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Janrinok writes:
Apology To Microsoft
On Friday, we published a story, submitted by sigma, alleging that Microsoft had attempted to blackmail the UK Government in order to prevent the adoption of UK policy supporting open document standards. Having looked more closely at the linked material provided, the word blackmail is not used but appears only in the submission that we received. As the editor of that particular story I am personally responsible for not having checked the sources sufficiently well and for subsequently releasing the story. I wish to apologise, publicly and unreservedly, for any suggestion that Microsoft attempted to blackmail the UK government. They did not, nor does the accusation stand up to any scrutiny. We have edited the title to prevent any further misunderstanding by our community or others and I hope that this action and my apology to Microsoft is sufficient to atone for my mistake.
Apology to sigma
The editor's role includes that of trying to look at each story from both sides to provide a balanced approach. We are not here to support one particular view in preference to another but to provide material that will inspire discussion between members of our community. I published the story that sigma submitted, but attempted to balance it with the alternative view that suggested it was not specifically a Microsoft trait to defend one's business and that it could be argued that they were also attempting to protect their British workforce. However, I did not make it clear where sigma's comments ended and where my editing began, although I did add an Editor's Comment explaining that the story had been edited and that not all comments were those of the submitter. sigma has, quite justifiably, objected to this action and I must, therefore, apologise to him personally. I do apologise to sigma, again publicly and unreservedly, for any changes that I made to the submission that he feels reflect badly upon him.
Our Role
This was most certainly not my best piece of work and, of course, I must also apologise to the community. The editors do, however, have to edit stories; members of the community should not expect their submissions to be a platform for their personal views. Some stories require more editing than others to be suitable for the front page. In this instance, I made a mistake. We will always try to find a balanced approach to any story that needs it, as described in the Editing Process.
As I have already said, I take full responsibility for the stories that I release, including the one arising from sigma's submission. We value each and every submission, even those that do not make it to publication however, we do ask that submitters do not suggest events or actions that are not backed up by the source material, or are not easily verifiable by other means.
janrinok
Editor
(Score: 2) by tynin on Saturday May 23 2015, @06:11PM
But how did this come to light? MS lawyers called? Some studious fact checker reach out to you?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @06:14PM
Dice Lawyers called.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday May 23 2015, @06:24PM
Microsoft is Satan's arsehole.
Their lawyer's give their own mothers the clap.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sigma on Sunday May 24 2015, @03:01AM
Nobody's lawyers called, but SN editors are concerned that they may do, and that SN does not have the resources to respond to them. Personally, I stand by my characterisation of Microsoft's behavior as blackmail [wikipedia.org].
Janrinok's "apology" has also confirmed that this is not a site I should be contributing to, or a community I should be part of.
Many thanks to the other contributors here for the informative and often entertaining postings I've enjoyed over the past months. Best of luck for the future.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sigma on Sunday May 24 2015, @04:25AM
Sigma again.
I posted above in some haste, and realise it's probably not the most helpful comment, as well as being unfair to Janrinok, so I'd like to clarify before finding somewhere else to haunt.
Firstly, I don't object to the editors changing content to protect SN from legal consequences. That's a necessary and important role for them, but the original edit by Janrinok was NOT to resolve the legally questionable "Blackmail" term I used in the submission title. It was an added comment to suggest that Microsoft was using its extortion tactic to protect profit and jobs, and that doing so was normal and acceptable.
For nearly thirty years Microsoft has been using similar tactics to block the adoption of the open formats, standards and protocols that would be of immense benefit to the world. Time and time again they have coerced governments and state organisations to act against their own best interests. To pretend that it's somehow normal or acceptable, or that it's in any way flamebait to deride them for doing so is nonsense. We need more anger and opposition to the actions of Microsoft and others like them, not to normalise their behavior with apologist comments like:
Although I am not a great lover of Microsoft, I'm not sure that this is any different than many other companies who will try to protect their profits - and, arguably, the jobs of their employees - when they can see the potential for the loss of business. But perhaps other companies are a little more subtle - especially when it is obvious that official papers will one day become public knowledge.
I'd also like to clarify that it's not the specifics of Janrinok's apology that made it obvious that I don't belong here. When comments like "Oh, please post that story so we can bitchslap help set him straight." are at +5 insightful, it shows that it's my views that are out of place here, not Janrinok's.
So good luck to you all, I'm off to find somewhere that'll welcome an aging leftwing hippy nerd freetard and his Fossie foolishness. Take care guys!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:41AM
I would be sorry to see you go, and I rather hope that you will reconsider your decision.
Whatever you decide however, I hope that we can continue with no ill-feeling towards each other. I don't believe for one minute that any of this was at a personal level. Good luck, and if you do leave SN I hope that you find a 'home' elsewhere on the 'net.
(Score: 2) by DNied on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:59PM
You've basically described comp.misc and probably lots of other newsgroups on Usenet. Get a good newsreader and a free server [albasani.net]. See you there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:12PM
We welcome all views here, because we don't want this place to become an echo chamber. We need leftwing hippy freetards like you here to counterbalance rightwing fascist corprotards like jmorris, khallow, The Mighty Buzzard, frojack, etc.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by McD on Sunday May 24 2015, @05:47PM
I think a neutral POV is a good thing.
