Talk:Laura DiDio

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Science and academia work group.


  • Didiot - derogatory name for one obscure Windows advocate. Pakaran. 04:00, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Edit and move to "Laura DiDio". she exists and is somewhat famous/infamous in some geek circles--Mishac 08:51, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Move to Laura DiDio. Wile E. Heresiarch 09:57, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Move to Laura Didio (who still has a blank page :) --Palapala 10:07, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • Started page and merged. --Palapala 13:32, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Merge with Laura DiDio and redirect. Anthony DiPierro 16:27, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, most of the content of this article consists of undocumented assertions.

Most of these shouldn't be that hard to document, but until they are, the article cannot be considered neutral.


I consider this article neither factual, nor neutral, nor relevant. If there were quotes from known and relevant people about her, such as Richard Stallman, Eric S. Raymond, or Linus Torvalds, then it might have been a stub, but even then, it would have been better in Wikiquote. I only see here a jab against a person who doesn't seem to get the "Open Source" thing. There are lots of them. If this text doesn't get neutral content, count me as a vote for deletion. I don't see how to improve that. --- Johan Buret


Saying "Her opposition to Open Source software is well documented" is waving a red flag in this regard. How about simply giving a quotation indicating what she said?

Similarly, "She infuriated the GNU/Linux community by supporting the claim by SCO that part of the Linux kernel software were actually copied from UNIX sources. This move is said to be incompatible with her role as an analyst, who should keep a more independent view of developments" should hardly require stating at all. Instead, quote what she actually said about SCO, then quote what members of the GNU/Linux community said about her statement.

"Some of the criticism she has drawn seems fuelled by the fact that she is female, does not have a formal education in computer science, or any record of being experienced in writing program code" is pretty bad, too. The fact that she is female is, I suppose, established by her picture. The nature of her formal education should be cited if known. Instead of saying she has no record of being experienced in coding, say that her speakers' resume mentions so such experience, etc. Then, there needs to be some evidence that these factors influenced the criticism of her. It is very likely on the face of it that the GNU/Linux developer community might have a problem with the last two factors, but is there any indication that her gender plays a role?

My issue is not with the content of what is being asserted, but with the assertions simply being ex cathedra pronouncements. Dpbsmith 20:09, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi - about the assertions: What I tried to do, is to make this a balanced article to begin with (not ex cathedra). Most of the text is a compilation of what I found in the sources I gave as external links. There you'll find the quotes you are missing (maybe one should put some of them into the article itself, don't know, didn't want to make it that big an affair).
Yes, do put them in the article. See if you can make the quotations themselves tell the story as much as possible.
See your point; will extract some of them from the links, might have time to do that during the next couple of days... --Palapala 21:43, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I even tried to balance the 64-bit quote (pse compare DiDiot with this page. So, could you make some suggestions what it should look like, instead of telling me that what I wrote is "pretty bad".

I'm sorry. You're right.
As far as possible, statements such as "she has been accused by her critics (judged by some of her public appearances) to be biased toward Microsoft" should be replaced by statements that name the critic and quote what the critic said.
Let me see if I can come up with an example... I'll be back later Dpbsmith 21:36, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
OK, I changed
She infuriated the GNU/Linux community by supporting the claim by SCO that part of the Linux kernel software were actually copied fromUNIX sources. This move is said to be incompatible with her role as an analyst, who should keep a more independent view of developments.

