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*cough* *cough*

Cheers,
-- RLJ

"That's why we have copyright...to create that scarcity. We can travel to virtually any spot on the planet within 24 hours, but getting the permits can take years. It's insane. We make everything so difficult for the benefit of a tiny minority. Why do you all suppose that is?"

Let me point out something EVERYONE keeps forgetting. The scarcity isn't in IDEAS (we all have plenty of those). The scarcity isn't in the final output (illegal file traders prove that every day). The scarcity is in those capable of converting IDEAS into useful PRODUCTS or SERVICES. Copyright helps protect THAT aspect. You may have the same ideas as me (as Thomas Jefferson mentioned), but that doesn't make you capable of putting it into a useful form (note copyright protects the expression of an idea).

Do you have a link to some documentation for that the original thought behind copyright was?

• The Framers, Viewing Intellectual Property As Monopoly, Sought To Constrain It
• Guiding the Path of Intellectual Property
• Copyright as Cudgel
  ...
  James Madison, who introduced the copyright-and-patent clause to the Constitution, did not engage in absolutist "property talk" about copyright. He argued in terms of "progress," "learning," and other such classic republican virtues as literacy and an informed citizenry. When President George Washington declared his support for the Copyright Act of 1790, he proclaimed that it would be a step toward "teaching the people themselves to know, and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority." Thomas Jefferson -- author, architect, slave owner, landowner -- had no misgivings about protecting private property. Yet he expressed some serious doubts about the wisdom of copyright, based on his suspicion of concentrations of power and artificial monopolies.

and that's how Copyright works in America today.

the military life. I get so annoyed with some of these active duty crybabies and their complaints about low pay.

Let me tell you something, the military is a swank deal and everyone should stop crying wolf over a bogus issue. Let me break it down.

Okay, so starting off, military pay is kind of on the low side. However, its not low considering the great benefits, which render the salary pure gravy. Especially considering, you're getting free paid training. How many companies offer free paid training, with total benefits, to completely unskilled people? Not many. You get free housing, all you have to do is pay for optionals like cable TV and telephone calls. But even that is subsided by the BAH II, which chips in some dough, tax-free, to you, to pay for things, like toilet paper and paper towels. Hell, your initial work clothes are given to you free, everyone else in the real world has to pay out of pocket.

Replacement work clothes, aka BDUs, are paid for too. They give you a nice fat check to use to buy new clothing as you see fit.

These things, and many many others, are sold at a heavily discounted rate .... Wholesale cost plus 5%. You have subsided entertainment options, you pay nothing for health, dental, mental health, or vision care. Your transportation costs are lower because the base has its own intra-base mass transit, and if you own a car, maintenance is a available at a discount rate,

Plus you get 30 days of paid vacation and 12 federal holidays off a year. That's 42 day or 12% of the year off. That's 3xs the average of two weeks a year in the civilian world. The military even provides free travel on Space Available Flights, for, at worse a nominal fee, and there are often on base accommodations for members at discount. In addition to paid vacation time, you also receive unlimited paid sick leave. Plus there is no risk of being fired for using these benefits as very few soldiers are fired during their period of guaranteed employment. How many companies offer their wage slaves guaranteed employment? Again not many. This is because the military does not outsource its jobs overseas, rarely does it cut down on its numbers, and never does it fire anyway for anything less than gross incompetence or criminality. In many cases, criminal conduct is swept under the rung with a slap on the wrist thanks to Article 15s.

As you mature,get older, and serve longer guess what? The deal gets even sweeter. You only have to serve twenty years and guess what? You get a free retirement for life, a giant, never ending 401k you didn't have to pay into. Its free money and you can start receiving, depending on the age of enlistment at 37. The VA begins to provide you with low cost healthcare upon retirement as well. You get the MGIB, which will pay for any college expense you may have left over. This should not be too much of a problem given the military already pays 100% of all college tuition of all people on active duty. If you went to college before enlistment, the military has programs, for student loan repayment. Soldiers who retired or leave after one enlistment get access to numerous other benefits like low cost VA housing lows, job training, and preferential hiring for government jobs, no matter how unqualified or incompetent they are, allowing them to beat out superior applicants.

