Talk:Groklaw

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Contents 1 Website vs blog 2 An Article About Groklaw 3 Categories 4 sarcastic bias 5 Bias 6 Remove this article 7 POV/removal of criticisms 8 Mission Statement 9 Legal Research

[edit] Website vs blog

I'm not entirely sure I understand the intent of this sentence:

It became a web site in September 2003, when its popularity caused it to outgrow the blog software.

Isn't Groklaw both a blog and a web site simultaneously, as a novel is a book? Is this meant to refer to a change in content management software, or hosting, or getting a separate domain name, or...? --Brion 08:08, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's probably just as you guess, meaning it is no longer blog software being used for personal notes but instead more of a news/research site. Perhaps a rephrasing is in order. OlofE 10:41, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] An Article About Groklaw

This really needs to be worked over. This article is more about Pamela Jones than about Groklaw, and it seems that a lot of critics and trolls are pushing their POV on the article to force it in that direction.

I suggest the whole thing be rewritten removing Pamela as the focus and concentrating on the features of the Groklaw website. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 168.253.135.142 (talk) 05:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

It's difficult to remove Pamela from the Groklaw page when the whole site is her personal blog. The fact that is has become a popular blog with a lot of useful information doesn't change that fact; until ownership of the Groklaw site changes the two topics are intrinsically linked. 220.245.221.143 04:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Groklaw obviously belongs in Category:Weblogs, but I also added it to Category:Linux and Category:Law. Should it be in Category:Free software instead of Linux? Or in Category:Legal resources rather than Law? -- Khym Chanur 05:32, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

The following: ..However, all the attacks have one thing in common: they never attack content of the site in any specifics; it so far has all been personal attacks on PJ.. is just pure BS, in my opinon. Nobody ever voiced a single criticism of Groklaw which wasn't a personal attack on PJ? Even a cursory search on Google gives reason to believe otherwise 1 2. Also the reference to the "alleged" (who alleges otherwise?) suicides and the implication that they were not is not NPOV, but also distasteful, direspectful, morally reprehensible and sensationalist. I am deleting that entire paragraph. BluePlatypus 16:56, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] sarcastic bias

This article is written with sarcastic bias that is damaging to wikipedia. Knowing nothing about this topic, I still feel compelled to edit this article to remove the overt bias. What's scary is how much subtle bias there must be. This is an embarrassment.--Njerseyguy 22:39, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been on Groklaw almost since the start, and I think I can strip the bias out - but not tonight, it's going to be a big job. UrbanTerrorist 05:52, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite finished - I think that 90% of the text is new. Comments please. UrbanTerrorist 02:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I just read this and I'm fairly impressed with the text at large. I fixed a few grammatical things, but everything seems objective and informative. However, I never read the original article, so I'm afraid I can't provide any comparison views. Daniel Lindsäth 11:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

Although much improved, this article still suffers from considerable bias. I point out of a few passages as examples:

• This has been used as a criticism of the blog in the past, however the critics have missed some important points
• Whether it has had any actual effect on the court case is moot. Its effect on the Open Source Community is now a part of history.
• The amount of research done to assemble the article was impressive
• Her steady analysis of events, statements, and court records provided a much needed resource.
• ...the excellent research she used in putting together every article impressed many readers

None of these are cited and appear to be the opinions of the authors. All tip the scales of the article toward the pro-Groklaw POV. All criticism of Groklaw has been removed from the article or been refuted by the article directly (see the first bullet). I'm hard-pressed to find any balance in the article at all. Because of this, I have to slap a POV tag on here for now. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 16:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Not opinion - truth. It will take a week or two (we've just moved in with my father who is in palliative care, and not expected to live to see Christmass) but I have citations that should satisfy your request. I do admit to a bit of bias - I've was on Groklaw when it was still at RadioUserland, I'm still there, and I like PJ. I also happen to have an opinion of Darl McBride and Ralph Yarro which is unprintable :) however when I worked on their entries I managed with great effort to keep it under control.
UrbanTerrorist 01:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I was on Groklaw when it was still at RadioUserLand also and I left soon after the move to ibiblio because of my disappointment in the low quality of research, the obvious bias in the reporting, the blocking of all counter opinion, and the shameful censorship of factual corrections to some of the more outlandish claims in the comments and articles. The Groklaw site is not reputable - never has been - and certainly the Wikipedia article has a positive cheery outlook that IMO is entirely unjustified. The "opinion" flag should definitely stay. -- anonymous 04:30am 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you -- citations will certainly help a lot. While I'm sure you are correct that all those statements are true, the tone still concerns me somewhat. Remember that the threshhold for Wikipedia is "Verifiability Not Truth". When I see phrases like "her excellent research", I just cringe. The reason being that research being excellent or not is purely a judgement call and one a NPOV article should not make. However, if someone reputable and third party said her research is excellent, great! However, the sentence should be reworded to something like "According to Foobar Magazine, her research was excellent and proved a great resource for the Xyz Effort." Keep it objective. My natural response to each of my bullet points above is "says who, the author?" I'm sure you can understand what I mean by this. Further, I noticed that there has been some criticism of Groklaw that have been either removed or immasculated by the article as it currently reads. In order to present a neutral article, detractors from Groklaw need equal standing with its supporters. Thank you again for offering to take up the cup and fix this article. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 04:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Heck - what do you expect me to do - I'm a Wikipedia addict now - I NEED MY FIX OF EDITING :) UrbanTerrorist 01:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Being something of a bystandard to Groklaw (and an ardent hater of the FSF movement, but a proponent of open source development), I decided to try to remove some of the POV-nature of the article. How did I do? Korval 05:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove this article

