You don't think it's relevant? Microsoft is paying millions to run anti-Google attack ads and smear campaigns everywhere, it's not unthinkable that they would hire astroturf to roam sites like HN, so for the sake of the health of this community they ought to be pointed out.
Just because you are paranoid, does not give you the right to label anyone as paid for roaming a site and attacking your favourite company. This feels like the "either you are with us or them" mentality". Please, if you do not have the proof, do not go down this path. It is dangerous, and lets anyone label anyone as being a shill and paid commentator.
There's up and down voting for that, and probably HN's spam filtering matters too. Making comments expressly meant to derail the conversation isn't necessary or useful.
If Microsoft is paying recoiledsnake a billion dollars to make that post, does it change any of the facts in it? No? Then why whinge about possible or probably astroturfing instead of just addressing the facts in their post?
Unless you want HN to do a full background check on every poster here, it's hard to identify Google/Apple/Microsoft fans/haters/employees/shareholders. You have the option to remain silent, vote and move on if you're not interested in a post.
Well, I submitted this story to see what the reaction of HN posters is. Well, almost no one here is commenting on topic because they seem to be squirming and are instead going on complete tangents by commenting about commenters and everyone else and then the submission gets flagged off the front page like every story on this Google C&D and you're accusing me of personal attacks? Really? How about some basic ethics, integrity and consistency from the other posters instead of trying to pretend that Google can do wrong and trying to derail and flag the story?
No, they got tired of begging Google for a Youtube app for close to three years for Windows Phone, so they went ahead and made one so that Windows Phone users will finally have a good app instead of getting frustrated by Google's deliberate strategy to make Windows Phone less attractive.
And Google wants to pull away that app from WP users by using legal bullying tactics.
I like how the Google fans and Microsoft haters on this story so far are commenting about the commenters instead of commenting on the story about Google using its influence to block a popular smartphone app from Windows Phone.
Great job guys,you should apply at Google PR if you already don't work there or own their stock.
Edit: Ninja delete but I caught it in time! Here's the post before he/she deleted it:
weareconvo 0 minutes ago | link | parent | flag
Kinda like CloudNine, the person who submitted this article, is a Microsoft employee.
OK, reposting my other comment here because the FUD is getting ridiculous. Here goes:
It is a common misconception that if you have a very low opinion of microsoft you are automatically either a rabid Google fanboi or a rabid Apple fanboi. Myself, I don't hold either Google or Apple in especially high esteem.
You have to understand, however, that the generalized hatred of microsoft is nothing more, nothing less than a direct consequence of microsoft's past coming back to haunt them. No other company in tech comes even close to having so many skeletons in the closet. People have long memories and asking them to ignore microsoft's past is pure intellectual dishonesty.
None of those stories say anything about scroogled either. My point is this particular article makes a premise and then completely fails to follow up on it. Its really poor writing.
Okay let me explain it. Microsoft wanted to point out that Gmail scans the contents of email while Outlook.com doesn't in the Scroogled campaign.
And now Google is trying legal tactics with a C&D to takedown to prevent Windows Phone users from getting a very popular smartphone app, YouTube, so they're smearing themselves here and helping the scroogled compaign paint them as evil.
Lol. Removing an app for violating the terms still has nothing to do with reading your emails. The only connection is that both have a some PR effect, but everything those companies do has it.
Just last quarter, Windows Phone shipped on 6 million phones and Windows 8 sold total 100 million licensees. Someone who likes them is the "only one" and is "far, far out of the mainstream?".
Also what's up with people launching ad hominem attacks on people liking Windows instead of commenting on the topic on hand? What has your post got to do with Google blocking and refusing to make a YouTube app for Windows Phone?
"Ad hominem" is only an appropriate term to use if I was saying that he was making an argument, but that his argument was wrong because of some defect in his character. It isn't just used for any time anyone mentions the other person in a conversation.
In this case, no argument was made. He simply said "The things I care about seem to be opposite of the things you care about". That's not an argument, it's just a personal statement. Even if ad hominem WERE the correct term, it would be even LESS appropriate here, because he was the one who brought up his own tastes in the first place.
EDIT: And to respond to the rest of your post, numbers like those are meaningless. Unless they're presented in a comparative context, they're very much like showing someone a graph without its axes labeled.
So for comparative purposes, Windows Phone shipped on that many devices. Great. How many Android and iPhone devices were shipped in the same period?
Ironically, the subtle implication of THIS comment - that my responses are less valuable because I am, in general, a negative person - IS drifting towards ad hominem.
>Also, what if I was him/her? Whats your problem, really
Well, looking at his previous postings he seems quite the dedicated Google fan and Microsoft hater. Nothing wrong with that, really but my best guess is that he has nothing to say about Google's evil power grab to hurt Windows Phone here or Google's hypocritical bogus Mission Statement, so he's doing the next best thing at damage control for Google by trying to draw a red herring by going ad hominem and accusing HN commenters of being MS astroturfers or something. Search me, I am puzzled as well as how your account age is related to this story.
Okay, let us assume that he does, so what? A lot of people work for Microsoft, Google and Apple and post on HN.
I didn't see a sign up message on HN stating that only Google and Apple employees/fans are allowed to post here.
Nice job at trying to derail the discussion. Now care tell us what do you think of the topic of this story instead of trying to go ad hominem on a tangent about some HN commenter's posting history which has nothing to do with anything really?
Edit: What in cooldeal's HN profile makes you think he works for Microsoft?
> Okay, let us assume that he does, so what? A lot of people work for Microsoft, Google and Apple and post on HN.