to

In August, 2003, she was one of several analysts who agreed, under nondisclosure, to view code that SCO said had been inserted into Linux. She stated that code "complete with the developer notes had been copied and pasted right into Linux... I came away thinking was that if this is what it appeared to be, then SCO has a credible case." This support of SCO infuriated the GNU/Linux community. One poster responding to a GrokLaw article stated "her name is now mud and the term 'DiDio' will forever be associated with gullible analyst who can't see past the vendor BS."
Instead of saying she supported the claim, I quote what she said in support of it. And I used the sentence about "her name is now mud" as support for the statement that she "infuriated the GNU/Linux community." Too bad the poster was anonymous...
Most of them are, the ones giving their names don't show that flamin' hatred :) Think I got your point, and will try to improve it. Thanks for the hints. --Palapala 22:04, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
You're welcome... I realize that there was an attempt to keep the article balanced, and I also realize that what I'm suggesting requires a lot of work. Oh, I think it's important to indicate the approximate dates when things were said, because I suspect that most of the article is really about events of late 2003/early 2004 and two years from now it will be important to have the context. I'll nibble on this article myself from time to time if I get a chance. Dpbsmith 23:21, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You're right about the "last two factors", that's been an oversight on my part, changed it meanwhile, though it does not sound very elegant (I'm not a native speaker). --Palapala 21:26, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Palapala. I now feel that the statements about her are adequately supported and have removed the NPOV message I inserted. Organization/formatting/language could be improved, and I may be able to help with that in the next few days. Most of this article is currently not about Laura DiDio's whole career, but about the storm of controversy in the Linux community that she stirred up in late 2003 by her support for SCO, and probably should go under a subhead to that effect. The elements of the controversy are now, I think, neutrally described and adequately supported. Dpbsmith 13:13, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Why is this being removed ?

This [1] was removed. Why ? If we remove all crisitism the artical will lose it's NPOV --2mcm 11:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous griping from chat lines and message boards does not belong in an encyclopedia. Criticism by notable persons is one thing, chatter from 'anonymous cowards' is something else. --Lee Hunter 14:57, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Opps forgot that. --2mcm 21:07, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I added the {{cleanup}} template and many {{fact}} tags. There are many direct quotations in this article which should be cited. I suspect many of them are in the External Links section but they are not properly cited in the article. --ElKevbo 17:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I've sourced the quotes now, not sure about the EL section, someone should probably remove any dupes... (I might do it later). Leaving the cleanup tag for now. Fixed. --Nnp 18:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup tag should be re-added. The article doesn't flow. It reads like a madlib. Sentences don't lead into each other. I can't extract any information while maintaining context--because there is no context. In other words:
Usually, in writing, looking at the sentences (or paragraphs) before and after the sentence one is parsing should be enough to be able to determine context. However, this whole biographical article is just confusing nonsense.67.121.114.110 07:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of birth

I noticed the article was listed as missing a date of birth.

From a search at http://www.birthdatabase.com, I found these. Since her uni is in NY, the NY ones may be more likely. If anyone has her zipcode, please pick the matching DOB and add it to the article.

---(a bunch of names and zipcodes and other information deleted )---

--Nnp 19:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Please note that the missing information is her YEAR of birth. There has been [[2]] of whether or not to include full birthdays in bios of living persons. Personally, I don't think it's too important (both the exact birthdate and the discussion of whether to include it) and don't really care what we use as long as it's accurate. --ElKevbo 20:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I see no need for there to be a full birthday listed. I just didn't bother trimming the search results. I guess there might be some privacy implications for her. Though the site claims it's all from public records.
If someone feels competent to pick the correct year from the data I guess they can look in the edit history here or search for themselves.
(I deleted 70.185.250.195's rant) --Nnp 22:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV & Relevance

Although I have not read through this talk page thorogouhly, and thus I may be stating what has already been stated, I think this article is in desperate cleanup. It seems very partial and opinionated (POV), and it also seems to be more about her beliefs with regard to linux, etc, than her. SandManMattSH 05:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. However, I don't think anyone actually knows anything about her, aside from POV.67.121.114.110 07:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] One thing that boggles my Mind

How the hell did she get a capital letter in the middle of her name? Towel401 17:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It's probably a contraction of two words. In Italian it means "of God". There are plenty of people who have two capital letters in their last name. Jack DeJohnette comes to mind. Some people might have two words for a last name such as Guido van Rossum. --Mperry 19:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

No, the real question is how the T got left off the end in DiDioT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.128.62.198 (talk) 02:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)