Larry Sanger on Wikipedia and World

Phoe6 writes "MIT Tech Review is running an article on Larry Sanger, an epistemologist and the co-creator of Wikipedia. It is very interesting to know his views on Wikipedia. He says, 'To build a public encyclopedia, you don't need faith in the possibility of knowledge, What you have to have faith in is human beings being able to work together.'"

Comments

How to stop revert wars?

[LostCluster]

What he seems most upset about is the problem of "revert wars" happening whenever an author wants to be the absolute authority on a topic and regularly patrols their article to undo any edits that are made to what they consider their "perfect" work?

What could they do to defuse these situations with a moderations scheme that encurages contributors but discurage this kind of abuse?

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that what the Wiki moderators (whatever the correct term is) are for? They generally do a good job of laying down the law and enforcing the rules regarding edits and block users who cause trouble.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may sound silly, but there is no good way to arrive at a universally agreed upon "truth". Every source of information has bias, and it's ridiculous to pretend as though this is not the case.
The problem with Wikipedia is that the bias is inconsistent. That is, if the bias was consistently left or right or Zoroastrian or what not, then it would be easier to understand Wikipedia's articles. There would be a frame of reference -- you could perceive it for what it was. However, with no particular leaning, any individual article could be the result of any individual person with an axe to grind. I prefer a website with a single consistent bias to one with wildly unpredictable ones.
How could we go about creating a website with a consistent bias? A simple Slashdot-like mod points system would work wonders.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Billy the Mountain]

Here's an idea. Perhaps a revert war is should be viewed as information itself. So for each article, there's a volatility index useful for identifying contraversial subjects. If you notice that an article has high volatility and are interested in examining it, you can see a history of the article over time.

BTM

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[aldoman]

First of all, the concept of a community-built encyclopedia, open to submissions and revisions from users, is wonderful. It's much like open-source, in fact, and Wikipedia certainly exemplifies how to reapply the OS model to other contexts.

However, the contexts of encyclopedias and software are different. Significantly so. I'm interested specifically in quality control- you know when code doesn't work when it doesn't compile or results in unexpected behavior.

In what ways can a Wiki article be bad, and how can one tell? Do you think QC is a large issue for Wikipedia, and do you have any plans to further integrate the community in the QC process (perhaps akin to the slashdot moderation/metamoderation system)?

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[ehiris]

You can dispute the neutrality of the article. It is called NPOV. As an example you can check out the wikipedia entry for extra-sensory perception (ESP).

Lately read read wikipedia more then slashdot.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[lheal]

>war is information itself?

Very good. Another angle would be to allow authors to block edits of their text, but to allow others to put dissenting links in it pointing their own articles. Usually there's agreement on the general facts of some topic, but after a few decimal places the specialists have a religious feud that the casual reader doesn't know or care about.

Having two trees of articles on a subject may not the Wikipedia way, but for some hot-button issues it may be a preferred alternative to chaos.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[DanielJosphXhan]

Quality control becomes a problem as soon as you have a mass awareness. Most of the people that write articles and such for Wikipedia are benevolent, for whatever reason, be it that they're open source-minded people or that they just like what's going on at Wikipedia.

On the other hand, was Wikipedia more in the public mindshare than it is now, these sorts of incidents would occur with more alarming frequency.

Sidenote: Wikipedia has its own infoculture as well, considering how many topics there are (understandably) on arcane technical and computer-related topics. Try submitting something arcane on, oh say religion. See how fast it gets dumped into the Votes for Deletion que.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Billy, where is your small wooden wife ?

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Long-EZ]

First, I'd like to say I really like Wikipedia.

There are problems with revert wars and pontification, and various biases working their way into the articles. People are aware of these issues and discuss them. They're already improved, and will be resolved.

There is one subtle problem that will be difficult to fix, and it's common to all other types of encyclopedias as well. Perhaps the concept is a bit more engaing in the case of Wikipedia. The problem is, knowledge does not follow Democratic principles. You can't take a vote and determine absolute truth.

Gallileo said a lot of things The Church didn't like, so they placed him under house arrest until he died as an old man. But despite his various astronomical beliefs being in the extreme minority, he was right and almost everyone else was wrong.

It's easy to say that was a long time ago, and we're a lot more enlightened now. In some ways yes, but in many important ways, no. For example:

After trying for about a decade to convince the global medical community that H. pylori bacteria cause most peptic ulcers, Robin Warren finally drank the bacteria, gave himself a horrible case of ulcers, then cured himself with antibiotics. The medical profession finally paid attention to the science.

So, the truth is not always well represented by the popular belief.

But Wikipedia is still a great idea and in practice, it works very well. My thanks to all involved.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[PatientZero]

In one sense, an inconsistent bias requires the reader to think critically about the articles. With a consistent bias, most people simply dismiss the entire site without review or accept it all as true without thinking for themselves or checking facts.

The funny thing is that your consistent bias is another person's neutrality. There are several people at my office that go on and on about how Fox News is so balanced unlike all the "liberal media" out there. I can see someone thinking the New York Times is unbiased -- though I'd disagree -- but Fox News?

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your co-workers listen to too much Rush Limbaugh.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[BlackbyPubicDemand]

Did you mean "You're an idiot"?

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[AndyChrist]

Something that pisses me off about arcane articles is when they just need ONE DAMN WORD to be defined in order to be understood by someone with no specific background in the field. It's one thing to write a whole article as though you were writing for a damn journal. You haven't TRAGICALLY wasted effort by failing to elucidate ONE piece of information upon which the clarity of the whole article rests...you haven't come so close to writing the perfect wikipedia article that your failure is amplified by your near-success.

GAH.

Oh, yeah, and then when there's no response to requests for clarification. that's even better.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

A simple Slashdot-like mod points system would work wonders.

This may sound like flamebait but it really is a form of manipulation to get this AC's post moderated positively. I've observed that when you say in your first sentence that it "might sound like flamebait" that it's noted by some idiot as having some substance. "This is going to hurt my karma but..." also is an excellent prefix to any form of nonsense that will undoubtedly get moderated up. This is because people as a whole are rather easy to manipulate. What seems to work the best is "Don't you dare mod this up you stupid dolt". Imagine if a similar system was used by Wikipedia? Would you really want a web based encyclopedia to be moderated by people similar to those Linux fan boys who claim the Holy Grail is OSS yet at the same time brag about their multi-gig pirate .mp3 collection?

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[JimLane]

Wikipedia has its own infoculture as well, considering how many topics there are (understandably) on arcane technical and computer-related topics. Try submitting something arcane on, oh say religion. See how fast it gets dumped into the Votes for Deletion que.

OK, how about Saint Oswald of Northumbria? Read how he helped to establish the monastery at Lindisfarne (where monks later produced the Lindisfarne Gospels) and about his eventual martyrdom at the hands of Penda, the cruel pagan king: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_of_Northumbria . And, yes, there are also articles about Lindisfarne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne, the Lindisfarne Gospels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne_Gospels, and even Penda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penda_of_Mercia.

To learn something arcane from eastern religion, you can read about the three gunas, a concept developed by the Samkhya branch of Hinduism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guna. If you're more of a big-picture guy, maybe you'd prefer to start with the general article on Samkhya philosophy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya.

So, uh, just how arcane do you want?

AFAICT, none of these articles has ever been proposed for deletion.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[aussie_a]

Quality Control is important, but wikipedia is careful in that it doesn't strive to be perfect. It strives to be the best it can. No single source can be the best. Plenty of topics go unmentioned or barely mentioned in traditional encyclopedias. They often also have errors and biases. Wikipedia can get around biases by people noticing them and fixing. Citing sources should help determine whose point of view is the correct one when it is difficult to know (and citing sources is something wikipedia is trying to encouragte). If both people's sources are as good as each other (and assuming both are actually authoritive rather then both being pathetic), then there is room for both points of view in the article. If each side can't do that alone, mediators can come along and help resolve the problem. I've yet to see an article that continually had true information replaced with false information and it wasn't fixed with mediators/moderators soon enough. Pages that attract vandals/revert wars can also be locked so discussion occurs before a page is editted.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[aussie_a]

Actually it's better to encourage people not to feel that they own anything in wikipedia. In this way, there are no such things as authors of articles. Everyone is equal.

This is of course against human nature in western society, but it is an ideal to strive for.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[16K Ram Pack]

The question of bias is all about the relative distance to your position.

For example, I know people who refer to Tony Blair as a right-winger. They themselves would probably gladly declare themselves as left-wing. Personally I see him as left-of-centre (although the terms left- and right- wing are unhelpful).

Some people see Fox as balanced because it is at approximately the same position as them. Also, people often are drawn to something that suits them more, so will block out some of the minor biases because they see major biases elsewhere.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[neitzsche]

I dunno if I'd like a moderation system applied to the articles themselves (or even sections of articles.)

But a /. moderation system would probably apply quite nicely to the Discussion posts about an article. In wiki* the discussions themselves are mutable though.

Perhaps if article creators did "own" their articles...and only they (or admins) could modify existing articles, based on moderated discussion? Might be tricky to implement.

Then again, that seems to be slowly happening anyhow. As articles are vandalized and reverted now, they get "protected." That seems ultimately to have the same effect as a complicated moderation scheme might.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[16K Ram Pack]

Is there also a problem with multiple points-of-view?

That is, that in an area like religion or politics, people may wish to print different biased views on it, but that you can only really have one.

In many areas, particularly where people don't have pointless flame wars (like someone updating histories of bands, it works fantastically.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[dave420]

But if you know those people are right-leaning, you know everything they say is right-leaning. Imagine if those friends had multiple-personality disorders, and some of their personalities are left-leaning, and some centrist. Now try talking to them on politics. You'll never know their current bias, and so it would be impossible to take it into account.

Thinking critically should always occur, whether you agree with the bias of the source or not. Critical thinking won't help much if the bias of the source changes with every paragraph.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[dave420]

Wikipedia, as it's written by amateurs, is amateurish. The text has copious spelling mistakes, differing use of elements across articles, etc. You can tell it's a community effort. When you read a proper encyclopaedia, you don't get that, as it has an editor who makes sure each entry is in the same style as all the others, spelled correctly, and of uniform appearance.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of great information in wikipedia. It just looks like ass.

There is no quality control on wikipedia. Sure, you'll get an article pulled if it's clearly bollocks, but no-one goes through articles checking to see if the author of that particular paragraph had the same ideas on formatting and punctuation as the authors of the adjacent texts did.

There's no consistency.

I don't want to sound like a dick, but I agree with you about wikipedia and open source. The two kind of are like the same. I love open source, but it often lacks a core direction (as frequently no-one is paying anyone else). Because of that, it lacks professionality. That's not to say it's not sometimes incredibly functional, it just doesn't look that pretty.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gallileo said a lot of things The Church didn't like, so they placed him under house arrest until he died as an old man. But despite his various astronomical beliefs being in the extreme minority, he was right and almost everyone else was wrong.

Sorry, but that's bullshit. First of all Gallileo was just *wrong* - planets do *not* fly on circles around the sun - and people *were* able to measure and see that he was wrong at that time. Also, Gallileo behaved highly religiosly - if he said "It's a theory" the Church would have been fine. But he didn't. He continued to claim that his (wrong) model must be the truth. Very un-scientific.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[NichG]

I'd disagree. If you know the bias, you can just dismiss everything that seems unpleasant to you by saying 'oh, thats just their X bias' whether or not it actually is part of their bias or not. If their bias takes form entirely in omission/inclusion selectivity (I'll assume for now they don't write anything thats actually false) then you'll stand a good chance of dismissing facts because of a disagreement of bias.

On the other hand, if the bias is totally random then you really do have to take each thing stated and ask yourself 'is this true? is this the _only_ thing I have to know to understand this situation? is this an emotional argument or a rational one?'. And you have to do it every paragraph. So as a result you end up thinking critically about the ideas, rather than about the author. And hopefully if the bias is random enough then you approach neutrality simply by averaging,
the same way that you (should) do to get a balanced view of a situation (i.e. consulting many different sources).

