. - Jay Rosen

Jay, I think we all agree that the distinction is important. The point I'm trying to make is that resistance to input is not always, or necessarily, a bad thing. That is a starting point for finding a solution though, not an end-point. Trusting journalists to have good judgment implies respecting their right to say "in my judgment, this particular feedback is garbage." - Pete Forsyth

Love it. - Sean McBride

I thought it was The Onion at first. Rats, I was wrong. - Rolf Schewe

"Clinton said he was "excited and honored" by the appointment, and would work "day and night" to defeat all the key policy objectives proposed by Mr. Obama during the campaign. "I am gratified that the President-Elect has entrusted me with this important responsibility," said Clinton. "I'm looking forward to getting back behind, and under, the Oval Office desk again. As I have told the... more... - j1m

I thought I was reading The Onion. Don't know how they beat The Onion with this scoop. - Lataz.com

one, Fox News is NOT onesided, it is about as fair and balanced as any media source we have (they go after EVERYBODY). And socialism/spreading the wealth only brings EVERYBODY down to POVERTY, look at Europe, they have a standard of living WELL under what we expect as Americans. Even though I disagree with the majority of your comments, you have gone overboard on this post :) - Randy

C'mon Randy, Fox "News" is almost universally recognized as very right-biased. And all the talk about socialism is crap... just because of a 39% tax rate (we've had that, and higher, before)... taxation by its nature is spreading the wealth, the gov needs money to provide for the common good and some are better able to contribute than others. Ask Warren Buffett, even he agrees. - LogEx

@logical ... yeah wtf. It just goes to show you how uneducated people are about taxation. - Brandon

@Randy -- Fox News is one-sided... You have a serious slant on your world view if you think otherwise. Not that I have an issue with partisan coverage, as long as your realize what you are getting. - Aram Zucker-Scharff

I have heard some bad things about Fox, but I don't really watch it. I do know that I have never seen MSNBC do an hour long special all about Obama's ties to domestic terrorists...just sayin - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Very strong post. Ohh and any time you wanna move to Australia, you're totally welcome :) - Mo Kargas

Nope. Not getting involved in yet ANOTHER thread about this! - Akiva Moskovitz

I don't have a problem with taxation. I do have a problem with over bloated government and bureaucracy that seems to grow more and more. Government rarely does anything efficiently, including spending our money. I am sometimes considered a tightwad by those that know me, but I'm not, I like to get value for money as much as possible, and I've never believed that government gives you that in return for the money it takes from you. - Ian May

Ian, right on! I hope that whoever gets elected takes on the bloat and the special interests in a big way. I want value for my money too. And I want to return to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. - LogEx

me neither. such tripe, really, particularly coming from an echo chamber participants like Scoble and Winer, who have routinely insulted folks with different political ideals than their own. People in glass houses, and such. I'd go into the substance of the post, but when the premise is flawed, there's not much point. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Mark, I'm curious... what's the flawed premise? Seriously. - LogEx

Wow, feel the love... Sorry it had to come to this. - Ken Stewart | ChangeForge

I agreed with just about all that Robert said in his article. My only worry is that when Government takes on the job of wealth distribution it 'loses' a lot of the money it distributes along the way. - Ian May

I don't question folks being American or not, nor do I question people's patriotism. I do question their logic, though. Every election we go back to the voting polls because the country is doing a crappy job - economy, environment, war, veterans affairs, social security, pork spending, education... nothing they do ever works. Yet, we're going to elect the next president on how much MORE they are goiing to DO. It's insanity... keep doing the same thing and expect different results. - Douglas Karr from twhirl

you forgot to say, I think the US spends too much of their taxes on the military, I am not an American. - David Lynch

I find it absolutely hilarious that some people consider Obama's platform "socialist" - even in a fairly moderate country like Australia, Obama would be considered to be right of centre here :-) - Warren

