Talk:Eric S. Raymond/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

THE Eric Raymond?

We disambiguated the other one as "Eric Raymond (villan)". Shouldn't we rename this one to "Eric Raymond (hero)" to save confusion? 172.203.199.18 00:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Lollerskate. Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 14:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the current name unambiguous enough? Autarch 13:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated Info

Under criticism: "Raymond's public claim to be a "Core Linux Developer" is disputed by one anonymous source." Why is this in the article? Some random, unnamed person disagrees with him? It sounds like the most meaningless comment possible... Can somebody at least source this, or if that's not possible, it should go.

• Besides terminfo and a crappy mail program, what else did he do? The burden of proof is on him, and doubly so for so an audacious claim.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.183.180.100 (talk • contribs).
• The Emperor Has No Clothes --Gunny01 11:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This is notable enough to deserve inclusion. The other option would be to use the most notable documents linked to from that document. Using that document seems easier. ESR's "I'm a core Linux dev" was much derided. --Gronky 13:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Says you. We've done this discussion to the death below. Do the right thing and bury this parrot, k? Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 15:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't help that you've discussed this at length, but that doesn't change that there was a notable amount of criticism of his coding skills and of his own evaluation of his contributions. Should be re-added. --Gronky 17:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

One guy on a free website does not constitute notable criticism. This is a biography of a living person. Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 18:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Fine, then we use the criticisms from the FreeBSD dev, the new Fetchmail maintainers, the getmail maintainers, etc. instead. --Gronky 20:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

These says nothing about the "core Linux developer" thing, so these are irrelevant (unless you're trying to change the subject). Furthermore, there's no program (or developer thereof) in the world that does not have its critics. Let's not cruft up the article, k? Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 21:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, these criticisms of fetchmail are included in the article about fetchmail, which is where they should be. It's not particularly relevant to an article on ESR. Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 21:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

All presidents have critics, so for the president of Elbonia, let's not mention any of the criticisms. The collapse of the Elbonian economy during his term and the corruption scandal about the house given to him are already mentioned in the articles about Elbonia's economia and the article about that lovely house. --Gronky 22:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Why no reference to 2nd amendment?

Why is referring to gun rights as Second Amendment to the United States Constitution gun rights controversial? Particularly when the person under discussion claims his rights derive from the 2nd amendment? It seems to be introducing a point of view by removing it. RussNelson 21:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Since many of the people who want to ban guns rely on interpreting the 2nd ammendment in such a way that it doesn't actually give gun rights, just writing '2nd ammendment gun rights' implies that it does, countering their point of view. I get the logic, even though it is extremely intellectually dishonest to try to interpret the ammendment that way, but as US politics has shown for 200 years, intellectually dishonest people have points of view too. BillWallace 16:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The Second Amendment is part of the United States Constitution, which is a simple fact. So, when someone is said to be supporting "Second Amendment gun rights", that would implicitly assert a particular interpretation of it and consequently that opponents hold an unconstitutional view. That would thus be a violation of NPOV. -- Dissident (Talk) 15:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

According to the Second Amendment the right individuals have to bear arms cannot be infringed. It is a simply a "gun-right" amendment. There is nothing to interprete. It means what it says. We have the right to bear arms, and the right cannot be infringed. There is nothing POV about that. It's just fact. 83.95.105.123 04:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, Dissident, I get that, however, this is not an article about the 2nd Amendment, it's an article about Eric Raymond. The article about the 2nd Amendment is a click away for anybody wanting to find out why Eric might feel that the 2nd Amendment is the source of his gun rights, or why other people might disagree with him. The referenced web page documents Eric's belief, so the fact that he makes that claim is well substantiated, and not anybody's point of view. RussNelson 20:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The straightforward interpretation of "Second Amendment gun rights" is "gun rights as guaranteed by the Second Amendment". The fact that ESR believes in "gun rights" is itself uncontroversial as well as his belief that it emanates from the Second Amendment, but both beliefs must be explicitly attributed rather than implicitly taken as a fact. If you think, not unreasonably, that dwelling on the Second Amendment in the intro of ESR is misplaced, then you shouldn't be against my earlier action of simply removing the mention of the "Second Amendment". -- Dissident (Talk) 17:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I guess that I don't understand why you would remove a documented fact about someone. Do you disagree that Eric ascribes his ability to own guns to the 2nd Amendment? Other people might think that they have a right to own a gun simply through human rights or natural law. Eric seems not to, so I think it's worthwhile to leave the text as you have currently written it. RussNelson 21:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The Second Amendment is a piece of supporting evidence; he doesn't own a gun because of the Second Amendment, it's just an argument he uses to justify his decision. Chris Cunningham 14:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Controversial opinion statement

I've altered the controversial opinion section to change the insupportable and gratuitously inflammatory "African-Americans are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of crimes because they have lower IQs", which the cited blog entry does not say at all, to the more accurate and neutral claim that is actually found in the blog entry, namely "median intelligence varies across gender and racial lines." palecur 08:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not interested in restarting this flame war, but the blog entry does have this nugget:

In the U.S., blacks are 12% of the population but commit 50% of violent crimes; can anyone honestly think this is unconnected to the fact that they average 15 points of IQ lower than the general population? That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color.

If the orignal paraphrasing "does not say at all" what the blog entry, then it is a weak argument to replace it with the neutered "median intelligence varies across gender and racial lines" which surely does not characterize the thrust of Raymond's article. That statement would be the summary of an academic paper from the 1920s, not an opinion piece. --69.165.73.238 13:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The new phrasing crosses the line into whitewashing IMO, and leaves the reader wondering just what is so controversial about Raymond's view anyway (and perhaps why his critics are so apparently thin-skinned). If anything the original phrasing had already toned down Raymond's claim by stating it as "lower IQs" when actually, as the editor above me notes, he came right out and used the word "stupid". To be fair, though, the original phrasing is in need of the word "average" before "IQs". Maybe the best solution is to just use the direct quote, if we are unable to agree on an accurate paraphrasing. --Saucepan 18:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Note that he doesn't actually *say* blacks are stupid. He says that blacks have a lower average IQ, that blacks commit more violent crimes per capita, and that stupid people are more violent. The implication is there, but should an encyclopedic entry chase down implications? If Eric wanted to say "blacks are stupid" or "blacks are lazy", let him say it, but don't put those words in his mouth. RussNelson 19:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added a POV-section tag to the opinion-section, since it is biased and does not quote him accurately. Wikipedia should not contain (biased) interpretions of personal statements. Factual representation is a different matter. And remember: I'm not saying the interpretion is incorrect. I'm only stating it is not neutral. Dylansmrjones 16:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

In lieu of any explanation as to why these interpretations aren't neutral, I've de-tagged it. Lewis Collard! (rock me mama like a southbound train) 11:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Interpretions are never neutral. You cannot make a neutral interpretion. All interpretions are POV by definition. We should merely state what he is writing without interpreting it in one or another direction. ( Forgot to sign comment Dylansmrjones 19:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC) )

That's not some "interpretation" of his views. The article states what he has said, in very plain english, that he believes. In any case, I've reworded and condensed the section a bit because I don't feel like getting into a revert war. Lewis Collard! (rock me mama like a southbound train) 21:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It's "one anonymous source", not "many".

Since several people have tried to make one anonymous source on a free web host into "many", and since most people are too lazy to check the talk page before reverting (or even had the nerve to invite people to prove the "one anonymous source" on the talk page, despite the fact that I've already done that, and haven't had anyone dispute it yet. Did they even check the talk page themselves?!). So here we go again, in its own section so nobody can miss it (and hence, if they refuse to discuss it here, have no reason to go around crying because I keep reverting "many"):

Run this Google search ("eric" and "raymond", with "core Linux developer", the phrase "lived on three continents" excluded to make sure we're not getting any WP mirrors). The sites that come up are either:

1. Mirrors of the source, or sites that copy text from it.
2. Discussions about this Wikipedia article.
3. The occasional comment on news sites and forums, and on Eric's blog. (These do not count; for the same reasons that the free website shouldn't count, but even more so.)
4. An "ESR facts" page.

