Dvorak Admits To Trolling Mac Users

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?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289)]

Thats an almost impossible task - mac users are too smart to take the bait ;)

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[mkw87 (860289)]

Just like they are too smart to operate the elevator at the NYC Store?

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[BobPaul (710574)]

Hey! That's not fair! That elevator is really super confusing. It has all of these buttons you have to push... It's hard.

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

> Hey! That's not fair! That elevator is really super confusing. It has all of these buttons you have to push... It's hard.

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?

[stunt_penguin (906223)]

An elevator with a Google interface would be similarly easy to use, if slightly more text heavy, and there'd be some buttons off to the right hand side advertising what's on other floors based on the floors you've already visited, what you were talking about when you came into the elevator and what you're carrying.


Reportedly, Ballmer now prefers to take the stairs

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[kv9 (697238)]

> Reportedly, Ballmer now prefers to take the chairs

there, i fixed that for you

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[mattkinabrewmindspri (538862)]

An elevator with the Mac UI would have a picture of the building, and you'd drag the elevator over the floor you wanted to go to, at which point the picture would change to be a picture of that floor, and then you'd drop the elevator on the specific room you wanted to go to, and it would take you to that room.

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, though, thanks to the underlying UNIXy OS, powerusers who type faster than they mouse can just open a terminal window and type (with tab-completion)

open /Floors/14/Offices/Mike\'s\ Office

to get right there.

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)]

"An elevator with the Mac UI would have a picture of the building, and you'd drag the elevator over the floor you wanted to go to, at which point the picture would change to be a picture of that floor, and then you'd drop the elevator on the specific room you wanted to go to, and it would take you to that room."

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?

[NMerriam (15122)]

Um, the button might be helpful for telling the elevator there is someone inside wanting to go to the other floor. Just throwing out ideas here.

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Hey! That's not fair! That elevator is really super confusing. It has all of these buttons you have to push... It's hard.

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?

[by Anonymous Coward]

The Mac sites are up in arms, with commentors demanding that PC Magazine pull their columnist because he has no integrity. I don't know why anybody ever takes Dvorak seriously. If you don't, you'll see that he can actually be pretty entertaining.

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

[weierstrass (669421)]

This is itself a troll. The video [youtube.com] does not show Dvorak saying these things, but has him talking with the audio completely out of sync. From the FTA:

he started telling a story about how he deliberately pisses Mac users off to get flow for his stories, and I said, hold a minute, I want to record this, and shit if he didn't stop and repeat it for me and my video camera. I guess now I'm an official video blogger

Think about it, if you were doing well by professional trolling (and I'm not saying he's not) would y

Re:Trolling the Mac community?

[fbg111 (529550)]

If you don't, you'll see that he can actually be pretty entertaining.

Or you'll realize that time and life are precious, and reading Dvorak is a complete waste of both.

Torrent download

[nacturation (646836)]

Direct link: http://s3.amazonaws.com/scripting/dvorak.mov?torre nt [amazonaws.com]

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.
 

I've said it before

[thefirelane (586885)]

Dvorak is nothing other than the worlds most successful troll. As much as everyone here complains about him, we eat it up and come back for more. We used to be able to pretend it was the editors foisting him upon us... but lo' and behold, democratic Digg comes along, and he still makes the front page! [digg.com]

Re:I've said it before

[Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289)]

Dvorak is nothing other than the worlds most successful troll.

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

[generic-man (33649)]

Two words: Ann Coulter [wikipedia.org].

Overtonnage Overkillers

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Ann Coulter is the rightwing Anchor Troll in their "Overton Window" [dailykos.com] strategy.

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

[NeutronCowboy (896098)]

You're making my point for me. A) he's a comedian. Like George Carlin or Carlos Mencia, they overstate their case to make a point. They know it's preposterous, we know it's preposterous, and we laugh about it. B) If you compare his political diatribes with the speeches of some (elected) European politicians, he actually comes across of fairly center.

