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Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

techinsider.nextgov.com

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Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#61

Post by jhancock »

Kaizyn wrote: post #38
jhancock wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you, but Dvorak did publish a slander against Kundra based simply on his rudimentary queries. This is hardly good journalism. from the article: "But I was able to verify Kundra's degree with just a few phone calls in under two hours." If your going to publish something so incendiary, you really must do your homework.

Saying you made a few phone calls does not constitute proof of anything. Dvorak put forward more evidence to support his claim than the author of the nextgov piece. Yeah, that claim is from the article, but are we supposed to simply take his word for it?

I don't say I "believe" the nextgov piece simply because he published it. There is less of a barrier to publication there since its not tearing down a person. But if your going to publish an accusation like Dvorak did, you better have done _all_ your homework.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#62

Post by ubernostrum »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #59
sophacles wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dvorak has a reputation for publishing these screw-ups. It has been going on for years. The guy is the shock jock of tech columnists, or maybe a Bill O'Reilly, or at least that has been his reputation for a long time. This sort of history, going back years, should be taken into account when people judge the most recent actions. This is just common sense. Your personal ignorance does not mean you are correct to chide…

So if I understand you correctly, you're saying once you get to know Dvorak, he really is a jackass. Let's grant your point. Then still, why call it out? Let's suppose Dvorak is the worst jackass in the history of jackasses. Let's also suppose that anybody who knew Dvorak would agree that he is the epitome of jackasses. Proper response: "Remember when Dvorak did X, Y, and Z? I'm not sure what the situation is now, bu…

"Why get so emotional? It's just a web column, for chrissakes. The truth was outed almost immediately. Whatever damage happened happened for about 2 hours."

And during those two hours this story was everywhere. Remember the old saying: a lie can run halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#63

Post by eli »

warfangle wrote: post #50
eli wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so find a city or state website anywhere in this country that does better. Most municipalities don't even have government data available in scanned PDFs, let alone a huge set of documented XML feeds published live on the website. (And incidentally, it's a myth that screen readers require semantic markup with CSS to work. They do not. Nor does Section 508 require it. Screen readers generally work just fine with ta…

Anywhere in our luddite country? not likely. If I could read european languages, I'm sure I could find one in, e.g., Sweden. Even if Section 508 doesn't require semantic markup, it still doesn't fix my primary issue with the site: zero findability. Let's see if I can find, say, a map of the DC metro from DC.gov. Probably a pretty common action. Except there's no link to it anywhere. Not that bad, I suppose - google b…

Hey, I never said it was perfect, but do you agree it's the best in the country? I submit that this fact is evidence that making a good government site is harder than it looks. Or do you really believe every single other city and state technology office is full of luddites?

Yes, findability is a problem. It's probably always going to be a problem when you've got lots of pages generated by dozens of autonomous agencies. But most government sites don't have this problem because they don't bother putting any of this information online in the first place. It either doesn't exist or exists only on paper. I'd take a site full of useful information that's a bit hard to navigate over a pretty site with nothing on it.

Also, I take issue with some of your examples. If you click on "Visitors" there are indeed links to Metro right on the main visitors page. It's a different domain because it's a different entity; Metro extends well outside the city limits and is funded by DC, VA, and MD. Also if you had searched for "ward" or "what's my ward" the first link is How can I use "Where You Live" to find out about DC neighborhoods, wards, and school districts? (DC Guide) which would have answered several of your other complaints. Search for "xml feeds" and the first link it to the catalog of XML feeds. It ain't perfect, but it ain't nearly as bad as you make it out to be.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#64

Post by eli »

tokenadult wrote: post #48
eli wrote: post #22

This is why professional journalists actually pick up the phone and call people before publishing accusations about them. And this is also why bloggers and "online columnists" are often not considered real journalists.

Dvorak said he telephoned the White House for comment on his story. That is what caught my eye in that story, the lack of White House immediate response.

True, but you can't just make a token phone call so that you can write that they didn't return your calls.

I think it's pretty irresponsible to publish a hit piece on someone with making an honest effort to get their side of it. Om Malik was able to track Kundra down and get response within hours.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#65

Post by pyre »

eli wrote: post #63
warfangle wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anywhere in our luddite country? not likely. If I could read european languages, I'm sure I could find one in, e.g., Sweden. Even if Section 508 doesn't require semantic markup, it still doesn't fix my primary issue with the site: zero findability. Let's see if I can find, say, a map of the DC metro from DC.gov. Probably a pretty common action. Except there's no link to it anywhere. Not that bad, I suppose - google b…

Hey, I never said it was perfect, but do you agree it's the best in the country? I submit that this fact is evidence that making a good government site is harder than it looks. Or do you really believe every single other city and state technology office is full of luddites? Yes, findability is a problem. It's probably always going to be a problem when you've got lots of pages generated by dozens of autonomous agencie…

> Or do you really believe every single other city and state technology office is full of luddites?