In addition, over those twenty years of service, you get multiple, guaranteed pay raises. You get more money for marrying and for each dependent you have, meaning the military pays you to fuck and have kids.

So to brake it down: The military deal includes
Free College
Free Housing
Free Health/Mental/Dental/Vision care (often for life)
Free Retirement
Free Paid Training
Paid Vacation
Unlimited Paid Sick Leave
Guaranteed Raises
Job Programs
Subsided Shopping/ Transportation/ Entertainment
Security Clearance

(taken from http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2005/5/23/15739/0 556/20#20 )

when will people learn that SQL was created in a time of ram scarcity? Oracle was designed back when machines had 4 or 8 MB of RAM __tops__. New developers should experiment with vector based systems instead of row based systems. Before anyone boohaahaas this as a toy, I recommend you look at www.kx.com customer's list, all the top Ibanks and bond houses in the __world__ use it. Lehman brothers has a 50 TB bond datbase that uses this technology.

http://www.kx.com/

http://www.kx.com/a/kdb/document/contention.txt

read up on http://www.kx.com/ they have a almost fully compliant sql engine written in 200K of code. The interpreter fits in a couple lines of cache.

This is the original J interpreter (written by Arthur Whitney), it looks like line noise, but use the 'indent' command and you will see its beauty:

typedef char C;typedef long I; typedef struct a{I t,r,d[3],p[2];}*A; #define P printf #define R return #define V1(f) A f(w)A w; #define V2(f) A f(a,w)A a,w; #define DO(n,x) {I i=3D0,_n=3D(n);for(;it=3Dt,z->r=3Dr,mv(z->d,d,r); R z;} V1(iota){I n=3D*w->p;A z=3Dga(0,1,&n);DO(n,z->p[i]=3Di);R z;} V2(plus){I r=3Dw->r,*d=3Dw->d,n=3Dtr(r,d);A z=3Dga(0,r,d); DO(n,z->p[i]=3Da->p[i]+w->p[i]);R z;} V2(from){I r=3Dw->r-1,*d=3Dw->d+1,n=3Dtr(r,d); A z=3Dga(w->t,r,d);mv(z->p,w->p+(n**a->p),n);R z;} V1(box){A z=3Dga(1,0,0);*z->p=3D(I)w;R z;} V2(cat){I an=3Dtr(a->r,a->d),wn=3Dtr(w->r,w->d),n=3Dan+wn; A z=3Dga(w->t,1,&n);mv(z->p,a->p,an);mv(z->p+an,w->p ,wn);R z;} V2(find)true V2(rsh){I r=3Da->r?*a->d:1,n=3Dtr(r,a->p),wn=3Dtr(w->r,w->d) ; A z=3Dga(w->t,r,a->p);mv(z->p,w->p,wn=3Dn>wn?wn:n); if(n-=3Dwn)mv(z->p+wn,z->p,n);R z;} V1(sha){A z=3Dga(0,1,&w->r);mv(z->p,w->d,w->r);R z;} V1(id){R w;}V1(size){A z=3Dga(0,0,0);*z->p=3Dw->r?*w->d:1;R z;} pi(i){P("%d ",i);}nl(){P("\n");} pr(w)A w;{I r=3Dw->r,*d=3Dw->d,n=3Dtr(r,d);DO(r,pi(d[i]));nl() ; if(w->t)DO(n,P("p[i]))else DO(n,pi(w->p[i]));nl();}

C vt[]=3D"+{~=3D'a'&&a'9')R 0;z=3Dga(0,0,0);*z->p=3Dc-'0';R z;} verb(c){I i=3D0;for(;vt[i];)if(vt[i++]=3D=3Dc)R i;R 0;} I *wd(s)C *s;{I a,n=3Dstrlen(s),*e=3Dma(n+1);C c; DO(n,e[i]=3D(a=3Dnoun(c=3Ds[i]))?a:(a=3Dverb(c))?a :c);e[n]=3D0;R e;}

main(){C s[99];while(gets(s))pr(ex(wd(s)));}

Here is another excellent page:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/8/30/175531/763

Ah... it's rare to see jokes of that mettle around here.