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[MikeCapone]

I'd just like to add that people who criticize wikipedia too often forget that there are also many problems with "pro" encyclopedias like Britannica & Encarta.. The difference is that with those we can't fix the problems, and that the bias they have are mostly coming from only one place (Britannica ->british vision of the world) and that Wikipedia is written by people all around the world, often from people who live close to the things they write their articles about.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a moot point anyway as wikipedia preserves all page states in a browsable history. If some nugget of untold truth falls by the wayside, it can always be dug out and re-examined later.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[crazyeddie740]

>The text has copious spelling mistakes

Part of the problem is that Wikipedia doesn't have a spellchecker.

>but no-one goes through articles checking to see if the author of that particular paragraph had the same ideas on formatting and punctuation as the authors of the adjacent texts did.

Actually, I do, especially in articles where it's clear that the previous contributor didn't have the firmest grasp on the English language. I guess it's a question of how many grammar nazis there are.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[j1m 5n0w]

How could we go about creating a website with a consistent bias? A simple Slashdot-like mod points system would work wonders.

A few possibilies:

• If an article is suffering from a revert war, any party can enable a "peer review" feature, which remains in effect for the next week or two. If peer review is enabled, any changes must be approved by several other users, through a system implemented similar to slashdot metamoderation. (A peer-reviewer does not choose what articles to peer review, they are selected randomly.)
  
  
• Every article has a "draft" version and a "final" version (similar to odd (unstable) and even (stable) Linux kernel releases). The final version cannot be edited. In order for the draft version to become a new stable version, it must have its content frozen, then be approved by a number of people (the number of approvals required is proportional to the article's popularity). This could be implemented similar to the edit queue and voting queue of kuro5hin.
  
  
• Every account has a reputation, determined by a moderation system, or derived from friend/foe lists. Each article also has a quality metric, determined by the stability of the article over time, its popularity in terms of number of readers, and its popularity in terms of citation count. In order to edit an article, the user's reputation must exceed the quality rating of the page. In other words, only the most trusted users may edit the most highly trafficed articles. Edits by less trusted users may either be denied, or sent through a peer-review process.
  
  

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Mr2cents]

One person's noise is another person's signal :).

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia has been dealing with this by making the Three revert rule law; if you revert more than three times in a day, you can be banned from editing for a day. Longer in extreme cases.

This rule is recent; the arbitrators were overworked dealing with contentous editors who constantly reverted.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Siergen]

I can see someone thinking the New York Times is unbiased -- though I'd disagree -- but Fox News?

In my viewing, if you avoid the commentary (like O'Rielly) and "debate" shows, and instead stick with the straight news broadcasts, then Fox is more balanced than, say, Dan Rather's broadcasts. I agree that the Fox News Network as a whole is biased to the right, but the straight news portions are pretty good.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Billy the Mountain]

Oh, hadn't you heard? We "split up" and she wound up as a primitive ironing board.

Re:How to stop revert wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gallileo [...] despite his various astronomical beliefs being in the extreme minority, he was right and almost everyone else was wrong.

Well, Wikipedia is not the place to discuss what is and what is not. If there were a controversy on the nature and behaviour of our solar system, then both options should be proposed on a Wikipedian entry. The fact that a theory is falsified (and goes from the theory section to the history one) is not a wikipedia matter, it's a scientific one.

Most of the time, it's hard for non specialists to understand when a theory is falsified, and specialists may be biased. Just try to really understand what is Science's opinion about homeopathy, and you'll see what I mean. There are pro-articles, con-articles, and most of them seem quite scientific to my eyes. In that case, it's not Wikipedia's role to seek the truth, and it should just present both kind of articles.

Even my mom likes Wikipedia...

[OldGuyNew]

Sorry, just had to use my moderator points before I lost them. Please carry on...

obligatory

[moosesocks]

Wikipedia article on Larry Sanger

It had to be done ;-)

Re:obligatory

[savagedome]

You gotta do it true Wiki Style!

Wikipedia article on Larry Sanger

Re:obligatory

[moosesocks]

hahahahahha. If I hadn't been the parent poster, I'd mod that up...

After actually RTFAing the article I linked to, I noticed it's surprisingly short -- something I wouldn't have expected...

Re:obligatory

[Jon Chatow]

Actually, that's not "Wiki style"; on Wikipedia, we call that "Slashdot style".
:-)

Re:obligatory

[adeydas]

shouldn't he get a special page on wikipedia?!

Re:obligatory

[rabiteman]

No, he shouldn't.

Re:obligatory

[rmccann]

Sounds more like Hyperdictionary style.

Re:obligatory

[Descartes]

Go for it.

Re:mod article down

[LostCluster]

mod article down (Score:-1, Troll)
wikipedia is a bunch of hyporcritical censoring liars. they love to censor certian types of poltical articles that don't match their agenda but they let opinion and bias sneek through if it fits their agenda

Apparently the same applies to Slashdot mods...

What they normally do to stop trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a well thought out dispute resolution process, which ranges from mediation to banning by the Arbitration Committee. See [[Wikipedia:Dispute Resolution]]

Re:What they normally do to stop trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

You, mean, of course [[Dispute Resolution]] :-)

Humans working together?

[agraupe]

He says, for the whole thing to work, humans have to work together and help one another. Now, I like Wikipedia, and I think it works, but not because people are "helping" as much as they can. It works because there are lots of people with big egos that want to show off their knowledge, and moderators that aren't afraid to ban an entire subnet (any computers from the Calgary Board of Education, where I go to school, are prohibited for making changes; take two guesses why, the first one doesn't count). It still works, but the assumption that it is because people are "helpful" to each other is slightly flawed. I'm sure there are some, but as with most other facets of life, I imagine they are vastly overshadowed.

Re:Humans working together?

[MattJakel]

It also works because of the amount of users that don't contribute. Imagine reading an article written by the average American... As a student at a public high school, I get to see how great the average American's grammar and spelling are everyday!

Re:Humans working together?

[Commander Trollco]

Kind of like those improper contraction's you use.

Re:Humans working together?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, smartass. He only used one contraction.. "don't", which was correctly used. As to the word "American's", that's perfectly correct as well. He's speaking of the average American -- singular.

Re:Humans working together?

[the pickle]

The fact that this is modded funny merely proves the grandparent's point.

That isn't a contraction. It's a possessive. Confusion of "number" with "amount" aside, the grandparent did quite well.

p

Re:Humans working together?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? I mean honestly, when you get right down to it, who cares?

Re:Humans working together?

[Anonymous Coward]

I once read about a study that found 89% of all Americans think they have above average intelligence (the same study found that 90% thought they were "average americans", I have no idea how that works.)

I always laugh when someone makes fun of americans for being stupid when he himself is not only an american but a high school student. I can't wait till you hit college and realize you're very very average.

Re:Humans working together?

[the pickle]

People who edit Wikipedia articles.

p

Re:Humans working together?

[winwar]

"I can't wait till you hit college and realize you're very very average."

Actually, attending college probably makes one above average (at least in respect to education).

Doesn't say a whole lot about intelligence-though I doubt many people with significantly below average intelligence go to college.

Re:Humans working together?

[pete-classic]

I'd rather not guess, but you leave me no choice.

• Because you're Canadian?
• Because some shithead at your school kept defacing pages and it was the only way to stop him?

Am I close?

-Peter

Re:Humans working together?

[agraupe]

Well, I wouldn't say just *one* shithead... and it turned out the person who banned us was Canadian too, so it doesn't matter.

Re:Humans working together?

[jfengel]

Everyday in an adjective meaning "ordinary"; every day is an adverbial phrase which means "each day".

But if you'd said, "I get to see how great the average American's everyday spelling and grammar are", you'd have been right.

(Yeah, I know grammar correction is usually trolling, but here it's in context.)

Other than that, your point is actually kind of at the heart of the issue. An ordinary encyclopedia works by getting experts in the field to write articles, and those experts are chosen by fiat by an editorial community.

The whole Wiki idea is that all of us are smarter than any of us, and tries to produce everything by collaboration. It is an epistemological problem, in that the average person's views of, say, quantum mechanics are mostly irrelevant, and contribute more to the field of pop culture than to physics. That's a problem to be debated by, well, expert epistemologists. The bad grammar can be corrected easily by other people, as long as the contribution itself is in good faith.

Life would be so much simpler if we could depend on good faith.

Re:Humans working together?

[blair1q]

If entire subnets are banned, does it work?

Sounds more like a Lord of the Flies situation.

Which is how all ad hoc governments turn out.

Re:Humans working together?

[The Silicon Sorceror]

Would you mind sharing the IP or complete block message, so that it can be fixed?

Re:Humans working together?

[ThousandStars]

It also works because of the amount of users that don't contribute. Imagine reading an article written by the average American... As a student at a public high school, I get to see how great the average American's grammar and spelling are everyday!

I think you mean "...because of the number of users who don't contribute." Amount refers to a difficult-to-count substance, like a liquid, while number refers to things like people or coins. See here for a better explanation. I also recommend the book Write Right for everyday English usage help. Write Right also has a section in the back that tells the difference between frequently confused words like amount/number.

Re:Humans working together?

[Anonymous Coward]

It also works because of the amount of users that don't contribute. Imagine reading an article written by the average American... As a student at a public high school, I get to see how great the average American's grammar and spelling are everyday!

You mean "every day."

"Everyday" is an adjective meaning "appropriate for ordinary days," or, more generally, "ordinary."

You should also use "number" instead of "amount."

"Number" is for countable things (like people). "Amount" is for uncountable things (like water).

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Re:Humans working together?

[agraupe]

Fixed? You don't get the intent of my message. Trust me, it's far better for Wikipedia if stoned high school kids are not allowed to vandalize things on a random whim. Also, I seem to recall the person who banned the school had a username and location strikingly similar to your own. Congratulations, and keep up the good work!

Wikipedia founded by philosophers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy studying the nature of knowledge. "Jimbo" Wales, the other co-founder of Wikipedia, is purportedly a disciple of Ayn Rand, the Objectivist philosopher and novelist (who was a die-hard capitalist, too; an Objectivist co-founder of Wikipedia is nearly mind-boggling given its free nature... though it does explain a lot about NPOV policy).

I never knew an inkling about any of the predilections of wikipedia's founders; this is quite a revelation. In the far future, these two could conceivably be remembered as two of the great philosophers of our time.

Re:Wikipedia founded by philosophers?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the far future, these two could conceivably be remembered as two of the great philosophers of our time.

No. No it's not conceivable.

Re:Wikipedia founded by philosophers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plato... Hume... Voltaire... Locke... Aristotle... Kant... Nietzsche... Jimbo?

Doomed

[PNutts]

"What you have to have faith in is human beings being able to work together."

Seems that most of our greatest achievements have been by individuals. People working together usually create destruction.

Wikipedia is doomed. :(

Re: Doomed

[Alwin Henseler]

Seems that most of our greatest achievements have been by individuals.

Rephrase: many GREAT archievements have been by individuals, but most of our GREATEST archievements have been by groups of people.

Great: discovering how to make fire, Newton figuring out laws of gravity, Einstein coming up with E=m*c^2, Linus starting Linux project, coming up with Wikipedia concept, etc.

Greater/greatest: USA and USSR putting men in space, Egyptian pyramids, the Great Wall of China, filling Wikipedia with content, producing 10.000+ package Linux distro, human-like species surviving for millions of years, ...

Why are these greater? Making a scientific discovery, or coming up with a new idea is great, but somebody else could have done it. If Einstein didn't figure it out, some great mind could have done that later. If it had been forgotten how to make fire, you might re-invent that. But greater/greatest archievements can ONLY be done with groups of people working together. You can't put a man on the moon on your own, even if you would know how to build a rocket. It's just too much work for one person alone. Same with the other examples.

People working together usually create destruction.

Yeah, that happens a lot too, unfortunately. Maybe we should work some more on human co-operating skills?

Wikipedia is doomed

In that case, the rest of the WWW would be still be left ;-))

Re:Doomed

[rufusdufus]

This is just plain wrong. I think your view is subject to that statistical fallacy that humans brains have where they aren't good at looking at the complement of an idea.

