I was interested to read recently of a Canadian court decision which found that, for the purpose of defamation law, hyperlinking does not imply publication of the page to which the link points. In other words, a hyperlink per se implies no endorsement of the views or opinions or the veracity of the text linked. The Canadian Court didn’t explicitly decide whether a hyperlink with an expression of approbation would constitute publication, though there are some suggestive obiter dicta in the decision.
There’s been a bit of argy bargy around the practice of hyperlinking in Australia over the last little while, apropos of Gerard Henderson’s apparent belief that a link from Joshua Gans’ blog to an xkcd cartoon constituted Gans’ research. Gans subsequently asked:
How can someone purporting to watch the media not understand the point of hyperlinks? That said, his post doesn’t seem to contain any itself so this web-stuff might not be his thing.
The charitable interpretation would indeed be that Henderson is just lost at sea.
Andrew Leigh, in writing to Henderson today, doesn’t appear to be so sure it’s just Hendo’s confusion about digital culture at stake:
As Professor Gans has pointed out this week, the material you have quoted was not in fact his research, but a website that he hyperlinked to from his weblog. Like your own newsletter, Professor Gans’ weblog contains plenty of items calculated to amuse and entertain, as well as to inform. The original source of the urinal analysis was a cartoonist who goes by the pseudonym xkcd.
More than the factual issue, what concerns me about this is your decision to portray Professor Gans to your readers as someone who works on pointless trivia.
Elsewhere: Pure Poison.
“More than the factual issue, what concerns me about this is your decision to portray Professor Gans to your readers as someone who works on pointless trivia.”
To be fair, that is Hendo’s only real area of expertise.
To a man with a hammer…
FDB, to that particular man with a hammer, everything looks like the pointless, mind-numbingly boring stoush you’ve been having with another public intellectual since before most Australians were born.
heh. xkcd’s ability to pop up in the most unexpected places continues to amaze. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a webcomic achieve similar exposure.
My workplace desktop is this.
Hendersen is a bit special.
One could hardly take his opinion on Joshua Gans at face value.
I loved that one, Grumphy. I forwarded the link to my middle son and lady friend (who unwisely ask me for desktop support on systems I’m not familiar with – Windows and Mac), and to various former collagues who I thought would be grimly amused.
That would be “colleagues”.
Gerard Henderson is just sticking to what he does best.
oh christ I just read the hendo post you linked to Mark. Surely someone can cast Hendo as King Leir in a production, please?
If that “blog” (seen before but avoided since launch) doesn’t create the impression of a Hughes-like person, furiously scribbling into a notepad filled with crabbed, incomprehensible writing, whilst their sallow features are bathed in the light from dozens of flickering tvs, all playing at once, I don’t know what does.
I want to see pictures of the bottle so of urine I just *know* are there. I mean honestly, “leftist” wtf does that even mean?
Can some-one please explain to me the meaning/usefulness/relevence of the mathematical equations if that is what they are cited by Henderson/Gans et al.
Me being innumerate and all.
Paul @ 9
The symbols, their meanings, and relevance are all clearly explained in the paper by Gans & Leigh – pages 9 and 10, where they outline the methodology used in their study on media bias.
Paul @ 9
The symbols, their meanings, and relevance are all clearly explained in the paper by Gans & Leigh – pages 9 and 10, where they outline the methodology used in their study on media bias.
Did you check out the source, Paul?
It’s modelling the best number of urinals in a male toilet for most efficient, awkwardness-avoiding packing of urinaters.
Hmm, the link to Henderson’s ‘blog’ in the top post goes to a post looking at actual research of Gans; this one goes to Henderson’s misunderstanding of hyperlinks.
I laughed so much I nearly fell off my chair. Much appreciated.
More Henderson-mania on Pure Poison.
Andos, that’s great!
Of course at a crowded event like the Big Day Out, all bets are off (including chicks coming into the gents to use the vacant cubicles – a bit confronting at first, but you get used to it).
Ah xkcd. I must admit to leaving this one around where my daughter can see it, and this is often my response to people who extrapolate from a single data point.
Since Christmas is coming I should remind people that the nerd in their life would very much appreciate the wall print of height.
My favourite remains this: The Data so Far.
Wait, was this thread supposed to be about Gerard Henderson? That man excels at being tiresome and dull. Anyone wanting to rebut Henderson would find that time better spent by visting xkcd and clicking ‘random’ repeatedly.
And riffing off that whole “the medium is the message” thang, that’s one piss ugly site masthead you’ve got there Gerry. On the internet, everyone knows your dog designed it.