They don't have to be filled with luddites to have a crappy webpage. They just need a crappy IT staff or to hire some 'lowest bidder' option to build their site that learned HTML by reading some Microsoft Press book on Frontpage.

There are some sites that have perfectly fine webpages that are screwed up because bureaucrat somewhere decides that the site needs to be 'updated' either because they feel that flash animations on the front page are 'the next big thing' or because they want to hire a friend/campaign contributor to do the job. Then they end up with a site that it worse off than the one they had in the first place, but they don't fix it because then they would be admitting that they wasted all the money that's already been sunk into the project.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#66

Post by pyre »

krschultz wrote: post #14

The shocking thing to me was that 1) People trusted a random blogger over people getting paid full time to vet people. Understandably vetters miss things such as taxes (complicated) or illegal immigrant maids (hidden), but something as simple as a degree will get checked. 2) Dvorak didn't call all the campuses, there are multiple UMD campuses just like there are multiple Penn State campuses etc. 3) Dvorak trusted it…

Maybe at the Federal level the 'vetters' are held to a higher standard, but I remember a local government official (can't remember if it was city or county level) in Michigan getting called to task over a degree that he never actually earned (or even went to the school). He had been on the job a few (3-4?) years when this came out. I can't remember the details of what happened, but some people wanted to overlook the lie because he was actually doing a good job in his position (i.e. he wasn't incompetent, just a liar I guess). It was in the Detroit area, I guess someone could look it up if they were interested for a similar case, though on a local rather than a Federal level.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#67

Post by pyre »

TravisLS wrote: post #29

The fact that this is even a story is pretty distressing. As far as I can tell, the guy's gotten good results, which is much more than I can say for plenty of "qualified" people in Washington.

It still says something about someone's character nonetheless. Just because he's getting good results, doesn't also mean that he is not doing something dishonest in the shadows, while performing his duties admirably in the limelight.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#68

Post by TomOfTTB »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #45
gruseom wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this comment is perverse. Please don't attack the messenger That phrase has always referred to someone delivering an unwanted truth. There was no "message" here at all, and no "messenger". "Please don't attack the libeler" would be more accurate. That doesn't pack the same pseudo-compassionate punch, does it? Unless you have proof that Dvorak was purposely lying That is an impossibly high and irrelevant bar.…

Gross irresponsibility, incompetence, and total disrespect for the truth aren't enough for you? Please demonstrate this is the case. All I see is a guy who thought he had a hot story, made a few calls, and published before he got all the facts. Looks like the confusion in school names is what led to this. Where is all of this terrible negligence you mention?

I consider myself pretty open minded but I honestly can't even see where you're coming from here. The question here was "Did the man have the degree he claimed to?" and that story involved 2, only TWO, facts. The University he claimed the degree is from and the type of degree.

Of those 2 facts, Dvorak failed to correctly verify one of them and then drew a false conclusion based on that and screwed up the second one. That would be journalistic negligence from anyone. But when you add Dvorak having admitted to writing stories just to generate traffic (http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9838/) you get a picture of a dishonest man.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#69

Post by TomOfTTB »

luigi wrote: post #3
calambrac wrote: post #2

When in doubt, always remember that John C. Dvorak is a complete jackass.

Tim O'Reilly agrees: http://twitter.com/timoreilly/status/3270411756

I don't know. Dvorak's an idiot but O'Reilly's belief that you can determine how qualified someone is for the highest technology post in the U.S. after "a few minutes" seems just as foolish.

Re: Verified: Kundra Did Receive an M.S. in Information Systems Management

#70

Post by otto »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #45
gruseom wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this comment is perverse. Please don't attack the messenger That phrase has always referred to someone delivering an unwanted truth. There was no "message" here at all, and no "messenger". "Please don't attack the libeler" would be more accurate. That doesn't pack the same pseudo-compassionate punch, does it? Unless you have proof that Dvorak was purposely lying That is an impossibly high and irrelevant bar.…

Gross irresponsibility, incompetence, and total disrespect for the truth aren't enough for you? Please demonstrate this is the case. All I see is a guy who thought he had a hot story, made a few calls, and published before he got all the facts. Looks like the confusion in school names is what led to this. Where is all of this terrible negligence you mention?

I'd say his terrible negligence is in having no professional ethics as a journalist. I expect a journalist to do some fact checking.

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

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