Human destruction is actually the minority in world events. Typically its some small number of people who get together to destroy the work of the larger body of people. And typically, even for all the fanfare, the overall effect of that minority is small. All wars are this way, only a small portion of the population are involved in the destruction part, the creation of the civilization is done by the entire group. The credit for the great shifts in history dont go to heroes or ivory tower iconoclasts but communities improving the baseline the whole.

As far as great achievements go, which ones were you thinking of? I'm thinking of things like the moon shot which was a group effort. Modern agriculture feeding the billions [proof of life not destruction] is a group effort. Computers, mass communication, culture, automobiles, mass transit, modern medicine, and lots more all group efforts...

Re:Doomed

[MxTxL]

There is a saying about this that i like:
A camel is a horse that was designed by committee.

Re: Doomed

[Golias]

Great: discovering how to make fire, Newton figuring out laws of gravity..

Greater/greatest: USA and USSR putting men in space

Actually, I tend to give a lot of the credit for the space race to the two individuals who figured out fire and gravity. Nobody would have gotten far off the ground without them.

And no, you can't be certain that, were there no Einstein, somebody else would have come up with Relativity. It may seem like an obvious conclusion now, in hindsight, because he showed it to us, but billions of people had what appeared to be the same potential to reach it themselves and didn't. We will never no for sure, as we have not "control" specimen of an Einstein-free world to compare ours with.

Re:Doomed

[kamapuaa]

That's true. That's why major science labs and reasearch facilities will never employ large teams of people to research and work together on a problem. Similarly, that's why use of outside research, consulting with other experts in the field, or use of the Internet, is so strongly discouraged in academic fields. It's because all great achievments come from lone solitary figures, such as Harry MacElhone or the Unabommer.

Re: Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

And no, you can't be certain that, were there no Einstein, somebody else would have come up with Relativity. It may seem like an obvious conclusion now, in hindsight, because he showed it to us, but billions of people had what appeared to be the same potential to reach it themselves and didn't. We will never no for sure, as we have not "control" specimen of an Einstein-free world to compare ours with.

Why not? Mr. Einstein's theorys were a product of communication, education and technology improvements that were accelerating since the beginning of the industurial age. If he didn't reach those conclusions when he did, someone else would have been placed in a similar role. Eventually, the human race would have figured it out.

[P.S. Saying that "billions of people had...the same potential" is bullshit. A few hundred, maybe a couple thousand perhaps, had comparable education at that point in time.]

Re:Doomed

[guybarr]

A camel is a horse that was designed by committee

This is doubly funny, as camels are much tougher, stronger workers than horses ...

Re:Doomed

[master_p]

The sad truth is that too many cooks spoil the soup...

If I could mod...

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont know if I should mod you +5 Harsh-but-true or -1 Who-cares-about-Bomis-anyway

Yes, Jimbo ran a search portal that had pr0n on it. It's defunct. Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:If I could mod...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Jimbo ran a search portal that had pr0n on it. It's defunct.

Not.

whois bomis.com

Administrative Contact:
Wales, Jimmy (JW13135) internic-mgr@BOMIS.COM

I'll say it again. The guy (Wales) who runs Wikipedia is a common pornographer.

Re:If I could mod...

[Anonymous Coward]

>The guy (Wales) who runs Wikipedia is a common pornographer.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re:If I could mod...

[Peter Cooper]

And we really care about that, why?

Re:If I could mod...

[Anonymous Coward]

And we really care about that, why?

Ummm... because you're a fag?

WE'RE UNDER ATTACK

[tarunthegreat2]

Wow dude, has anybody seen the last article - Yellow Dog Linux? It's become a GNAA nest, I think. To be more on-topic, this dude does have some interesting views on wikipedia, but I think the core of it lies in the article summary - "it's all about having faith in people's ability to work together...". For a cynic like me, I don't have that faith - at least for something like an encyclopedia. There are enough people who like destruction for the sake of destruction, see previous article on Yellow Dof (and 9/11) for an example. What does it cost somebody to revert a wikipedia article and totally trash it? It's a teency-weency bit harder to do the same thing on a FOSS project. As it is, skeptics/cynics like me take all encyclopedias with a pinch of salt, be they online or on dead trees.

Re:WE'RE UNDER ATTACK

[Rie Beam]

You've obviously never worked in a Wikipedia environment. It's amazing that once you've become free from most of the rules, and are given a simply goal, how people will organize themselves and work toward a common goal. Not to say there aren't trolls, but now you have the community, not just the moderators working against them. I'm honestly surprised at how Wikipedia has gotten so many things right - not to say there aren't problems, but overall the project itself is a grand success.

Re:WE'RE UNDER ATTACK

[Captain Nitpick]

Wow dude, has anybody seen the last article - Yellow Dog Linux? It's become a GNAA nest, I think.

The Yellow Dog Linux article has barely been touched in the last year, and has not been vandalized once in that time (as of this post).

What does it cost somebody to revert a wikipedia article and totally trash it?

The same amount it costs somebody to revert a trashed Wikipedia article to its previous non-trashed state.

Re:WE'RE UNDER ATTACK

[RollingThunder]

He meant "last Slashdot article". If you look at it on -1, it's flooded with GNAA stuff.

Re:WE'RE UNDER ATTACK

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe he was referring to this /. article. ...the point being that for oneone trying to achieve something useful, there is a following of government officals, or other vandals, bent on destruction.

Re:WE'RE UNDER ATTACK

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is worse than the Yellow dog one, GNAA trolls/off topic spam all the way down, and with that as an example it doesnt show much hope in humanity.

Everything2

[Noodlenose]

Festive Greetings!

Wiki this, Wiki that, I still believe that Everything2 is the better concept, more fun and is suffering from less editorial wrangling. It's also a much more fun place to hang out, has more off beat entries and rewards its users for good content.

Oh yes, did I mention that it also has a "sumbit" button?

So, you poor Wikipedians, finish your sorry library project and create something much more unique.

Cheers, and happy impeaching of Bush.

Re:Everything2

[martinde]

> So, you poor Wikipedians, finish your sorry library project and create something much more unique.

I don't know... I decided to take a quick look at everything2 because I had not before, and wikipedia impresses me every time I check it out. I happen to come from Marion, OH, home of Warren G. Harding. (Sure, the rest of the planet thinks the guy was a terrible president but in Marion he's a home town boy and worshipped!) Anyways, I looked him up on both. I have to say that the Wikipedia Article looks much nicer than the the Everything2 article, contains more info, links, etc... I'd be happy to see a counter-example though!

Re:Everything2

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything2 was alright at one time. But since the advent of Wikipedia, e2 has been displaced and somewhat made irrelevant.

e2 has lots of idiotic entries, which include personal rants, crackpot theories, and at times - 5-word entries making sense only to its writer. It is slow as hell. The search feature is terrible. Entries are in a form of a forum conversation - there's little collaboration going on. Your entry never gets modified in order to be made better. And lastly, e2 is not indexed by google.

For all intents and purposes, Everything2 sucks. I used to be a major fan. But after Wikipedia, e2 is no longer desired.

Re:Everything2

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything2 has a problem with hyperlinking to outside sources. I hated them for it since day 1.

Re:Everything2

[iamlucky13]

I agree. I am impressed with the amount and depth of content in the Wikipedia articles, and with the useful links to other articles included in the text. Because it's all contributed by people who (probably) aren't experts on the topics, I wouldn't cite it in anything I wrote, but it's a good starting point and can present a lot of interesting trivia on just about anything. Looking up trivia probably accounts for about 95% of World Book's use anyways.

Re:Everything2

[AndyChrist]

Everything2 is not without it's uses. Due to the apparently much less strict standards they hold things to (or don't), there are some damn funny articles there that would never survive on Wikipedia.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=594442 &lastnode_id=124
How to turn your Hyundai Excel into a race car.

Re:Everything2

[ta bu shi da yu]

Yeah? Check out unusual articles. That's pretty funny.

Re:Everything2

[Anonymous Coward]

You suck. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=831460

Re:Everything2

[Anonymous Coward]

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=109089

Wikipedia Quality Metric

[Gyan]

In order to deal with the 'reliability' aspect constantly brought up, Wikipedia's appointed management, could use an audit to ascertain the quality of the project.

My rough idea is, pick the 10 most popular articles, 10 random articles of moderate-to-high traffic, 10 random articles of low traffic and then do a compare/contrast against 'reputable' references. Then, check those references (and Wikipedia) against primary source references (if they exist, like journals/textbooks, for medical facts..etc). It will provide a good, quantified metric of the quality, acting as a rough indicator of where Wikipedia stands.

Re:Wikipedia Quality Metric

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you trust the Germans? Here you go, comparing Wikipedia, Brockhaus, and Encarta. Translation of quotes about TV programme at Google

Know thyself

[dantheman82]

The most important definition is that of Wiki. If you screw that up, who will believe you?

Wikipedia is simply useful

[Ars-Fartsica]

By and large I have found the quality of articles to be quite good. Its incredible the range of topics covered in a short time. Truly a gem of the web.

Re:Wikipedia is simply useful

[Anonymous Coward]

>By and large I have found the quality of articles to be quite good.

Uh, you know this how exactly? Short of being knowledgeable on the topic or performing cross refrencing, there's no way to detect factual errors. Moreover, high quality in one article does not mean that other articles have the same quality, even if they happened to have the same author.

Cowboy Neal's Wiki

[WizardRahl]

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

Being able to work together

[AstroDrabb]

What you have to have faith in is human beings being able to work together.

Am I the only geek to get goose-bumps over that? My utopia is a world of geeks working together. Maybe one day we will achieve that. I guess we have to kill a lot of non-geeks first ; P

Maybe all that doom training will be worth something!

Re:Being able to work together

[10000000000000000000]

I guess we have to kill a lot of non-geeks first ; P

I think subdue would be the better choice of word.

Remember, WE aren't going to be the ones physically fighting. It will be our telepresence controlled nanotube-armored hoards of humanoid robots who will be on the front lines.

Better to convert the nonbelievers than kill such precious commodities. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

heh ¦]

Re:Being able to work together

[Anonymous Coward]

"precious commodities" ... like what... food?

Re:Being able to work together

[Anonymous Coward]

if you don't mind the taste. it varies from person to person.

Co-Creator

[arodland]

along with Lyndon LaRouche, right?

Don't worry

[presidentbeef]

If the first Foundation - I mean Wikipedia falls, the second Foundation - I mean Wikipedia - on the other edge of the galaxy shall prevail. Encyclopedia Galactica?

Re:Don't worry

[WizardRahl]

Just wait 50 years and we can see the big hologram of Jimmy Wales tell us how to rebuild civilization... hey maybe his plan has begun already and Sollog is the leader of the second foundation!!! ohh ahhh

Re:Don't worry

[dasunt]

Wouldn't that be better as:

If the First Foundation, er, Nupedia falls, then the Secound Foundation, er, Wikipedia will rise from its ashes?

Re:Don't worry

[Phroggy]

...the second Foundation - I mean Wikipedia - on the other edge of the galaxy shall prevail.

What exactly do you mean by "edge"? ;-)

Re:Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Trantor. The "other end" of a spiral galaxy is the center of the galaxy. :)

Seldon, of course was not speaking in purely physical terms. So the above is not a correct interpretation of his statement on the second foundation's whereabouts.

That brought back a lot of happy memories :)

Re:Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah - they were/will be the first against the wall when the revolution came/comes

Re:Don't worry

[presidentbeef]

Actually, I meant internet, but got that and the galaxy confused...

I made a Wikipedia entry!!

[rethin]

well, sort of.

I did a search for "revert wars" and came up empty.

So I created an article (sort of)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revert_wars

Lets see if we can't get this puppy fleshed out a little.

Rethin

Re:I made a Wikipedia entry!!

[rethin]

Wow, and it was deleted just as fast. Oh well, I learned my lesson: Don't bother trying. Rethin

Re:I made a Wikipedia entry!!

[PhilK]

And it's been deleted already! I wonder why...

Re:I made a Wikipedia entry!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because there was already a long article on the subject. Typical fucking slashdotter - write before read, assuming you're the only person who ever had an idea. If you're too stupid to work the search engine, you're too stupid to be adding articles. Stick with slashdot, where your manifest idiocy won't cause any harm, dullard.