True, but this is slashdot. Perhaps you should try kuro5hin.

There's a story on this in Kuro5hin. I used to hate Eurovision, but that guy (in Kuro5hin) made me reconsider it, and take it as a chance to laugh at ourselves, competing for the last, not the first position. Apparently, Brits and Norwegians rock in this modality of competition ;).

You may have been moderated funny but this very thing was proposed on Kuro5hin a few weeks ago.

Namely, place a 1000km Fresnel lens at the Lagrange point between the Earth and Sun to slightly diverge the light and thus reducing the ammount of energy hitting the planet. Not a bad idea, if a bit unfeasable right now :)

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/4/7/41932/19363

Jw

Who still uses Perl for web stuff?

Ohh, I don't know... how about Amazon and Salon? Kuro5hin and all the other Scoop based sites like DailyKos and MyDD. And now that I think about it, MovableType, TypePad, and LiveJournal are all writen in Perl.

I completely disagree with Gates's assertion wrt information overload.

the patents run out

Not if Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA) has anything to do with it. Look at what she did to copyrights in the name of her late husband, and then ask yourself whether she wouldn't be willing to do the same thing to patents.

I thought that his (her?) description of hormesis was fascinating. Take a good look at those graphs in section 3 (from the second part) to understand the real deal behind sports. Everyone who starts to exercise to fend off stress should really understand how and why it may help. Remember folks: if you over do it, you could actually be making your depression worse!

It's a pity that this huge caveat isn't more widely known. Especially if you are young, it is very easy to start exercising obsessively, and it might be too late before you realise all the harm that you are doing to yourself. Remember that moderation is the secret!

I thought that his (her?) description of hormesis was fascinating. Take a good look at those graphs in section 3 (from the second part) to understand the real deal behind sports. Everyone who starts to exercise to fend off stress should really understand how and why it may help. Remember folks: if you over do it, you could actually be making your depression worse!

It's a pity that this huge caveat isn't more widely known. Especially if you are young, it is very easy to start exercising obsessively, and it might be too late before you realise all the harm that you are doing to yourself. Remember that moderation is the secret!

That the linked articles aren't uncontested on k5. For example not this comment about psychotherapy or the lack of knowledge thereof the author seems to have.

Why C is not my Favorite Programming Language

You were saying?

(Point being that Brian Kernighan's criticism towards pascal is very, very dated in the piece you linked to)

Any chance of modding down the actual story itself?

You bet. It's called: kuro5hin

Stories like this would never get posted there specifically because the stories are voted upon with considerable vigor. On the other hand, you wouldn't have the fun of thrashing the author for as long (stories vanish when they are voted down.)

Slashdot's story selection process is a mystery, at best. You like mysteries, don't you?

:-)

Bruce Perens' technocrat.org, but they've had hosting problems recently. I just heard Bruce was on holiday and his hosting company pulled the plug -- he says it'll be back online next week. The quality of the articles is as good or better, but the lack is the community for comments. One with a viable but small community is Kuro5hin, though not as focussed on tech, fewer articles but better written.

The type of people who are moderators on /. are the same people that claim to have Asperger's Syndrome.

They are also cocksuckers. But then I've been watching Deadwood.

A poll on kuro5hin in which 76% of respondents claim to have some form of Asperger's or autism. Yes. 76%.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/4/13/205734/619

I emailed Rob the other day for the first time, and he emailed me back. I didn't look too hard to find his eddress, either.

Where can you get an official answer? The official answer is that there are alternatives. If you don't like slashdot, go to the old standby kuroshin, or any of the hundreds of new places out there. Worst case senerio, slashcode is GPL, right? Stand up your own site using their code. Approve you own stories. Make your own mods. Give yourself an unlimited # of points.

Official answers...officially what? That you don't like what they're doing with their own site? I'm sure sales is reachable at it's appropriate eddress. I've never needed to buy ad space or anything from them; I wouldn't know.

And I don't really understand what you mean about Slashcode internals. It's open-source, right? Can you give some info to back up the innuendo?