QED.

That's why the wording "one anonymous source" is there: the site in question is written by an unnamed person (hence "anonymous source"), and there's one of them (hence "one"). There's no POV in that at all: pointing out that it's one anonymous source is necessary (in lieu of other sources), because it means that a reader is less inclined to treat Eric's claim as more controversial than it actually is (however true or untrue it may be). The burden of proof is upon anyone that would like to make one free web site into "many". Lewis Collard 09:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia article, not a gossip column. If it isn't notable enough to be a legitimate criticism it should be removed per WP:BLP. Until then, it should be written like it matters, not in a way which makes it look like amateur partisan journalism. Chris Cunningham 12:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point: it's not notable enough, so I've nuked the whole "core Linux developer" thing, in lieu of a real source for it. Lewis Collard 14:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Flame war on Fedora mailing list

"...leading to a flame war on the Fedora development mailing list.[17]...".

I haven't readed all the mailing list thread but it will be nice if someone could read the whole thread and check if it was really an absurd flame war or only a long list of argumented responses and critics from angry fedora users and developers due to Eric manners. I also think that Alan Cox and Luis Villa replies are important (specially Luis Villa one).

Well, that's only my opinion. I'm not going to start a flame-war here or a war of editions, and of course i'm not going to insult anyone: it will be a waste of time and it will hurt Wikipedia's reputation; I also apologies for my recent edits on this article but i really think that the article need several people with a NEUTRAL POV (and seeing the history of this article that exclude RussNelson and me, for example). --213.97.187.239 18:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

As you said, you "haven't readed (sic) all the mailing list thread". Try doing that first. Calling it a "flame war" is entirely accurate (even, nay, especially if it involves "angry fedora users" -- and I never used the term "absurd"), and a whole lot easier than saying "then Matthias Saou said this, then Denis Leroy said this, and elsewhere Rahul Sundaram said this, and Raymond said this, to which Konstantin Ryabitsev responded...".

You're right that this article needs more neutral editors: that's exactly what I'm trying to be. I definitely don't have any posters of the guy on my wall, but I'm sick and tired of this article turning into a magnet for every two-bit sh*thead with a grudge against Raymond. I care about WP:BIO, not about Raymond. And hey, if you want to talk about "neutrality", perhaps you would like to explain this edit? Big kiss, Lewis Collard 20:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

If you read slowly my second paragraph you should note this: "I also apologies for my recent edits on this article". And yes, as a non-english native speaker i know that my english is terrible, thanks for remarking it. A bigger kiss for you :).--213.97.187.239 00:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

It didn't seem like a very sincere apology, since you then went on to imply that you were trying to make the article more neutral. Lewis Collard 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The author of the anonymous article you link to may in fact be a two-bit sh*thead (we can't know for sure) and certainly has a grudge against Raymond. But he's also made leveled a widely distributed and frequently repeated set of criticism about Raymond. I don't agree with all or even most of the it -- but that doesn't make it any less notable. —mako (talk•contribs) 14:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

"May in fact be", well, "if it looks like a duck...". "Widely distributed" it is not (one mirror, one copy-and-paste into softpanorama.org, and Nikolai Bezroukov is almost as close to bottom-of-the-barrel as a free web site). "Frequently repeated" is refuted by my Google test elsewhere on this page. Feel free to continue the discussion in the above section. Lewis Collard 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The Luis Villa reply is especially unimportant. The point of Eric's article is to say that past suggestions have been ignored. Eric isn't asking "How do I fix this problem?" He's stating his reasons for leaving Fedora. He's not asking any questions, thus it's a waste of electrons to point to Eric's article on Smart Questions. It's cute, but it's not helpful, and it's certainly not encyclopedic. There's two ways to leave a project: quietly or noisily. Quietly allow people to ignore problems, but it doesn't hurt their feelings. Noisily throws the problems up in people's faces and gets them angry, but at least they know why somebody is leaving. RussNelson 21:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

There's a third way: stay and try to help instead maiking noise. Anyway, I respect your POV, although it seems biased towards Eric. Anyway there're a bunch of more productive things out there that keep wasting your (and my) time with non-sense paragraphs. Have a good time and good luck with the article. --213.97.187.239 00:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I am biased towards having a NPOV article on Eric. Being a public figure with strong opinions, he attracts people with opposite strong opinions. That's fine, but this article is about him, not them. RussNelson 02:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You may be "unbiased toward Eric" but your personal and close institutional relationship with Eric makes your edits suspect when almost every edit you make serves to revert or remove criticism about him.

Between you and Collard, I've seen you challenge or remove a majority of the criticism in this article as I've been watching it over the last couple months. I have been able to make minor POV and wording changes and add a large amount of removed text.

Most of your edits are fair but you have consistently erred toward removing text instead of rewording -- but only when it involves criticism of Eric -- with the result of what appears to be a very one-sided edit history on this article.

The fact that Eric attracts strong opinions that you think are wrong may upset you. But that fact, and much of their criticism, is notable if presented with a proper POV. —mako (talk•contribs) 14:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You're right that I've erred towards removing text; in the cases of major removal likely to be controversial, I've discussed it here first. That's not because I plan on taking showers in the wee hours of the morning with ESR. It's because the material I have removed has been crap, and crap has no place in any article, least of all in a biography of a living person. (Note also that I have reinstated criticism in at least one recent edit.) Lewis Collard 15:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Jargon File Mismanagement

More recently, Raymond has been accused of introducing terms into the Jargon File to fit his own views on the war in Iraq, as well as introducing terms in use primarily by himself.

RussNelson, this text was added and worked on by a variety of people, reverted by Ken Arromdee, restored by me, and then reverted by you again. You've said, in your edit summary reverting me:

If he's actually done it, then it can be documented. If he's merely been accused of doing it, how is that encyclopedic? As Ken says, anybody can be accused of anything. Accusation != truth.

Eric has been accused of manipulating the Jargon based on his own political views in very public venues. This includes NTK (which was referenced), an extremely widely read newsletter, and in a variety of places including Slashdot [1] which is where I read it several years ago. The criticism in question is widely known and frequently referred to in the free software and open source communities. These accusations may be in fact just be accusations. If so, please, temper the language and link to evidence to the country or to notable refutations. As it is, this is a well-known and frequently mentioned criticism of Raymond and it belongs in this article regardless of how much you disagree with it. —mako (talk•contribs) 00:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it is a well-known and frequently repeated accusation. Document the accusation or stop repeating it, I say. If there is evidence that Eric has done something, then point to the evidence and say that he's done it.RussNelson 04:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's pretty obvious that this criticism is false. After all, nobody's ever been able to name a particular pro-Iraq-war Jargon File entry added by him. I'd think that if the criticism is true, someone would have been able to name one. Moreover, Eric has already said that the person who made the accusation apologized for it, which we only can't use because he wrote it on a Wikipedia talk page rather than on his own web site (self-published sources can be used in articles about the author). We don't need to put accusations with no credibility in the article. If someone says "Eric inserted so-and-so entry as a pro-Iraq-war entry" and named the entry, there might be more credibility to the accusation. Ken Arromdee 15:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Which particular accusation are you disclaiming here? The charge that Raymond does not impose any of his own sociopolical views on the Jargon File is trivial to dismiss, insofar as the definition of "hacker" happens to indicate in a self-authored section that a majority of hackers have a sociopolitical worldview which happens to be tending towards, well, Raymond's. I don't believe he's added anything specifically pro-Iraq war, but I'd think it would be hard to dispute that he's edited things to be explicitly right-wing where they previously weren't. Chris Cunningham 16:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm disclaiming the accusation given at the top of this talk page section: "More recently, Raymond has been accused of introducing terms into the Jargon File to fit his own views on the war in Iraq, as well as introducing terms in use primarily by himself." That has two accusations in it. The first is the Iraq war one. I doubt this accusation; if he actually added such entries, I'm sure people could name one.