1) America is a melting pot. For in sense alot of people arn't american. I mean my main roots of family is set in Germany. That is what's great about this country. 2) I would believe Obama has alot of "Red" Ideas in there. Being he wants to take money from people and give it to less fortunate is almost making breadlines in sense like Russia. One of my friends is pretty much a socialist and he loves Obama. 3) There is bias everywhere. Some people are on Obama's(TV) side and others on Mccain(Radio). - Shawn aka ringking

I think Robert here is making a point. His point being that his country is so different to what he'd like it too be that it does not look like his country. And he is not wanting to be a part of that. Is that a definition of Palins un-American america? No. It us simply an expression of the desire for change. And wether we agree or not ( or even don't belive in the system as I do) he makes a good point. - Roberto Bonini

Roberto: my real point was that there's too much name calling going around just for telling people what you want to see happen. And WAY too much name calling for stuff like your religion. - Robert Scoble

Hey I agree with you 100% Robert. It's a really bad problem. Wish it wasn't do prevalent, but it's human nature to put down those who you disagree with. - Roberto Bonini

Wow, already 2 result on Google for "I'm not an American" http://www.google.com/search... - Mark Krynsky

Andy, Scoble is most definatly not banana :) - Roberto Bonini

Close. It's: "Fox News. We Distort. You Recite." - Christopher Galtenberg

Wow, look at all the conversation this awesome post generated!! Nice job Robert… I concur!! Looks like we’re gonna have to CHANGE this country; don’t move. I love America and want it to GROW up and face the music. No more greed, self-centered-ness, lack of vision or discipline. We must adopt a completely different strategy going forward to better manage this rich and diverse country.... more... - Susan Beebe

Some people may not have noticed, but certain elements in the GOP base - Congressman Bachmann is just the public face of it (but now she's lying about what she said. She's got Alaskan Fever!) have been exhuming McCarthy. That's what Robert's post was about. And it um, used an ironic style. - Rick Powell

fantastic post! - Jennifer Wilbur from twhirl

Tell your employer that they should "redistribute" their wealth instead of investing in business (hiring more employees, paying more, etc.). More welfare is not what we need. - Spencer

I'm a George Will republican, but I am not buying the blind "less gov't" argument. Would less gov't have met our needs on 9/11, Katrina, the housing bubble, and the credit crisis? Prescription drug care, yes. The others, come on. - Christopher Galtenberg

Didn't my government just take a bunch of my money and "redistribute" it to shore up the banking industry? Now, I respect that people who earn a lot of money work very hard for it. But I also respect the teacher who works very, *very* hard (providing an invaluable public service) for about 15% of the pay. If *some* money doesn't trickle in the direction of the teachers--and others who do important work for little money--then what's the incentive for good people to fill those critical jobs? - Robert Clockedile

@Robert C. Good point. Funny how it is OK to redistribute up but not down. Either you are philosophically against it for anyone or you are not. You can't say it is OK in some cases and some it is. I didn't hear these people making an uproar about "redistribution" when there was a tax cut to the top or bailouts of many different kinds. - Rolf Schewe

good post! I guess the comments give a good cross-section of the current division in the US society :-( One thing that will never cease to surprise me is how little americans know Europe... - Antoine Bertier

One thing that will never cease to surprise me is how non-Americans will gladly and breezily generalize Americans. Maybe one day we'll get credit for our diversity of thought and deed, as well as race and creed. - Christopher Galtenberg

@Christopher Galtenberg: it seems diversity of thought is no longer valued in the US, and even actively discouraged, so much so that Robert feels he has to write about it ! And my generalization of americans, comes only after reading dozens of comments generalizing Europe as socialist (by the way look at http://www.politicalcompass.org/euchart and then take the test!) - Antoine Bertier

Robert is giving an unhealthy amount of credence to the views of a minority (<20%) of our population. Talk to 2 sets of people: young folks on a college campus, and middle-aged folks having lunch at a local cafe, and you'll see that really none of Robert's stereotypes hold water. This is an open, warm-hearted, patient, and thoughtful society - Christopher Galtenberg

i want - MG Siegler

Every wordpress user who uses FriendFeed should install this. Done yet? - Bwana ☠