He means this post from 2 years ago, where all users who modded in that thread were banned from moderation, and the whole thread was modded -1. The post itself was moderated over 800 times. More info here

The problem right now is that complaints about him end up only in the comments. Maybe if there's enough external attention, the powers at VA might reconsider their policies.

I commented on K5:

I wouldn't be so alarmed about this... the state decides what you have to teach, not HOW you must teach it.

More to the point, students (children) should not be held hostages to our stupid politicking. Let them learn about both theories, and why scientists don't accept ID (and vice-versa).

Instead of stuffing their brains with the "right" theories, we ought to be teaching them how to use said brains. We'll need citizens- open-minded but critical thinkers, not PC-drones.

Both sides in this debate would have us submit children to an authoritarian model of education as long as they're taught their pet-theories. If we want a better democracy, we'll need to educate people to be better citizens.

God damn! $179,000!! Thats a nice bribe, er I mean...donation.

I believe a bill was passed a while ago in Canada, that limits the amount any company/individual can donate per year.

After doing a quick google search, I came up with this related link here

Quote:

This bill will limit corporate donations to 1000 dollars, and personal donations to 10000 dollars meaning a CEO of a multinational multibillion dollar corporation would only be able to contribute 11000 dollars in total. Furthermore, political donations may only be given to the candidate or riding association. Contributions to any political party are banned. All donations over 200 dollars will be publicly and fully disclosed.

So basically, this $179,000 that the RIAA payed Orrin Hatch, would be illegal in Canada under the proposed bill. And if I read it correctly, you can only donate during an election campaign, not while they're already in office. I'm not sure if this bill was ever passed, but I sure hope so. It's a good idea and United States needs to adopt something similar.

Are there Jews in the third world?

The rebel base is on k5.

He's a genius. Check out this short story.

You want this

I have. I even like the idea of a zero law. a human being has the right to end their own life. a robot may not stop a person from doing so as long as it does not harm another person physically. got the idea from Prime Intellect

I could be wrong, but as I understood it, Tiger was implementing the ACL as a feature to help tie into active directory not as some "new innovation by Apple". also with the "grow up" bit, you could say this about pretty much CEO, go to any share holders meeting, or about anywhere else and of course you will hear the CEO's say that their company is the sole of the universe. it's not Jobs being a jerk, it's just how the game is played, how many times have we seen steve balmer make an A$$ of himself ? http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/8/4/15258/17899

I managed to go with 1 hour of sleep a day, awake for 5.75 hours, sleep .25, awake 5.75, sleep .25 for several months before I had a change in work schedule and had to stop: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720

kuro5hin has a piece on GoogleAnon, too.

... "What 172 confirms is that Wikipedia administrators (by and large) do not have the expertise to deal with anything other than three-revert-rule violations and personal behaviour breaches. Quality of articles therefore comes a poor second as a result."

When you cite articles that combined are citing less than one of his two articles I am not comparing apples and oranges. You confirm what Martinez says about vanity being a motivation in Wikipedia. If that was not so you could recognize when someone who writes one article has cited more material than you. I have no problem that thousands of people are doing better research in subjects I have no idea about know more than me. But I am no Wikipedian. :-)

His article would be better than the Encyclopedia of Genocide articles on the subject. Some of these entries can be found here The entries written by Dobkin are not on that site. The Encyclopedia of Genocide actually sucks since it cost so much and does not really cite things.

Did you even follow the example I showed you? This man fadix has been researching the subject for five years. I linked to his sub-articles he is working on for the Armenian genocide and they are good scholarly articles, he mentions what his source is basing their population numbers on, the Armenian Patriarch Records, the taxable hearths from Ottoman records, etc. Citing an example like read this book "The Two Babylons", this book shows footnotes are not all that, is typical Wikipedia anti-elitism. Footnotes in historical narratives are the only thing to anchor the narrative to written sources. Just because some people use dubious and manipulated sources like Holocaust denier David Irving, does not make footnotes bad.

I doubt you have done any deep research on any articles. At least you could cite the articles and your username. To do deep research takes time and people do not really do research just because they want to edit a wiki. You have to be interested in more than editing a wiki to do serious research, you have to be interested in the subject beyond just the desire to make wiki edits.

