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I think that the experience or expertise can be implied for brevity. Stephen Hawking says "The universe behave thusly .." and a hollywood starlet says "The universe behave thusly .." the arguments are not equivalent. :-)

Implication and brevity is exactly what authority is about. Hawking has authority on the matter, the starlet doesn't. That's why people will quote Hawking in those cases.

There's nothing wrong with quoting authorities as a shorthand in a conversation, but it's not a valid argument, just an allusion.

A good way to counter that is to quote some other authority in reply. "Hawking says ... ", then "Ah, but Einstein says ...". Now the first guy has to either attack Einstein, which is a bad move, or he's forced to show his real argument if he has any. Either way you called his bluff and he has to make another move :)

recommended reading

> I looked at both of these, and none of the (bad) cases they list apply to documenting hardware.

So maybe you should read them again. From the very page linked by the grand-parent:

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information => See Also Notability

General notability guideline => Topic have "Significant Coverage"

"Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive.[1]"

How can you argue that original research aiming at listing the connections of every obscure hardware connector under the sun should be in wikipedia ?

Btw, you say "I often use Wikipedia's pages on Unicode encoding, do you also mean that they should be removed?". Well, original poster never said or implied that Unicode had to be removed, and by doing so, you are using Schopenhauer's stratagem 24, the false syllogism (look it up, or read it at http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/erist24.htm ).

Arthur Schopenhauer

For a more concise and virtually definitive guide to trolling, see The Art Of Controversy

Translated here: http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/

And though i can't find a date of publication for that work, it sure predates cable and the intardweb :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer

But this was a good troll. I just don't comprehend that some people couldn't tell from Dvorak's expression and voice he was just having a laugh.

Or did they choose not to laugh along, so they could troll the idea this Dvorak is serious about this, and - implying he was ever serious and not just a fun and often insightful columnist, that he must therefore be a fraud? Reverse meta-trolling.

Now, where was i . .

Oh, well . . . :-)

Let me introduce you to "The Art of Controversy"
http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/

Really, your response is just so typical.

"A last trick is to become personal, insulting, rude, as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand, and that you are going to come off worst. It consists in passing from the subject of dispute, as from a lost game, to the disputant himself, and in some way attacking his person." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/erist38.htm

personally don't mind extra scrutiny if it's in the name of keeping me and my family alive.

People in 1933 Germany were quite happy to put up with Hitler's new policies, and give up "some" of their civil rights, for a variety of perfectly valid reasons too...

With a single sentence you have exemplified both Godwin's law and Arthur Schopenhauer's thirty-second strategem. Readers can draw their own conlcusions about this conjunction of well-documented forms of noxious and invalid rhetoric with "+5 insighful" moderation.

Government survilenace can be used either to protect the safety of law abiding citizens or to deprive those citizens of their privacy and freedom. The former is a shield from violent attack on the innocent, the latter a gurantee of opression. There is hard question: How does a democratic society permit benificial surveilance and disallow oppressive surveilance. Those who condem all government monitoring out of hand (see parent post) are a threat to democracy just as are those who support government monitoring without question; both groups advocate policies which place citizens at risk.

We should have government controls in place to catch terrorists and we should insure that those controls do not become a tool for oppresion by our own government. Those serious about the defense of life and liberty will consider the complicated issue of how to achieve that. We would do well to ignore the extremeists: the tinfoil hat brigade on the left and the "my government can do no wrong" CIA fanboys on the right.

How does questioning authority make one into a communist? I'd bet you don't even know what "communist" means. It really has little to do with either wealth or power. In fact, it actually means a socialist who doesn't believe in private land ownership. As well, it's a typically abusive, derogatory and narrow-minded comment from those who are sadly uninformed and have nothing factual to contribute to the discussion at hand. See:

The Art Of Controversy - Stratagem XXXII"

As for your position on excessive affluence, it's clear you're not a student of history. Try reading, it's very informative. As well, if I were you, I'd learn something about the terms you bandy about. You came off as someone who's quite ignorant about the entire issue. Furthermore, you should always troll anonymously.

The personal attacks, however, are not acceptable. They are outside of the realm of good debate and ARE a sign of zealotry and foolishness. Not just Gates/Hitler comparisons, but ESR/gun-toting Psychopath, RMS/dirty Gnu hippie hung up on one word, Ballmer/sweating monkeyboy, etc. These weak tactics are meant to discredit the message or works because the bearer is discredited, and is a cornerstone of PROPAGANDA.

I have noticed that the Slashdot culture has largely been usurped by Mac OSX. The real zealots here are no longer the Linux fans, but the Mac pushers. The linux fans have largely grown up, while the mac pushers have not. They seem to be just getting started. Read any apple.slashdot.org article to see what I mean. Browse at -1 and tell me the moderating is fair. It can't be 100% fair, of course, but on average, the moderation is of a lower quality than other sections of Slashdot, primarily due to many many good posts being modded down for political reasons. The moderators have a SERIOUS bias towards promoting the "Apple Party Line" at the expense of reality. Excellent arguments against the Apple position are effectively being censored by aggressive and intentional negative moderation. It makes me wonder whether Apple has a room filled with astroturfers much like the one Microsoft reportedly has (no link; hearsay), or does their OS just transmit subliminal messages? (again, no link; hearsay). I know, however, that Mac OSX is by far the favored ("sanctified and holy") OS here. If Linux dies, it won't be Microsoft or SCO who kills it, but Apple.

I use and love Apple computers. I think they have good enough qualifications to STAND ON THEIR OWN. If you have faith in Apple's products, you shouldn't have to lie in order to promote them. You shouldn't have to try to discredit those who disagree with you. It's not possible that Apples are the fastest, freest, best networking, most standards-oriented, best GUI, easiest to use, least expensive, coolest, etc. but that is *exactly* what I'd gather from reading Slashdot. This place is a paid advertisement for Macs. Apple's zealous followers REFUSE to believe that they can be second best in ANY area, though historically, they always have been. Zealotry is deceptive, but it's not the Linux fans who are doing it.

Attention Apple Paid Shills: Flame Away and Mod me down. I don't care.