The other accusation is true (though it needs a good source). He added, among others, the term "GandhiCon", which used to have a stub Wikipedia article until I personally proposed a deletion for it on the grounds that nobody uses it except him. Ken Arromdee 18:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC) (Google suggests that it is still true that no one uses it except him.) LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

For examples of political issues (not Iraq-specific, but certainly right-wing): in jargon file 4.4.0 (May 2003) Eric added anti-idiotarianism, which the jargon file claimed was 'very common' but was in fact coined only a year before by a very right-wing blogger [2], and is used almost exclusively [3] by right-wing political bloggers. It is impossible to prove the negative, of course, but using google I was unable to find a single use of the term in a programming context which was not either from Eric himself or in reference to Eric's stewardship of the Jargon File. Ditto fisking- no googleable examples of it being used by non-Eric hackers; coined and used heavily by politically right-wing bloggers. And of course there is the infamous addition in the same version (4.4.0) of "more recently moderate-to-neoconservative (hackers too were affected by the collapse of socialism)" from the description of hacker politics. Given the lack of any proof that these terms and philosophies are used by hackers other than Eric, one has to assume that these changes indicate that Eric has lost touch with hackerdom, and has fallen prey to the trap of conflating his own warblogging with the broader hacking movement which he claims to be an expert in. Of course, we can't prove that his claims aren't true, but Eric can't prove that they are true either, and they are clearly strongly rejected by many hackers (particularly European hackers). I don't know how much 'proof' one needs to show that it is rejected, given that no proof is offered that it is true- maybe this [www.cafepress.com/mjg59.13071097] would be sufficient? :) LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Besides these specific examples, I think the bottom line is that Eric puts himself forward as a 'voice of the community'. That is the only substantial reason he is notable at this time. As such, counterclaims by community members that he does not stand for them or understand them are notable and important- when speaking of such nebulous notions as being the 'voice of the community', it is he-said/she-said, and this article as it stands has come fairly close to cutting out all the 'she said'. Hardly balanced or NPOV. LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

You've just given a hefty paragraph as to why you think the accusations of ESR forcing his own political views into the Jargon file are true, and have offered almost no proof at all that anyone other than you offers the same criticisms (save for one CafePress link -- no points for that). Your opinion of Eric may or may not be valid, but that does not justify including it in the article, unless you've written about it in a non-Wikipedia context too. Verifiability, not truthen. If this kind of criticism is as widespread as you say, go right ahead and cite it -- that is the sort of thing that should be in the article. Lewis Collard 23:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Google for 'esr anti-idiotarian jargon file', or 'esr gandhicon jargon file'. The first three results are not actually ESR or the jargon file as you'd expect if the articles were liked and respected, but people criticizing inclusion of that term in the jargon file. (Similar but not quite as definitive results for 'esr fisking jargon file'). All three of those links have been cited here, but you've dismissed them all, and... huh, now you say you want links to criticism. Others have thoroughly documented here that he's been criticized in some of the highest profile forums our community has; I've documented (as if the many comments in /. and/or ghoseb's article were not enough) that the criticism is not slander as you claim, but has extensive factual basis. I have no idea what more can possibly be demanded before it goes back in the article, but if you've got something more clear and less circular, please do tell- I'm all ears. LuisVilla 05:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Read what I said again: What I am trying to do is draw a hard distinction between what you think ESR has done with the Jargon File (a question of truth) and what the hacker community at large think (one of verifiability). I apologise for not being totally clear on this: I'm fine with having the criticism from NTK (for example) included in the article. /. comments don't count, though; we shouldn't take them as being representative of hackers anymore than we should take LGF comments as representative of the conservative movement, or Daily Kos comments as being representative of liberalism. Lewis Collard 10:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

OK. I've seen no evidence for the arguments that Raymond is inserting Iraq-war related material in the jargon file. That definitely should be removed if no citations are forthcoming. However, we have two good references to an NTK article and to Slashdot article to very public and widely criticism that Raymond edited a variety of articles in the Jargon file including GandhiCon, Aunt Tillie, and the Hacker Politics article (IIRC, he edited to the last article describe how hacker politics had recently been moving quickly toward a political ideology quite clearly recognizable as his own). These were visible opinions published in two of the most import hacker news sources. That makes that part of the criticism notable. Was Raymond projecting himself into the Jargon file? I have no idea! That's not the point and it's probably a matter of opinion. You say no, clearly, other people have argued yes. The point is that it was public and notable criticism. If you think they are false and have been dubunked, please go ahead and suggest text that describes equally public and notable refutations of these points. —mako (talk•contribs) 02:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I said no? Where? (I'm guessing by the indentation that this is addressed to me...) Lewis Collard 10:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. I was unfairly and incorrectly conflating your argument with Russ's. Apologies! —mako (talk•contribs) 16:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I find your edits to this article suspect. I don't know what your relationship to Raymond is today but you are clearly a long-time acquaintence of Raymond's, share a variety of political and philosophical views, and was even president of his organization (OSI) immediately after he stepped down (this is all from what I know or can infer from your Wikipedia article). In this context, I can't help but notice that almost every edit you've made to this article has been to remove criticism. In a few cases, you've merely tempered the language to make the criticism less strong. —mako (talk•contribs) 00:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is that Eric has strong opinions which some people disagree with. These people have made this article a target of their opprobrium. I feel that criticism of a living person should be well documented, and not just people's opinions. Not "Silvernil says that mako is a poopy-head". NPOV is not achieved by balancing praise and criticism without reference to their reliability. And given your former membership on the SPI board -- which has a long bad history with Eric -- you are hardly one to claim that your criticism is inserted neutrally. This is like the Pot calling the kettle black RussNelson 04:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not merely that Eric has strong opinions and the countering opinions are unprovable, but that both sets of opinions are unprovable (see my discussion above) and you're insisting on deleting all discussions as a result, leaving the impression that he's an uncontroversial community leader, when in fact he is controversial and his leadership is far from widely accepted. From an NPOV/balance perspective, what matters is not whether the controversy is grounded in fact (I think it is, and have given examples above to support that) but that it exists at all. LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The fact that someone has written very widely repeated lies about a person may, in fact, still be worthy of inclusion in an article. As it stands, the veracity of this statement seems to be on that is debatable. I think that the (now reverted) hacker politics article was an example of Raymond changing the jargon file to describe hacker politics as moving toward his politics in a way that was unsupportable (which, perhaps, is why he removed that language).

Any long and bad history between Eric and SPI was long over before I got to the board. I know that SPI's ownership of the opensource.org domain stemmed from some fight in the past but that's all I really knew (or care to). FWIW, I voted to return the domain to OSI as a sign of good will whenever the issue was raised. Those records should all be public. Sorry to disappoint. :) —mako (talk•contribs) 02:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Your calls in the edit summary to, "stop editing the page and talk about this on the discussion page," might seem a little more genuine if it wasn't made while reverting the restoration of previously removed text. Since you have what appears to be a conflict of interest, I think that removal of criticism would best be discussed on the talk page in the future. —mako (talk•contribs) 00:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

No conflict of interest. My interest is in an accurate article. Repeating accusations and innuendo does not add value to the article. Removing them does. RussNelson 04:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

You've got a clear conflict of interest, Russ; just from reading this talk page it is clear that you've known him and hacked with him for quite some time, and you succeeded him as president of OSI [4]. I have no idea how that fits with Wikipedia's policies on conflicts of interest (though a skim of the relevant policy section suggests that you're almost certainly in violation) but even without that, to claim you've got no conflict of interest is slightly surreal by any reasonable definition of the term. Disclosure: I've never met the man personally or worked with him; I think his early writings are brilliant and frequently recommend CATB to anyone looking to understand open source; and I (and many, many open source developers I know) think he's a pompous, self-promoting ass who has tried to hijack the meaning of the movement in order to promote his own career and political viewpoints. I think that to present an NPOV, this article should reflect the sources of that widespread disaffection, so that readers will better understand his mixed and controversial record and can form their own opinions. LuisVilla 22:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no conflict of interest in having an accurate article. There are, just as you say, people who despise Eric, and who are HAPPY to edit the article to include anything negative said about Eric. So who is going to ensure that the article is even moderately accurate? Them? You? mako (but he has his own conflict of interest) RussNelson 01:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no conflict of interest in having an accurate article. As far as I can tell, you have a conflict of interest, period. By definition, having a conflict of interest means you have a problem judging what it means for this to be an accurate article. One can't say 'oh, i've got a conflict of interest, but not one that affects having an accurate article.' You've either got one, or you don't, and it seems fairly clear from the guidelines and from what information you've chosen to remove from the article that you do have one. Again, I'm happy to be corrected, and it would be easy for you to demonstrate your good faith by working with Mako and others to correct and cite these criticisms (which are easy enough to find) instead of constantly reverting and deleting. If you can't do that, please step aside. LuisVilla 05:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

