Are Windows blogs basically BS?

Drael646464

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I have been reading some headlines recently, and thinking about how, one blog picks up on a small kernel of truth, interprets it, and all the other blogs copy that blog. And then this Chinese whispered distortion becomes accepted as fact.

And I just thought to myself, we really are living in a post-truth world. Maybe I'd have realised that already if I lived in another country. But it seems to me, that windows blogs have windows fans jumping and shadows and believing in faeries.

I just wish there was somewhere that stuck firmly to hard facts, and put the speculation in clearly speculative language.

For example, a member of the insider team said recently of windows 10 mobile "there are no current plans to move it from feature2" and "don't make a big deal of feature2" more or less. Now consider that the head of the insiders group recently tweeted that the insider team is not privy to anything beyond their current projects and workload.

I've seen people report "No more feature updates for win10m" and fans do all sorts of wild speculation based on this - which I DO NOT want to get into.

But the point being the original story was more or less "Is win10m coming off feature2 soon? Not that I know of", and "Don't freak out about feature2", and the response was basically a whole series of articles freaking out about feature2.

The same thing happens with rumours about new hardware, or talk about cshell, or almost anything.

Thurott reported that an insider had claimed "new hardware is being made, and paired with it a new _branch_ of windows 10 mobile". He somehow spun that into a "reboot" and how win10m is over.


He's not a happy man, and I can understand fan scepticism, but surely the art of unbiased journalism, and accuracy of reporting, if it still existed when the net took off, died in a large pit, the moment blogger and tweeters took it over.

The tiny gets exploded into mountains, and the storm is brewed in a tea cup.
 

etphoto

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I think basically the casual blog reader (someone doing searches via Bing or Google) fall victim to the BS. If you follow tech you're more apt at knowing what blogs are bull and what ones are more reliable.

Sent from mTalk
 

anon(10237065)

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Well, take a look at how even the proper big media work, some of them don't even check the story, but they try to publish it as soon as possible to get the right clickbait before anybody else. No surprise this applies twice more for some blogs.

Unfortunately I think that's a bad sign for the whole media world rather than just Blogs or Blogs about Windows.

Definitely it's a lot about social media and trying to lure people from social networks to websites.
 

meattray

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I think blogs are driven to try to drive readership regardless of how much of the story is true. Like you said if there's a small piece that's true and they can run with it then a lot of the article becomes speculation and builds from there between the blog community.

I keep tabs on a lot of information but don't take anything to be gospel.
 

Awhispersecho

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Maybe if MS actually communicated with it's fans and consumers this wouldn't be an issue. Without any news, updates, info on direction or any other communication from MS, the only things left are speculation and interpretation. Blame them for once. This is 1 more thing to add to the list of things MS has brought on themselves.
 

Zulfigar

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Maybe if MS actually communicated with it's fans and consumers this wouldn't be an issue. Without any news, updates, info on direction or any other communication from MS, the only things left are speculation and interpretation. Blame them for once. This is 1 more thing to add to the list of things MS has brought on themselves.

As sad as it sounds, you're right. Which is probably why I like Windows Central. If (or rather, when) you see a large chunk of blogs post something Windows related, but you don't see Windows Central posting anything about it (mainly rumor related), then chances are it's false information, and they try their best not to fall into that "Oh look, others are posting about such and such, must be true" realm.

Too bad more blogs can't be like that.
 

Drael646464

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As sad as it sounds, you're right. Which is probably why I like Windows Central. If (or rather, when) you see a large chunk of blogs post something Windows related, but you don't see Windows Central posting anything about it (mainly rumor related), then chances are it's false information, and they try their best not to fall into that "Oh look, others are posting about such and such, must be true" realm.

Too bad more blogs can't be like that.

neowin seems to be more sceptical and unbiased than here, from what I've seen. I've never seen them post anything about speculative reboots or the win10mpocalypse, unlike here.
Either way it seems like a decent blog, even though its not 100% windows related. Can't say I've followed it much, but what I have read, very factual.
 

nate0

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Maybe they were low on hits the past 6 months?

Also a good writer knows how to get the reader to read their stuff. The writers know what they're doing. The readers know not what they do at times, and we all can fall susceptible to it...and the Interweb's is full of opinions, it hypes folks all the time. Oh how good it is to unplug...
 

a5cent

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This thread probably poses the simplest question ever ;-) The answer is: Yes, to a large degree it's BS.

