[stephenr]

I'd go further than "little hard to take seriously".

Nowhere in the article does he state that his employer is Canonical. His blog doesn't mention it at all, just says he's "Involved with Gnome". Even clicking through to his "Complete Profile" takes me to a G+ page. From there another "About" link click finally tells me that he's an employee of Canonical.

Sure, he didn't claim its the 2nd coming of the FSM but stating any potential conflict of interest is pretty standard. A 1 sentence comment on HN from a related employee/founder/ceo usually has a disclaimer about it.

[logicrook]

It's a blogpost, made to express an opinion, so he doesn't have to say this. If this was supposed to be a serious article, or was involved in a serious debate, then it would be a different issue.

Second, I have a Firefox phone and no other phone. It's terrible right? Yet I'm happy with it, as it is less buggy than my previous phone, and it actually does what I want. The only thing that I'd like from it would be flac support, but it's something I can get around with a simple script. So, I can see how somebody could be able to live with a Ubuntu phone, and don't need to be paid to say good things about it.

Also, not throwing money at Apple/Google/Microsoft is a a big motivation, and a great pleasure.

[lake99]

Not only is it a personal blog, he did not post the article here. I don't know if he's even aware that it's now on HN. Expectations of disclosures seem absurd.

[fuzzywalrus]

And at least it seems like Canonical is dogfooding. These wasn't an in-depth review that struck me as masquerading as an objective write up from a non-bias source.

[ska]

There is no requirement legally or from an accreditation board, sure.

However you should always do this in any context where it may come up. It's not just that this is the ethical path (it is) but failing to do so and getting caught out really undermines your credibility and thereby whatever message you were trying to get across (serious or no). There is literally no downside to doing this unless you are trying to obfuscate your connection.

[vacri]

Nonsense. "View my complete profile" takes you to the G+ page, and directly underneath his name it says he works for canonical. So what if his personal blog doesn't disclaimer everything in it - the information was one click away. You're just looking for excuses, really.

This new HN where everyone is complaining of 'clickbait' titles and demanding disclaimers everywhere for things like personal blog posts... it's starting to get pretty tiresome.

[stephenr]

> Nonsense. "View my complete profile" takes you to the G+ page, and directly underneath his name it says he works for canonical. So what if his personal blog doesn't disclaimer everything in it - the information was one click away.

View my complete profile links to https://plus.google.com/106527694663794732344 which shows his name and the number of followers he has.

A further click on "About" in the header, shows that he is an employee of Canonical.

> You're just looking for excuses, really.

Actually I was looking for confirmation or denial of his previously unstated employment by Canonical, the company whose OS runs on the device he reviewed without making mention of his conflict of interest.

> This new HN where everyone is complaining of 'clickbait' titles and demanding disclaimers everywhere for things like personal blog posts... it's starting to get pretty tiresome.

This is nothing to do with HN. He posted a review of a product that his employer is directly related to, and made no mention of who he works for. Most people I know would consider it fishy to not make any mention at all of your involvement with a product you're reviewing.

[pilif]

just to clear up a misunderstanding between you and vacri you're responding to: Google seems to be in the process of yet another redesign of G+.

If you haven't yet enabled the new experience then the employer is stated quite prominently directly on that link. This is what vacri was referring to.

If you enable the new experience, then yes, you are right, you have to click one more time.

Yes. I'm splitting hairs here - this should probably have been on the blog-post front and center, but still. You two are not seeing the same content.

[dschep]

That depends on what version of G+ you're using, what he stated was true for me until I "upgraded" to the new G+.

http://imgur.com/a/5eqEf