What is my conflict of interest? I once stood next to ESR in line at OSCON, have cited his papers (postively or neutrally, in every case I can recall) but don't ever recall writing anything negative about him. I don't ever recall having a conversation with him in any medium. —mako (talk•contribs) 01:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

My point is that you don't have a conflict of interest -- and neither do I. If you perceive that I have one, understand that I perceive (equally incorrectly) that you have one. RussNelson 03:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Because you have a percieved conflict of interest, it's important that you discuss major edits, and especially removals of criticism, on the talk page first.

Also, please respond to the part of my origial post about the reinclusion of the removed contenta bout he jargon file or how you would like to reword it or I will add it back. —mako (talk•contribs) 01:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Apologies. I misread the talk page and see that others have responded to my very last paragraph. The rest of my comment stands. —mako (talk•contribs) 02:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Do you understand that I continue to believe that false accusation (aka slander) is not notable? There is no end of slander of Eric that one could cite, nay even claim to be notable. If you want to re-insert the accusations about the Jargon file, then say "There is no evidence that Eric has inserted XYZ into the Jargon File, but people claim he has done so nonetheless[#]. There is no evidence that people use terms like GandhiCon, Aunt Tillie (&etc), but Eric has inserted them nonetheless." RussNelson 03:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Perfectly understood and reasonable. The NTK article cited listed a half-dozen articles controversial changes to the Jargon file. These included "Aunt Tille", "GandhiCon", "anti-idolitarianism" and "fisking". I think we should point out those, and the "hacker politics" changes which were also controversial.

Other than that, I'm happy with the roughly wording you chose although I tend to agree with you that it's not worth saying that we should point out that Eric has been accused of inserting things into the Jargon file that are not-notable when there is absolutely no evidence unless the accusations have been very public. I've said this elsewhere in the section but I've not even seen any evidence of notable criticism of Raymond adding any Iraq-war related entries so I don't intend to re-add that. I'm glad we could come to some consensus on this. —mako (talk•contribs) 16:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Why he thinks Wikipedia doesn't work

Eric believes that Wikipedia doesn't work the same way that Open Source works because there is no objective test for correctness, and no alternative for when there isn't. A computer program has to function. It has to do what its documentation says it does, otherwise it's wrong and everybody can see that, and anybody can fix it. A Wikpedia article doesn't have that test. It's all just people's opinions. Of course, people get opinionated about computer programs as well. That's why there are so many IRC clients, web browsers, file downloaders, etc. People have a choice about which one they use and so everybody tries to make their program the test. With Wikipedia, there is only one Eric S. Raymond article, and so people fight about what's right with no check on their behavior (other than internal Wikipedia rules). A better situation would be to allow multiple articles on the same subject, with an automagically created disambiguation page. People would then link to the version of the page they thought was best.

THEN you might get an open source effect going. RussNelson 16:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

And Wikipedia is not like open source because there are no barriers to entry in WP, and no barriers between "development" and "production" versions. If I submitted a patch to Fetchmail which replaced all the code with

int main() { while (1) { printf("ESR iz a fag!111"); } }

then the chances are very, very slim that the new Fetchmail maintainers would integrate it into their copy of the source. There's even less of a chance that it would make it into released code. But someone could do the exact same thing with a semi-obscure Wikipedia article and chances are 20 people would read it before it got corrected. And an unattributed "critics say" (which is Wikipedia-speak for "I think that...") will likely stay there for much, much longer before a reasonable editor will come along and axe it, or add a source, or whatever.

None of this is to say that Wikipedia is not good; I think it's wonderful. Is it anything like open source? No, but neither is my dog. Totally unbalanced and unfair? Infested with moonbats? All that is totally true (I'd add "the very worst kinds of atheists and liberals" to the latter). But I'd much rather set a good example and put things right, rather than than complain. Lewis Collard 22:07, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Raymondism redirects here but not mentioned or defined

Raymondism redirects here. The term is not defined in the article (nor apparently elsewhere on Wikipedia). The term is sometimes encountered in open source / Linux debates. Let's have a brief definition, here or wherever else on Wikipedia would be appropriate. -- Writtenonsand 16:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I know of no use of "Raymondism" except as part of "Vulgar Raymondism", the existance of which Eric denies here. -- RussNelson 18:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, see http://www.google.com/search?q=raymondism+-%22vulgar+raymondism%22 for "raymondism" -"vulgar raymondism".

Presumably, if the term is in use, then ESR's denial of its existence is moot. (Cf Invisible Pink Unicorn, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Colorless Green Ideas). It seems to me that this situation would warrent a note along the lines: "The term(s) "Raymondism" and/or "Vulgar Raymondism" are sometimes encountered; they're supposed to mean X; ESR denies that there is such a thing, ref here." -- And there is also that matter of the existing redirect. -- Writtenonsand 18:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The first link to Raymondism (without the vulgar) is in a FAQ maintained by the same person whose First Monday paper introduced the term vulgar Raymondism. The second link refers to Stallmanism in the same breath as Raymondism, but there is no article on Stallmanism. Only a very few people have used the term; I don't think it merits inclusion. -- RussNelson 19:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Russ here; I've never seen the word in the wild (though it does seem useful, so maybe I'll start using it ;), and if we're going to point out that the man has a habit of making up terms which no one else uses, the least we can do is hold his critics to the same standard. -- LuisVilla 22:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I second that. Anyone who bothers to read ESR knows that "Raymondism", as defined by Bezroukov, isn't something that ESR would actually subscribe to, so it shouldn't redirect here. Also, Bezroukov is an asshole. Lewis Collard 01:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I yield to RussNelson's argument that the term is apparently not in fact notable.

However, I reiterate that, if it were, neither ESR's individual opinion nor Bezroukov's personality or style would be at all relevant in the decision on whether to discuss the term.

-- :-) Writtenonsand 17:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Bezroukov's character is entirely relevant to this. He and the "Raymondism" he shat forth stinks of intellectual dishonesty to anybody that cares enough to compare what Bezroukov says ESR says and what ESR actually says. Therefore, he fails as a reliable source. Just because we're meant to be unbiased doesn't mean that we can't ignore people that deserve to be ignored. Lewis Collard 14:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Open Source anachronism

In 1997, Raymond became a prominent voice in the open source movement and was a co-founder of the Open Source Initiative.

That statment appears in the section titled Open Source, but there was no "open source movement" in 1997. The term "open source" wasn't coined until the following year. I'm not sure exactly how to fix it, as Raymond did become prominent in 1997 due to publication of CatB. Aardvark92 21:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevent Wikipedia Opinion

This page is little but a character assasination of Eric S Raymond. The following paragraph is a case in point:

"He has also strong views on Wikipedia. Reportedly, he stated that "‘disaster’ is not too strong a word for it".[16] He claims that the open source model does not work for an encyclopedia, that the Wikipedia article about him is "neither accurate, nor fair, nor balanced",[17] and that the site is "infested with moonbats".[16]"

How is this notable? A notable man doesn't like Wikipedia. So what?! This type of irrelevant muck doesn't belong in an entity that pretends to be an encyclopedia. Someone fix it. I can't be bothered.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kim.mason (talk • contribs).