Is there a tumblr version? Discus integration? - Christian Anderson from fftogo

Would Glenn share his hack with us so we can do this, too? (on our non-Lockergnome blogs) - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Just installed it. Yay! it's a wordpress plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend... - Dawn M. Armfield

Wow. Didn't that just stomp the stuffing out of Disqus's whole reason for existing? - Soulhuntre from twhirl

I don't care about "comment fragmentation" if there are links linking different fragments, isn't the web hyperlinked by design? - directeur

Thanks, Dawn. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

I can't wait to do this on my blog, just requires a few minutes hacking. (Scribbles down to-do note) - Dion Hinchcliffe from twhirl

I've been eagerly waiting for this! - Ben Parr

@Soulhuntre I'd like to think not. In fact I believe that Disqus & FriendFeed are working on something that will combine disqus comments into FriendFeed & vice-versa. I recon that would render my plugin redundant - Glenn Slaven

t-hair will sue you - kosmar

That's what I call pink! - Stowe Boyd from twhirl

thats totally "pinko" :)- - Peter Dawson

oooh. It's good. - Bill Anderson from twhirl

Very nice... - Mitchell Tsai

great! the whole set :D - assbach

Rockin'! Like it. - Tris Hussey from twhirl

that looks great! very nice - HokieGeek from twhirl

pink is the new blonde. :>) - B.L. Ochman

Very anime. - Karim

hey, this is great! good for you! - Noah Carter

love the color, really cool. - israel

Nice colour throughout. - Bernie Goldbach

I like it too. - Mike

I love it - Marcello Del Bono

My 4 1/2 year old LOVES it (me too) - Leif Hansen from Alert Thingy

И передано нам через просветительский голос Браво, ага. - Urbansheep

Эта штука обязательна к прочтению всем, кому понравились рассуждения Блинкина про пробки в Москве, и кто вообще неравнодушен к городскому устройству (будь то социальные, навигационные или информационные темы). - Urbansheep

На тему городского устройства очень рекомендую почитать City: Rediscovering the Center by William Whyte и Life Between buildings by Jan Gehl. Обе книжки совсем не про технологии и гаджеты, а про то, как пространство города и его элементы влияют на социальные процессы на его улицах. - Lilia Efimova

Про параллели между блогами и Life Between buildings - http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005... - Lilia Efimova

И еще про то же (сорри, все ссылки на меня любимую) - http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005... http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004... http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006... Пошла искать место в диссертации, куда все это вставлять :) - Lilia Efimova

Спасибо! - Urbansheep

Blogged it. Beautiful. - Stowe Boyd

Chris: Is the same true of driving sportscars at drastically unsafe speeds? Or is the causal relationship reversed in that case? Seriously though, the study would be more thorough if it also included data on subsequent suicide attempts. It might shed light on the 'new outlook on life' rationale for the salary increase. - Kevin Fox

I didn't mean to hit close to home on this issue. I was just thinking scientifically. :-/ Sorry. - Kevin Fox

I believe the "after a suicide attempt, you actually get treatment" theory more. - ⓞnor

I can attest to the skydiving thing. Once I got my skydiving license (completed 23 solo jumps), risk and normal situations in life no longer frightened me. I had literally walked to the edge of life and laughed. and did it again. and again. In terms of life-success, my income increased *substantially*. Before that, i had been a project manager at my highest level of corporate-dom. After that (before I jumped headlong into indy journalism), the lowest position I held was CTO. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

I wonder how the attitude towards high risk "I'm not afraid anymore" events change once you have children. I really want to try a skydive one of these days, but I would not consider it for a second if I had kids. - Jennie Lin

Well, now I'm thinking if I should say it in twitter, because most of the network is not here :) - Lilia Efimova

If you want a river of news and have a trusted way of managing the flow already, then FriendFeed is extraneous. But if you want an easy-to-manage stream of information that lets you passively absorb more faster than most aggregators serve the info, I think FriendFeed is helpful. For those who have tried more than three major aggregators, FriendFeed probably feels like yet another... more... - Bernie Goldbach

Lilia - But there aren't 'comments' in Twitter, really - Stowe Boyd