[UbuntuWomen] WKOW News story on young woman missing classes due to Ubuntu being shipped on her Dell

[Elizabeth Krumbach]

Hi all,

I first saw this story yesterday:

"Woman blames Dell for missing online classes"
http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9667184
(click link on the left "Dell computer mix-up" for video of story)

I thought it was unfortunate that Dell made the mistake, and was happy
that the resolution of the story was that the station helped her out
and things were okay.

Then today someone in a channel I'm in brought it up again today,
posting some 3rd party link and saying "That person should be given
the Darwin award for stupidity"

This upset me, I don't like it when people so blindly and cruely throw
around words like "stupidity", so I went to find the original story
again, and discovered that the news channel had done a follow-up after
receiving so much attention:

"Thousands of viewer comments, phone calls about Ubuntu computer story"
http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9682258&nav=menu1362_2
(click on link on the left "Ubuntu Users Send Hate E-Mail, Flood
WKOWTV.COM Over Story" for video)

The article itself says things like:

  "Many Ubuntu users also wrote very personal attacks about the young
lady who was having trouble using the operating system.  They called
her "lazy," "a dumb girl," and "not worthy of a college degree."

  The young woman also contacted 27 News to report she's being
harassed on her Facebook account by Ubuntu users."

And from the video, talking about the emails received: "I can't even
read most of them on the air because they are abusive, hateful and
they attack the young woman from our story."

They wrapped up saying that they had received dozens of offers to
help, but that feels to me like hardly a drop in the bucket when
compared to the thousands of responses.

Very sad, not even because it was a woman featured in this story
(gender actually is irrelevant), but that so many Ubuntu users chose
to strike out in such an abusive and hateful way.

Sigh.

-- 
Elizabeth Krumbach // Lyz // pleia2
http://www.princessleia.com