ESR says stuff about Wikipedia to the mass media. But when someone else quotes him on it, that's "character assasination [sic]". Hokay!

Since you can't be bothered fixing it, I'll return the love and not bother commenting very much on the relevance of this passage; other than to say I hardly think ESR's opinions on these issues are irrelevant to his biography, given that he's someone that has come to prominence precisely because of his opinions on technological matters.

BTW, sign your comments. <3. Lewis Collard! (natter) 10:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

About Linspire deal with Microsoft and his work on Freespire

Does ESR still works on Freespire after the Linspire deal with Microsoft? If he does, it can be a very hypocrite act. -- 87.217.11.138 12:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

So?

So?, why discuss that here ?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.87.98.224 (talk • contribs).

What? Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 01:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this non-comment can safely be ignored. —mako๛ 03:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

But it could have been so much fun! ;( Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 05:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Another mini-rewrite

About the rewrite I just did:

• Nobody cares about the flame war with the Fedora list anymore. I didn't at the time, but I left it in while the /. kiddies were still upset. This silliness has been removed.
• Nobody cares about him sending an e-flaming-turd-in-a-paper-bag-through-the-e-letterbox to Perens anymore, nor that Perens crapped himself. Comments as above.
• The section "Criticism and conflicts" has been nuked, and the beaten, bloody pulp of such integrated into other sections in the article.
• The material about Wikipedia sucking has been moved into a more general discussion about whether he thinks the open source model can be applied to other kinds of creative works. This could do with some expanding.
• Material has been moved out of the introductory section and into other areas since it's not all that relevant to his notability.

I apologise in advance for making the article suck less. Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 07:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

No offense, but you made the article significantly worse. Regardless of what you think of Perens, ESR threatening him was the most significant thing he's (ESR) done in years and was widely talked about in the open source movement. More generally, I think at this point ESR is more known for the controversy's he has caused than anything he actually did involving open source software. Deleting those controversial tidbits in highly suspect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.189.95.8 (talk) 14:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Bruce has left that woman back at the riverside. Why have you not? RussNelson 19:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

How is that "suspect", exactly? Something to do with the enormous bribes ESR has been giving me? Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 03:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying the threat was credible (obviously, it wasn't), but that doesn't change the fact that it happened and was a significant event. It's part of open source culture now... I still hear "me and my tribe" type jokes. As for why it's suspect: you removed a negative part(s) of the page with no good justification except "nobody cares". I'm sorry, did you poll for that information? Maybe you should edit that to "i dont care" because obviously other people do (as evidenced by the fact I'm even writing this). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.189.95.8 (talk) 02:13, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Well obviously someone cared: you. But we're not a collection of unimportant historical trivia. Some information which people want to add doesn't belong here. Lewis Collard! (baby i'm bad news) 04:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

What you consider "historical trivia" is very relevant in my opinion. Let me put it this way. ESR has a page here because at one point he was a prominent figure in the open source world, as leader/founder of OSI. He's no longer a prominent figure. That *entirely* has to do with all these minor controversies. OSI was initially setup to bridge the gap with the business world. You simply can't have a prominent figure in an organization like that who threatens people via email (whether or not those threats are real). So, leaving all these little things out really doesn't tell the whole story.

He doesn't care enough to login or sign his comments. That's a pretty low bar to jump over. We economists have something called "revealed preference" which is a more succinct and academic term for "actions speak louder than words." But let's say that your opinion is worth considering. You say that a not credible threat was simultaneously significant. Please explain why a misunderstanding is significant. Also, a good reason for removing negative information is simply to be kind to Eric (who is, after all, a living person with feelings to hurt.) RussNelson 04:37, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

An autosigned, dated IP address is more identifying information than a potentially arbitrary user name ;) . See above for why the threat was significant. As for being kinder to living people: I like the sentiment, but at the same time, it's not like I'm advocating spreading lies here. These things actually happened. Put another way, if you can't handle criticism and you're a public figure, don't do anything that you could be criticized for. Finally, I don't want to spend all my free time arguing on wikipedia, so I'll just leave these comments here as dissent against the edits.

These things actually happened. Only in Bruce's overheated imagination, as he later acknowledged. RussNelson 18:00, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, ESR threatened others in his blog, rendering your point moot, Russ.

I'm noticing a pattern:

ESR claims to be a superior programmer, but is not. Nelson claims to be an economist, but is not. The mascot for OpenBSD is a blowfish... an organism which literally puffs itself up to appear larger (more secure) than it is. 67.52.77.54 (talk) 09:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm noticing a pattern: Jim Thompson has a bug in his butt about Eric Raymond: Special:Contributions/Gonzopancho. And after you made a total ass of yourself commenting on his blog, yes, he threatened to deck you should he ever meet you. What's a matter, can't you get as good as you give? As for me not being an economist, I've answered your objection in advance. Basically, you can't claim that I'm not an economist without defining what you mean by "economist". If you simply don't like hearing about economics, well, get used to it -- economics isn't going to change to respect your opinion. RussNelson (talk) 18:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't feed them, Mr. Nelson. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 21:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Russ, you call yourself a Quaker, too. Even though you break with the tenet of "non-violence". You could call yourself a woman and be just as accurate. 67.52.77.54 (talk) 12:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

tenant, n: One who pays a fee (rent) in return for the use of land, buildings, or other property owned by others.

tenet, n: An opinion, belief, or principle held to be true by someone or especially an organization.

Welcome to Failtown. Population: You. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 16:42, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Damn spell-check... 67.52.77.54 (talk) 00:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there an open source movement?

I wanted to change the sentence:

»Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is a computer programmer, author and advocate for the open source movement«

to

»Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is a computer programmer, author and advocate for the Open Source Initiative.«

And I wanted to change the entry in {{Persondata}}:

SHORT DESCRIPTION=computer programmer, author and advocate for the open source movement

to

SHORT DESCRIPTION=computer programmer, author and advocate for the Open Source Initiative

It is undisputely that the open source movement isn't the same as the free software movement, altough open-source software is almost always free software, too. The article of the open source movement has been poor and there were no reference indicating it exists at all. So it was decided to merge the article with the article about the Open Source Initiative. Is there an open source movement outside the Open Source Initiative? --mms 10:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Some people involved with open source do not like to call it a movement -- or at least not a social movement. Many others use this term frequently. I'm not opposed to the change you've suggested (and probably would even support it) but will defer to folks like User:RussNelson who edit this page and whose opinion on how people who identify with open source would feel about this I trust over my own. I'll leave a message on his talk page. —mako๛ 14:29, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Lil' change....

Before:

Raymond became a high-profile representative of the open source movement, and is today one of its most recognized and controversial characters.

After:

Raymond became for a number of years a high-profile representative of the open source movement.

I think it now better represents Eric's departure from the spotlight in recent years. --Gunny01 10:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Explanation of minor change to ESR's claims of having contributed to his first open source project in 1982

No open source license existed in 1982. ESR used to claim that he had contributed to the GNU project as early as 1982, but that claims has been refuted, and Eric has changed the entry at his website to read,

I was one of the original GNU contributors back in the mid-1980s, and I've been at it ever since.

Thus, I've change the text to reflect same. (Personally, I can't find a record of Eric's contributions before 1987 or early 1988, but I'm willing to let the "mid-1980s" claim stand. in no case can the 1982 date stand, because the GNU project didnt' start until at least a year later, and nobody could have contributed before 1985 or so. Gonzopancho 02:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

He may have been talking about early versions (4.1?) of BSD. --69.54.29.23 15:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

"may have been"?

Even ESR doesn't claim this, why do you?

Cripes, BSD 4.1 wasn't an "open source" project. You had to have an AT&T license in order to get it.

Eric's own resume [5] has makes no claim to having contributed to any "open source" project prior to May 1985, and this period included 'Maintainence and extension of the GNU Emacs editor'. The period from May 1983 to June 1985 was at Rabbit Software, and this is where Eric first ran 4.1 BSD, and by his own admission (private communication) the 4.1 BSD experience was new to him.

