Submitted by on September 16th, 2004Facts
On August 19th, 2004 michael posted a story about Microsoft's hundred-million dollar geographical mistake (titled "Writing Software for Worldwide Distribution Proves Difficult").
Later that day (not more than eight hours later), CmdrTaco posted the same story, Microsoft Pays Dearly for Insults through Ignorance. A little over twenty minutes later, the story was removed from the front page, orphaning the roughly 50 comments that had been submitted.
On August 23rd, the story shows up again by CmdrTaco, How 8 Pixels Cost Microsoft Millions.
Since the second appearance was deleted, the only evidence we have is based on user reaction. A post in a subsequent thread comments on the deleted story. In the comments for the third appearance, "Roofus" points out the dupe, and "GillBates0" goes a step further by pointing out the "trupe" and a post his browser cache to his journal.
Commentary
There are three flaws with Slashdot that this error brings up. One, the horrible quality control of the site; two, the mishandling of an error and its results; three, the radically biased coverage of Microsoft.
A complete lack of quality control is the only explanation for this story to be posted three times (twice by the same person) in a matter of days. The cocksure attitude of CmdrTaco constantly results in blatant errors such as this double-dupe.
The outright deletion of the second appearance is very telling of the Slashdot editor mindset. Instead of swallowing his pride and admitting his mistake, CmdrTaco tries to cover up his mistake, which went unchecked for over 20 minutes (roughly 50 comments had been posted before it was deleted, so 20 minutes of "subscriber" time before posting is allowed, plus the time needed to accrue 50 comments). By doing so, a true injustice was committed- all of the submitted comments were summarily lost.
Finally, this injustice truly demonstrates Slashdot's fanatical anti-Microsoft bias. Had this blunder been due to any other company or organization, would it really have been published three separate times?
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