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Wal-mart's Wikipedia War
An anonymous reader writes "Whitedust is running an article which claims that lobbyists for Wal-mart have successfully waged a war against a fair viewpoint on Wikipedia's Wal-mart page. From the article: "Although Wikipedia maintains a 'Neutral Point of View' (NPOV) policy, the Wal-mart page is highly biased. Additionally, all criticism has, contrary to policy, practice, and the general opinion of those concerned, been moved to a Debates Over Wal-mart section. Even that page has noticeable resistance to negative points of view about Wal-mart."
As someone who runs a City Wiki, I always felt that what makes a reference wikis work is that there are more people interested in having a NPOV article than people who have a financial interest at stake. However as companies and politicians become more familiar with the wiki movement and the whole anonyminity of it, they are more likely to see how easily you can edit articles as another PR platform and seek to control it. With the resources and ability to dedicate even a full time team to making sure the Wikipedia article keeps them in a good light, I fear we're entering the age where people who are interested in a NPOV are outmanned by those with a profit interest. After all, for years spammers have nearly outmanned those whole try to filter it.
The problem with information sources for a localized wiki like Bloomingpedia though is that since it is on a much smaller scale, its easier to obscure facts because there are not as many industry watchdogs paying attention to companies and organizations. You have to get the information by working for the company or accept the information that a company provides on its website or product brouchures.
All in all, I can't find any hard evidence to support his claims, and the remaining evidence he presents seems to be nothing more than, "I think this page should be more critical of Wal-Mart, therefore there must be lobbists at work!" While that's a nice sentiment, it doesn't make for a smoking gun.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Wal-Mart has a lot of haters and bashers out there. It seems only logical that they should fight back and try to balance out the haterade on wikipedia.
I personally think Wal-Mart is one of the best corporations out there. A company that provides value and offers cheap products to everybody? The horror!
Wow, that's quite a security expert there! I wonder how much it would cost to hire Whitedust Security to hang out on IRC and make up conspiracy theories about people attacking my network?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
"When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of 'gossip,' " Seigenthaler wrote in the column. "She held a feather pillow and said, 'If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people.' For me, that pillow is a metaphor for Wikipedia."
d ia/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/26/cox.wikipe
Isn't it just possible that, on the whole, Walmart's contribution to society has been good?
I'm not saying Walmart are saints or anything, but it seems like many people are starting with the assumption that Walmart is bad and then trying to find evidence that supports their prejudice. C'mon. Have an open mind. Maybe Walmart isn't the great satan afterall.
Wikipedia is a free, online encyclopaedia. It uses a model of information where anybody can contribute. Although this leads to some vandalism and some disinformation, almost always an accurate and knowledgeable viewpoint prevails. The project has brought thousands of intelligent people devoted to its cause.
Why should Wikipedia be penalized or criticized for telling the truth about a bad company that exploits its workers and the taxpayer at the same time?
We need more truthfulness and facts in this world, not BS spin and PR from company spokesmen.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Wikipedia isn't supposed to be biased for (and here is the part many miss) or against. Hence the "NPOV stance" they try to enforce. If citing buisness stats and other corporate information is "bias" then they have a skewed definition of bias. After reading the article, it seems that any information about Wal-Mart that isn't a critism as automatically biased and suspect. That is just as bad a POV as being a "sunshine and rainbow fanboy".
In short, Wikipedia is not the place to have a diatribe on the goods or evils of any topic, even the much vaunted Wal-Mart. I simply don't see what the complaint is here. Are they disappointed they can't argue about Wal-Mart on Wikipedia? Well Wikipedia isn't the place to do that. That has nothing to do with bowing to presure from Wal-Mart. Chaning a link from "Wal-Mart Corporate Communication Page" to "Wal-Mart Propaganda Site" is not a legitamite edit nor is it NPOV.
In theory the wikipedia idea (many minds, many eyes, perhaps a voting mechanism) should work and result in articles which are fairly close to the state of human (knowledge * belief). And it did seem to be working for a while.
But in reality, people who are paid money to do something can spend far more time and effort than those who cotribute out of ego or community spirit. So it is not surprising to me that big entities are throwing a few bucks to their marketing firms to influence the web information flow. And marketing interns don't cost all that much, either: they are typically paid $15/hour and billed at $75. Peanuts compared to real marketing and advertising expenses.
