Talk:John C. Dvorak

Justifying my change, and general anger
JOhn C. Dvorak is 6 foot 1 not five 9, this is more bashing by Dvorak haters. It calls into question everything on WikiPedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.3.42.36 (talk) 21:26, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Is anyone going to stand against the Dvorak bashing? I'm no fanboy either way, but this is getting way out of hand.

Original: On 9 June 2006, he explained to Dave Winer that, since Mac users are easily baited, he'll make these statements in order to increase traffic to his website, thus generating more advertisement revenue.[1]

My change: On 9 June 2006, he humorously explained to Dave Winer that he would bait Mac users in order to increase traffic to his website.[1] It should be noted that Dvorak often speaks in facetious, devil's advocate manner, making it sometimes hard to tell when he's serious or when he's not.

Justification: Watch the video (http://static2.podcatch.com/blogs/gems/support/dvorak.mov) and please tell me where "generating advertisement revenue" is ever mentioned? Dave Winer described the video as "...and he started telling a story about how he deliberately pisses Mac users off to get flow for his stories,". And "these statements"? Dvorak never specified any statements. That last line in my change/addition was the best way I could professionally word "the guy BSs a lot about this kind of stuff". I said 'humorously' because everyone was laughing.

If I'm wrong, please correct me here, but this biography is very much slanted against Dvorak. I'm willing to clean it up a bit more if this change is well recieved.


 * You appear to be speculating quite strongly about the video. Yes, there was a small amount of laughing in the background, but we have no idea why. Could it be because Winer is surprised that Dvorak is telling the truth on video? That Dvorak is being ironic? We don't know. For all we know, the laughter could be from some unrelated person nearby. The plain fact is that John speaks of baiting Mac users, and he sounds quite serious about it. Anything more than that is an imaginative exercise, given the information at hand. Of course, Dvorak and even Winer can retrospectively claim anything about what transpired, but such memoirs should not be taken at face value. &mdash; Yama 09:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Will people please stop removing this line? The fact is that Dvorak said those things, and the proof is on video. Dvorak fanboys can't ignore that this happened, and they certainly do not have the right to censor the truth from others. &mdash; Yama 11:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * People say all kinds of things, but that does not make them worthy of inclusion in wikipedia. The article should be general information about John C Dvorak...  Kingmundi (talk) 16:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you guys have NO people skills? It's a joke! And its because all fanboys gets so upset it works. And come on, its not a big thing, hes saying that hes having a little joke in his column, and its probably funny/interesting its not the end of the world! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.11.206.21 (talk) 15:01, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Why is it that this article barely mentions JCD's characteristic opinionated style, yet goes into great detail about "Criticisms of apple"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Criticism_and_praise "Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to take sides; it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to particular viewpoints"

From the same guideline: "Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation is broadly neutral; in particular, subsection headings should reflect important areas to the subject's notability." "When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic."

Do we into great detail about JCD's critisms of particular wines or cheeses? Many people don't like JCD's comments and predictions, so they fill his WP article with their complaints. I've replaced the criticism sections with a general line noting his controversy. If you disagree, please take it to the BLP noticeboard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard Jasonayala (talk) 09:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I for one agree with your changes. --Falcorian (talk) 17:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Trivia section
Trivia sections on Wikipedia are considered very bad form. All imformation within this section should be dispersed to apropriate places within the article. --The_stuart 18:15, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Dvorak has been a long time critic of Apple Computer, even during his stint as a columnist for MacUser magazine. In 1984 he famously criticized their inclusion of a computer mouse with their computers, saying "There is no evidence that people want to use these things." In 1999, he ridiculed the iBook as "girly", and was slammed not only by Mac afficionados, but also by female computing pundit Janelle Brown for reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes. In 2005 he suggested that recent good press about Apple was due to media bias, writing "With 90 percent of the mainstream writers being Mac users, what would you expect?". He is also famous for his claims that Apple would never release a Video iPod, the Mac brand should be discontinued, Apple switching to Intel chips will harm Linux, and Apple might be switching over to Windows and abandoning their Mac OS.
 * Dvorak has inadvertently created a few tech running jokes — in a 2005 This Week in Tech episode he claimed that, thanks to his hosting provider, he "gets no spam". This became a short-lived catchphrase and half-hearted chant among the audience.  No mention was made of his false-positive rate (how much legitimate mail gets inappropriately deleted). Also, Dvorak's self-advertising (quoting the URL dvorak.org/blog whenever possible) has become an in-joke of the This Week in Tech crew.
 * Dvorak has expressed admiration for the Wikipedia concept and said in another This Week in Tech episode that he has made corrections to the Wikipedia article about himself. However, in December 2005 he predicted on his blog that "once Wikipedia becomes a target for [organized vandalism] the 'wiki' is dead. Well, at least on the grande [sic] scale."
 * Dvorak is a noted collector of Bordeaux wines and has been a tasting judge at various international events.
 * Dvorak appeared as primadonna version of himself in the Up in Smoke Video Podcast, a mini sitcom about a cigar shop.