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:I've said it before

[DingerX (847589)]

Yeah, he's been doing this for a long time. And the tech world is full of enough fanatics that you can't help but piss people off. Write an inflammatory article on Apple, Open Source, Linux, Nintendo, or any number of other technosacredcows, and bang! instant traffic. Much easier than saying something intelligent.

It's called advertising.

[conner_bw (120497)]

Ever ask yourself how so many Dvorak posts end of on the front page of Slashdot? Or why any of us would even care about this guy when there is far better blog crapulence floating out there in the sea of manure we call the internet?

It is my contention that someone, somewhere, has a vested financial interest in this guy and continues to prop up his irrelevance for all to ignore. It may even be Dvorak himself...

Seriously, how much to run a rant on the front page?

Re:I've said it before

[telbij (465356)]

We used to be able to pretend it was the editors foisting him upon us... but lo' and behold, democratic Digg comes along, and he still makes the front page!

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 /. All that we need is to convince the few editors that he is, in fact, a full-time troll, And that his rantings do not deserve a place on the front page because they are neither news, nor are they 'stuff that matters'. Unfortunately I think a successful troll is just as good for /. as it is for Dvorak's employers, so there's little incentive for them to change. We can always dream though.

Re:I've said it before

[sphealey (2855)]

Dvorak writes a lot of different stuff, including some real journalism and technology analysis. But his best known work, and that which I am sure earns him his bread-and-butter, is technology gossip. Like every gossip column ever written since the first traveling minstrel appeared on the scene 30,000 years ago, Dvoark's gossip columns consist of a mixture of truth, exaggeration, spin (whether planted by the technology companies or generated by Dvorak himself), trolling, and some totally made-up stuff.

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

Disgraceful

[Zeinfeld (263942)]

Next you will be telling me that Ann Coulter only accuses the 9/11 widows of enjoying the death of their spouses to get attention.

Interesting ...

[khasim (1285)]

Others might call it trolling but if you call it "catering to your market" it's a great way to make moniey.

Interesting. You know another way to make "moniey"? Have sex with strangers who will pay you.

Now ... if only there was a word for the kind of person who does that.

Who hasn't

[packetmon (977047)]

? Well? Anyone? Who hasn't trolled up an issue to some extent to get a fix on a certain group of individuals. Military does it, businesses do it, news agencies do it, and the list goes on and on...

There's No Such Thing as Overconfidence

The best in every business are likely to strike most people as irrationally confident, but that's how they got to the top.

Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Michael Dell -- they first believed in themselves, utterly, and let their belief be their guide. Sure they experienced numerous obstacles and setbacks and failures. Confidence allowed them to keep getting up and looking for ways to move forward.

Most importantly, leaders like Branson and Gates prioritized believing in the people around them. Confidence is also not arrogance, and unless your employees think that they're better human beings in general than everyone else, let them believe that they're good enough to do exceptional things.

Legends Never Say They're Sorry

Having a long or frequent memory for mistakes and a short or infrequent memory for successes is a guaranteed way to develop fear of failure. High achievers dwell on what they do well -- and spend very little time evaluating themselves and their performances.

Learn from your mistakes? Of course. The road to success is full of adversity from which we can gain significant insight. The key, however, is to set aside specific, deliberate times for evaluation. Process setbacks, errors, and your performance in general only at times when you have planned to.

The alternative is to get caught up in second-guessing, doubt, and worry whenever things look a bit gray. You excel during the tough moments by having a positive blueprint to look at -- and to have a positive blueprint, you have to spend a lot of time looking at the image of success.

... REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY FOR SUCCESS [thewinningattitude.net]

Cowboy Neal in Slashdot troll shocker!

[caluml (551744)]

Cowboy Neal in Slashdot troll shocker! Read all about it for only $19.99 at all good book stores

Trolling?