I strongly suspect we are seeing the same thing on the political blogs. Except for those few that have a very large readership that takes self-policing seriouisly (e.g. DailyKos), I suspect that 20-30% of the comments on the key political blogs are being posted by paid agents. And of those comments, many flame-starters and most thread-redirectors are coming from those agents.
I think the "mass mind of humanity" idea ain't gonna work.
sPh
Since Wal-Mart is so heavily in bed with China, is it any wonder? They're learning from the pros. Of course they are successful and their business model is indeed efficient. They put a lot of people to work and they offer the average consumer decent prices on all the things they want, from groceries to TVs. Unfortunately, they've taken this beyond the limit of decency.
They would point out the prosperity they bring to areas where they build stores, but they fail to mention the manufacturing jobs they eliminate in this country when they import cheap Chinese merchandise, thereby converting a lot of good-paying jobs into low-paying jobs and sucking money out of the tax base and Social Security.
Their commercials would have you believe that their staff is always friendly, attentive, and knowledgeable, when this is the furthest thing from the truth. I have been to a Wal-Mart in 10 different states and I've yet to find a store that wasn't chaotic, unkempt, and whose staff wasn't lacking decent social skills. I've become so fed up with them that I do not shop there, prefering Target, even when I could save money.
They don't want the truth to come out, to tarnish Sam Walton's reputation with reality. The fact is, these people who fanatically support Wal-Mart are to retail what Scientology is to religon (go ahead Cruise, sue me!). Wal-Mart is best described as the Microsoft of retail outlets, and it shows in the way they handle employee compensation and benefits, not to mention unionization. They are so profit-centric now that they don't care who they crush along the way.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I should start a wiki dedicated to criticizing every topic. I'll just state at the beginning that none of it's true so i wont' get sued, but everyone will disregard it to get the goods on things. That way wikipedia can say 'look here for another point of view which we certainly don't approve of' (wink wink nudge nudge)
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Wikipedia lost my respect when I read the 9/11 article several months back. To give them credit, upon checking this article just now, there is now a red flag saying that the "factual accuracy of this article is disputed".
Several months ago this article did *not* present the cold hard facts. Links to conspiracy articles, including some that claim the U.S. government was directly responsible, were contained within the core of the article. My attempts to at least move these links to a bottom section were immediately rolled back.
Unless I've been living under a rock, Wal-Mart is, without a shred of bias, bad by many objective definitions of the word. No positive argument can be made in its defense without resorting to logical fallacies. Are there people out there who think that the article on slavery is biased against it, and that it needs to take a neutral view highlighting the benefits? What is the difference I am missing?
what do you expect? *Attention all wal-mart shoppers... Now on Aisle four, canned preservatives only 99cents, ...and your soul... That is all* ...I perfer the whole bomberman perspective..."Ok, you can go outside and play now" ... But with walmart... you are never allowed to leave... untill you buy...
For the opposite effect, check out the page on ECT. The Side effects and complications section strays very far from NPOV.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
If you report anything Comcast is doing that they shouldn't be (and that covers a lot of ground!) I'll bet it will be deleted right quick. If you tell the truth and it's flattering or neutral, that's NPOV according to wiki, but if you tell the truth and it makes Comcast look bad, it will be redacted.
It used to be that you added something to Wikipedia, if somebody thought it was incorrect they corrected it. Now, the vigilantes just revert your edit, send you a fatuous message "Thank you for testing. Use the sandbox next time", then smugly and publically congratulate themselves for stopping vandalism.
The vigilantes are worse than the vandals, in some cases. Wiki is still searching for a way to deal with the human behaviour pattern that shows up as trolling on slashdot and vigilantism on wiki; I hope they succeed, but for now I have stopped contributing because it's no longer truly collaborative.
Wal-Mart is the means by which the United States is able to screw over the rest of the world. Despite our relatively high average income, we are still unwilling to pay more than much poorer countries do for the same products. Rather than do our part to give back to those who provide to us, we want to reap all the benefits at little expense. The answer to our woes: Wal-Mart.
Before anybody says anything I am already married. :P
You got the touch!
Hating Walmart is one of the core beliefs of the left.
So what are the 'core beliefs' of the right? Exploiting cheap labour, polluting the environment and enriching themselves by avoiding taxes?