This is ridiculous. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.69.214.26 (talk)

Feel free to follow the standard deletion process if you believe it should be removed. DMacks 17:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV/removal of criticisms

I removed one recent edit, but it was because it didn't conform to Wikipedia standards. I was tempted to raise the matter with Wikipedia myself since the language of the section was heavily biased and not with a neutral POV. Now the section has been returned, and it still includes leading language. Fine, leave the criticism section in place and let people see how un-Wikipedia-like it reads. I have no bone to pick either way. I was merely trying to enforce POV standards. I thought about first rewriting the section, but I saw so many changes to make to make it neutral that I gave up. Maybe someone else wishes to try who has more direct knowledge of the facts involved.

For what it's worth, I see nothing egregiously wrong with the section, from a POV standpoint. These are allegations against the site made by actual persons. They seem to be of significant importance to be worthy of display on Wikipedia. And they seem to have factual citations. So I fail to see the problem here.

I think an article like this should stick to the facts. The criticism section needs to go. This article should not be treated like an open discussion forum. It should just describe what the groklaw website is about. I don't care what your opinion about groklaw is; it's irrelevant to this article. Moreover, we don't need links or references to everybody who has an opinion (whether it's pro or con) either. Just say in the article that the website is controversial. This article should be about Groklaw itself, not about the controversy surrounding it. It doesn't even need to be that long of an article. Groklaw is just a website that happens to cover certain ongoing litigation among other things. It's bound to be controversial. 130.94.162.61 10:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

---

Groklaw supporters are removing the criticisms from this article again. They did this a year ago but I thought the matter had been resolved. I was shocked to come back recently and find all criticisms removed and some incredibly sycophantic commentary written about PJ and Groklaw. All such pro-Groklaw commentary is a POV unless it is linked to original sources. The criticisms link to the original sources where the statements are made by respected third-parties - eg, Miguel de Icaza, a lead developer of GNOME software - so they are verifiable criticisms, rather than opinion. The deletions of the criticisms is therefore the act of Groklaw fans who want the Wikipedia article to reflect their pro-Groklaw POV, rather than the act of a Wikipedia editor who is interested in neutrality. I've restored the criticisms. If there are further deletions I will raise the matter with Wikipedia to have the article put in lockdown. 220.245.221.143 23:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick note, I removed a criticism from the lead paragraph just now, not because it may not be true, but because it's tangential to what groklaw is. No strong objection to the content (assuming cited) somewhere in the article. DMacks 22:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

quote:The earliest complaints leveled against Groklaw regarded heavy handed censorship and deceptive practises to foil the detection of the censorship. This took the form of comments that were visible to the writer but not visible to any other readers.

The links dont seem to adequately support the above statement. They do say that people were removed at their request. Some were banned at the discrection of 'PJ'. There is a quote on this topic on groklaw attributed to this 'PJ' where she said she was still learning how to use the software and ran into a limitation of the software which affected banned ones.

[edit] Mission Statement

Groklaw's Mission Statement should be added in this article... http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20040923045054130

Perhaps it might be used to answer the criticism ? "It's primarily a working site, not a discussion forum." is one of the first lines of the mission statement of Groklaw.

That section seems a little too much... some people disagree with her... ok... so what? No one agrees with everyone on every point they make ! We all have are opinions. --Kebron 21:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Legal Research

The article states: "Groklaw in effect became an application of Open Source principles to legal research".

I do not think this is accurate because the primary purpose of legal research is 'to find "authority" that will aid in finding a solution to a legal problem.' Legal Research.

Groklaw does a respectable job of uncovering technical facts that might be related to an ongoing litigation.

The website also attempts to dissect the meaning of legal proceedings as they develop but this dissection practice does not aid in finding 'authority' to the legal problem.

Neither of these activities constitutes an attempt to determine legal authority (determination of law as opposed to facts).

I think a more accurate description would be: "Groklaw in effect became an application of Open Source principles to litigation fact discovery".--Wexref 02:08, 6 March 2007 (UTC)