Because you seem to have him pegged as a MS hater when if you look at his previous comments of the past 3-4 months they're contrary to your hypothesis of him hating MS.
> Nice job at trying to derail the discussion.
It was already derailed by your witch hunt against this guy. I generally look at a user's history before thinking of calling them out for bias.
> Now care tell us what do you think of the topic of this story...
Considering I have never said anything negative towards Microsoft (or for that matter, Google, Apple, or any major tech company) on HN and I am currently posting this on Windows 7, while using Intellij IDEA, Visual Studio 2012 and with also a couple of remote ssh instances of Linux simultaneously open, I definitely have an overt bias :)
> ...instead of trying to go ad hominem on a tangent about some HN commenter's posting history which has nothing to do with anything really?
I don't think you're in the best position to be accusing anyone of name calling and character attacks based on your very angry and accusing comments so far. It's just a forum and the Internet is a silly place to get angry over :). I've had articles I've submitted get flagged or ignored. Doesn't bother me. I consider it the people that flagged its loss and not mine and just put it out of my mind almost after I submit it.
> Edit: What in cooldeal's HN profile makes you think he works for Microsoft?
Perhaps he doesn't and I read too much into his comments and he's not. However, he's certainly not a Google fanboy and MS hater. If you would like to attack people, there are much better communities on the internet to do so than HN.
Edit: although yes there are people here that have a strong dislike of MS for whatever reason (and also those that dislike Google, Apple, Ruby, PHP, and anything else that can be polarizing), assuming everyone here is in one camp or the other and accusing them of such is not winning you any sympathizers as I use quite few tools at times that are not considered super popular on hn myself (such as Opera, Java, C#, Windows, etc). I also use things that are popular as well (Python, Linux, JavaScript, Android). In then end, I really don't care what anyone uses other than myself as my decisions are related to what works best for me and only that. I stopped worrying about staying trendy sometime ago and I think I'm happier for it.
However, I can't support someone that resorts to mud slinging themselves. I think it's a shame you are trying to fight everyone as well as it just reaffirms the people that flag such articles that they're correct and dissuades those more amiable from supporting such articles in the future. I prefer an HN that is less polarized or focused only on one or two tech platforms.
Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot? I'll explain how we perhaps got to this point.
In your comment here[1][2] with the quote, your pronoun usage and the reply you gave, one could take it as you were referring to cooldeal, which prompted my reply and beliving you were accusing him and not mtgx. Since you cleared it up, not a big deal, but just showing how it can get misinterpreted.
>Also, what if I was him/her? Whats your problem, really. Well, looking at his previous postings he seems quite the dedicated Google fan and Microsoft hater.
Microsoft's response(Lying at #40 on second page because of heavy flagging by Google fans in spite of it having more votes than many stories on front page):
Or just "heavy flagging"... it's a little ridiculous to claim that everyone who hates Microsoft is a Google fan. Microsoft did enough to earn my eternal contempt before Google even existed.
What kind of subs exactly? The ones critical of Google?
How about just skipping the story/comments and moving to the next instead of trying to bury real news for everyone by flagging?
From the HN guidelines:
If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.)
Your reply, which totally misses the point, is an elegant demonstration of just how fucking awful these threads are and exactly why they need to be buried.
There's no real news here. There's nothing deeply interesting. And the comments are just full of people who have deeply held polarised opinions bickering with each other.
The fact that you think I chose to bury something because it's critical of Google (I say plenty of anti-Google stuff) shows that you are over-sensitive and incapable of rational discussion. That's why threads like these are fucking terrible.
> You're basically abusing your mod privieleges.
No. This is a shitty thread. I'm proud I flagged it. I'd flag it again if I could.
It is a common misconception that if you have a very low opinion of microsoft you are automatically either a rabid Google fanboi or a rabid Apple fanboi. Myself, I don't hold either Google or Apple in especially high esteem.
You have to understand, however, that the generalized hatred of microsoft is nothing more, nothing less than a direct consequence of microsoft's past coming back to haunt them. No other company in tech comes even close to having so many skeletons in the closet. People have long memories and asking them to ignore microsoft's past is pure intellectual dishonesty.
> They can still be quietly unhappy, locked into the platform with hundreds of thousands of man-hours invested into proprietary applications that depend heavily on major, hard-to-replace platform components (see: WPF, not implemented by Mono, or Silverlight, hit and miss via the unmaintained Moonlight), and buying server licenses due to a change in the way change in the way servers are provisioned.
What change in the way servers are provisioned? Many companies still use Windows Server 2003 and even .NET 4.5 is supported on it. That sounds like FUD.
>They can still be quietly unhappy, locked into the platform with hundreds of thousands of man-hours invested into proprietary applications
They can also be happy with the ease of use of Active Directory and Group Policy instead of relying on half baked convulted perl scripts cooked up by a long gone sysadmin. Please, you're just embarassing yourself with your ignorant assumptions.
>What change in the way servers are provisioned? Many companies still use Windows Server 2003 and even .NET 4.5 is supported on it. That sounds like FUD.
I explained this in my initial post in this thread. Virtual machines are having a major effect on the provisioning of servers, requiring more OS licenses than prior. The person I replied to conceded this point.
>They can also be happy with the ease of use of Active Directory and Group Policy instead of relying on half baked convulted perl scripts cooked up by a long gone sysadmin.
LDAP
>Please, you're just embarassing yourself with your ignorant assumptions.
You weren't capable of processing my first post, and are now harassing me for discussing Microsoft in a MS thread, so who should be the embarrassed one here?