Could we add a picture of him on here? Perhaps a smaller version of this one: http://www.dvorak.org/pix/ He seems to give permission in a manner.

"speculative and provocative" -- that's putting it mildly. :) &mdash; Stevie is the man!  Talk 19:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not the biggest fan of the man, but the quotes put him in a very bad light. He has made some very stupid pronouncements, sure, but probably some insightful ones too.
 * As an Australian I personally dont know who this guys is, but yes looking at his quotes he seems like a dick. It's a fine line, clearly his quotes a factual... but is their suttle selectivism going to only bring out his bad quotes and is that considered a POV issue? Of course people could just include possitive quotes and them move the entire project over to wikiquote. But once again I dont know who he is, he might just BE a dick. :) - UnlimitedAccess 12:53, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with the anonymous user above. The quotes are designed to imply that he's a poor predictor of future trends, and that his views contradict the "typical" Wikipedian's views.  In reality, he's made a lot of accurate predictions and a lot of good arguments too.  He's just been in the field enough that he's rankled some feathers. - RyanGWU82 14:38, 21 August 2005 (EDT)


 * Dvorak fills the role of the curmudgenly old man in tech society. By the way, dvorak.org/blog... *wink* ;-) --Adun 16:27, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, come on, he's now convinced that Apple is preparing to ditch OS X for windows... I've never seen a good prediction by him. But if you can find one, sure, it *deserves* a quote :-)
 * He was right about Apple adopting Intel... - UnlimitedAccess 09:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * IIRC, he spoke of Apple adopting Itanium, and possibly even Opteron. He was wrong on both counts. He was wrong on a lot of other fundamental things as well. &mdash; Yama 11:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Since when is it considered bad form to post trivia? It's a common thing, as far as I can tell. I think it's pretty bad that there's no criticism of his work in the article anymore, especially since he's such a polarizing figure. My feeling: Rework it if you must, but don't take the trivia section out. That's some good information that you just removed from the article.

I'm almost considering adding the trivia section back in myself because the article lost quite a bit of information as a result of its removal. - Stick Fig 20:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Birthdate?
What is his birthdate?
 * Refering to this page he was born in 1952 in Los Angeles, Calif. --Wolny 19:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe the specific birth date is April 5, as that is what it lists on his Skype profile. --Starbucks95905 (talk) 23:11, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Czech ?
Is he a Czech immigrant? --Sheynhertzגעשׁ״ך 11:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No, his last name is pronounced in an Americanized English way, /'dvoræk/, not /ˈdvor̝aːk/ like Antonín Dvořák. I doubt he would do that if he were actually Czech. --Saforrest 22:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

But its likely he is a descendant of Czech immigrants- Many immigrants in the early part of the twentieth century were given Anglisized names by impatient immigration officials at Ellis Island and elsewhere. Cuvtixo 01:36, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Myspace?
Is his myspace account real? http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=39317572&Mytoken=9E5DCCB2-1131-1041-31626DE32C32E8C775833097

Hah-ha! No, that is a phoney.

Home?
In This Week in Tech, Dvorak hints at the fact that he lives in the East Bay, meaning the eastern suburbs of San Francisco. This needs to be confirmed, but it contradicts the main article that lists his homes in the Seattle area. -- gglockner


 * No, actually, he hints that he might live in Berkeley, which is not a suburb of any city. Catamorphism 09:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


 * East Bay would mean the eastern coast of the bay area (Fremont, Hayward, Union City, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, /etc /etc 68.116.93.138 04:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Still the article is wrong and should be changed. He does have a vacation home in Port Angeles though. - CaptainAmerica 18:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

This section is still wrong. I'm 80-90% sure he spends most of his time near Berkeley, CA (Albany? El Cerito?) My guess is that he spends the school year in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has a summer home in Washington state. -- gglockner 06:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:SELF
This article seems to horribly fail WP:SELF at the bottom, with a less-than-warranted paragraph regarding John's opinion of Wikipedia, especially with the phrase "this article". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wesley Moy (talk • contribs).


