I don't know about many people who visit this site, but I don't get my information solely from here. I check back here on an almost daily basis, but that's mainly because I read the forums most. Aside from here, I also use a variety of other resources, from company web pages, to ZD sites, to Tom's Hardware page, and a half dozen other news sites, as well as using PointCast and various e-mail sources. Every single one of them, even within a basic source (ZD has PC/Computing, PC World, PC Week, etc.), can have INCREDIBLY differing coverage and viewpoints. True, much of it is based on what will get sales. Which magazine do you suppose will sell more, the one whose main story previews all the details on the upcoming new OS, or the one who tells you how to really speed up your Windows 3.1x system? I bet the latter isn't going to be in print for very long.
And completely aside from advertising revenue, there is the matter of what's even available. MS churns out more press releases than almost any company I can think of. Unfortunately, much of this is related to fixes and such (which are duly noted rather quickly by InfoWorld Electric, I might add in their defense). Netscape doesn't put out as many press releases, but they, too, get a lot of coverage. It all depends on the information available and what is going to get read.
I've gotten into arguments here with Mac users. Most of them are based on perceived slights. I've yet to get into a similar argument with an OS/2 user, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I slip and say something wrong (which may be coming up next).
People, if you like your OS, or your groupware, or your client, or whatever, and you're secure in it, then why do you need to make it personal? So what if it didn't make the RC Poll, however it is done? If you feel that it has been unjustly passed over, then say something about it, but in a reasonable and intelligent voice.
I looked at the outcome of the current version of the RC Poll, and I felt it more of a survey. In order to have a true poll, how about this: We need passwords to get into these forums; why not use them to get into the voting booth as well? Then we can have a more respresentative structure. If 10% of the readers -- 31,000 people, according to IW's own numbers posted here -- answered the poll, and it took 100 bytes to record each of person's answers, that leaves us with a 3MB file. If EVERY subscriber answered, we still get only a 30MB file; I'm fairly sure that IW has the disk space for something like that. If you don't like this suggestion, or some of the others that have been posted, then make one of your own, instead of whining about the outcomes, and how you think it's not fair.
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