And here I thought that we kept all our lobbyists tied up with DC and off the internet.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
By Richard Demsyn (Fri, 28 Apr 2006 12:37:58 +0100) For up to two years Wal-mart lobbyists have successfully waged a war against a fair viewpoint on Wikipedia's Wal-mart page[1]. Although the Wal-mart page was originally highly critical of Wal-mart, it has slowly shifted to a very positive perspective. Although Wikipedia maintains a 'Neutral Point of View' (NPOV) policy[2], the Wal-mart page is highly biased. Additionally, all criticism has, contrary to policy, practice, and the general opinion of those concerned, been moved to a Debates Over Wal-mart section[3]. Even that page has noticeable resistance to negative points of view about Wal-mart. My query into Wal-mart and Wikipedia started on Friday, April 14. I went to the page to find information on Wal-mart's union issues in Quebec, which had been a large issue in the media here. I found just one small entry on a timeline, saying '2004: Wal-Mart employees in JonquiÃre, Quebec, Canada vote in favour of becoming the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America. Five months later, Wal-Mart announces that it would close the store, citing poor sales.' The corresponding page, Debates over Wal-mart, has no mention of the issue, or even Quebec at all. I found it very curios that such an important and popular issue was barely discussed. My first reaction was to think that Wal-mart, one of the largest and most powerful capitalist enterprises in the world, has lobbyists progressing the Wikipedia page into propaganda. Trying to be wary, I took some time to gather information and discuss the theory with others, and found nothing contrary to my original impression, and only evidence supporting it. Wikipedia is a free, online encyclopaedia. It uses a model of information where anybody can contribute. Although this leads to some vandalism and some disinformation, almost always an accurate and knowledgeable viewpoint prevails. The project has brought thousands of intelligent people devoted to its cause. The model is effective enough that my own user page was once vandalized, and then fixed by another user a single minute later, without me knowing for another three months. Rarely has there been enough interest in spreading disinformation to cause a lengthy disruption to an article. We usually see that contained to very controversial political issues, such as the page for President George W. Bush, particularly around the 2004 election. We've also seen numerous edits by US congressional staff[4]. However, nothing I've seen before has been has been this bad: on an article so large, often visited, and been so successful so long after being discovered by the NPOV folk at Wikipedia. The Wikipedia page Wal-mart was originally small and haphazard. Starting in February 2004, there was a sharp increase in edits to the page. In September, 2004, the edit number ballooned, and since then has continued to grow. There has been a lot of work by Wikipedia regulars to bring fairness and quality to the article, but an equal disruptive force has been caused by lobbyists. Now, the page will have over a dozen edits on any average day. My own short experience with this article makes a fair example. After bringing up discussion on the topic in Wikipedia's generally IRC channel, a fellow user, Bogdangiusca, who had fought for a NPOV on the article as far back as May 1, 2005, added a totally disputed tag[5]. This tag would mean that anyone visiting the page would see a red block at the top indicating that 'The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed'. This tag was removed the next day. The person who did so then defaced Bogdangiusca's user page with a long paragraph demanding that Bogdangiusca stop any contribution to the Wal-mart page[6]. The user claimed to be an employee of Wal-mart and lamented, 'So why don't you just keep to what you know and allow those that do have facts about walmart to create an accurate picture of walmart for the world.' This pattern has been repeated over and over again about the Wal-mart page. Many users struggling for a NPOV have had their pages defaced
"If you have legs and are flammable, you are never blocking a fire exit." -- Mitch Hedberg
A project maintained by "thousands of intelligent people devoted to its cause" (TFA) should not be intentionally skewed. I propose, therefore, that any people desiring to make edits should first be evaluated as to their "intelligence" - that should stop the lobbyists! Of course, it won't stop the mad scientists, but they'll be too bent on world domination to care about a little 'pedia.
Imagine walmart being this big giant that crushes all opposition.
Not very fair at all.
The company can only offer such cheap deals through sleezy practices.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Thanks for the link to the page that is the entire basis for your story. I really enjoyed navigating there myself.
I agree, seemed pretty neutral overall.
I think the correct place for notes on specific historical items that are generally not relevant is at the bottom.
Many people think neutral point of view should be THEIR "correct" point of view.
Even facts can be presented in such a way to influence ones point of view. One harsh example is refering to a fetus as either a parasite or baby. While both may be considered technically correct, they have drastically different perspectives.
I think the charitable donations don't deserve their own section in the main article. This is IMO one positive bias.
Actions of the Walton family are distinct from those of the Walmart corporation. This is a positive bias/error IMO.