Bias is inevitable, in everything from story selection to what sources we link to - but if the summary verbiage is blatantly partisan in one way or another on any given issue, it tarnishes the credibility of the site and the discussion.
But as we're seeing in this discussion, people put a great deal of care and effort into crafting their submissions. When you edit that, most especially if you add verbiage or change tones or intention, you risk changing the community's perception of the submitter, who them self is often a community member! People are less likely to submit stories if they think they risk being misrepresented by the editorial process.
So yeah, let's try to stay neutral in story submissions. If a submission isn't neutral enough, kick it back. Don't put an editor's words into a submitter's mouth - at the very least, identify the speaker whenever possible.
This story has diverted onto the role of editing, but back on the parent-topic-at-hand - what MS did to the UK - I agree with Sigma. I don't have a problem with calling out the bad behavior of any company.
Lastly, Sigma writes:
I hope not. Our tribe ought to feel at home here. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 25 2015, @05:40PM
it shows that it's my views that are out of place here
Citation needed. /sarcasm
Most of your 24 most recent posts are positively moderated, with a total of +26 (a little more than +1 mod point per post).
I disagree that you are out of place here. Even if you were, then that means that you are even more valuable part of our community.
Please reconsider leaving.
(Score: 3, Informative) by n1 on Saturday May 23 2015, @06:17PM
sigma made note of it in the comments of the story in question, and subsequently made a submission about our editorial practices.
His submission on the subject can be viewed here: https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=7478&title=Are+Soylent+News+Editors+Overstepping+the+Mark%3F [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday May 23 2015, @08:32PM
Quote sigma's unpublished complaint:
"I think soylent editors should adhere to a policy of not putting words in the submitter's mouth".
...
The stories we submit are a reflection of our enthusiasms and beliefs, the tone and character of those posts is as much part of the submitter's story as the actual content
Oh, please post that story so we can
bitchslaphelp set him straight.Our submissions should be factual, should not change the original either in Slant or in Content. I find it revealing that sigma to wants prevent editors from "putting words in the submitter's mouth, but seems to reserve to himself the right to put words into the "mouth" of articles he cites.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Saturday May 23 2015, @10:18PM
Agreed. I'd go even further. Story summaries should ideally be neutral. I don't come here for clickbait. Save the editorializing and hyperbole for the comments.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:12PM
Things were good at first here. But ever since the Michael Brown incident, and the subsequent reporting of it here, I've found the quality of the stories to have gone downhill. I focus on that particular incident, because it's one where it was clear from the very beginning that the reporting here was pathetically bad. The submissions here painted it as a situation involving police brutality, when the obvious reality was that Michael Brown had just robbed a shop, violently attacked the cashier, tried to take a police officer's gun, and then charged at that officer in yet another violent physical attack. I mean, we had very clear footage of Brown attacking the cashier just minutes before he was shot, yet people here still proclaimed his innocence, and tore the police officer a new one just because this officer sensibly engaged in totally reasonable and justifiable self defense. The only one engaging in brutality was Michael Brown. Despite how obvious this situation was from the very beginning, the reporting here was just flat out awful. By setting the bar so low, it allowed other submissions with awful reporting to end up on the front page, eventually leading to incidents like this one.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:07AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:10PM
The "video" playing in your head is not actually a video of what actually happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @05:08PM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:23AM
"We were wrong about Microsoft!" "I was mistreated in a discussion about Michael Brown!"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marand on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:19AM
Agreed. I'd go even further. Story summaries should ideally be neutral. I don't come here for clickbait. Save the editorializing and hyperbole for the comments.
I've been saying the same thing for a while. Nobody is perfect, but summaries should be as neutral as possible. The opinionated crap should show up in comments where it's subject to the same moderation rules as everyone else. If it takes massive editing to make that happen, then maybe the submission should just be rejected with some kind of "Re-submit with neutral POV, please" notice to the submitter.
Summaries are not a soap box where you can talk shit without fear of downmods. If you want that, make a journal entry or get your own blog.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Sunday May 24 2015, @01:36AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday May 24 2015, @03:40AM
Anything submitted is posted with a banner that starts 'Submitter writes...'. It's therefore assumed that anything that follows, unless it's an explicit quote, is from the submitter.
Yes, its the submitters -summary-. The presumption then is that it's an accurate summary of what the article authors said.
It's completely fine for a submitter to say 'Look, here is an article that says something stupid, let's mock it' because their name is attached to this and the article's authors have their names attached to their opinions and we can see which one really looks sensible after reading both.
Not if the commenters presume the summary is in fact a summary of the article and therefore don't read the article. (What? Not read the article? Sure nobody does that!)
I hear what you are saying but we need a summary of the article BEFORE we start tearing it apart. Maybe submissions should be in two parts... a summary, and the submitters response.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday May 24 2015, @04:23AM
Good point.
tl;dr: "We fucked up; sorry; fixed."
Speaking as a reader/commenter -- apology accepted. And it takes some balls to admit a screwup given the community's not-always-friendly elements.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.