This is journalism in every field and every industry. Just gotta learn to take in the good and reject the bad.

I wish that were possible. Very few know how to take in the good and reject the bad. Typically it is only those people directly involved with the topic being reported on. That's why journalists should be experts in their field, fact check and always be prepared to change their mind on any issue in the face of changing evidence. We can't all be experts in everything or witnesses to everything, so we have no choice than to defer to others on most topics. We should never accept that it is the reader's job to do what journalists should be doing. We've just become too used to the mediocrity that is journalism these days, that we're not even bothered by it anymore. That is on us. If society as a whole keeps accepting mediocrity, then we don't deserve to get anything better.

I think basically the casual blog reader (someone doing searches via Bing or Google) fall victim to the BS. If you follow tech you're more apt at knowing what blogs are bull and what ones are more reliable.
Or maybe more realistically, which blogs agree with my point-of-view. :eek:rly:

I think everybody falls victim to BS, particularly those that follow fan sites, as they are exposed to much more of it. ;-) Anybody who follows a fan site (designed to cater to a particular world view, brand, political orientation, etc) is often times more poorly informed (is wrong about the facts) than those who follow no particular news source at all.

IMHO there are more than enough examples in these forums, where the majority opinion often turned out to be incorrect (propagated in the way the OP described, through the grapevine, and on rare occasions even via WCentral's reporting).

I think this aspect of us would be a contender for the "Humanity's Achilles Heel" award.
 
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tgp

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That's why journalists should be experts in their field, fact check

I have a passion for commercial aviation. Often, when there is a news article related to an airline, I notice mistakes, such as the photo not matching the airport, aircraft type, or even the airline featured in the article. I always think about this!
 

a5cent

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I have a passion for commercial aviation. Often, when there is a news article related to an airline, I notice mistakes, such as the photo not matching the airport, aircraft type, or even the airline featured in the article. I always think about this!

I wish I didn't have to read stuff like that, but yeah, I'm not surprised. I wonder how these "journalists" can look at themselves in the mirror every morning without being disgusted. :-(

I suspect that for any publication writing for a non-expert audience (*cough* that includes WCentral *cough*), the cost of hiring someone who actually understands what they are reporting on isn't worth it, as the people reading their output wouldn't notice the difference anyway. I can't imagine what else it might be.
 

tgp

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I wish I didn't have to read stuff like that, but yeah, I'm not surprised. I wonder how these "journalists" can look at themselves in the mirror every morning without being disgusted. :-(

I suspect that for any publication writing for a non-expert audience (*cough* that includes WCentral *cough*), the cost of hiring someone who actually understands what they are reporting on isn't worth it, as the people reading their output wouldn't notice the difference anyway. I can't imagine what else it might be.

The whole reason for existence of media in the first place is to generate traffic, which ultimately turns into revenue. Hence the term "clickbait". (What was it called before the Internet?) "Clickbait" is what every journalist everywhere strives to produce.
 

Drael646464

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I wish I didn't have to read stuff like that, but yeah, I'm not surprised. I wonder how these "journalists" can look at themselves in the mirror every morning without being disgusted. :-(

I suspect that for any publication writing for a non-expert audience (*cough* that includes WCentral *cough*), the cost of hiring someone who actually understands what they are reporting on isn't worth it, as the people reading their output wouldn't notice the difference anyway. I can't imagine what else it might be.

I write a blog of my own, and I don't think it's that hard to convey that you are not an expert, or to phrase something in language that communicates speculation, rumour or otherwise.

In a way, amateur news has become more reliable, as without the claim to insider knowledge, special authority or some other cloak of being in the know, some of the cobwebs are brushed away, even if what you are left with is subjective.

Breitbart news, arguably one of the most hated news sites on the internet manages to say "it has been claimed that" or similar. And yet deeply trusted news sites like the BBC claim subjective opinion as fact.

In the face of that I don't know what hope there is for traffic driving blog sites, who as you say, can't really afford to, nor are motivated to hire experts, and probably sucker people in using hyperbole, rumour, speculation, and doom and gloom.

But I think it might actually be a truism, that we live in a post-fact era now. Whether its something quasi-reliable but also not academic, like Wikipedia, or the news or just uncle goog, people trust what they read, and most of it is BS. As we distance ourselves further from needing to know, and blur entertainment and information, and retreat into tribalistic bubbles of nodding heads.