 * Yes it does. I believe the operative word is "sofixit", which I've just done. --Saforrest 22:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The man is a visionary!!
Just kidding, but I got your attention!! This article sorely needs a list of things Dvorak has claimed to demonstrate what a complete and utter troll he is. - Abscissa 19:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * True, this should be included as well. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  20:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Another vote for Abscissa's proposal. I was amazed to see that the article did not list at least some of his outrageous statements. Any takers? Porfyrios 10:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I see that since my last visit to this page, someone has added some hilarious statements by this first-class idiot. Keep up the great work!! - Abscissa 04:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Category: Troll Journalists or Category:Useful Idiot anyone? Project2501a 21:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Controversial statements
I think the controversial statements sections should be moved to Wikiquote. It would be good if someone could explain what makes them "controversial." Some seem obvious if one has familiarity with the topics, like the mouse one, but others aren't so obvious, for instance the one about CPU use. Theshibboleth 04:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

They're controversial because there are a slew of people that do not like Dvorak or his writings. So, rather than explaining why he is disliked, it is best just to give examples of his biased bigheaded opinions.


 * I think the section should be revised. Just because he said something that sounds stupid in retrospect does not make it controversial.  At least, it's no more controversial than a weather man's incorrect prediction.  Unless someone can prove that it was a controversial statement at the time, then something should not be labeled a 'controversial' statement.--MythicFox 16:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I nuked this section. Please tell me why funny statements (GTA, the "no spam" running joke on TWit), a couple of examples of bad predictions (the mouse, cable modems) and a zero context statement (MS is dead) are examples of controversial statements. Please do better. And with sources, people. Not sources of the statement, but proof of "controversy". 68.116.93.138 04:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of this section. i'd rather it say something like "John has been known for being outspoken or had alternative opinions." rather than just saying "he was wrong because he thought the mouse wouldnt become popular".150.203.239.183 (talk) 09:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

This is getting a bit ridiculous. Making a list of insider predictions that did not come true is not relevant to an article about a person. There's no list of incorrect predictions on Nostradamus' page. I also fail to see how an opinion that fails to pan out is "controversial". If someone thinks that a giant list of incorrect opinions on tech products and services is important, start a new article called "list of things John C. Dvorak was wrong about" and get it all out of your systems.Kermit814 (talk) 13:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, I was just reading this article and the controversy section struck me as being rather odd. Making a wrong prediction doesn't make you controversial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.19.0.208 (talk) 06:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

"Making a wrong prediction doesn't make you controversial." Trolling the computer world with FUD by making bullshit "predictions" on purpose does, though. He himself admits to it. If you don't like the controversy section then rewrite it and make it better.

Attended University of California)
Which one? Berkeley, UCLA, etc.
 * University of California usually implies Berkeley... it is the only UC school referred to as such. --Kid moxie 00:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It may imply Berkeley, but wikis shouldn't imply anything. It should be expressed.  If I stated that I went to the University of Wisconsin, you would imply I meant the Madison campus and that would be untrue.  If anyone has proof of which campus Mr. Dvorak attended/graduated from, that info should be added.Kermit814 19:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * University of California doesn't really imply anything since there are over six of those universities, plus the other colleges like USC to add to the confusion. --Kolrobie (talk) 21:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * He states in episode 156 of TWIT that he attended UC Berkeley. I adjusted the page as such.
 * If someone merely says "Cal", that refers to Berkeley. University of California refers to the system without specifying a campus.

Robin Williams?
Not familiar with Dvorak or the statement in question, but it seems much more likely that he means Robin Williams (writer) rather than the comedic actor.