On topics that are simply "black and white", true and false, matter of fact, it's easy. Water is made up of 2 atoms of Hydrogene, one atom of Oxygene, and you'll hardly find anyone to challenge that. The Great War was 1914 to 18. Again, no dispute (except maybe with Russia that decided to end it in 1917 'cause they had a revolution to take care of, ages before Nintendo had the idea).
But as soon as you touch religion, politics, business or other areas where your opinion starts to play a role, you'll have people tugging at both sides of the page, trying to pull it towards their point of view. Wikipedia IS a big platform, after all. People turn to it for information! Imagine: A page, where you can write "what you want" (to some degree, you have to keep it within certain borders), and people will read whatever you write as facts.
Now, don't tell me it ain't tempting.
Maybe the insight we get out of this is not only that companies use pages like wikipedia as a place for their marketing department to develop on. Maybe the insight should also be that we should NEVER EVER rely on only one source for information. No matter how "unbiased" or how "neutral" this source claims to be. Even if the source is indeed genuinely neutral (unlike, say, a certain TV network in the US that claims to be broadcasting news while actually spewing propaganda), their information, or their editors, could be biased.
To be able to really create your own opinion, you need more than one source. Actually, often it's quite informative to listen to propaganda instead of a "neutral" source. As long as you listen to BOTH sides of the propaganda machine.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...still obligatory Wal-Mart link: http://www.zug.com/pranks/walmart/
There is no mention of Wal-Mart being accused of sexual discrimination by primarily promoting men. That is the controversy about Wal-mart that I have heard most about. If even the 'debates' article is missing that then I think there must be something wrong...
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
perhaps wikipedia should try and distinguish between fact and opinion.
Wikipedia needs to add a teensy little notice:
"By editing pages in Wikipedia, you agree to the following fee structure:
$0 for independent editors working in good faith
$1000 for individuals, associates, competiton, or representation for the article being edited
$1000 for inserting known false information"
Or something like this. At $1000 a pop, it becomes a profit generator!
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
They're doing it by bringing jobs to areas where the idea of having a job is more important to people than being a union member. I mean, how can it not be more important to support your union than to work and get paid? It's un-American!
So why bring this up? If you go to his site, Mentally Incontinent, you will see this story in which he says Wal-Mart offered him $500,000 for the site and all the books yet distributed because of this story. However, as you will note, the site is still up and he has since admitted it was all an April Fools joke.
Enjoy the story despite the fact that we can't blame the evil Wal-Mart for trying to squelch dissenting voices.
Oh yeah, to get back on topic, I have to agree with what others have already said: the Wiki entry doesn't seem biased. Boring like a financial report, yes, but not biased. Especially since it contains links to sites critical of how Wal-Mart operates.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I haven't checked it recently, but reading the entry on Methamphetamine (Crystal Meth) where more than once the author stated it was not physically addictive, only psychologically addictive amazed me.
Wikipedia is "interesting" but I take it with a huge grain of salt, like most things I hear on the internet.
From Jack Thompsons legal bullying to censorship of Wikitruth.info related content...it's all there.
Looks like this thing is a good candidate for an addition to the site.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
The trouble here is that the whole idea of a NPOV is fundamentally flawed. Even a wikipedia article makes decisions about what facts are important and connected, and which aren't, and such decisions are inherently political - indeed, a political viewpoint is nothing but a collection of such decisions.
'Objective media' is one of the great bad ideas of the 20th century; I think we're heading back to an age of multiple, overtly biased new sources, and that that's probably a good thing.
Wal-Mart has never contradicted this story
What's your point; Walmart should defend itself against every loony charge or it is automatically guilty? Hey, can I do that too?
Walmart control the Illuminati.
Dan Brown wrote The DaVinci Code under orders from Walmart.
Walmart faked the moon landings.
The head of Walmart is one of the elder gods, and all employees sacrifice their soul to Him upon employment.
Walmart is responsible for Global Warming and Global Cooling, the bastards!
Area51 is really an Intergalatic Walmart.
Walmart didn't deny them! They must be true!
...and smart money says they won't be the last either. However, before them, such cults as Amway, Scientology, and the FSF adopted the tactic of using their Wikipedia article as free PR.
The Amway and Scientology articles are now more or less genuinely neutral; presumably the group representatives there got sick of having to constantly babysit the page. RMS on the other hand has a much easier time of it...he's got a dedicated team of zealots who are willing to wage an endless revert war on his page; nothing even remotely critical of him is allowed.
As I've said, this is one of the main areas in which Wikipedia has problems...and said problems aren't going to go away any time soon.
