*** Democracies Online Newswire - http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** Just as we see calls by political campaigns to respond to totally unscientific online polls, check out this story from Wired. I should note that the number of voters for technical polls looks ten time higher than anything I have seen in political circles. Steven Clift Democracies Online P.S. Keep those wonderful DO-WIRE quotes coming - in particular I need more comments from outside the U.S.: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,38845,00.html?tw=wn20000919 Windows Outstuffs Linux in Poll by Michelle Delio 3:00 a.m. Sep. 19, 2000 PDT Who's the better ballot-stuffer, penguin heads or Windows freaks? That may have been a better question than the one MSNBC posted over the weekend, asking its readers to rate the "Best Operating System." Linux users are accusing the Microsoft-affiliated news site of tampering with the results of an online poll. They believe that the numbers were altered to ensure that a Microsoft-made system was chosen as the winner. Not that they exactly avoided the online ballot box themselves. The poll opened on MSNBC on Thursday morning. Shortly after, Linux Today alerted its readers to the poll's existence and suggested they should visit MSNBC's site and vote for Linux (LNUX) . By Friday afternoon, Linux was the leader of the pack and appeared to be heading victoriously across the finish line when a sudden surge of 50,000 votes catapulted Microsoft's Windows 2000/NT well into the lead. Before MSNBC pulled the poll offline Monday afternoon it was registering NT/Win2k in first place with 47 percent of the vote, followed by the Mac OS with 36 percent. Win9x/ME had 12 percent of the vote. Linux was tied for last place with BeOS, each with 4 percent. Microsoft (MSFT ) supporters deny that the software giant has any influence over MSNBC's news coverage, and insist that it was actually the Linux users who tried to stuff the ballot box. MSNBC and Microsoft were unavailable for immediate and official comment. On Tuesday morning, Brock Meeks, the chief Washington correspondent for MSNBC.com, posted a blistering message on the LinuxToday site, denying any tampering, with the subject line, "You're smoking lunch." - End clip - From: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-09-16-003-21-OP-MR-MS-0091 Brock Meeks - Subject: You're smoking lunch ( Sep 19, 2000, 16:32:49 ) Flat out, I defy anyone to prove that MSNBC is "rigging" any live vote on our site. I can assure you, we neither have the time nor the desire to act as some kind of covert PR agency for ONE of our joint partners. This entire dustup over MSNBC somehow rigging a live vote is ludicrous and frankly makes the Linux supporters sound like a bunch of whiny two year olds that have been made to go without their naps. Microsoft has NO editorial influence on the news organization. Anyone that's followed our coverage of the company would know that. I myself covered the Microsoft antitrust trial and I defy anyone to look at my coverage and say I was going soft on Microsoft. And on Friday I broke a story about a Microsoft cover-up attempt when its MSN online service had a billing program installation blow up on them which ended up holding hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars of their subscriber's money "hostage" by putting a $504.85 "hold" on their accounts. Microsoft didn't want that story out, but we not only covered it extensively, we broke the story in the first place. Anyone that believes anyone at MSNBC is someone purposfully "stuffing" the ballot box of a Live Vote, which frankly, doesn't mean sh*t anyway, is smoking their lunch. Brock Meeks Chief Washington Correspondent MSNBC.com ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - - ICQ: 13789183 *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