And like crackpot david icke once said "somebody says tells someone something, that someone else told them, and someone else told them, and it becomes accepted as fact". You see that exact process occurring around these parts, on both the dull and shiny side of the coin.
 

a5cent

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I don't think it's that hard to convey that you are not an expert, or to phrase something in language that communicates speculation, rumour or otherwise.

Different fields of journalism suffer from a similar set of problems, but to different extents. In the tech blog-o-sphere I'd consider the Dunning-Kruger Effect to be the biggest problem. In contrast to most other journalistic fields, you don't have to know anything about tech (beyond what anybody with a brain could infer simply by using a product) to write about it. Readers also generally know very little about the underlying technology, so incompetence and ignorance aren't punished.

Despite knowing little to nothing about hardware and software technology, most tech bloggers are happy to opine on cores, impact of RAM on performance, multitasking, software development, (ehem) 32 vs 64 bit issues, etc. It's almost always BS, or at least very poorly worded.

If a person writes about a certain topic for public consumption, and intends to add value to the discussion (more than just another opinion amongst millions), I do expect them to be at least competent enough to know what they don't know. That means not drawing conclusions a person isn't competent enough to draw, and if it can't be avoided, then I'd expect the conclusions to be at least clearly labeled as assumptions. Preferably it's just omitted.

If a person does that, they can still be a very good tech writer without a CS background. I think Mary J. Foley is a good example. She focuses on company road maps, enterprise strategy and product announcements and features. That's generally non-technical stuff. When things do get technical she resorts to verbatim quotes. I think she understand very well when her limited technical understanding requires her to go to the quote and when her experience and opinion are very worthy contributions.

If a person doesn't do that, they deserve to be ridiculed and mocked. Hopefully they will eventually stop littering cyberspace with more low quality, half-truth, barely relevant content. There is already enough of that around. We don't need more.

Basically, know your strengths, but also know and be honest and upfront about your weaknesses. Don't pretend to be an expert on things you aren't. At least for tech bloggers that would already be enough, but it's rarely followed.
 
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a5cent

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The whole reason for existence of media in the first place is to generate traffic, which ultimately turns into revenue. Hence the term "clickbait". (What was it called before the Internet?) "Clickbait" is what every journalist everywhere strives to produce.

True. Sensationalism is probably a fact of life. In the fight for eyeballs it's probably unavoidable. I don't think that necessarily means an article must be BS though. I hope sensationalism (often limited to article titles) and factual content aren't mutually exclusive.
 

anon(7929613)

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I have been reading some headlines recently, and thinking about how, one blog picks up on a small kernel of truth, interprets it, and all the other blogs copy that blog. And then this Chinese whispered distortion becomes accepted as fact.

And I just thought to myself, we really are living in a post-truth world. Maybe I'd have realised that already if I lived in another country. But it seems to me, that windows blogs have windows fans jumping and shadows and believing in faeries.

I just wish there was somewhere that stuck firmly to hard facts, and put the speculation in clearly speculative language.

For example, a member of the insider team said recently of windows 10 mobile "there are no current plans to move it from feature2" and "don't make a big deal of feature2" more or less. Now consider that the head of the insiders group recently tweeted that the insider team is not privy to anything beyond their current projects and workload.

I've seen people report "No more feature updates for win10m" and fans do all sorts of wild speculation based on this - which I DO NOT want to get into.

But the point being the original story was more or less "Is win10m coming off feature2 soon? Not that I know of", and "Don't freak out about feature2", and the response was basically a whole series of articles freaking out about feature2.

The same thing happens with rumours about new hardware, or talk about cshell, or almost anything.

Thurott reported that an insider had claimed "new hardware is being made, and paired with it a new _branch_ of windows 10 mobile". He somehow spun that into a "reboot" and how win10m is over.


He's not a happy man, and I can understand fan scepticism, but surely the art of unbiased journalism, and accuracy of reporting, if it still existed when the net took off, died in a large pit, the moment blogger and tweeters took it over.

The tiny gets exploded into mountains, and the storm is brewed in a tea cup.

All I can say is that its tough time for Windows PHONE users and fans. Not everyone can be expert and still they have the right and are correct to voice their opinion and feelings through their blogs. In the words of Julian Assange, "NO ONE can tell us the truth. They can only tell their version of truth. If we really want to get the truth, we have to find it ourselves."
 
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