Re:I made a Wikipedia entry!!

[rethin]

Some nice person linked "revert wars" to "edit wars".

So I guess the system works in the end.

Rethin

Re:I made a Wikipedia entry!!

[calculadoru]

er...no it hasn't. I can see it just fine. seriously.

Re:I made a Wikipedia entry!!

[Dachannien]

Typical fucking slashdotter - post a gigantic flame full of profanity and namecalling, and do it all while posting as an AC.

could wikipedia use the slashdot philosophy?

[deathcloset]

why not have a moderation system like slashdot?

Require that 5 editors approve of a content addition/change before that modification is applied.

Track the editor's moderation record. Make negative modding count both against the negative moderator as well as the moderated.

This way only by getting 5 positive mods in x number of editor views can an addition get approved.

There certainly has to be a way to handle the vandalism and pettiness. slashdot's moderation system seems to do a great job of handling just that.

I mean, as an example, cruise slashdot at +5 and you get some good meat. drop to +4 and you've got your side of fries (or potatoes), +3 to eat your vegetables +2 for fiber +1 for garnish and 0&-1 for a dark alley to purge yourself in an anorexic fit.

Just cruise the first couple posts on this thread and take a gander at what allowing anyone to post anything brings...

I know there are problems with the slashdot moderation system - but as a whole it's a good system which tends to bring the most relevant and informative posts to the top of the heap. I would venture to say the slashdot moderation system is one of the most effective user-based moderation systems in existence.

Now, since I'm not familiar (and like to read the contributions of individuals), tell me; how closely does the slasdot moderation system currently relate to the wikipedia moderation system?

as an afterthought and to browse off topic (further?) since the inception of politics.slashdot.org I have contemplated the idea of something like a debate.slashdot.org

It's quite a tricky notion to convieve - how could you setup something akin to a formal debate in the form of a web forum? I mean, it seems all the lego pieces are here, robust moderation system, informed parties abounding with great skills at backing claims.

Would you somehow create opposing teams by using a vote system? how would you determine the representative for the side of the debate?

mark my words. With slashdot and wikipedia we have only begun to see the possibilities of massive contribution of free thought.

Re:could wikipedia use the slashdot philosophy?

[miyako]

I think that the problem with this is that there is simply a much larger volume of changes than the system could really deal with. What's going to happen is that you are going to a situation like: user a posts an article, A. User B comes along an edit's the article by fixing some spelling and grammar, and appling some wikipediafication, resulting in article A'. Now, while A' is in the vault waiting for the approval of 5 moderators, someone else comes along and adds some information and creates A''. A'' happens to go through the system faster, and gets posted. Then A' gets approved and overwrites the additional information added with A''.
In short, slashdot's moderation system only works because once the comments are posted, they can't be changed.
An idea that might work along these lines though is a slashdot-esque karma system. Each user (and anonymous users) starts with the lowest possible karma. The lower the karma on an article, the higher the article could be listed on a section that requests review. That way, regular wikipedia-ers could check the list for new articles that were posted by less trusted users, and therefore might require additional review.

Re:could wikipedia use the slashdot philosophy?

[the pickle]

I think a /.-style mod system would be great for large-scale (think a paragraph or so) edits, but it would be a giant pain in the ass for edits that clean up grammatical or spelling mistakes, mostly because in my experience, it would take months for five people who both know enough about grammar and spelling AND who give a shit about the topic to come along and say, "Yeah, that edit is OK."

If Wikipedians were *assigned* five random edits to moderate, though, things would probably work a lot better in that regard.

Of course, such a thing would still have to be *implemented* somehow...

It's an interesting idea. Someone should bring it up over there.

p

Re:could wikipedia use the slashdot philosophy?

[ta bu shi da yu]

You'd be a brave man to bring it up, because the site is fundamentally different to Slashdot. You'd get shot down pretty quickly.

Re:could wikipedia use the slashdot philosophy?

[Jamesday]

Consider that at present there are generally about 250,000 changes to just the English language encyclopedia each week.

Rather than explicit moderation, stability and viewer/reviewer counting may provide a suitable automatic quality measure for each version. If 50 or 100 people have viewed it and it's been unchanged for 3 months, it's probably in pretty good shape. If it's been changed 5 minutes ago and viewed twice, all bets are off.:) It won't provide a measure of actual artcle quality though - that has to be more systematic.

revisionist history?

[bcrowell]

Interesting that the article completely ignores the failed nupedia project and Jimmy Wales. It makes it sound as if Wikipedia was a unitary project created in whole cloth by Larry Sanger, which really isn't the case.

Sanger says participants often become embroiled in "revert wars" in which overprotective authors undo the changes others try to make to their articles.
In my experience, this is not at all what revert wars are about. They're not about pride of authorship, because that's an impossibility on Wikipedia. They're about controversy. You get an article about, say, messianic judaism, or Ronald Reagan, which then becomes a battleground between believers and skeptics.

Re:revisionist history?

[Pfhorrest]

My first thought in response to this, which I'd be rather surprised if nobody in the Wiki community has thought of this before: why not allow two different viewpoints in one article? Similar to the point-counterpoint articles in many newspapers, if an article on Wikipedia is controversial enough to spawn an edit war, just format the page into two columns (or some such) and have both, opposing viewpoints covered, in all of their bias.

Heck, that in general seems a much better idea than trying to maintain single-source impartiality. Instead of "some people thing this, but they don't take into account the views of that", just let authors from both sides build up their own polar views in the split-article, and let readers decided where in the continuum between them the truth lies. In some (many?) cases one side may just be full of shit, but let the reader decide that.

Re:revisionist history?

[lastberserker]

You didn't notice "Discussion" tab on Wikipedia pages, did you? Wikipedia tries to be NPOV source of information and does a good job at that.

Re:revisionist history?

[danila]

This is what Wikinfo.org is about, a "fork" of Wikipedia. It encourages biased articles that are supposed to balance each other. But it's not good enough for Wikipedia - a non-biased article is more difficult to create, but once it's done, it's much better.

Re:revisionist history?

[Anonymous Coward]

You get an article about, say, messianic judaism, or Ronald Reagan, which then becomes a battleground between believers and skeptics.

Do you believe in Ronald Reagan or are you a skeptic?

Re:revisionist history?

[ta bu shi da yu]

See Arab-Israeli conflict, which pretty much does this.

Re:revisionist history?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree except for the number two - there are many ways in which many people can see things differently.

Wikipedia attempts to have the "facts" a la traditional encyclopedia and I doubt we would convince the powers that be there to change things, sadly.

I think that "articles" should be a little bit messy and inconsistent and show what people are actually thinking about things. At least this gives an honest idea of the quality of the information. The idea of hiding the process by which a "consensus" is reached to form the "final product" is simply incompatible with the way that wikis, in general, work.

I'll add this to the article...

[mconners]

Larry plays a mean Donegal-style fiddle in the local Irish music sessions.

Might Benefit from a Moderation System

[The Fifth Man]

Having text subject to a moderation period for hours or maybe a day or two in a discussion area (with some sort of indicator or flag) would be a LOT better than instantaneous posting, IMO.

I contributed to the entry on Internet Explorer (specifically, removing it). A while back, some editors at Wikipedia (I'm not attributing--I'm sure this time lack of attribution will make them happy) were continually deleting the section on removing Internet Explorer from Windows. The kept changing criteria... First, they wanted the passage on removing IE to say exactly who recommends it. Then, it had to meet Neutral Point of View and attribution criteria. Then, another Wikipedia editor asked what computer security experts recommend IE removal. It finally ended; they deferred and named the three experts in the field.

Per the article: Nonbias is a difficult ideal to live up to. Indeed, the most common complaint against Wikipedia is that it is unreliable; since anyone can publish or edit any article instantly, theres nothing except the diligence of other contributors to keep favoritism, misinformation, vandalism, or sheer stupidity out of the encyclopedias pages. I'd argue that so-called nonbias is not the problem.

The problem was that these dedicated editors were not deferring to the actual experts (in this case, me--the guy who has a site on removing Internet Explorer from Windows 2000, and ignoring the creators of XPLite and nLite). If the editors don't like something, all they have to do is claim that it violates the holy grail Neutral Point of View and you'll have to beat them over their heads to get your text into the Wikipedia. Moderation is a lousy way to get at the exact truth, but eventually, it comes to light (seems to here at Slashdot, anyway). No, obviously the truth isn't what everyone thinks, but it would sure help with those editorial battles. An article might have a comment that Hydrogen caused the Hindenberg disaster, and it gets modded +5. Eventually, you can bet the comments pointing out that it was the zeppelin's skin (paint) will also get modded +4 or +5. The key is with the Wiki, with moderation, potential authors wouldn't have to have month-long running debates and editorial beat-downs.

Re:Might Benefit from a Moderation System

[Rie Beam]

It's an open-source Encyclopedia, not an instruction manual. You could discuss the controversy behind being unable to uninstall it, and provide a link, but remember - the point here is to get the gist of something, not to provide a complete manual for reality. If we were to discuss unistall instructions, what's to stop someone from turning it into basically a Help / Support guide? Nothing, really. That's not what Wikipedia is.

Re:Might Benefit from a Moderation System

[Anonymous Coward]

I contributed to the entry on Internet Explorer (specifically, removing it).

First off, I question the wisdom in including that information in Wikipedia. As somebody else said, it's not an instruction manual.

First, they wanted the passage on removing IE to say exactly who recommends it.

Sounds fair enough. You don't include instructions on removing a component that its creator claims is vital without mentioning exactly why somebody should do such a thing.

Then, it had to meet Neutral Point of View and attribution criteria.

Again, that sounds perfectly reasonable.

Then, another Wikipedia editor asked what computer security experts recommend IE removal.

That sounds like you answered the first question with a vague "computer security experts". That isn't good enough.

The problem was that these dedicated editors were not deferring to the actual experts (in this case, me--the guy who has a site on removing Internet Explorer from Windows 2000

Don't make me laugh. Anybody can put up a website, it doesn't make them an expert in whatever topic it covers.

and ignoring the creators of XPLite and nLite).

Now if they ignored the people who actually write software to perform this function, then perhaps that's a problem. But considering your position on the matter so far - making an issue out of perfectly reasonable behaviour - I suspect "ignoring" is just hyperbole you have introduced.

If the editors don't like something, all they have to do is claim that it violates the holy grail Neutral Point of View and you'll have to beat them over their heads to get your text into the Wikipedia.

Neutrality is an important part of Wikipedia. A biased encyclopaedia is prone to misinformation as people push their agendas. If you are getting people accusing you of not being neutral, then that is a very real problem, and whining about it doesn't make it go away.

Moderation is a lousy way to get at the exact truth, but eventually, it comes to light (seems to here at Slashdot, anyway).

You must either be new here, or not be an expert in any subject Slashdot covers. I've seen 100% false information modded +5 many times, merely because it's a popular myth. That's exactly the kind of thing Wikipedia must avoid at all costs.

Eventually, you can bet the comments pointing out that it was the zeppelin's skin (paint) will also get modded +4 or +5.

That only happens in a handful of cases where the truth is widely known as well as the myth.

Re:Might Benefit from a Moderation System

[The Fifth Man]

Gotta reply to an AC...

First off, I question the wisdom in including that information in Wikipedia. As somebody else said, it's not an instruction manual.

(Already answered earlier in thread)

Sounds fair enough. You don't include instructions on removing a component that its creator claims is vital without mentioning exactly why somebody should do such a thing.

We did... check the discussion page. How about:

You must either be new here,

Clue: irony does not refer to something that presses clothes. RTFA. Or in this case, RTF page cited. What's wrong with you?! Exactly why someone should do such a thing was written and reverted. See the discussion page.

That sounds like you answered the first question with a vague computer security experts. That isn't good enough.

Sounds like you're replying without RTFA. That isn't good enough. This is not a term I came up with, it's a term the Wikipedia editors came up with. See the discussion page.

Don't make me laugh. Anybody can put up a website, it doesn't make them an expert in whatever topic it covers.