So what are the 'core beliefs' of the right? Exploiting cheap labour, polluting the environment and enriching themselves by avoiding taxes?
Straw man.
I could chime in with what the core beliefs of the right REALLY are, but it's irrelevant. Just because the Right has their own set of stupid and dangerous core beliefs doesn't make the Left's beliefs any less stupid and dangerous.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
They routinely change things some of the admins don't like, based on untenable excuses("That's just your point of view" - "no actually, you had written your point of view")
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
controversy shmontroversy
Plenty of criticism on this page:
x .php/Wal-Mart
http://www.infoshop.org/octo/matrix/inde
Apparently there is so much about Wal-Mart's Employee relationships that there is a third page about Wal-mart. Wal-mart Employee Relations
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
NPR is right leaning... Fox is a propaganda machine.
After all, it can't possibly be that the case against Wal*Mart is weak and easily debunked.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
... if Wiki simply had two spaces on the page, one for the entry and one where the subject of the entry (or a proxy) could defend him/her/itself? I don't have any brilliant UI ideas for making it fair (i.e., who gets the top part of the page, entry or the rebuttal?), but at least there'd be balance in multiple viewpoints instead of having these wars over control of the pages.
How someone could claim article that begins with...
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) (also known as 'The Great Satan', or 'Satan-Mart')
Isn't neutral! Thats as neutral view of Wal-Mart as possible!
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
I strongly suspect we are seeing the same thing on the political blogs.
And any other forum where readers can comment. Is there actually anybody who believes that when slashdot posts a story about Microsoft, Linux, or Firefox security, the posts trying to present Microsoft as a company dedicated to its customers aren't Microsoft employees?
What about the stories about the **AA, you think the posts saying "only pirates are against DRM" and "DRM really works" aren't employees of either the **AA or its members?
Anybody can post here, even an AC like me.
-AC (shilling for my employer, of course:)
(MRC="maladies")
This is nothing new to me. Recently, East Bay Ray (or someone representing him) has been "cleaning up" articles related to the Dead Kennedys (including the one about Jello Biafra, which I was the main contributor to). I exposed him for what he did, reverted all his changes, and now he's bitching about how I'm allowing bias and misinformation into the article just because I mentioned what his courtroom opponent (Biafra) thinks of his current business venture. I wouldn't be surprised to see more of this in the future.
titled, Hippies ware on Walmart co-ops Wiki and my paranoid ramblings about Walmart's response. I guess it doesn't really roll off of the tounge. What is wrong with people who support Walmart excercising their rights to add/edit/remove and sort content on an open forum like Wikipedia? Are we only in favor of people who agree with whatever view you have adding information? So that the content can become extremely one-sided and skewed? A corporation works mostly because they pay people... so if they have to pay people to protect their image, and correct information on a public form acting within the guidelines of that forum is that wrong? Nope... well I guess it is if you're a conspiracy theory loving hippie.
At the time I looked at Walmart's wiki, the first thing I read was the following:
"Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) (also known as 'The Great Satan', or 'Satan-Mart' or 'Evil Empire of Arkansas' (inside Costco) was founded by Sam Walton in 1962.
Name-calling of this sort should not be at the top of an informational article, directly next to the subject title. This shows an immediate and obvious bias against the topic. Just for comparison's sake, look at the introduction to President Bush's page: "George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States and a former governor of Texas. He is currently in his second term as president, serving until January 20, 2009.
An explanation of my choices for friends
Perhaps on the whole, Walmart's contribution to society has been good. But what about the opportunity cost? If I put money in the bank, I may get 2-3% interest. That's good, right? But if I had put that money into a CD I would get more. So perhaps Walmart has done some good. It has also done a lot of bad. And more importantly, if all the money, time and effort that society has put into Walmart had been put into something else, I really think we would be better off. Good doesn't equal best, and it doesn't necessarily excuse evil either.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
for providing "truth" because all truth is subjective, and requires the conscious editorial input of trusted sources.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
This is exactly why citing sources is so important!
Wal-mart is bad! - Maybe.
Wal-mart treats its employees badly! - Maybe.
Wal-mart has been said to treat its employees badly because the New York Times has written an elaborate article about it with interviews of ex-employees. (link) - Yes. It may or may not be true that Wal-mart treats its employees badly, but there's no discussion about whether the New York Times has stated its opinion on the matter. That's truth, and that's how you can make articles NPOV.
The more I like 'em, and the more money I spend there.
