[svlug] OOXML ISO vote irregularities

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Christian Einfeldt (einfeldt at gmail.com):

> That was an interesting and pithy story.  For those who don't have time to
> read it, I will summarize.  Stop reading now if you don't want a spoiler.

For good or ill, there's little danger, as I barely recognised it from
your verbose description:  Kunzru's _New Yorker_ story was short, light,
very funny, and made a point about viral marketing's annoying intrusion 
upon real life that you seem to discount, at best.

Although again, IMO, you have nothing to apologise for, you _were_
risking becoming known as "that Digg.com guy", a fate you should
probably seek to evade, as one should wish to escape becoming known as
"that Herbalife guy" who is no longer invited to parties.  And, as a
reminder, consider for what gain you were doing that:

> And, in fact, the story did make Digg's front page, and at least one
> newbie did post a question to that thread asking for an summary as to
> what was going on, and why he / she should care.

"_At least one_ newbie"?  Back in the day, SVLUG did about 1,000 times
better in a single evening, just by handing out flyers on the sidewalk
outside Fry's:  http://linuxmafia.com/svlug/

And that was ten years ago, when few computer users had yet even heard
of Linux or open source.  These days, everyone who has the faintest
curiosity about the subject, and ability to use a search engine, can
find a mountain of information and organised help in every corner of the
globe.  (See: http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-3.html )  So,
anyway, I submit that attempting to push up numbers briefly at some
corporation's social-networking site -- and perennially bothering others
to join you -- is not an effecient use of our time and effort, and
doesn't play to our strengths.  

See, if you were even so much as maintaining, and pointing people to,
information about companies that sell Linux/BSD preloads, you'd at least
be helping weaken Redmond's preload monopoly, which would be a _whole_ lot
more useful than diddling around with Digg.com hit counts about the
ephemera news story du jour.  And I do take my own advice, by the way:
http://linuxmafia.com/bale/other.html