RTF website. Since when is everyone putting up websites on how to remove IE from Windows? Read read read read BEFORE commenting. (It's ok, I suppose...You must be new here).

Now if they ignored the people who actually write software to perform this function, then perhaps that's a problem. But considering your position on the matter so far - making an issue out of perfectly reasonable behaviour - I suspect ignoring is just hyperbole you have introduced.

Hi kids! Captain Obvious here. Let this be a lesson to you all: RTFA. Read the links a poster puts into his Slashdot post.

Neutrality is an important part of Wikipedia.

NPV is about including the good and the bad; in THE DISCUSSION, which you did not read, the fact that they preferred to keep scrubbing the bad out is extensively discussed.

If you are getting people accusing you of not being neutral, then that is a very real problem, and whining about it doesn't make it go away.

My post was all about... Nevermind. This is really for the benefit of others who will one day see this archived post. Read, folks... Just read. Don't just post, read, then post.

That only happens in a handful of cases where the truth is widely known as well as the myth.

How about I ignore this like the Wikipedia editors and tell you that since you did not provide links to support this, it's not a valid point? (Which it very well could be, if you can prove that time after time, myth is moderated higher than truth, which you assert doesn't always appear?)

Re:Might Benefit from a Moderation System

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't blame them. An entire section of the article on removing IE is not needed. All that's required there is a short section on the IE controversy (monopoly/netscape etc etc) -- a short reference to the fact that it is possible to remove it; and an external link (at the end of the article) to a relevant site.

Job done. Bundling a lot of tangential detail into an article is a good way to get it reverted. There are other articles for which that sort of detail is far more relevant. In fact, if there isn't one, there should be an article on the Netscape/IE Microsoft monopoly trial.

Re:Might Benefit from a Moderation System

[Neoncow]

In mentioning a wiki manual, maybe it could belong here. I'm guessing one could possibly put instructions on how to remove Internet Explorer in a Windows text book. Then it could be referenced from within the Wikipedia article.

Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to send the webmaster an email saying that the hotmail/msn services were down, but I couldn't get into my hotmail to send it. What do people do in these kinds of situations? ann

The current wikipedia state...

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Is sad. When anybody can change the entire entry without anybody noticing.. the "Douche" entry was insulting some girl with first and last name for about a week or two before it was changed.

Without a serious review system, I can see it becoming a nest of crap that no one will be able to use.

Re:The current wikipedia state...

[Captain Nitpick]

Is sad. When anybody can change the entire entry without anybody noticing.. the "Douche" entry was insulting some girl with first and last name for about a week or two before it was changed.

So why didn't you fix it? It would have been less effort than writing that message.

Re:The current wikipedia state...

[Idarubicin]

Without a serious review system, I can see it becoming a nest of crap that no one will be able to use.

There is a review system--though not a formal moderated one like Slashdot. Each Wikipedia user has a Watchlist. You can add as many Wikipedia pages to it as you want, and whenever any of those pages are changed a notation will appear on your Watchlist page.

I have a few pages on my list that are related to the work I do, or areas where I can comfortably claim I am well-versed. I keep tabs on the couple of daily changes to those articles, and check them for spelling, grammar, and correctness. Many other Wikipedians do the same. Vandalism is consequently noticed quite quickly for all but the least important articles. I imagine that the "Douche" article you mentioned is one such article that is watched fairly closely; one of the siblings to this post notes that vandalism to that article is usually undone in minutes (or--once--hours) and never a week or two.

Wikipedia hasn't ever had the 'serious' review system you think it needs, but it hasn't become a 'nest of crap' yet, either.

Why Wiki sucks....

[mungtor]

think of how dumb the average person is...

Now realize thay 1/2 the world is even dumber than that.

Re:Why Wiki sucks....

[BobaFett]

Fortunately, most of them are too dumb to figure out how to edit a Wiki page...

Re:Why Wiki sucks....

[Golias]

think of how dumb the average person is...

Now realize thay 1/2 the world is even dumber than that.


Hate to say it, but if you were one of the people who are smarter than the average, you would realize that median and average are not the same thing, and seldom the same number, and therefore the second line of your post is almost certainly incorrect.

For example, in a room of 11 people, suppose you have 8 with an IQ of 105, and 2 with an IQ of 80, and 1 with an IQ of 100.

The person with the 100 IQ is an average person for that room. Far less than half of the room is dumber than that.

Elsewhere in this forum, somebody was scoffing at the fact that most Americans consider themselves to be of "above average" intelligence, as if there's something absolutely hilarious about people having a high opinion of their own mind power... never stopping to consider that it is at least mathematically possible.

Oh... and you spelled "that" wrong.

Re:Why Wiki sucks....

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

I think a case could be made that IQ may be represented as a normal distribution, where mean = median = mode, which means that the parent is correct that 1/2 of all people are below average. Unfortunate, but that's statistics for you.

Re:Why Wiki sucks....

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

I know it's lame to reply to my own post, but here is an IQ normal distribution. You were proposing a theoretical sample distribution, and it would be interesting to run a random sample against the population to see how it stacks up.

Re:Why Wiki sucks....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I was immediately thinking the same as the GP: median!=average. And to support him (her?): the statistics were not about intelligence, but about dumbness. Because dumbness has not been proven to be bounded, but cannot take negative values, it cannot be distributed gaussian :-)

Re:Why Wiki sucks....

[Golias]

Somewhere around 132 (depending on the test) gets you into Mensa (which means "better than 98% of the world), and almost nobody scores over 165 or so.

There are however a significant number of people who score under 19.

So before we even look at the entire distribution, we can be pretty sure that it's not a normal one.

Of course, most people with IQ scores below 60 or so do not participate in society very much, and live as wards of somebody else, but the geniuses walk among the general population relatively unnoticed. So if you meet a "random" person in a store, they are already part of a sub-set of people who are mentally capable of going shopping, and the odds of them being "above average" improve slightly... unless the store you meet them in is a Bose electronics store, because only a complete idiot would shop there.

Re:Why Wiki sucks....

[Omestes]

This "signfigant" number of people with an IQ below 19 are also severely retarded, or comatose. Also, judging from the charateristics of a guassian distrabution, I doubt that there is there is a signifigant proportion of people with an IQ below 19, being that it is 4 SDs from the mean, meaning there is a slim chance in hell of being there.

Re:Why Wiki sucks....

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Good point, I guess there would be a natural skew in the sample of people you're actually likely to meet. As you say, this totally depends on the venue, such as a monster truck rally, Bose store, or internet message board.

P.S. great sig!

Not purportedly; in fact.

[iamnotacrook]

Much of Wikipedias last funding drive was pushed through by Ayn Rand supporters. Their motivations are unclear, however.

Re:Not purportedly; in fact.

[Anonymous Coward]

Much of Wikipedias last funding drive was pushed through by Ayn Rand supporters. Their motivations are unclear, however.

One thing's for sure, their motive's not altruism.

Re:Not purportedly; in fact.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in the very early days of Wikipedia, when they were just trying to build a critical mass of articles and user, one of the programmers put in a concordance of Atlas Shrugged. For some weeks, that, and a bunch of Larry Sanger's lecture notes on philosophy were about 50% of the article count. That was long ago, before the Free Online dictionary of Computing, a biblical concordance, the CIA world Factbook, US Census data and numerous 1911 britannica articles were imported, let alone all the new articles contributed by users. I suppose the Atlas Shrugged concordance may still be in there somewhere: I haven't looked.

helping

[Anonymous Coward]

helping2scroll

Revert war problem?

[laughingcoyote]

Actually, I think that this could easily be solved. For controversial subjects, have a "for" and "against" post (or some similar). Have the "Ronald Reagan" link offer a choice of articles about him: one for editors who love the guy, one for those who don't care one way or the other, and one for those who hate him. Similar, controversial subjects could be handled in a similar manner. This way, everyone gets their say, without the "slant" of the article depending on who touched it last.

Re:Revert war problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wowfully, naive.

The pro-people will begin by infiltrating the neutral page to make it "less negative." Next, the negative people will start modding the pro page to make it "more factual." And finally, you'll have three firefights instead of one.

Re:Revert war problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is that both ends try to take over the "swinging voters" in the middle.

This exact approach was tried on our internal wiki and it failed utterly. The page I recall most vividly was, of course, the Microsoft page.

My company has both .NET & J2EE teams (amongst other things) and this page became a war zone where the anti-MS crowd would assert something as being simple truth and the pro-MS would attack it as bias. (MS types mostly on the back foot in general around here)

In the end the page died as the war of attrition knocked out all but the most rabid anti-MS person and a few neutral/pro-MS people who would intentionally wait days rather than feed the ranting fires.

Resolution only really came when most rabid got a new job.

The lesson was not lost on the rest of us though - our wiki is a much more productive place than it would have been without the wars.

My concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not really concerned with the accuracy of the information, or unfinished entries. Cause eventually, someone will fill them in, or correct them.

I'm more concerned about the fact that their site currently isn't browser friendly with all broswers.

Microsoft can easily get out of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever you visit the Microsoft webpage (windows update), they will have a video of how to install patches. This video will be only available in media player format. A few other pages on the web like this (through partnership) and it will not dent the "market share" one bit. mv

Re:Jimbo Wales

[Anonymous Coward]

Still mad that the BS you put on that article about you got replaced with the truth?

Why wouldn't I want windows to play back videos

[Anonymous Coward]

Want Microsoft DRM, non-compliance to standards, and who-knows-what in the future too? It's to avoid this that these sanctions are being applied.

Sounds sensible to me nkg

Article Repost

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the best-known and most ambitious music programs for GNAA/Linux is the LilyPond score engraving system. Unlike other typesetting software like Finale or Sibelius, LilyPond is not a score editor, and it has no GUI -- instead it aims to start from a simple textual description of the music and turn it into the highest possible quality output, automatically.

LilyPond is the result of several years of work by Han-Wen Nienhuys and Jan Nieuwenhuizen. In this extensive interview, GNAA/Linux Musician's Chris Cannam talks to them about recent and future directions for the project.

Chris: I recently found a file of music examples I had printed out from LilyPond, probably in 1998. The LilyPond printouts looked less professional than they would be today, but many of the capabilities of today's software were in place. What have you been doing for the last six years?

Han-Wen: About five years ago we were working up to release 1.0. Our target was to have a usable program that could produce basic music notation, where we defined "basic" as "whatever is in our set of simple test pieces", and usable was "will not dump core, mostly."

We succeeded, but of course it didn't work very well for things that weren't in our test-pieces. By that time, we were also reaching the bounds of what was possible in our model of notation, an object-oriented model, hard-coded in C++. So we decided to integrate the GNU's GUILE library, a Scheme interpreter which was specifically designed to extend programs. We spent the next two to three years refactoring our C++ code into Scheme functions. This resulted in a more flexible, more efficient and better maintainable program.

"We knew what 'publication quality' engraving meant, and were determined to perfect Lily into producing that."

The second big change was catalyzed by an invitation to join a workshop in Firenze, Italy, organized by Nicola Bernardini of AGNULA fame, then director of Centro Tempo Reale. At the workshop we met Nicola, a few top-notch engravers, and an editor for Universal Edition, an Austrian publisher that does a lot of contemporary music. We had the chance to discuss LilyPond with several experts. On the one hand, we were thrilled that they took us seriously, but on the other hand they pointed to several inadequacies in our output. We arrived back home a great deal wiser.

We knew what "publication quality" engraving meant, and were determined to perfect Lily into producing that. Since we like hand-engraved music, we started reproducing simple pieces in LilyPond and comparing the output side-by-side. By doing close comparisons, we learned how music should really look, and we fixed all the deficiencies that we found.

In anything that you write, there will always be a neat, simple, small idea that is obscured by crufty implementation, bad design or suboptimal algorithms. According to me, the real art of programming is recognizing the neat idea, and being ruthless enough to redo all the other bad bits. Since we're writing new code all the time, we also have continue to refactoring everything, and this how we have spent the last few years: coding new stuff, and refactoring old stuff.

We also did a lot with the documentation. Some of our users complain about the current documentation, and they're probably right, but what we have now is light-years ahead of the manual a few years ago.