Eric has claimed [6] that " I wrote the core of what became their console speaker driver on an SVr4 box in 1985." This is not 1982, and he makes no claim for having contributed same directly to BSD. (It got picked up in the 386BSD effort, which didn't start until 1989 [7].

So no, he did *NOT* contribute to any "open source" project in 1982. The earliest date I can find for any contribution by ESR to ANY "open source" project is 1988. [8] Gonzopancho 11:43, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Eric *used to* claim that he had contributed to the GNU project starting in 1982, but that claim was found to be false, so Eric changed his claim to "mid-1980s". I find it too likely that the claim in Wikipedia was based on this faulty claim on Eric's "software" page. Eric used to claim he had code in cnews as well [9], but the cnews authors set that straight [10]

I know ESR has said silly things, but I don't think he would claim he conributed to GNU software in 1982. He has better sense than that. Cite your accusations. --71.169.128.3 00:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

What, you don't know how to use the "Wayback Machine"? Compare December 14, 2005 [11] and December 15, 2005 [12] now go back and look at the blog postings. ESR does far more damage than your 'silly' label implies —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gonzopancho (talk • contribs) 22:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Stock options

Wikifier keeps trying to add the point of view that Eric was bragging and/or boasting in his Surprised by Wealth article. I keep removing it because this is clearly a point of view (does anybody disagree, besides Wikifier of course?). I am further doubtful that it's even AT ALL possible to mention the two stock valuations in the context of Surprised by Wealth without implying the POV that Eric is a horse's ass. Here's the language I had to delete this time:RussNelson (talk) 00:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

In December of 1999, Raymond was granted 150,000 share options of VA Linux which reached a value of $32 million on the day of VA's IPO. On that day, Raymond bragged of his windfall on Linux Today, angering board members of the company and putting his options in jeopardy should they have chosen to remove him. Twelve months later, following the internet bubble burst, shares of VA had dropped to $14.

I've kept revising it per your suggestions but you keep deleting regardless. I remembered at the time in '99 this having been a big deal and when I read the page was surprised it wasn't included among the other controversial things he's said. I went and researched it and provided citations. You should be less concerned with how an edit makes a person appear and more concerned with historical accuracy.--Wikifier (talk) 18:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Raymond angered members of VA Linux's board In December of 1999, when he made light of the value his shares had reached in Linux Today. Raymond was granted 150,000 share options of VA Linux which reached a value of $32 million on the day of VA's IPO. His shares vested over a four year period contingent on him staying on the board. Twelve months later, following the internet bubble burst, shares of VA had dropped from a high of $242.87 to $14.

I reverted the edit, but only because it was misdescribed as vandalism. Don't do that. Meanwhile, I don't see a good source for the "angered" statement; without that, its a nonstarter William M. Connolley (talk) 19:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The "angered" statement was cited in the article . What's up with people making deletions/edits without reading the citations that back up those facts? I placed the angered statement back along with the source. Please read it before making changes. --Wikifier (talk) 03:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you understand how Wikipedia works. Not everything that is written about a person needs to be incorporated into the article about them. The fact that some stockholders were angry is only a minor part of the article, and does not need to be incorporated into an article about Raymond. Unless you can defend your inclusion of this point of view better than you have so far, I will take it back out (again). RussNelson (talk) 14:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't find "angered" in the article at all. Could you please quote? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I felted "pissed" was a bit strong for wikipedia given that reasonable people can agree that "pissed" generally means angry. Go back and read it again.

"But Raymond will not be able to cash in any shares for at least six months, thanks to SEC rules, and his public disclosure may have put his shares in jeopardy, according to one source close to the company. As a non-employee director, Raymond's shares vest over a four-year period, dependent on him remaining on the board. Raymond's status comes up for review at the annual meeting of stockholders in 2001, according to SEC papers. "They're pissed," said the source, who asked to remain anonymous."--Wikifier (talk) 19:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Then the article should not be stating it as a fact. The best you can hope for is that "An anonymous source is reported to have said that...". Nor indeed is it clear that "They're" refers to the board; its about a stockholders meeting; it could mean the stockholders are pissed. For these reasons, I've removed it pending rephrase William M. Connolley (talk) 19:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Third Opinion

As long as the claim is well-sourced, I don't have a problem with the "angered" statement as a large part of Eric's notability comes from the controversial things he has said/done, but I don't see any relevant reason why the drop in the value of his stock options should be mentioned. — Dorvaq (talk) 15:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The reason I put the quote in the first place was because it illustrates how he says controversial things, and in this case put his shares at risk. The stock price drop reflects that the wealth he discussed was short-lived and his comments premature.--Wikifier (talk) 19:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

So why put it in the Open Source section? Why not create another section called Character Assassination? Wikifier, please remember that this is a biography of a living person, and controversial material which is poorly sourced (and I'd call an anonymous source "poor" even when Wired is doing the quoting) is subject to immediate removal. Basically, the article is not improved by the material you have inserted, even your point of view that his comments were premature is not present. RussNelson (talk) 19:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Russ - Character Assassination? Really? I knew you were taking this personally. You obviously have some need to protect this person from any little thing that may tarnish their reputation. That's what wikipedia's all about, right?--Wikifier (talk) 22:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Eric does say controversial things. You have to do that to get the press's attention. The problem is that unperceptive people take offense, and only pay attention to the controversial things. My role here is to make sure that this article keeps a neutral point of view, because there are editors who are happy to edit with a point of view. RussNelson (talk) 01:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I concur that good reliable sources (the more the better) are absolutely important when dealing with the biography of a living person, especially if the claim in question portrays the person in a negative light. — Dorvaq (talk) 20:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikifier: It seems to me that perhaps you are making your comments unnecessarily and unfairly personal to RussNelson. (FYI - I have never encountered the editor RussNelson before in my whole Wikilife; though there was a Russ Neilson in my grade three class, but that was probably a different guy.)

Above Dorvaq noted "I don't see any relevant reason why the drop in the value of his stock options should be mentioned." (I believe Dorvaq came here to give an independent opinion.)

Below in the next section (which predates this subsection) I wrote "The relevance of . . . . the closing paragraph (about stock prices) to this section "Open Source" are . . . insufficiently clear, if not downright mysterious."

My point here - I think you are criticising RussNelson for saying something that two independent editors have also expressed.

If as you say your purpose is to illustrate how (Raymond) says controversial things, I think the bottom line is that the wording of the article currently does not make that clear. Wanderer57 (talk) 23:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment re the Open Source section

The section starts with: "Raymond coined the aphorism "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." "

It ends with the paragraph about stock prices discussed just above.

The relevance of the opening quote and that of the closing paragraph to this section "Open Source" are both insufficiently clear, if not downright mysterious. Wanderer57 (talk) 20:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing Eric writes on his blog or website can be trusted without independent confirmation.

Nothing Eric writes on his blog or website can be trusted without independent confirmation, thus I have marked all of his unverified claims with "claims to". If something appears on his blog, we do not know that Eric wrote it without independent verification. If something appears on his web page, we do not know that Eric wrote it without independent verification. Because, you know, Wikipedia's policy is that everything is subject to independent verification. RussNelson (talk) 22:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I entirely disagree. This is point-making. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 03:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course it's point-making. My point is that we should be consistent. Either everything he claims without independent verification should be written as a claim, or none of it should be. --RussNelson (talk) 04:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't be childish. Contrary to Eric being a witch leader, it's all easily verifiable facts that "Eric addressed some of his critics...", that he "...is the author of how-tos", that he coined the "eyeballs" aphorism, that he advocates "the right to possess firearms", that he "identifies himself as a neopagan", that he "supported the War on Iraq", that he "criticized the Libertarian party" and that he write about "controversial subjects". Indeed, the article includes references for verifying most (all?) of these.