Further your example has nothing to do with this case. This case is highly politicized because almost all Turks deny the Armenian genocide. You saying "I was highly respected for doing research" does not disprove Wikipedia's widespread anti-elitism. One moderator "Tony Sidaway" of this dispute said in Coolcat's Arbcom case on 15:19, 8 Apr 2005:

"Coolcat and Fadix are opinionated but not malicious editors with radically different points of view. I have found both to be fairly responsive to reason and highly appreciative of good faith intervention. Both have attracted some extreme personal attacks as well as a fair amount of legitimate criticism, and both have produced excellent work that is a credit to Wikipedia. While it is true that they seem to have had what could become a feud, it hasn't really been that nasty given the extremely contentious ground upon which they encounter one another (Armenia/Turkey). I am on reasonably good terms with both, and I don't think the behavior of either is yet beyond the reach of normal dispute resolution. I ask the arbitrators to reject this case unless evidence of gross abuse by either of them comes to light."

He made no mention of Coolcat's open claim to have no knowledge of the subject at hand yet still demanding to edit the article. Tony made no deference of Fadix's expertise. This is why Wikipedia is a joke. There is only penalties for not being polite, for reverting too much and such things, there is no reward for expertise, not only is there no reward there is no deference to it.

The following Kuro5hin comment echos this example that time spent on Wikipedia trumps time spent reading actual books and journals:

""The underlying problem is that Wikipedia behaves as a community. Members call themselves "Wikipedians." They hold online elections and real-life meetups, and gossip with each other in IRC and on mailing lists. They're more interested in being a community than in building an encyclopedia." The anti-elitism talks about is cultivated and desperately defended as it allows just about anyone with absolutely no qualifications who have a lot of time on their hands to become community "insiders" and control the activities of others. Who cares if anyone is reading the articles the wikipedians are having fun, right? Expertise and the amount of time required to become a respected member of the Wikipedia community are mutually exclusive. This demand for time screens out experts and allows officious (and oh so self important) bureaucrats with dubious qualifications to control the process."

CompuServe finally settled on the less unreasonable 5c per paid application that can encode GIF's, with no fee for decoders. That fee is no longer with us, as the patent has expired.

the known unisys patents (and releated 'gif tax') may have expired in 2004 or earlier, however, there is a duplicate patent (all praise the uspto!) owned by ibm that does not expire until 11 august 2006 (4,814,746).

ref:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html#venuenote
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/6/19/35919/4079

and unisys' web site states they have patents pending on 'improvements' to the now-expired patent.

ref:
http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw

so who knows if a simiilar fiasco will pop up again in the future.......

one industry does that all the time. when a profitable and popular prescription drug is about to expire and get in the hands of (legal) generic manufacturers, a "new" version of the drug is "invented" (typically the same exact forumla in an 'extended-release' form, which changes the inactive ingredients, not the drug itself) and that is enough to keep the "original" forumla from going generic.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/3/24/45212/6874

If you don't like the way Slashdot has been going - and apart from the trolls, who does? - then never forget that there are alternatives.

Anything of value is in the comments section. Yes, crap gets upmodded, good stuff gets downmodded, a lot of people are shit-stupid, the admins come in every so often to fling their authority around and hide their lying abuses of the system, and fully half of the dialogue consists of Slashdotters complaining that the good old days were so, so much better.

But still, I come here for the comments.

Subscription money doesn't go to the commenters, it goes to the editors---who don't even bother to edit. Why send money to them?

--grendel drago

Learn more about queueing at the pf FAQ.

See my previous post here for a pf.conf recipe to implement traffic shaping based on packet type. You could also prioritize via IP, require a ssh session to gain higher priorities for a specific IP (authpf), based on time of day, or any other number of factors.

THE guide to pf (packet filter) can be found here. pf will run on FreeBSD as well as, I believe, a few other open OSs. I think it's really the best. Almost any reader here could surely benefit from at least a partial working knowledge of packet filters ("firewalls") in general.