Your website features an essay on music typesetting that is quite critical of other software, with an entertaining piece of bad typesetting from Finale. You make an effort to explain that it isn't just an exceptional example -- but surely if programs like Finale and Sibelius are so widely used by good musicians, they can't really be that bad?

The default output of Finale is indeed shockingly bad, which is why almost all other vendors routinely compare their packages to Finale. Of course, that's why we use it too. The default layout of Sibelius is not very elegant, but at least it's usable. A Sibelius sampl

Yes and no...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the silos on the 'net have been older Atlas silos. Very, very few of the Titan I silos ever got into public hands AND have no apparent water seepage into any parts of the building (Typically, the actual missle bays would fill up with water because of location- they'd sump pump it out, but with them being abandoned...).

If it's for real, it's something somewhat special. The last one that went up was some 2-3 years ago in Colorado. ih

Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

"the subject of an encyclopedia is received knowledge," sanger says, not absolute knowledge

Mechanics for the 21st century

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be assuming that this is not happening already. I wonder if that is true. I would assume that like mechanics, computer techs will give misleading or wrong advice some of the time either out of ignorance or avarice. kay

The right tool for the right task

[Julian Morrison]

Slashdot:
- once you post it's set in stone
- everything is moderated by default
- mods have low power as individuals
- moderation is recursively cliqueish; moderator approval feeds back into modpoints
- system designed to force some semblance of signal into a high-noise community
- unavoidably encourages groupthink and modwhoring

Wikipedia
- everything is mutable
- moderator intervention is rare, the normal way problems are resolved is via discussion and edits
- moderation is a private club with significant power
- system assumes most people are "signal" and that "noise" is rare
- encourages discussion, reason, and NPOV

Re:The right tool for the right task

[hitchhacker]

Slashdot: Constitutional Democracy
Wikipedia: Anarchy
CNN: Corporate Monarchy

-metric

If I remember

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a formula for predicting orbital paths that was related to Fibbunaci's sequence, I wonder if sedna falls into the sequence? ej

Look at IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM is a US company, who has invested billions into technology that is not in use. They were the 1rst company to arrange individual atoms (spelling IBM). They made a processor that uses atoms as transistors. They don't use any of it in production, but probably will some day. I think that you underestimate many US companies with your statement. qjl

This seems like a good idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should mean the M series, because there is a lot more to it than PM and variable clock, something the regular Pentium line has had for years. Read this article and you'll realize just how much went into it. co

TomPlay

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at www.tomplay.com. zv

My thoughts as a Wikipedian.

[Combuchan]

But Wikipedia's "staff" of volunteers is "better than any full-time staff you could imagine, because there are so many people involved," Sanger says. Any malicious or mistaken entry "is going to be instantly noticed" and corrected.

Bzzt. Wikipedia has a LOT of articles...430000+ in the English version alone, with varying ranges of popularity, of course. Vandalism that happens on some articles will be corrected immediately, vandalism on others could take days to languish. I've seen insidiously biased and incomplete articles that take far longer than an instant to get fixed.

What's more troubling is that people think Wikipedia is an end-all of knowledge. I wish it were, I really do. The problem is, a vandal or somebody just flatout misinformed could easily change some obscure date from like 1342 to 1324 and nobody except an expert could possibly notice and correct. From this we can derive a major problem in Wikipedia: The number of bad edits to good editors can be incredibly disproportionate, and everyone else in between won't usually know the difference.

In a perfect world, we'd seek out that information three times over before using it, and change any wrong edits back, but humans are just naturally lazy and not inquisitive enough when it comes to information on Wikipedia. In some sordid way, Wikipedia really does reflect the sum of all human knowledge. It's just that humans aren't perfect.

When someone uploads a patch to an opensource project, you have a pretty good idea of the effectiveness of that patch--it'll either do what it says, or it won't, if the new source will even compile. Bugs can be found by the sheer number of people using the software, and they're usually a lot more apparent than an unfact on Wikipedia. No information compiler exists, and it doesn't spit out warnings when you've mispelled somebody's name, transposed a digit in their birthyear, or just die when you've got something completely wrong.

I think Wikipedia would do well to perhaps remove editing by anonymous users, or perhaps introduce some sort of moderation system like those discussed elsewhere in the thread. The problem with these solutions is that knowledge is very fleeting--sometimes somebody just won't care long enough to create an account before an edit, or they might be a rare holder of some tidbit of knowledge that can't be verified by a moderator. And who's to say the moderator's correct?

Wikipedia has a vast amount of potential. Their pursuit for freedom in both beer and speech of human knowledge is remarkably admirable, and I consider them one of the best Internet charities around. Regardless of the inherent problems, I will continue to be an editor and support them in other ways as time goes on.

--sean

Re:My thoughts as a Wikipedian.

[thegreenlintern]

If you're a Wikipedian, an editor/mod/whatever, than I want to thank you.

I use wikipedia a lot for my engineering classes and as a quick reference and also as a picture reference.

One example was when I was learning about the State Space Description. I had no idea what it was for and why I was learning it. I went to Wikipedia and looked it up and I felt that gave me a better direction in my class and I knew where to focus my energies on.

Wikipedia is great. I always use it as a starting point for any research, etc. I'm smart enough to know that Wikipedia is not the definitive guide for all knowledge, and anyone who thinks that is either lazy or dumb or naive.

Anyways, my favorite Wikipedia article is about Marvin, the paranoid android and the number 42.

Wikipedia to exhibit at SCALE

[irabinovitch]

The Wikipedia Foundation will be exhibiting at SCALE 3x. This might be a good opportunity to meet with fellow wikipedia contributors. For a free expo pass use the promo code "free". For a significant discount off a full conference pass use the code "wiki". See you all there.

Indeed.

[iamnotacrook]

Follow the money; see where it leads.

Re:Indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

It leads to bomis.com.

Ayn Rand preached ethical self-interest, though, i.e. respecting the natural rights of others and not initiating force or engaging in fraud. "Randroids" are infamous for their common assumption that modern corporations and businessmen are as ethically clean-as-a-whistle as Rand's industrialist pulp fiction heroes (who, tangentially, committed some questionable acts even within the realm of fiction - Roark's rape and terrorism, Dagny's lethal ultimatum); an Objectivist businessman, I expect, would hold himself to that standard as well.

Don't let authors block

[JavaRob]

Another angle would be to allow authors to block edits of their text, but to allow others to put dissenting links in it pointing their own articles.

I wouldn't do that, because the "author" is not necessarily any more an authority than the dissenters are. And the NPOV thing on Wikipedia is very specific about *not* treating all points of view equally, or letting a very vocal minority make itself seem like an equal player with commonly-accepted ideas.

At the moment, I can't think of a better way they how they do it -- it's not chaos, because they actually do lock down articles that have become wars, and they do include reference to fringe ideas (but clearly label them as fringe).

If you haven't read their bit on the neutral POV, it's very mind-opening stuff; there's no need for the chaos, and there should be no "winner" of the edit war.

-1 Flamebait?

[ta bu shi da yu]

Guess you haven't read Childlove movement!

Anyway, there are those who are still trying to get rid of the GNAA article. Yet it can't be done.

Look at this Wikipedia article and tell me...

[AndyChrist]

"The site's massive archive, including 380,000 articles in English alone, puts even Britannica to shame."

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

Look at that article and tell me...who is shamed?

Re:Look at this Wikipedia article and tell me...

[Hittite Creosote]

Having a long article on something from a highly popular entertainment programme doesn't bother me that much (in dollar revenue terms I'm sure the whole Star Trek think has been pretty profitable, and some people might find it interesting from a social studies aspect). Having a thousand articles on minutae from an entertainment programme would bother me though, especially if they then start swamping any searches for useful information - which is the problem the internet has in the first place (the info is probably out there, you just can't find it among all the dross). So if you tried to find info about some mountain and site of archaeological importance in Turkey and got a page about some alien character from an obscure science fiction book instead (this is a made up example, by the way) that perhaps would be more embarrasing.

Re:Look at this Wikipedia article and tell me...

[AndyChrist]

It's not that the article exists....I figure that's about as far as you could go with getting into minutae about Star Trek without it being overkill (but it does go farther)...having articles on major players in the Star Trek universe, sure. They take it much farther, though. And they write as though it were all real.

But as far as what you're talking about, there ARE things which take it too far. Like a separate article for every unit type in Starcraft. (those might have been consolidated by now, but there used to be).

Re:tsop tsrif

[Anonymous Coward]

.ton sti tub

I love Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoy inserting subtle misinformation -- half-truths, common misconceptions, and a few plausible lies -- into articles on subjects with which I am familiar.

What? Doesn't everyone do that?

Moderation Would Require a LOT More Wikipedians

[the pickle]

I've given this some serious thought since my earlier post, and while I'd love to see every edit moderated in some way, I don't think it's in any way practical, nor do I foresee that it ever will be.

Let's look at a few statistics, shall we?

Wikipedia's Wikistats show that for November 2004, there were over three-quarters of a million edits. That's an average of about 25,000 edits every day.

There are just over 15,000 registered "Wikipedians." Of these, approximately 1,000 have performed at least 100 edits. Let's call these people "active Wikipedians" and assume that these people all have time to moderate on a daily basis and, more importantly, are willing to moderate on a daily basis. That leaves each active Wikipedian with 25 edits each and every day that must be moderated.

Now, let's look at Wikipedia's growth during 2004. Since January, the number of monthly edits has increased by a factor of just over four. The number of active Wikipedians has increased by a factor of just over three. In one year's time, if these rates hold steady, the daily moderation burden of each active Wikipedian will increase to about 33 edits.

The number of edits is increasing faster than new Wikipedians are joining, which means this problem is only going to get worse.

In order for a moderation system to work -- I'm trying to be optimistic here -- Wikipedia would have to implement something that judged the "degree" of each edit. Edits that make large-scale changes -- where, say, more than one percent of the page changes -- would be a top priority for moderation, because it's these edits that have the most potential for destruction. Edits that simply change a character or two, copyediting stuff, wikifying, etc., would be less likely to be specifically harmful, and perhaps could be moderated at random.

Moderation, like meta-moderation here at Slashdot, could then be used to drive a karma system. The more useful edits a user makes, the higher his/her karma. After a certain point, perhaps that user's edits could be flagged as "low priority" for the moderators, because it's very likely that a user who has made many useful contributions in the past is continuing to do so.

In short, moderating every edit will never be practical, but moderation could probably be put to good use all the same. Implementation would be a nightmare, though.

p

The irony....

[khellendros1984]

is that he created the Wikipedia with the belief that it would work due to people wanting to work together, then his position loses funding, Now he won't go back because of revert wars. Nice 'working together', people!

Griefers attack this MMPOE too

[Anonymous Coward]

I know there are many entries that have believable but not so correct information because of those darn anti-social kids(or 20somethings) we all read about below.

Of course you would have to be a fool to not confirm any information one used from wikipedia, much like any other source that allows public write permissions, like bathroom walls and the back of subway seats.

Las Vegas Monorail will re-open on Friday, Dec. 24

[Anonymous Coward]

December 23, 2004
Las Vegas Monorail will re-open on Friday, Dec. 24

Free service to public through Tuesday, Dec. 28

LAS VEGAS - Managers of the Robert N. Broadbent Las Vegas Monorail announced today they have received approval from Clark County officials to re-open the monorail to the public and begin carrying passengers starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 24. And to thank Las Vegas locals and visitors alike for their support, monorail officials invite everyone to ride free from Dec. 24 through Dec. 28.

Following intensive testing known as recommissioning, monorail officials said Clark County granted the approvals necessary to allow Bombardier Transportation, the company contracted to build and operate the monorail, to resume operating the 4-mile transportation system along the east side of the Las Vegas Strip.

James Gibson, chairman and CEO of Transit Systems Management, the project's management firm, thanked Las Vegas locals, visitors, hotel partners, bondholders and others for their support and patience since the monorail voluntarily closed the system Sept. 8.