Don't repeat this kind of vandalism. --Damiens.rf 17:13, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Every one of those references in not independent, but is written by Eric himself. I was very careful to only mark as claims those things which Eric claims about himself. Waving your hands at independently verification is not supplying independent references. You insisted that I do it; now I insist that you do it. RussNelson (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't we bypass this disagreement by finding another wording, that satisfies Damiens' somewhat aggressive stance on verifiability, while at the same time not casting doubt upon the integrity of the subject (as I sincerely feel the words "claims to be" do)? Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 19:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason for including all this trivia anyway? I could name, what, twenty things Eric Raymond is notable for and neither being a witch nor having a black belt in a martial art would be included. We had exactly the same issue with Richard Stallman, where a whole bunch of stuff on his gorramn folk dancing affinity was sourced only to his own writings and personal interviews, and we ended up just axing large parts of it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

This is something I was about to touch. It's true that the article contains a lot of trivial information about this man (sourced or not). For instance, a lot of people write his political views on his/her blog, and Mr. Raymond had never been outstanding in this regard. Maybe the "Interests and politics" section should go aways as a whole. ~--Damiens.rf 21:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd probably support that, to be honest, despite actually sitting wearing a shirt I bought from ELER right now (which is about the most notable place any of said material has been sourced). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I've pruned it to as much as is really relevant (he's a neopagan, he likes guns and sci-fi, he's an anarcho-capitalist). How's that? Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 22:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

You know, if we removed the sentence about the Libertarian party, we could merge what's left of the section into some other place in the article...—Preceding unsigned comment added by Collard (talk • contribs) 22:14, 10 July 2008

kinda like that. Though that makes the lead section a bit crufty... Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 22:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

...or (and we're getting really indented now) this is even better IMO. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 22:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

...and I'm really done now. Can we go home now? Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 22:30, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Great work. Just to be sure... what's the importance of him having an "strong interest" on sci-fi? --Damiens.rf 23:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Dunno. He writes about it rather a lot, I guess. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 23:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Since I'm determined to indent this damned thing till we reach the right hand side of the page, I've made a further (and probably more controversial) change: I've removed the material about the Jargon File, other than a brief mention that he is currently the editor. This wouldn't do much more than repeat material in the Jargon File article, and I don't see why it needs to be here. Feel free to revert me if I'm wrong. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 01:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe it may be a good editorial decision to move the details of the Dictionary controversy to the Dictionary's article, but we should somehow mention the existence of such controversy here, otherwise it would seem we want to wash clean his bio. Collard, can you come up with some wording that would do that?

Also, why should we mention he likes sci-fi when it's such a mundane characteristics? It feels like saying someone likes chocolate. --Damiens.rf 14:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I've not thought too much about the sci-fi thing. On the other count, I can't think of a way to word it that will be terse and not weasel-wordy. You should give it a shot. Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 23:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Sidenote: an apology

In other news. I have apologised to Damiens for my conduct in the recent discussion(s). Flaming and belligerence (and rude edit summaries about "tendentious edits") were completely uncalled for, and I offer an unreserved apology for such. (Sorry to create a new subsection here; but I didn't want this to be lost in the other noise; similarly, although I'm sure Damiens will see it on his talk page before he sees it here, since I berated him in public it is not right for my apology to be private.) Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 02:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's all ok! --Damiens.rf 14:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Politics

I do feel that the section about his political views should be expanded and that it also should be more critical. I mean I have read the Goebbels Diaries and they have caused me less disgust than some of the stuff he writes on his weblog. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.14.220.24 (talk) 00:58, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Politics disgusts Eric, too. See Why Barack Obama sets off my “Never Again!” alarms. That's why he's an anarchist (Eric, not Barack). But if you want criticism of his political views, you're going to have to find references (preferably in a print publication) to that criticism. Just because you don't like his politics, that doesn't make it into an encyclopedia. RussNelson (talk) 04:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Raymond is anything but an anarchist despite what he may or may not say on his personal site and blog. More reading into his suggestions and ideals must be made, but I do think you will find he likes certain things for certain people and certain different things for others, which means measures of contro and not anarchy. Trollaxor (talk) 22:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

How might this information improve the wikipedia article? Do you have any citations for this, or are you doing original research? RussNelson (talk) 15:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The burden of proof is not on me, it's on the gentleman I replied to. Raymond is not an anarchist and someone claiming he is should provide the citations. Please read Wikipedia policy if you don't understand what burden of proof is and who owes it. Trollaxor (talk) 03:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

How do we know anything about anybody's beliefs? If I claim to be a $XYZ, how do you know my claim is valid? What does it mea for the claim to be valid? Simply because that claim was reproduced in a print article? Hah! Is there, or could there ever be, a test for an anarchist? (If there was, then all the anarchists would instantly decry it and attempt to fail that test.) Let's say that the article says "Eric claims to be an anarchist" instead of "Eric is an anarchist". What makes his claim any more accurate or reliable than your claim that he isn't an anarchist? Because his claim was printed by somebody? Would your claim claim to have equal validity should it be printed by someone? Wikipedia's system of verification is build on shaky legs. RussNelson (talk) 15:44, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Basically, yes. Being precise in your writing not only helps Wikipedia but is an aid to you too.

Raymond claims to be a "core Linux developer" and noting his claim lets the reader know that Raymond himself stated this and that it may or may not be fact. Many Linux developers, including Torvalds himself, have laughed at this claim. Even though Raymond backs his claim up with some facts, when reading other relevant opinions and facts it becomes clear that Raymond is far from being a "core Linux developer" and citing him as being so because he claimed to be so would be quite misleading.

Ergo, we must treat Raymond's claims with a pinch of salt and dig deeper. Unfortunantly, in cases like Raymond's blog, that leaves us with some interesting notes to add to the text but not much else since there is no official definition of anarchist. We are serving others and ourselves only by including Raymond's political opinions if they are relevant at all.

Trollaxor (talk) 21:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Better photo please!

Can we get a decent photo of Eric for his page? He looks, for lack of a better phrase, like a crazed 'tard. 76.226.53.199 (talk) 03:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

He looks like he's ready to die actually.--71.232.158.245 (talk) 04:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

inb4 someone saying "but Eric *is* a crazed tard". Lewis Collard! (lol, internet) 04:43, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, I agree. I've replaced it with one that I think is more flattering. We could still really do with a better one, though. :/

It's not camera or photographer error; it's the subject. I suggest funding a glamorshots session for Raymond and using the results. It's the closest we'll ever get to "normal." Trollaxor (talk) 21:58, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

ESR v. RMS

I wonder if someone has documentation about the time Richard Stallman was speaking in Columbus, Ohio at a COLUG function and Raymond was present (undocumented libel removed --RussNelson (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)). I remember reading something about it in the Columbus Dispatch years ago, but I can't find documentation online. I believe this happened early in the decade, ca. 2001-2003. Does anyone have any documentation? That little factoid definitely belongs in this entry if we can source it. Trollaxor (talk) 04:26, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Well played, Trollaxor, and aptly named. Ironically, RussNelson's heavy-handed censure inspired this editor to research the subject fully. I won't play the game to dig through this page's history, but a simple google indicates a rather florid piece of what I must only take as fiction written by Trollaxor himself. Hacker mash lit: truly strange stuff, and this as a end-to-end reader of Hunter Thompson. Ogre lawless (talk) 11:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

edits, reverts and deletions

It's really sad that to read something interesting about Eric Raymond you have to manually trawl through numerous history pages because all the interesting content is being hidden by people who keep deleting stuff because they don't like it and hence throw rules at it. I don't really mind deleting stuff that's unsourced that much but why do people keep deleting stuff on the basis of: "I don't think it should be here" or "it's not noteworthy enough". If the article itself is here anyway, you might as well let poeple expand on it - even if it's to include less interesting (to you maybe) details even if they are tangential - just stick them at the bottom of the article. That is all. In before "not a forum". Kuroboushi (talk) 16:56, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow, there really is some serious white washing going on. Deletion of his Climate change denialism because he is not a "noted" denialist, even though a link was included where he was specifically referred to in a major climate change blog.Litch (talk) 18:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

