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I can understand Mocality posting on a blog their findings, but this is an awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations. Look forward to an explaination?... then contact them directly instead of "sand bagging" them (borrowing a colloquialism from Family Guy).
There’s an interesting comment from Tom Hughes: “As the person who (in my role as an OpenStreetMap system administrator) first discovered this `incident' let me start by saying that I consider this post to be grossly irresponsible and wholly inappropriate. [ … ] It seems to me that this is just an attempt to get some cheap publicity by trying to like the project to the Mocality incident, and I cannot support such beh…
"I am told that this posting was in fact made in a personal capacity and as such any suggestion on my part that it represents an official position of the OSMF board is incorrect and should be disregarded."
Drama ahoy.
I can understand Mocality posting on a blog their findings, but this is an awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations. Look forward to an explaination?... then contact them directly instead of "sand bagging" them (borrowing a colloquialism from Family Guy).
I disagree: Actually the best way to get answers from a too-big-to-communicate company like Google is to make the whole process as transparent and out in the open as possible. Google is notoriously difficult to contact for most people. One of the best ways to get them to respond is to let as many people as possible know about the issue at hand. Public backlash -> answers.
I'm no fan of Microsoft (check post history), but when I found that a large volume of 419 spam was coming through Hotmail some years back, I looked up their main switchboard number, called, spoke briefly to the receptionist asking for the VP of the related unit (I'd looked up his name). She transferred me to him. He picked up on the first ring. I explained the situation briefly, we spoke for a few minutes, at the end of which he said he'd put me in touch with the guy who could fix things. Fifteen minutes later I was talking with him, and we exchanged information over the next few months as I helped him plug his holes. I am still highly impressed by the professionalism demonstrated at all levels. I'd also worked with Microsoft to resolve a GPL compliance issue (again, directly contacting the appropriate VP) again with minimal fuss.
A southeastern US university IT contractor who's private business was spamming me (and he was denying it) ended up with a series of emails escalating up the academic food chain, ultimately to the university president (.edu websites are, or at least were, wonderfully information rich). I eventually got the response I had hoped I'd get on first contact.
Another issue involving AOL at which numerous attempts to contact them failed. I ended up somewhat crashing (well, I did wrangle a late invite for a brief presentation) at which I presented data, including some which indicated AOL's little problem. Their chief postmaster was present. We talked a bit.
More recently, Yahoo have had issues in severely restricting mail delivery rates to Yahoo's MXs, even for long-existing, SPF/DKIM compliant MTAs. I'd gone endless rounds with their helpdesk and had repeatedly emailed (with no response) their CTO. So I sent a group email to a roster of their top (C-level and senior VP) staff, again with some data indicating issues (pflogsumm delivery stats showing hours of delay) and an introductory text "Gentlemen, you have a problem". That finally got a response in the form of a "Yahoo concierge" who spoke with me a couple of times and sorted the problem (and also promised a review of policies in general, in case anyone else is having issues).
Just a few anecdotes of different ways to get a company's attention. There's no one-size-fits-all approach, so be flexible. I generally try a direct private contact first, but ... well, if that doesn't work, I've got a bag of tricks I can pull out. Public shaming can work, but I'm willing to give the benefit of doubt first.
I can understand Mocality posting on a blog their findings, but this is an awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations. Look forward to an explaination?... then contact them directly instead of "sand bagging" them (borrowing a colloquialism from Family Guy).
You mean like google came out about bing copying their results? http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-...
I can understand Mocality posting on a blog their findings, but this is an awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations. Look forward to an explaination?... then contact them directly instead of "sand bagging" them (borrowing a colloquialism from Family Guy).
> awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations what would be a more credible way?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean like google came out about bing copying their results? http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-...
sigh I like how you conveniently left out what ACTUALLY happened. http://searchengineland.com/bing-why-googles-wrong-in-its-ac...
There’s an interesting comment from Tom Hughes: “As the person who (in my role as an OpenStreetMap system administrator) first discovered this `incident' let me start by saying that I consider this post to be grossly irresponsible and wholly inappropriate. [ … ] It seems to me that this is just an attempt to get some cheap publicity by trying to like the project to the Mocality incident, and I cannot support such beh…
What were Tom's arguments? It would give better perspective than just his conclusion.
"The reality in this case is that there is no evidence that this is any different to the numerous other incidents we get all the time where users either accidentally or deliberately make bogus edits. The only difference in this case is that there happen to be two accounts (though we do not know if that is two people) and the user or users involved happen to (presumably) work for Google.
"That is the sum total of what we know, and on the back of that, and without approaching Google at all, two leading board members have decided to reveal personal information about two of our users."
I can understand Mocality posting on a blog their findings, but this is an awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations. Look forward to an explaination?... then contact them directly instead of "sand bagging" them (borrowing a colloquialism from Family Guy).
Just curious. How do you know the relevant person to contact in Google (or for that matter any big company) ? EDIT - I'm genuinely curious. Other than the sales people etc. I could'nt find any relevant details.
Contacting someone in Google Maps might help -- this would at least be a business unit that has some interest in not generating ill will. Google IO is a conference with lot of Googlers. There's a presentation about Google Maps, and if they aren't the right people to talk to, you could probably ask them who a good contact would be: http://www.google.com/events/io/2011/sessions/designing-maps...
That'd be my approach.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations what would be a more credible way?
Provide actual facts for a start. Currently they are just pointing the finger without any kind of explaination as to how they came to their conclusion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What were Tom's arguments? It would give better perspective than just his conclusion.
" The board of OSMF are making mountains out of tiny pimples here. It seems that they want this to be some sort of organised corporate malfeasance on the part of Google which is why they have tried to link it to the recent Mocality incident where there was indeed clear evidence of such behaviour. "The reality in this case is that there is no evidence that this is any different to the numerous other incidents we get a…