"We are obviously pleased to get the Las Vegas Monorail back on line," Gibson said. "The results of this recommissioning period have given us every confidence that the necessary changes have been made and that the system is safe and reliable. We look forward to the monorail meeting its mission and carrying millions of passengers for many years to come. We think there's no better way to thank everyone for their support than to invite Las Vegans and the visitors to Las Vegas to ride the monorail as our guests for five days during the holiday season."

Raymond T. Betler, president of Bombardier's Total Transit Systems, said, "We are extremely pleased that the Las Vegas Monorail will re-open in time for the holiday season and extend our sincere appreciation to our customer, the Las Vegas Monorail Company, and Clark County for their close cooperation during the interruption of monorail service. We also wish to thank the Las Vegas community for their patience during this period and look forward to being part of the monorail's long-term success."

Las Vegas Monorail re-opens - page 2

The monorail will re-open its seven stations simultaneously starting at 10 a.m. Its hours of operation are from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily, except on New Year's Eve, when it will run until 3 a.m. A single ride is $3. A one-day pass is $10. Daily, multi-day and multi-ride passes are also available for purchase at participating hotels, at all monorail stations and at www.lvmonorail.com.

About the Las Vegas Monorail

The Las Vegas Monorail connects eight major resorts, linking more than 24,000 hotel rooms and about 4.4 million square feet of meeting and convention space. The initial 4-mile route stops at the following seven stations: MGM Grand; Bally's/Paris; Flamingo/Caesars Palace; Harrah's/Imperial Palace; Las Vegas Convention Center; Las Vegas Hilton; and the Sahara. The $650 million transportation system runs along the Las Vegas resort corridor, traveling at a top speed of 50 mph. Up to nine trains consisting of four cars each run on a single rail that rises 20 feet high in most areas, its highest point reaching 70 feet above the Las Vegas Convention Center. For more information, visit www.lvmonorail.com.

Source: Las Vegas Monorail

open to looking at Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

overview
"Our executives, who've been extremely happy with NetWare, are now open to looking at Linux... By introducing some enterprise-class applications and management into the open source world, Novell is giving Linux what it really needs."

Danny Wall, Network Administrator, Health First, Inc.

Novell® Open Enterprise Server is a secure, highly-available platform that provides proven networking, communication, collaboration and application services in an open, easy-to-deploy environment. Unlike other server platforms that force vendor lock-in or are not sufficiently supported for the enterprise-level customer, Open Enterprise Server incorporates the best from both open source and enterprise networking leaders. Open Enterprise Server combines NetWare®, the trusted leader for secure networking services, and SUSE® LINUX, a leading open platform for delivering business-level applications. Together, you get common management tools, identity-based services and an entire ecosystem of support backed by Novell.
keep options open

We've been listening to you: Novell Open Enterprise Server provides choice and flexibility by allowing you to deploy the platform mix that best meets your needs. Open Enterprise Server combines NetWare--the long-standing leader of secure networking services--and SUSE LINUX, a leading open platform for delivering business-level applications. You can choose to use NetWare, SUSE LINUX or a combination of both technologies. This powerful, unique networking foundation allows NetWare and SUSE LINUX to coexist and interoperate within your organization. Moreover, common management, directory, and upgrade utilities enable you to manage both platforms with a single set of tools, which simplifies daily administration.
select the best solutions

With Novell Open Enterprise Server, you won't have to rip out existing infrastructure. You can deploy any or all of the included technologies. Core components of Open Enterprise Server include:

* All current NetWare services, the NetWare kernel and new enhancements under development
* All SUSE LINUX Server 9 Enterprise Edition services developed around the latest 2.6 kernel (Intel-based x86 platform)
* Novell Nterprise(TM) Linux Services 1.0 and new enhancements under development
* Integrated common management tools to allow coexistence and management of platforms

Novell Open Enterprise Server also includes technologies beyond those available in standard Linux distributions. It combines productivity-enhancing tools (such as Virtual Office and iFolder®); industry-leading security solutions (such as advanced-authentication support); high-availability clustering services; and other key features. And if you're looking for an exit strategy from restrictive Microsoft technologies, Novell Open Enterprise Server--with its easy-to-use migration tools--provides the foundation for a compelling server-to-desktop alternative. See Features and Benefits for additional details on what's new in Open Enterprise Server.
make a smooth transition

At Novell, we make it easy for you to embrace the best of the open source community. Novell staffs the world's largest number of trained Linux experts and offers 24/7/365 support to companies of all sizes. In fact, only Novell provides the global ecosystem--including the industry's finest enterprise-level training, education, certification and support services--required to support the needs of larger organizations.

What the DMCA means to me

[Anonymous Coward]

http://my.webmd.com/search/search_results/?query=h emorrhoid&filter=mywebmd_all_filter

Re:Las Vegas Monorail will re-open on Friday, Dec.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that Las Vegas, New Mexico?

It's funny...

[KinkifyTheNation]

It's funny, because I had to use Wikipedia just to figure out what the heck an epistemologist is.

Wow. You've missed the point.

[ta bu shi da yu]

Noone owns the articles. Everyone can edit them, that's how articles start to gain a neutral point of view!

As an admin on that site, the only reason I've EVER seen for a page to get locked is continuous reversions of content and out of control vandalism. After about 24-36 hours most get unlocked. The whole point behind locking a page is to take the heat out of an argument and force people to the discussion page. That often includes regular contributors. So noone "owns" the articles. If they did then the system just wouldn't work.

I guess we'll have to take that one of faith

[ta bu shi da yu]

Interesting use of the apostrophe.

Wikipedia is very biased

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia has too little professional and/or objective reviewing. Individuals there are filtering out content they don't LIKE even though it is correct in content. The result is very biased and unreliable - what is left out is meaningful as well in any page. Just as meaningful as what has been said about a topic.

Tried to add some information about the USA's state crimes against humanity and violations of international laws. The AMERICAN reviewers deleted it all without giving reasons. They just couldn't handle the facts stated.

Wikipedia is as best at looking for hints on matters - and then going for some more credible information sources.

Sorry, your criticism is flat-out wrong

[JimLane]

The current wikipedia state...Is sad. When anybody can change the entire entry without anybody noticing.. the "Douche" entry was insulting some girl with first and last name for about a week or two before it was changed.

Without a serious review system, I can see it becoming a nest of crap that no one will be able to use.

I just went through the entire history of the Wikipedia article on Douche. I learned more about douching than I ever wanted to know. (Still, the review is much easier with the new Mediawiki v1.4, implemented in beta just this week. You can go directly from any version of the article to its immediate predecessor or successor, or you can do the same in the "diffs" that display the changed sections and highlight what was changed.) When I review the article, I don't find anything like what you describe.

The article seems to be a favorite place for the kiddies to insert people's names, but this vandalism gets reverted quickly. The first one ("Oh, and Eric's a douche") lasted all of one minute back in March before it was reverted.

Here are subsequent corrections reverting such edits, with their lag times showing how long the vandalism stayed up before it was caught:
one minute
three minutes
two minutes
seven minutes
one minute
nine minutes
one minute

Now, I'll admit, they got us this week. The vandalism that added someone's name at 2:02 on December 21 wasn't reverted for thirteen hours. I guess we were all at our Winter Solstice rituals. But there is nothing remotely close to "insulting some girl with first and last name for about a week or two before it was changed."

So, if you had added such a claim to a Wikipedia article, I'd just delete the misinformation, while giving my reasons (as above) in the edit summary or on the article's talk page. If you could back up your assertion, you could restore the passage. If you and I couldn't reach agreement, we'd get other participants involved. Here on Slashdot, with its "serious review system", however, all I can do is post this response.

Re:Sorry, your criticism is flat-out wrong

[ryturner]

The problem is that you never know if the article you are looking at is wrong and is going to be corrected 3 minutes later. How are you suppose to list Wikipedia as a source? You would have to list the date and exact time you accessed it.

I think a better system would be having a "public" version of Wikipedia that changes at the begining of every month. Also have a "private" system where controversy is discussed until concesus is achieved. By "private", I mean somehting that anyone can get to, but is not what the general public would see at first look. Maybe a link on the page label "early access".

Re:Sorry, your criticism is flat-out wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

the inability to have a permanent link to the revision as it exists NOW is a known problem. You can link to any prior revision with a direct and permanent link though.

btw wikipedia have themselves stated that an encyclopedia is NOT primary source material and as such should NOT be used as the main source for anything important.

A stable version of wikipedia with controlled updates has also been considered though there has been no real movement on this yet.

Re:Sorry, your criticism is flat-out wrong

[ae]

How are you suppose to list Wikipedia as a source? You would have to list the date and exact time you accessed it.

If you read just about any guide to writing academic references, you'll find that listing at least the date is what you're supposed to do anyway, whenever referencing a web site. You know, any web site can change at the editor's whim at any time. With Wikipedia, at least you have the ability to go back and read previous versions of the article.

Re:mod article down

[eraserewind]

Apparently the same applies to Slashdot mods...

You are joking, I know, but actually it doesn't apply to slashdot at all. The comment you replied to has been rated, but it certainly hasn't been censored. I, you and everybody else can still read the comment. It's even helpfully linked to directly via the automatic "parent" link at the end of your comment.

flowof thought:FROMforums(discussin)TOwiki(a doc.)

[majid_aldo]

I've thought about this alot. Forums represent the underlying thought process behind a particular (say a) wiki article.

Forums are discussions about the truth of something. The purpose of discussions is to find the truth.

Documents should represent the truth. And they are a quick reference and summary to the discussions.

for example, how many times did you wish the information you were looking for on an online forum were in a document format (a bit like an FAQ)? Then you wouldn't have to sift through lots of crap posts posted by people like HotGuy76 and LAN8.
Instead those forum members could put their thoughts into a form of a document while at the same time discuss a topic in a forum format. It's great for newbies to a subject to read the representative document. Experienced forum members (subject experts) modify this document as necessary.

In my world, to every topic there should be two elements: a discussion (forum/meeting/conversation/debate..) AND a document describing the topic (article/wiki/book..). The two can coexist.

Wikipedia?

[sadiklis]

Isn't Wikipedia just a subset of THE encyclopedia (the internet)?

Google's pagerank still rules the day. If Wikipedia's article on some subject is indeed the best web-wide it will be pulled to the top in search results. But that rarely happens in my experience.

So what the fuss is all about?

P.S. I wish i could exclude Wikipedia-related articles via /. preferences.

Re:Wikipedia?

[the pickle]

The last guy on the Internet who still believes in the supremacy of PageRank gets modded "Interesting?"

Interesting.

p

Re:Wikipedia?

[sadiklis]

PageRank has no agenda. As a consequence the best pages of both position and opposition on any issue crawl to the top in search results. And if you have a nerve to read them both you have a chance to form a balanced, objective picture in your mind.

Now compare this with just one Wikipedia page on a subject where two confliclting sides are busy overriding each others writings untill the most tireless "wins" the battle...

Anyway, dismissing PageRank you shall point out a better alternative. I can't wait to hear about it.

I don't get it...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the problem?
Is there something wrong with the content? (Seems correct now atleast).
Or do you think that there's something wrong with the topic, that it's somehow stupid to have such a long article on a fictional species? (IMHO all knowledge is important, regardless if I find it interesting or not!)

My experience of revert wars.

[Martin Spamer]

I used to be a massive fan of Wikipedia and a regular contributor in the fields of computer science, programming and military history.

However as Wikipedia has became more popular it has also became completely overwhelmed with pop-opinion, poor rigour and fact checking. It has become completely bogged down blatant bias and revisionist history, and simply trying to keep on top of this became exhausting.

At first I assumed this was simple ignorance, and tried to work withing the wikipedia process for resolution, but it was pointless, over time I came to understand that the trouble causers seemed to exhibit the same personality traits as usenet trolls and MOG griefer. The ignore facts, build straw men and resort to personal assaults. However the usual tactic of ignoring them doesnt work because they carry on changing the articles anyway, use revert bots to change articles on mass. Some examples.

- One contributor who tried to suggest that encapsulation was not a fundemental feature of OO.
- Another contributor kept removing the word riot from the blood Sunday article.
- Another contributor kept removing the evidence of JP Jones war crimes.