See WP:BLP just for a start. He is not, as far as I can see, a "noted denialist". He is noted; he may or may not be a denialist (I'm dubious about that) but he is most definitely not a "noted denialist" William M. Connolley (talk) 18:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you bother to look at the links? If he is noted by several major climate change websties/blogs doesn't that make him noted? However what then accounts for your deletion of the section even after I changed the wording to just describe him as "a denialist"Litch (talk) 18:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

First of all you can't use self-published sources such as blogs, they are not reliable sources unless A) they are written by a published expert on the topic of his expertise B) they are written by the subject themselves (and not everything is allowed here), neither A nor B can be used here. And blogs and other self-published sources can never be used to cite biographical material (and this certainly is extremely personal) Secondly, while the language at Deltoid is harsh, it at no point calls ESR a denialist. There are several other problems with this - but these really stick in the eye. Please read the wikilinks i gave, they are to wikipedia policy pages. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Deltoid is not self-published, see [[13]]. The fundamental fact is that he is a denialist, the cite from his own blog [[14]] is both ample evidence of that and one of the allowable types of self published materiel that is allowed (or have you never read WP:SELFPUB). Why are you attempting to whitewash it? Litch (talk) 00:42, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, just read your your talk page you seem to be on a personal jihad to rid wikipedia of information about climate change, now I understand the whitewash Litch (talk) 01:32, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you will find that your description is wrong. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 09:56, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks accurate to me. You exercise your POV within WP:RULES, but you clearly have a POV. RussNelson (talk) 07:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The really cool thing about editing this page, or the article itself is that Damiens.rf goes and edits the Russ Nelson page, and then goes and edits my alma mater's page. It's like having my own personal stalker! Or maybe he's just doing it to remind me that he can edit my page and I can't, so I'd better watch my step. RussNelson (talk) 03:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Core Linux Developer

I've edited the Criticism section to reflect mako's suggestion that the criticism uses "Linux" to mean Linux kernel, whereas Eric uses "Linux" to mean Linux. RussNelson 06:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. But I've changed the cite, to cite someone in the open source community who made that defense. It seemed OR-ish to synthesise the claims ourselves. :) Lewis Collard 02:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Eric clearly understands the difference between Linux and Linux kernel http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1989#comment-254183 User:Gonzopancho. By his own admission, the only code he has in Linux kernel is a uncredited code in the ANSI emulation layer in the TTY driver.

View this comment thread on Eric's blog: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=289#comment-38653 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=289#comment-38656

And then here, when he tries to explain why he's uncredited, http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=289#comment-38668 Wherein he claimed to write the code for newsgroup wildcard matching in C News, only to be rebuffed house later by an actual author of C News

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=289#comment-38702

Regardless, Eric claims only to be the uncredited author of a portion of the TTY driver. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.52.77.54 (talk) 13:54, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Really an Anarcho-capitalist?

The statement towards the top of the article that he's an anarcho-capitalist seems to contradict the statement lower down that he supports American invasions abroad. Don't anarchists of all sorts oppose any major government action, including massive military action? Norman314 07:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

It's quite common these days for self-described libertarians to have no problem with massive military spending and action. There isn't really a separate term which describes this phenomenon. Chris Cunningham 09:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Pragmatic. Ninjadroid 18:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Liberventionist. It redirects to Neolibertarian. — Graf Bobby 02:57, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a self-description. There is no additional reference, so I think one shouldn't say he is an anarchist. There are many things which make him a non-anarchist. The war thing, the fact he is (still?) a member of the Libertarian Party, the fact he thinks (or writes in his blog) that islam is a bad religion and other are better. He is not an anarcho-capitalist, because he dislikes Microsoft so much and the only reason he wants to be an anarchist is the Holocaust (he thinks democracy fails because of this). I guess he only describes himself as an anarchist, because mist hackers do so. I don't know anything that makes him an anarchist, but his website saysing so. This sounds very contra-ESR and therefor I have to add that I love his software and his books ;) --85.127.104.22 (talk) 23:48, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing contradicting in supporting use of force abroad and being anarchist. Jean-Pierre Proudhon did the same, and nobody denies him being anarchist. Besides that anarchists do not necessarily oppose any major government action; anarchists supported the government during the spanish civil war, and did (in the beginning) support the communist government during the russian civil war. As a princip anarchists oppose all manifestations of government, but that does not equate to opposing all actions. Anarchists also have a tendency to support violence - in certain situations (burning churches during the spanish civil war for an instance) - therefore I have reverted the removal of ESR being anarchist. Dylansmrjones (talk) 10:40, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Global Warming

I believe Mr. Raymonds position on Global Climate Change is an example of an essential element of his character. I am going to continue to try to shape a section that describes it. I invite you to suggest changes that you think would make it more acceptable rather than simply removing it. I don't believe you are acting in wp:good faith.Litch (talk) 11:17, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

You're not only using rather poor sourcing, you've got the summary of the content at the link you use spectacularly wrong.

esr here actually says: "Back to Inhofe: he wants us to think the zombies did it (which is half the reason I included them in the taxonomy) but I don’t buy that either. They’ve certainly had a major contributing role in the feedback loop, but they don’t run the scientists (I don’t think and certainly hope not) and weren’t responsible for the error cascade."

That makes complete nonsense of your phrasing: "He has said he believes the global scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change is the result of earth worshiping Gainaist dupes in climate sciences controlled by ex-soviet KGB agent provocateurs intent on destroying western industry."

He says explicitly that the "zombies" ("ex-soviet KGB agent provocateurs intent on destroying western industry") aren't responsible. He apparently believes there's been an error cascade and he identifies the participants or factions whom he thinks have contributed to it, characterizing them as "zombies" and "green-shirts" as well as scientists. You have him saying the opposite. He's out to lunch, but that's not my concern here.--TS 11:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I am using his own words in his own blog, it correlates with what he has said elsewhere that is not as cleanly sourced. What would you prefer?

There is only a slight difference between his text and my summary. Feel free to suggest your own modifications rather than simply deleting the entire entry. Litch (talk) 22:02, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have come up with a decent precis of his expressed views without my help, but you still have the sourcing and weight problems, and you overplay his expression of an obviously very half-baked personal opinion, by saying he "has been active in the global warming denialism movement." A guy is entitled to have weird opinions, most of us do, and if you want to know some of mine you can look at my blog or my Twitter feed. This nonsense is in the same class, and I think you're giving it undue weight, given the provenance. --TS 22:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

No one is claiming the words are not his, and they have been pointed at by a number of sources [[15]] who have offered him a chance to back down off the ledge and he continues to express his beliefs in his delusions. Until someone decides to waste their time writing a scholarly biography of this person there isn't going to be better sourcing.

As for weighting, if this were the only issue he has spun off the rational train on you might have a point but look up through the talk section at some of the other facets of his self-expression (i.e. views on race, IQ, government conspiracy, etc.) which have been whitewashed out to provide a more rational image of him than is warranted by his words and actions. I believe this reasonably sourced issue adds necessary weight to an unbalanced attempt to portray him as more rational than he is.Litch (talk) 02:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I've removed it once again per BLP. ESR is not (afaik) a part of any "global warming denialism movement", and there certainly aren't any reliable sources saying so. This whole section reads like an attack piece. Buck up some serious reliable sources that discuss ESR's (presumed) stand, and that does not include you reading a blog piece and summarizing it according to your personal take. It has been some time since i've seen anything quite as bad as this one. As Tony says above - he has some weird ideas, he is entitled to them, but that does not make them notable. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:26, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not contain everything that is true. It contains some things that can be cited from reliable sources. Unless you wish to argue that Eric has a reputation for truth-telling, and that his position on AGW is true, then you should stop citing him as a reliable source. --RussNelson (talk) 04:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Article probation

Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision.

As an addendum to the above boilerplate, I should add that this article has only been placed under probation because there has been edit warring over whether the subject's views on global warming are reliably enough sourced and whether they're worthy of attention under the Due Weight clause of the Neutral point of view. This does not constitute a judgement on the merits of the question, only an observation that the global warming wars have spilled over to this article. --TS 04:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)