The Sinofsky link I posted earlier today originally came from this article on Mashable. Read it, then come back here.

Notice anything about that Mashable article? I did.

1. Almost every link in the story is a link to another area of Mashable.com. This isn't a bad thing by itself. We all know more cross-links equal more SEO love, but blogs like Mashable, ZDNet, CNet, and others do this to an excessive degree, which leads right into number two.
2. Which link is the source link? It's only when you get four paragraphs into Ulanoff's article that you see where this story originated. It's the "into the comments" section that's highlighted and linked. Unfortunately, the link is not clearly defined and is buried in the middle of the article. On the upside, Mashable didn't pull a Gizmodo and copy-and-paste the original content of Sinofsky's comment, but if I wanted to read the source piece, how was I supposed to easily find it?
3. Is this a news article or an op-ed? It tries to pass itself off as news, but this is the Internet, where editorial commentary and actual journalism are treated as equals. They are not. I submit into evidence Exhibit A:

Still, the idea of the Windows (Windows 8 and Windows RT) merging is not as ridiculous as it seems. I remember the Windows 7 PDC event where Sinofsky took the stage to explain all the awesome changes that would return Windows to its former glory. They sounded pretty good, but at that same time Windows Mobile was in horrible straits, an absolutely abysmal mobile OS that would have been better off dead. However, when we asked Sinofsky how the Windows 7 changes might translate to Windows Mobile, the Sinofsky-led Windows Team told us Windows Mobile 7 wasn’t on the same development track as Windows 7. They essentially knew nothing about it.

If this is an op-ed, there's no problem here and we can all move along to the next non-story. But if this supposed to be journalistic and read like a piece in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal, then "They sounded pretty good," and other statements of its ilk don't fit and a clear definition of what kind of story this is needs to be made.

It's nice that Mashable bills itself as "a leading source for news, information & resources for the Connected Generation," but nowhere on its About page does it mention anything about opinions.

Or maybe it does and it's just buried on the page somewhere. I'm still looking.