Need help to understand a phrase

[Jim Blandy]

On 2/10/06, Max Bowsher <maxb1 at ukf.net> wrote:
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> I don't interpret that phrase that way at all - I certainly don't think
> it implies disagreement.
>
> To me, "some well-placed prods" means roughly the same as "some
> carefully targeted publicity", though with a much more informal tone -
> and that informal tone implies to me that the 'publicity' probably took
> the form of personal communications with friends and colleagues, rather
> than, say, published advertisements.
>
> In this interpretation "well-placed" doesn't carry any connotations of
> "to a sensitive part of the body" - rather, it suggests that Brian
> Behlendorf and Jason Robbins used knowledge of the community/industry to
> direct their efforts to people who they knew would be interested.

Well, I'll let the authors clarify what they meant, but if that phrase
is referring to what I think it is, I was there, and I think my
description is reasonable.