And I’m sure it’s been remarked on before but the absence of a comment facility does turn his site into the equivalent of a densely typed and poorly photocopied handbill passed out by some bloke with a megaphone and handwritten banners on the steps of the GPO.
I feel sorry for the dog !
Was consent sought, I wonder ?
NO no no you’re all blithering imbeciles! Mass holocaust is here! Today. In China! They’re sticking AIDS needles into pet food!
Poor Gerard really is an incurable optimist. Signing off his scintillating expose of media bias with the words ‘until next time’ is surely making a couple of heroic assumptions.
Gerard Henderson was the first right-wing commentator able to carry a consistent narrative against the Labor governments of the 1980s and ’90s, and to be able to explain the complex machinations within the Liberal Party beyond the headline-by-headline approach of journalists. He did target a bit of sloppy work within the ABC at one point. He and John Pilger do deserve one another, and the same goes for Bob Ellis.
Since Howard returned as leader he has indeed been all at sea – does he go the uncritical cheerleader? Does he go “NOT RIGHT WING ENOUGH!!!!!11!1!”like US shock jocks and performing poodles like Billy Kristol? Does he go the other way, like Robert Manne? Well, all of these at various points, and none of them really, but not to he point where he’s developed any sort of consistency (though I think the teeth-marks on Fran Kelly’s ankles are starting to heal), just dither dither dither.
The not-getting the modern world is often levelled at conservatives, but there was a time when Henderson was across the issues of the day. Not any more, though – the failure to understand hyperlinks is one and I’ve gone him on one of his tired old saws that doesn’t work any more. When I was in the NSW Young Liberals I wrote a review of the first edition of his book Menzies’ Child that was so pointed he rewrote the whole thing.
I admired him, but we’ve both changed and if I were to see him talking to trees in Hyde Park in the not too distant future I wouldn’t be surprised. Really. Hmm. Yes.
Wow! Gerard must get lonely…and I’m tempted to agree with Prof Gans. What a hoot
Haven’t read Hendo for years – judging by that roneoed stuff on Media Dog Watch we will soon see him outside the GPO with a shopping trolley and megaphone handing out leaflets about the New WoRld 0rder and jewish lizard bankers in league with the brit royal family selling heroin.
Must admit though he is spot on about Catherine Deveny
@13 – Thanks, Andos – link should be fixed now.
“(including chicks coming into the gents to use the vacant cubicles – a bit confronting at first, but you get used to it)”
hmm, I always thought that blokes had no peripheral vision at the urinal, so I felt I had some kind of ‘cloak of invisibility’ when sneaking in to use the loos. I had no idea men noticed such things, much less were confronted by it…I feel kind of bad about it now.
Wow, when do you get time to write that Media Watch Dog stuff Mark?
Someone’s gotta do it, Mal! If Hendo didn’t exist, he’d have to be invented, and all that.
Update: Gerard Henderson responds to Andrew Leigh.
Man, that reply digs him even deeper. This bit in particular: “The fact is that a paper titled “Optimal Number of Urinals” and signed by Joshua Gans is on Professor Gans’ website: http://www.economics.com.au. Moreover, Professor Gans consciously put a hyperlink on his website to the paper titled “Urinal protocol vulnerability” by xkcd.” So we can safely say Gerard Henderson doesn’t fully understand the concepts of both hyperlinking and blogging. No surprises, but it’s nice to have proof.
“Update: Gerard Henderson responds to Andrew Leigh.”
It’s like reading a LRB stoush conducted with crayons.
Gerard Henderson’s wikipedia entry explains a lot but his response to Andrew is even more revealing. What a fascinating creature!
Or. Shorter Hendo. How dare this guy think I’m an igfnorant pig. I deserve respect.
The title says it all “GERARD HENDERSON’S MEDIA WATCH DOG” – and a dog it certainly is.
Hey, go easy on the poor guy. Nothing has been the same since he had that dodgy plumber come around to fix his intertubes.
furious @ 26, at an event like the Big Day Out, blokes are three deep behind the trough, and so close at it that they’re pissing on each others’ boots. The rules on peripheral vision get bent, at least, under those circumstances.
Also, a bloke in his late 50′s like myself is probably more likely to be slightly confronted than you younger folk. I grew up in a gentler time … (removes tongue from cheek)
I’m just reading (thanks Mark @ 29) what will probably become the first shots across the bow in an ongoing stoush between Hendo and Andrew Leigh (I hope it doesn’t last as long as the Hendo – Manne stoush, but I suppose that’s unlikely since it’s started 40 years later), and I can only conclude that not only does Hendo not understand the mathematics in the Gans and Leigh paper, but his mathematical understanding is probably less than that of a bright eight year old.