[OT] Re: Brett Glass's postings to mailing.freebsd.chat

[Eric Bennett <ericb@pobox.com>]

Brett Glass wrote:
> 
> At 11:15 AM 3/9/99 -0500, Wandered Inn wrote:
> 
> >Again, you make a statement without backing it up.  Provide some linkage
> >to Linux or Mac advocates who have intentionally created a group such as
> >your 'Raving Loonies' to promote their products.
> 
> How about:
> 
> http://www.evangelist.macaddict.com/advocacy_tactics.html

[snip]


Most of these sites are careful to remind their readers not to be
obnoxious.  They've been burned too many times in the past by Raving
Loonies who see a call to action about a FUD-filled magazine article and
then send off cursing insults and death threats to the author.  "I saw a
note about your article on Evangelist, and you have got to be the
biggest ignoramus I have ever seen.  How much did Microsoft pay you to
spew these lies about the Macintosh?  Drop dead."

Letters like this *do* get sent.  And when people read them, they don't
say, "Gee, Macs really get people fired up, I think I'll give Macs
another look."  They say, "All those Mac folks are a bunch of raving
loonies, why the hell do I want to have anything to do with them?"  In
several cases, the columists who were bombarded with this garbage wrote
followup articles quoting from these raving loonies and stereotyping Mac
users as arrogant jerks.  And they had the evidence to make it look
pretty convincing, too.  This is *VERY BAD* PR.

There *is* a point where you alienate more people than you interest. 
Personally, I wouldn't call somebody a raving loony unless I thought
they had crossed this line.


-- 
Eric Bennett ( ericb@pobox.com ; http://www.pobox.com/~ericb )
Field of Biochemistry, Cornell University