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Re:Is Dvorak a Professional Troll? by fallentimes on Saturday August 15, 2009 @04:39PM (#765173)
Yes.
Re:Is Dvorak a Professional Troll? by ujjwalg on Saturday August 15, 2009 @04:44PM (#765179)
I believe he is. However, I believe a lot of news organizations/blog owners are trying to do it these days. They will have very controversial/eye catching headlines with no substance in the article to gain more traction. Dvorak is a few steps ahead, he tries to justify those headlines by pulling fake data.
Re:Is Dvorak a Professional Troll? by btipling on Saturday August 15, 2009 @05:59PM (#765281)
A frequent offender is Alley Insider and the entire Business Insider set of blogs. Henry Blodget's Internet Outsider blog used to be great, and SAI started nicely, but now it has devolved into a trolling + link-baiting mess. A search for 'killer site:businessinsider.com' shows how many titles they have that are -killer such as 'wikipedia-killer' 'google-killer' etc. They frequently take a poor claim or projection based on little to no evidence that is likely to be controversial, assume it is incontrovertible and publish a litany of bad arguments, stupid opinions and ridiculous forecasts.

The comments on these posts reflect the type of people to enjoy such a blog.

Peter Kafka used to blog for SAI and during his tenure there his posts were as bad as any other on that site and since he's moved to AllthingsD his posts have improved wholesale and are now informative, interesting and frequently make headlines on memetrackers such as Techmeme. I think it's some kind of policy, and I don't think it works given the greater exposure Kafka gets now than before when he was with SAI.

/rant

Re:Is Dvorak a Professional Troll? by barrkel on Saturday August 15, 2009 @06:19PM (#765310)
I don't think he's faking data. I think it's more a very strong case of bias confirmation, lazy thinking and lazy sourcing.
Re:Is Dvorak a Professional Troll? by ahoyhere on Sunday August 16, 2009 @08:40AM (#766023)
Dvorak has been a professional troll since before it was popular.

Does no one remember his writing 10-15 years ago? I do. It was trollish even then. The whole "Mac continuum" hated him.

Re:Is Dvorak a Professional Troll? by henning on Saturday August 15, 2009 @04:48PM (#765184)
Successful professional troll is successful.
Re:Is Dvorak a Professional Troll? by ftse on Saturday August 15, 2009 @06:19PM (#765311)
Yes he is.

He also speaks his mind like every fat-mouthed, intelligent American from Franklin to Vidal did. So shut your trap and get on with life. lol.

Re:Is Dvorak a Professional Troll? by mustpax on Saturday August 15, 2009 @06:40PM (#765330)
I'n not sure you are aware of the irony of telling someone "shut your trap" while defending Dvorak’s freedom of speech.

Also, from the guidelines: Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.