[skinfitz (564041)]

The thing is though one has to understand that the Mac community is a tiered structure. At the top there are we Mac users who are experienced computer users, who understand what we are doing and how computers and operating systems work and accept the existence of things such as 'bugs' and 'vulnerabilities' etc.

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?

[IntlHarvester (11985)]

The thing is though one has to understand that the Mac community is a tiered structure. At the top ...

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?

[Handover Phist (932667)]

Thank god us Linux users dont have to put up with that sort of thing!

Re:Trolling?

[IntlHarvester (11985)]

There is some rational basis for Mac users defending iTunes DRM -- it runs on Macs while the others don't. After a decade of seeing Macs being cut out of one market or another, having an Apple technology ontop in one segement is small victory. I'm not saying that justifies the extermism, but it does explain it.

Like bugs to a bug-zappin light

[MikeRT (947531)]

He makes great stats for years doing this, ups the ante by admitting that he knows it's the key to his success (thereby getting a lot of people to show up again) and now, the question is, will people stop reading him? Of course not. For the same reason that the right can't ignore Ted Rall and the left, Ann Coulter. He's the Rall and Coulter rolled into one of the tech press.

So what?

[eagl (86459)]

In other news, slashdot posters guilty of posting comments intended to spark debate and foster discussion of interesting topics!

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"

[SuperBanana (662181)]

[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

[tdvaughan (582870)]

Link to the video [youtube.com]. The sound was out of sync for me, but he basically comes across as a smug arse.

The question mark

[trifish (826353)]

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.

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.

Question Mark ?

[88NoSoup4U88 (721233)]

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.

Ohwait, make that : Dvorak Admits To Trolling Mac Users ?

:D

Brace yourselves

[BMonger (68213)]

Dvorak admits to trolling Mac users and Rosen admits the RIAA is wrong... apparently they know the second coming is happening soon and want to get some things off their chest.

REPENT I SAY!

Breaking News! You won't believe it!

[Kelson (129150)]

Actually, this does remind me of one of those stories where someone does a scientific study to find out something that "everyone already knows."

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?

[identity0 (77976)]

We Slashdot users, of course, will never stoop to such measures just to get modded up :)

Trolling Nothing New

[PhreakinPenguin (454482)]

Trolling is nothing new especially when you look right here on Slashdot every day. What gets Slashdot the most pageviews? Stories about Microsoft. The anti MS people comment like crazy while the pro MS people do the same. I swear there could be a story about finding a cure for cancer above a story about Microsoft and the Microsoft story would have more comments.

Re:Trolling Nothing New

[joe 155 (937621)]

in all fairness there is very little to say about a cure for cancer if it turns out to be true other than "good. glad we figured this one out" - it hardly makes for interesting comments. Now a good ol' troll on MS can lead to thousands of opinions and is really the basis of pretty much all tech discussions... which is why we find it so easy to talk about

Horse's mouth?

[Dorsai65 (804760)]

Or was that the other end of the horse?

Dvorak Screws PC Advertisers

[sakusha (441986)]

I said it before and I'll say it again: Dvorak is deliberately screwing the advertisers that pay for his web hits.

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.

What's the right course of action

[suv4x4 (956391)]

Reporters are not supposed to troll, they are supposed to at least believe what they say is correct (even if it's not).

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.

Transcript of the video

[InakaBoyJoe (687694)]

Here's the transcript of the video. Note that the audio is out of sync on the BitTorrent version too.

---------
(Dvorak): ... there's a formula for pissing off Macintosh users and getting a lot of links or attention. And this has been deconstructed, but never accurately. I'm going to give you the deconstruction.

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 ... which would piss them off even more.

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...

[wkcole (644783)]

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 in other news, Dvorak discovers meta-trolling.

[porkchop_d_clown (39923)]

I wonder how many hits his site will get as people visit just to complain about the movie?

Companies vs Their Products; The Nature of Flaming

[Locus Mote (307298)]

Mac trolls windows users with their ads.

"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