=======
EXTRA CREDIT
=======
Got a few connections you'd like to tie together into one? Read more about Address Pools and Load Balancing with pf.

Another Bandwidth management HOWTO for Linux systems (last revised in '03 - may be better for concepts than router config recipes)

bittorrent traffic shaping

A nice K5 article about packet filtering with OpenBSD firewalls

Prioritizing empty TCP ACKs with pf and ALTQ

Making the most out of a busy connection

Turn that old P5 and two network cards into an OpenBSD firewall and learn to setup your own router. You will learn a TON about TCP/IP, how to protect your internal network, and BSDs in general (they're pretty neat in the way that they don't have as much "cruft" as usually found in your typical - yeah, that works :) - Linux distro. The simplicity, if you've never experienced it before, can feel both constraining and liberating at the same time. Give it a try if you've got a spare box. It's hard to experiment without learning SOMETHING - and if you're here I'm sure you're into learning, right? So give it a whirl. If you're not sure what BSD to try, give this a read. If you just want to buy a router, learn from the recent Ask Slashdot - Home Routers w/ Decent QoS Performance?. Best of luck!

If you're going to use OpenBSD (which I'd recommend for a firewall/NAT box), be sure to support the OS which strives for portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography by ordering a CD, T-shirt, book, or hacker bunker enhancing poster. OpenBSD supports binary emulation of most programs from SVR4 (Solaris), FreeBSD, Linux, BSD/OS, SunOS and HP-UX. Development is active and it won't let you down as a gatekeeper or internal server.

Puffy says "Stay off my computer!" and means it. I sleep well at night knowing "puffy" (the name of my box) is standing guard just behind my cable modem and in front of the 5+ computers my roommates and I are running inside. Has never let me down and doesn't get in my way. Keeps Freenet and torrents from introducing lag into my ssh sessions as well..... Good luck finding a solution to keeping your pipes clean :)

I think you also have to include local monopolies in your exception. The situation is different if by refusing your service you effectively denied any service to a person. For example if you were the only printer available in the area or if you were a monopoly.

I'm not sure I agree with letting people refuse service because of who a person is. For example I'd say that not letting gay people visit your theatre just because they're gay is wrong. Refusing to print an advertisement for a pro-life group in your newspaper seems legitimate though. (As long as you're doing it because you don't want to support any non pro-choice position not because the group is a religious group).

You think no one reads K5? http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/6/10336/9881

"
Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism (Op-Ed)

By lsanger
Fri Dec 31st, 2004 at 12:42:24 AM EST
Internet

Wikipedia has started to hit the big time. Accordingly, several critical articles have come out, including "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia" by a former editor-in-chief of Britannica and a very widely-syndicated AP article that was given such titles as "When Information Access Is So Easy, Truth Can Be Elusive".

These articles are written by people who appear not to appreciate the merits of Wikipedia fully. I do, however; I co-founded Wikipedia. (I have since left the project.)

Wikipedia does have two big problems, and attention to them is long overdue. These problems could be eliminated by eliminating a single root problem. If the project's managers are not willing to solve it, I fear a fork (a new edition under new management, for the non-techies reading this) will probably be necessary.

Let me preface this by saying that I know Wikipedia is very cool. A lot of people do not think so, but of course they are wrong. So the following must be taken in the spirit of someone who knows and supports the mission and broad policy outlines of Wikipedia very well.

First problem: lack of public perception of credibility, particularly in areas of detail. The problem I would like to point out is not that Wikipedia is unreliable. The alleged unreliability of Wikipedia is something that the above (TechCentralStation and AP) articles make much of, but that is not my point, and I am not interested in discussing that point per se.

My point is that, regardless of whether Wikipedia actually is more or less reliable than the average encyclopedia, it is not perceived as adequately reliable by many librarians, teachers, and academics. The reason for this is not far to seek: those librarians etc. note that anybody can contribute and that there are no traditional review processes. You might hasten to reply that it does work nonetheless, and I would agree with you to a large extent, but your assurances will not put this concern to rest.

