Talk:BonziBUDDY

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[edit] Rewrite

I have radically stubbed the article, and cleared out the old discussion. The article was, quite frankly, an embarassment to us. Extremely bold negative claims, backed up with no sources. Quite frankly, several of the people who contributed to the article should be banned from coming near a keyboard until they have learned to engage in proper encyclopedia writing. Well. Enough of my ranting. The deal is: this article needs to be rewritten, with very careful line-by-line sourcing to legitimate mainstream publications for every claim. The claims should not be made BY wikipedia, but should instead be ATTRIBUTED to the sources.--Jimbo Wales 11:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Why cant I see the history of the talk page for BonziBuddy?..I thought the history of all the Wikipedia articles was to be saved good or bad..Embrasment to Wikipedia or not the history should not be changed... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.224.251 (talk) 14:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, even though it was not sourced, from an empirical view some of it was "correct." I'll do the attribution as you wish, but it is going to look kind of nasty :).

(I'd like to find some "positive" sources as well, but nearly all are info on how bad it is, how to remove it... HEH!)

Usual source list

RN 04:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I made some changes.The application is spyware,that's without doubt.But you can change or revert it if there are mistakes in new article.--Bugtrio | Talk 13:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
    • It is not that there were mistakes, it is that it was mostly unreferenced, and a couple of the referenced claims were not backed up by the sources ("well-known" spyware, but the source didn't say that plus without attribution it means wikipedia makes the claim). RN 22:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Spyware guide proves the claim about how it changes the browser, and also where is eTrust entry? I think it's better than Spyware Guide's report on this program.In the registry section the code that program places changes the homepage,I mean you can replace it with SG's link.

But it's not a problem, I will try to find some other references about it and place them into the article with suitable sentences.--Bugtrio | Talk 23:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

This is looking pretty good so far! We want the article to be neutral, and I am afraid that the neutral facts will be pretty negative no matter what we do. That's perfectly fine. The most important thing is that, as we have done so far in the rebuild, we cite sources in a serious manner, we don't go beyond what the sources say, we make no difficult claims ourselves. So far, so good, this is looking like a model rewrite as far as I can see. Thank you! --Jimbo Wales 21:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2003 case and other links

Ug, these have been a pain to drag down, as internetnews.com has the links down now.

  1. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/2212851
    1. Jun 06, 2003 archive of the case summary (http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/2212851)
  2. http://web.archive.org/web/20030618110224/http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1551941
    1. Jun 18, 2003 archive of original filing with Dec 4 date (http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1551941)

Also, there is 40 articles on internetnews.com about it [1] - so that is a varitable gold mine; they are all down basically but archive.org is working.

RN 21:37, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I made several changes, some quite minor, some a little more major. One of the key changes was to the paragraph about these court cases. If you read the article very carefully, it seems that the "deceptive advertising" settlement article on Internetnews.com did not say "tricking the user onto the company's website where the user can install BonziBUDDY." The word "tricking" here seems to me unnecessarily pejorative; the description of the ads seems clear enough and is uncontroversially factual.

I am in contact with one of the principals of the company, and he seems happy to work with me and through me to reach an NPOV version of the article. While my edits should NOT be considered as decrees as to the details of the content, please understand a couple of things... (1) there is no need for hysteria about caving to legal demands, there are no legal demands, just someone who feels that the article was unfair to the company, and who is working with kindness with me to try to resolve the issue in a mutually satisfactory way and (2) we have a moral obligation to be precise and neutral in all. In a case like this, the unpopularity of BonziBUDDY will shine through without our article introducing any moral condemnation at all.

I have not made all of the changes requested of me, because I am waiting on further verification. So more may be coming. --Jimbo Wales 19:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Future

  1. Reviews - I'd like to change "Reports of spyware" to "reception" and go on a bit about the social papar above and some reviews (hopefully with some balance)
  2. A tiny bit about adware
  3. A few tweaks to intro to make slightly longer
  4. Tweaks to Overview for a bit more description and maybe paraphrase the quote and talk more about what the bonzi site says about it
  5. Source the stuff in the infobox just for paranoia :)

RN 23:03, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] People

We need to name the prominent people behind the scenes. Who thought of Bonzi buddy? Who created it? Who were the 'execs' at the time? No doubt these people will show up on the asshole radar in the future and it's nice to know their history, stringing together the pieces of unethical activities.

[edit] The BonziBuddy image

Is the BonziBuddy image public domain? If not, we can't use it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pdedecker (talk • contribs) 19:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC).

I know this comment is old... but see WP:FAIRUSE for more info on using non-PD images. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other page thoughts

Should this page be moved to bonzi buddy? I was looking on the history of bonzi trees. 67.167.34.81 03:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)Kyle Caulfield

It's spelt 'bonsai'. Nearly right. Lady BlahDeBlah 18:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jimbo's reversion

I don't get it [2]

WAS's edits are providing a much more objective, and source-reflecting accurately worded phrasing.

This phrase in particular is horrendous Weasely unsourced crap that wikipedia gets criticised for: "and most or all major reporting sites today classify it as adware rather than spyware" (no citation).--ZayZayEM 02:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


Jimbo is really taking control of this article and I don't get why. Is there some kind of legal issue? Most of his other decisions have been clear and explained but on this article I've not heard anything. William Ortiz

Aren't you going against the wishes of the founder of this amazing encyclopedia? He specifically indicated that BonziBUDDY is adware, not spyware. You all should put it back to how it was when the founder left it. - Havecloud 04:27, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo has as much authority in determining article content as we do. Unless he pulls "rank", that is. Now, Jimbo is a smart guy and is well-respected around here, so it's never a good idea to ignore him, but he wouldn't ever want us to stop editing an article just because he touched it. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:25, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In April 2007, PCWorld readers voted Bonzi Buddy 6th on a list of "the top 10 most annoying tech products".

must be In April 2007, PCWorld (english) readers voted Bonzi Buddy 6th on a list of "the top 10 most annoying tech products".. E.g. in germany you dont find it: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=BonziBUDDY+pcworld&btnG=Suche&meta=lr%3Dlang_de. --84.137.120.136 15:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cite personal communication

If Jimbo or his entourage is going to insert material regarding the companies dispute of claims against its products they are going to have include a citation rather than just a pisspoor effort with a {{cn}} tag.

I'm just gonna assume you guys are aware of policies like WP:V and WP:NOR, and guidelines like WP:CS, that I don't have to spell them out for you.

We wouldn't let any editor insert material into an article because "Oh, the company sent me an email saying so", (would we?). As mentioned Jimbo (or Jzg) does not get to pull rank.--ZayZayEM (talk) 03:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adware

Recently my computer was infected with adware (which I thankfully removed using Windows Defender) and it installed an icon on my desktop labelled 'BONZIBuddy' when I read the main article i was shocked.