These are just some of the many problems I experienced at the hands of revert bots.

In the end I gave up and left them to their ignorance.

Re:My experience of revert wars.

[br00tus]

I actually edited this article and removed the word riot, although I was not the first one to do this. English soldiers put up a roadblock blocking Irish marchers from marching to the middle of their own city, and when the hell does some foreign army have the right to come into a foreign country and block native people from where they want to go in their own city? Anyhow, a small group argued with the soldiers over the roadblock while the majority of people went way down a side street, and the shooting took place where the side street was, not blocks away where the roadblock and argument with a small group was, which was not a riot anyhow. My personal opinion is there was a plan by the English to assassinate Bernadette Devlin that day that failed. The idea that there was a spontaneous riot that was "dealt with" is a joke, the British tried to do everything they could to *provoke* a riot yet failed. Then they lied and said they'd been fired upon although not only were no soldiers from England hit, they never recovered any bullets except those that came from the English guns. My grandparents were in Ulster during the Black and Tan war and suffered Orange pogroms before that so this all is not such unexpected behavior from the English. They should stop whining about Lord Mountbatten and the Grand Hotel and Canary Wharf and mortars fired at 10 Downing Street - if they want their problems with Ireland over with they should just pack up and go back to their own god-damned country. Thanks for your post though, you just reminded me I should send a $20 gift to Noraid this Christmas.

Properly linked

[Anonymous Coward]

MIT Tech Review is running an article on Larry Sanger

The article is the thing that's linked to. A link to the name should be to a bio, not the article.

Here's how the funding was really decided.

[Jamesday]

Half of the last funding drive target was "pushed through" by me, when I suggested raising it from $25,000 to $50,000.

My motivations are very simple: I estimate what I think reasonable growth based on past performance will require and project roughly what it will cost to buy the equipment to keep up, then suggest a sufficient target to cover those needs.

For the quarter now ending that estimate was three database slaves and 15 Apache web servers as the reasonable maximum we'd need based on past growth, with 2/10 more likely. 2/10 was just about sufficient and we've been discussing and I'm preparing the last of the three anticipated orders for the quarter now. Performance suffered for a while because of equipment failures (more than 5 still out of service), delays getting those computers (compatibility issues the vendor sorted out, bits of bureaucracy and timing issues largely). So we're preparing to handle a larger number of failures as well...:)

For the next quarter I'm looking at something higher. I'm expecting to be in the top 100 sites on the net during the spring quarter, with a fair probability of the top 50. Not at all bad for a place funded solely by donations from well-meaning people who want and like the resource.:)

The "big" item coming soon is ordering a new master database server to handle the English and Japanese encyclopedias, so we'll have it in test service for two months before switching to it. Followed soon by similar very capable database slaves for them. If anyone knows a place willing to donate 12-40 15K SCSI drives...?:) Or, for that matter, any fairly fast drives, including drive maker refurbs, since everything is RAID. Or anything in the way of quite high end disk systems or high capacity RAM modules, for that matter. It's a fine opportunity for high profile public good PR.

Japanese is paired with English because Japanese load is falling while English is rising and vice-versa.

Rate alternative explanations

[elgatozorbas]

Instead of having one ULTIMATE explanation, which the original author 'restores' continuously, we could have 'alternative' pages for each topic.

Readers would be able to rate these (like on Amazon 'was this review useful to you?'). When you search for an item, only the top three or so would be shown, with a link to see all of them.

Imho this would NOT lead to an abundancy of pages, because for non-controversial topics no-one would be urged to give an alternative explation for e.g. 'DNA base pairs'. For controversial topics, alternative viewpoints would exist next to each other, instead of intertwining and damaging each other. I can imagine people love their 'wikibaby' so much, and try to restore it every time, but hopefully no-one would go so far as to intentionally destroy others work for the sake of it (e.g. to decrase its rating). Besides, destroying others' work is also possible today.

Z

Hitchiker's Guide or Encyclopedia Galactica?

[Jamesday]

I tend to think of the project as being the former with a good attempt at the latter continually under way.

Either is undermined largely by a combination of those who want to delete specialised knowledge (often claiming it's insignificant because they don't know the field, a growing problem) or want to eliminate multimedia coverage of events in the last 75 years because it's not GFDL-pure and they want things not matching their views gone instead of keeping them around until replaced or the growing market power persuades the copyright holder to grant a GFDL license. The petty vandalism is insignificant by comparison when considering the HG or EG as objectives: it takes systematic short-sightedness to do real harm and vandals lack that.

Expect to see a petty good approximation to the HG on most cell phones within a few years. A cell phone isn't quite as big as the Hitchiker's Guide from the TV series but smaller is progress.:)

The views expressed here are mine, not any official policy of the Wikimedia Foundation or necessarily of anyone else. So there.:)

Yet you still read Slashdot :-)

[ta bu shi da yu]

Seriously, don't you assume that with every source you read?

hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you go to his Wikipedia entry, you see "This page has been protected from editing to deal with vandalism."

Is this compatible with "What you have to have faith in is human beings being able to work together"?

Why not two Wikipedias:

[hakkikt]

1.- A Bleeding-edge edited-by-all wikipedia (as we know it today)

2.- A brand new static fact-checked true-as-possible wikipedia, emerged from the first one, with an interface that, optionally, shows and highlights the differences from the first one (as a source of unverified updates).

Surely, the second is going to cost money (a lot)... but it would be the best of both worlds...
and it could be a source you can reference as bibliography.

My 2 cents.

Article Volatility Index

[handy_vandal]

Perhaps a revert war is should be viewed as information itself. So for each article, there's a volatility index useful for identifying contraversial subjects. If you notice that an article has high volatility and are interested in examining it, you can see a history of the article over time.

Smart idea, I like it a lot.

-kgj

Missing the Point

[The Fifth Man]

In a Department of Justice case you might be familiar with, Microsoft took the position that Internet Explorer could not be removed. PROOF to the contrary is a very necessary element of the Wikipedia entry. Sure enough, the entry makes mention of removal and lists some resources, but it DOES NOT tell users how to remove IE. There are NO uninstall instructions in the entry, because it's an encyclopedia, not a support guide.

Re:Missing the Point

[Rie Beam]

In that case, I agree with you. The difference between simple uninstall instructions and an entire sub-catergory of Internet Explorer history on the topic of the ability of uninstalling can be considered different enough that the latter can be included.

debatepoint.com

[hitchhacker]

how could you setup something akin to a formal debate in the form of a web forum?

I didn't want to release it yet,
so please don't kill it:

example:'The "two party" system is bad for the US.'

it really isn't ready, but I'm actively working on it.

-metric

Re:debatepoint.com

[deathcloset]

Oh wow!

Hey, Bravo hitchhacker!

Even in your site's nascent stage I am very exited someone has gone and actually taken a swipe at this perplexing idea of creating a formal debate forum!

Furthermore, this initial alpha looks very promising!! to see someone actually creating a system designed specifically for debate is very exciting! If you search for other debate forums you can quickly see they are simply standard threaded forums which have no structure geared at all towards a formal debate.

I think I will create the opening argument on the debate of time travel into the past, since I've wiled away many-a nights discussing the implications and reality of such a thing.

Re:debatepoint.com

[hitchhacker]

I think you are the second user, besides me.
thanks btw, I guess I should start advertising soon.

-metric

How Dumbness Works

[handy_vandal]

think of how dumb the average person is...
Now realize thay 1/2 the world is even dumber than that.

No, that's not how dumbness works.

Visualize a bell curve. The "average person" occupies the middle section of this curve -- the main central zone of the bell.

To one side of the central zone, that's the really smart people.

To the other side of the central zone, that's the really dumb people.

-kgj

Stub floods

[Dr. Cody]

I have been an avid reader of the English and Swedish versions of Wikipedia. Now, I haven't followed any of the other additions in the least, but, at least in the Swedish version, I have noticed an enormous mass of stubs. Personally, I think it looks like a conscious effort to raise the total number of articles. Regardless of the fact that anyone can contribute, this massive crapflood lowers the opinion of anyone I try to introduce to the project. (Granted, I have made three very successful conversions)

That said, I have begun submitting translations of the English articles to replace these--despite woefully inadaquate Swedish. They get cleaned up in short order, of course, but it would be nice if the threshhold was a little higher.

On that note, I recommend that all of you Slashdotters who can speak more than one language, even if not that well, try the same. It is a massive influx of a whole other type of crap which even the most casual native reader would quickly fix.

Tony Blair a right-winger?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, Tony Blair is a right-winger...besides the fact he's a member of the Fabian Society -- "a socialist society committed to gradual rather than revolutionary social reform".

Tony says...

"Today we see that great 1945 government as coming closest to building a new Jerusalem. Yet, immediately afterwards, it was routinely attacked on the left for not trying hard enough to form a Socialist state as a bulwark against capitalism."

"Have we done enough? Are we radical enough?"
http://www.fabian-society.org.uk/documents/searchd ocument.asp?DocID=68/

In process.

[Grendel Drago]

A validation system is in progress. Ideally, it would have a sort of advogato-style trust metric, so that community consensus would ensure all validated articles were of a particular quality; more trusted users would have a bigger vote towards validation.

Thus, there would be the 'live' version and the 'validated' version, trailing a short interval behind the live one.

Check out test.wikipedia.org for a really shitty implementation of validation. (It's vulnerable to all the same problems that editing is, thus providing no additional benefit, and a kludgy interface to boot. But validation could do what you say, in a scalable and extensible fashion.)

--grendel drago

But its memory lives on.

[Grendel Drago]

But the memory of the porn lives on. How else would there be a freely licensed image to illustrate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Saint?

--grendel drago

Wait, what's Larry Sanger doing?

[Grendel Drago]

He quit! He's no longer a community member? Since Wikipedia changes so frequently (the Arbitration Committee is pretty new, the article count is at least an order of magnitude higher, speedy-deletion guidelines have changed, the category system is entirely new, for instance), the Wikipedia he left in 2002 bears little resemblance to the one he advocates for today. So what happened?

Did he change his username and continue to edit as just another one of us plebs? Why the sudden resurgence of interest?

As of right now, what does Larry Sanger have to do with Wikipedia?

--grendel drago

The "public" version of Wikipedia

[JimLane]

the inability to have a permanent link to the revision as it exists NOW is a known problem. You can link to any prior revision with a direct and permanent link though.

Right, hence the workaround: If you want to cite the current version, edit it innocuously by adding a blank space at the end of a paragraph. Then the version you want to cite is no longer the current version and can be linked to.

A stable version of wikipedia with controlled updates has also been considered though there has been no real movement on this yet.

The idea of a stable version of the English-language Wikipedia (with the additional possibility of releasing it on CD, DVD or even on paper) is under consideration (check that article's talk page, too). It would require a method of selecting and validating the articles that would be included. Different validation ideas include designating experts or implementing community review, with /. moderation mentioned as one possible model. Doing anything like that will be tough, though. Doing it on a monthly basis is pretty much out of the question.

One of these things is not like the other ....

[Anonymous Coward]

(Full disclosure: I am an admin at e2.)

Everything2 is not a Wiki.
Everything2 is not an encyclopedia.

The only connection the two websites share is that anyone can contribute content, filed under titles.

If you want to help create an encyclopedia - and do nothing else - then Wikipedia is for you.

If you want to help create an encyclopedia, write poetry and fiction, be a journalist, tell a joke, make friends, or all of the above - then Everything2 is for you.

Apples != Oranges. Alert the media.

That guy fucking rocks.

[Grendel Drago]

Okay, any guy who does groundbreaking research that changes lives (making nearly all chronic peptic ulcers a thing of the past) like that, and puts his own health on the line because he's that damned sure of his own competence, and it works---I want to mod him +1, Fucking Rocks.

--grendel drago

I janitor things.

[Grendel Drago]

I do a lot of work fixing syntax and using the proper style and markup. It's an uphill task---for any given Wikipedia task, there's always an arbitrary amount of work left to be done.

But hey, if there's a specific example you have in mind, let me know and I'll fix it right away. Usually I just fix things as I run into them, which is as good a way as any other...

--grendel drago