You might maintain that people are already using Wikipedia a lot, and that that implies a great deal of trust. This is true, as far as it goes; but people use many sources that they themselves believe to be unreliable, via Google searches, for example. (I do so all the time, though perhaps I shouldn't.) Perhaps Wikipedia is better described as one of those sources regarded as unreliable which people read anyway. And in this case, one might say, there's no problem: Wikipedia is being read, and it is of minimally adequate and increasing reliability. What more could you ask? In other words, why does a perception of unreliability matter?

I am willing to grant much of this reply. I think merely that there are a great many benefits that accrue from robust credibility to the public. One benefit, but only one, is support and participation by academia. I am on the academic job market now and I felt it was necessary to explain my views about Wikipedia's credibility for potential employers. A great many of my colleagues are not at all impressed with the project; but more about that in a bit.

Another benefit accruing from robust public credibility is even more widespread use and support by teachers, schools, libraries, and the general public--precisely the people who want to use what they believe to be a credible encyclopedia. To the extent that the project is not reaching, and being supported by, these people, it is not succeeding as well as it might.

Perhaps you might also maintain that, while Wikipedia does not now have a reputation for reliability, it will eventually, once enough studies proving its reliability are done, and once people are more familiar with the concept behind the project. This is hard to argue with; but it is also hard to supp

Good suggestions - I'd add:

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

Name one attack on a Federal building prior to (or after!) McVeigh.

He was a typical macho failed-to-get-into-Ranger-school-so-he-left-the-Ar my dumbfuck that gave other Desert Storm vets like me a bad name for a long time.

I guarantee that no amount of purely symbolic random bombing is going result in anything more than further oppression.

The government doesn't care about some guy on a message board spouting off about patriotism.

As for accuracy, check out The Faith-Based Encyclopedia's analysis of Wikipedia's page on Alexander Hamilton.

As for completeness, check out Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism. I have to agree with the anti-elitism "problem". And while the optimist in me hopes that the collaborative democratic approach succeeds, what I have seen on Wikipedia is that (a) White, male, USian, geeky topics are covered extremely well, both in depth and quality that (b) controversial topics are fought over and that (c) anything else is somebody's pet-project and at best lacks depth at worst it horribly misrepresents the topic.

As for the controversial topics most of them are undeniably biased, and if you have any doubt just check the discussion page for the topic. (An example would be Pope John Paul II's discussion page)

So, why are we heralding the possibility of articles of questionable quality and completeness being burned on CDs? It seems completely ridiculous to me. At least the topics can grow and evolve on the web. On a CD, any inaccuracy, incompleteness, or bias is maintained and perpetuated as long as that CD is used.

In what way is Wikipedia "Peer-reviewed"? *Anyone* can update an entry, right? Like, I could decide to submit my own interpretations on string theory, despite my knowing nothing about string theory and having no credentials on that subject at all.

That's not at all like a real peer-reviewed journal, where the review and comment process is much more rigorous.

Sure, if I spew some blatantly false blather, someone will eventually catch it and fix it. But how long will the wrong information be out there for some poor student to see and think is true vetted "peer-reviewed" data?

My wife teaches various aspects of anthropology and works with some genuine peer-reviewed academic journals. She'd never accept Wikipedia as a real reference in a student paper. (She in fact rants about it frequently for how common errors are.) Neither would she accept someguyswebsite.com either, of course. Many credible sources also have their own websites, and then there's always the horrible prospect of actually going into a library for research.

Wikipedia has its uses, I still refer to it myself sometimes when I'm just looking something up out of curiosity, but I treat everything I read there with a grain of salt.

This article by one of Wikipedia's original co-founders I think very precisely sums up some of the challenges Wikipedia faces to be considered a true, academic-level information source on par with "real" peer-reviews journals and encyclopedias.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25

Wow, I've just spent the past hour re-reading your old posts (here & at Kuro5hin) for some strange reason. Please just answer one question for me:

Do you really believe in all these alternative theories (who shot JFK, who killed 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, did aliens crash in Roswell, did an energy beam knock down the shuttle- y'know, b/c foam at 22-23 mph couldn't do it-, etc.), or do you just post them for fun to see the reaction of the community?

Either way, I think it's brilliant.