 * Nope, they were discussing Robin William's onstage presence and Dvorak said something like (I'm paraphrasing) "You know he's really shy in person...He was the first person to show me chat rooms. He came over to my house and we went on CompuServe and they had this thing called a CB Simulator where you pretended to be on a CB radio." Robin Williams is a computer and video game enthusist, so it isn't unlikely that he showed Dvorak the his first chat room. - CaptainAmerica 00:25, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal
Doesn't John C live primarily in Albany, CA? (next to Berkeley) --jimmied999 16 February 2007 (UTC)

What about his ALL-CAPS BOLD namedropping?
I recall Dvorak's magazine colums, IIRC in PC Magazine, in which he would make certain words, usually the names of computer industry luminaries, BOLD ALL-CAPITALS. This was in the 1980's, and I haven't seen this done in what little writing I've seen of his in recent years. But I thought this was an odd "feature" of his columns, and as memorable as his strong opinions. It was almost his trademark, and I wonder when he stopped doing that. Perhaps someone with more familiarity and patience (and access to older magazines) could research this and add it to the article. Benbradley 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * He uses the bold text in his "Inside Track" article for PC Magazine. I'm not sure what its all about.  It doesn't seem to fit any pattern as far as I can tell.--janus657 16:40, 20 April 2007 (UTC)}}

Wine and Food Critic in Trivia
I remember listening to an episode of "This Week in Tech" where Leo Laporte makes mention that Dvorak "used to" be a Food and Wine Critic. Dvorak confirmed it on the show. I'll see if I can come up with the episode when I can to complete the needed citation. Does anybody else recall this statement, maybe the year it happened? That'd help narrow it down.--Low2snow (talk) 01:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE- Found a reference to Dvorak being a wine critic on a Wired article from February 1994 archived on Wired.com. The Article. This is citable, right?--Low2snow (talk) 02:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Birth Year??
What's wrong with his birth year?

it says 1952 in the heading, but 1947 under his picture?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.11.0.153 (talk) 17:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Get off my lawn!
keeps adding in "He frequently reminds people to stay off his lawn.". His source is the following twiter page. I have removed it (as have others) now for the following reasons: --Falcorian (talk) 21:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Twitter doesn't pass WP:RS
 * 2) Even if it did, a single statement can not possibly source 'frequently'
 * 3) The remark is not-notable
 * 4) There is no indication that the remark is not in jest playing off his "cranky geek" persona

Unsourced material
The following is unsourced information:

While this is interesting, we can't use it unless you provide a source. Also, none of this is really trivia, as trivia by its definition is "unimportant information" - it therefore shouldn't be in a trivia section but instead the information should be incorporated into the main article. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) talk 11:54, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Dvorak, while at CNET Central, used to make a habit of throwing "mediocre" CDs he was reviewing at the camera. On Cranky Geeks he throws cue cards at the camera.
 * Dvorak said on TWiT that the New York Stock Exchange is heading towards a Stock market crash in 2009, based on a cycle.

Wrong grammar ?
English isn't my 1st language so I'm not 100% sure but I think this formulation is grammatically wrong : "which some commentators having the benefit of hindsight later dismiss as having being simply inaccurate at the time they were made" ==> I'd write : "lated dismissed as having been" --Abolibibelot (talk) 23:18, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Height
Is the listed height of 5 foot 13 inches an inside joke of some kind?

Wikipedia's Edit Wars - an article by John C. Dvorak on PCMAG.COM (referring to this page)
Might want to take a look at it. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421994,00.asp

I think it is good to add Criticism of Wikipedia to the table of contents and quote him for writing "It's astonishing when someone takes a chance and uses it [WIKIPEDIA] as a definitive source". --Ali Mirjamali (talk) 12:24, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, of some note he states in the article, "Even lesser pages, such as my personal entry, have monitors who make sure I am forever condemned for predicting that the iPhone will flop or that the mouse was a disaster (which is bullcrap)." Is the article giving full context to what he wrote? If not, it would be a WP:BLP violation. Casprings (talk) 17:10, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

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Claims he is not related to August Dvorak
On episode 12 of No Agenda from January 12, 2008, he says "I don't think there's any relationship there" around the 1:03:00 timestamp. He admits he made it up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ess198 (talk • contribs) 17:00, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Tilted, slanted, something's wrong here
Saw a mention of him and thought to look at the article. Strange emphases here, both the usual recency problems (where everything recent is remembered/mentioned, but less from the-before-times) and items which can only be described as some individuals' favorite clay-of-feet stories.

In counterpoint, let me state that in the early 90's I held up a product release for nearly two weeks finishing an accessory feature that Dvorak had been finding fault with in other industry products for over a year. When sales screamed I mentioned Dvorak and 'why' and they shut up. Getting a good review from him was that important. And yet, his reviews aren't mentioned in the article at all.

This article has feet of clay and the joke is on Wikipedia. Shenme (talk) 03:03, 21 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Don't just complain. Be the change you want to see. Le Marteau (talk) 10:05, 21 May 2022 (UTC)