jmcintyre

It's something like being a devil's advocate, plus being a fan. Spreading mistruths actually hurts things. When people say things like "Windows 8 won't boot without secure boot enabled", it's no longer opinion(like "MS sucks and is dying") but an objective fact that can be checked.

It's not effort expended per se, since it's more like debating merits of phone OSes at the water cooler rather than work. If they're paying people to do it, then they're doing quite a shitty job. I don't feel the need to "defend" other companies, because companies like Apple and Google already have plenty of fans who point out inaccuracies in stories or comments even before I even get a chance to comment.

Imagine an article which erroneously claims Windows Phone has "25% of the phone market" and that "Android is declining". Now imagine the HN comments on it and how karma might be distributed on those comments. Do you really think the equivalent to the following comment which is currently on top would still be on top?

programminggeek> "Microsoft has really fallen these last few years."

Or would it be a comment accusing the author of being a "Microsoft shill" ?

The moderation on here is pretty brutal even when pointing out objective facts, I have seen people get hellbanned by getting downvoted for making comments that people don't want others to see, but are true.

No, and never did. I am actually working on NetBeans/PHP/Drupal(gah!) on the other monitor, though I am primarily a C# guy.

And even I did work for MS, how does that invalidate any of my points? If I worked for Microsoft, does that suddenly mean it's okay for ZDNet to claim 25% of all computers being sold are Chromebooks? Interesting that no one is questioning SJVN's ulterior motives, if any! I do believe it's just to garner clicks though, Ed Bott will probably reply with an article debunking this one and ZDNet and its "journalists" will laugh all the way to the bank.

Also this:

>It’s a little known fact that top contributors to EE got VIP treatment. They were flown to different locations around the world, wined & dined, and got lots of cool swag (computers, tablets, etc). When the experts came to visit us in San Luis Obispo, it was all-out fun for them. Experts on Experts Exchange have the potential to get some sweet perks.

Some of that money could've easily gone into improving the UX and adding features to the site which seemed to be stuck in 1999, or failing which, reducing the price of subscriptions. Throwing expensive swag around when there are better places to put it is a bad idea.

If their crime was only that they ranked highly because of the text in the questions and sold access to answers, I would be okay with that, but EE decided to let Google index the _answers_ too, for SEO purposes, and then hid the answers to non-paying members via various CSS tricks, hiding them below a large wall of boilerplate footer text, etc. The babies analogy is certainly silly though.