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Friday, January 09, 2004

How To Write An Article Without Any Facts


Lisa Vaas writes in eWeek, If Oracle RAC Crashed Orbitz, Can We Trust 10g?
A few months back, the travel site Orbitz was grounded for a full day due to a technology snarl that it blamed on Oracle's RAC (Real Application Clusters) technology.
After reading this poorly written smear article I had to write:
Hi Lisa,
I just read your article and wonder why you wrote it in such a way as to imply that Oracle RAC was the cause of the Orbitz crash.

Do you know what the cause was?

I heard that Orbitz had hardware problems and the Oracle RAC software had nothing to do with it.

Please reply.
--Steve
Where do they get these so-called writers?

Lisa responds:
Steve,
That's very interesting. Who did you get the hardware info from, if I might ask? I talked to Orbitz, who blamed RAC. I also spoke with Oracle, who were pretty noncommital. I mean, Oracle was indeed working with Orbitz to rectify the problem, but they wouldn't confirm or deny RAC liabliity. (Of course.)

I'm thinking I should revisit that story and see if I could get more detail. Better that than spreading FUD, which I fear I'm guilty of.....
Best,
Lisa
After I sent her a few emails with links to more information and people she might interview, Lisa emailed back:
Thanks so much for all this information. ... I'll work on putting out a more informative, up-to-date article on the topic, as
one way to make amends.
Ok then.