Keep up the good work, Lefties!
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Consumers have the choice to shop where the choose. They vote with the Almighty Dollar. The Almighty Dollar has spoken. For day to day goods people choose low price over quality (and in many cases Wal Mart quality was equivalent to anything else you could get your hands on anyways).
Its a cutthroat world nowadays. If you can't run with the big companies well then you better find a niche market that the big companies can't find profitable.
I don't know why people think Wikipedia is the devil because it's publically editable. It seems to me that this is how it gets information so quickly. Every time I hear a story in the news about Wikipedia, the damn Wikipedia article itself already mentions the controversy surrounding its own presence. Now _that_ is efficiency. I'm tired of hearing how it's simply a grafitti paradise with people going around making falsehood more vastly dispersed, it's simply not true. Reading any wikipedia entry top to bottom usually gives a pretty good sense of reality. The fact that there is so much public attention when an article is wrong or misleading is a case _for_ Wikipedia and not against it. Because standard encyclopedias have no controversy at all, they just have biased or false information in them.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Don't trust the Wikipedia.
It's not designed to find and protect the truth.
It's not a store for facts, it's a store for claims.
When was the last time you googled for something, looked at the Wikipedia link, and then...read the associated discussion link to see what facts were in dispute?
I don't even do that.
OK, then mantaining a "neutral" point of view I submit my view that 100,000 ninjas simultaneously wailed on their guitairs, causing all of the pirates to die instantaneously and causing a great EMF disturbance, which offset the IMU's and guidance systems in certain airplanes. Just so happens a few airplanes crashed that fateful day. Rest in peace.
Those theories are no less stupid.
NPOV does not mean "give equal treatment to all viewpoints". Read the talk page for the explanation, but you continue to make the same mistake that many others do.
_ 2001_attacks#Evidence_citation_in_summary.
"Where do you get off deleting opposing points of view?"
Where do you get off insisting they be included? Again NPOV DOES NOT mean equal treatment for all view points. It does not mean balance a biased viewpoint on one side with an equally biased viewpoint from the other.
For those of you that would like to read more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:September_11%2C
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
I heart 3 the Mart of Wall...
"What happend to just paying for a product without being constantly nibbled to death by Credit Card Ducks?"
In the article dedicated to them.
r ies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theo
They do not belong in the main article, except for a brief mention that they exist, and a redirect.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Your Al Gore ancedote is factually incorrect.
His position was at the Columbia journalism school, and it was a part time appointment for only one calendar year.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/01/01/gore.html
I'll leave it to someone else to point out the irony that you made this error in your post.
But in reality, people who are paid money to do something can spend far more time and effort than those who cotribute out of ego or community spirit.
That is utterly incorrect.
You can only pay so many people money to work on something. But people who believe in something are a multitude, and will generally work tireless at an effort even if not paid...
That's why Open Source development works, because people doing something for a purpose instead of for money will always be able to put more time and effort into it. If your argument holds true then Open Source has no future.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...there's a TV news station here in Spokane if you put their ratings (third place) on their wikipedia article, someone from that station will remove it.
That's how the US Wal-Marts used to be. A lot of stuff was Made In America, of fairly decent quality.
Now it's all Made For America. The brand trust that was garnered during the first phase is now used as brand loyalty, and spells greater profits.
blah blah blah
Most people love Walmart and I personally applaud them for closing the store in response to the union extortionists. 1000 people out of work = lesson learned!
What have we learned?
8 86274-2659010?v=glance&n=283155
Walmart is nothing but a free company in a capitalist society. Those complaining about Walmart are really complaining about capitalism itself.
Yes, walmart prices some American manufacturers out of business. But that is allowing a switch from manufacturing to service based economy. And, thanks to low prices at places like Walmart, more Americans than ever are able to own a house, and stock that house with Tvs, DVDs, Mp3 players and Cell Phones - even at the salary paid by Walmart!
Yes, Walmart buys Chinese. In fact, it is China's leading trading partner and is giving China a real capitalist change from within - a growing middle class in China is coming up. Millions have benefitted there, and I fail to see how this is a bad thing for anyone.
Yes, Walmart doesn't give the very best health benefits. But it beats having unemployment and medicaid. And if Walmart wasn't providing "low paying" jobs, we'd be paying for them in taxes, instead of collecting tax revenue from them.
I checked the Walmart page and Walmart was called "The great satan" in the first line. Why? Because they decided to sell inexpensive, yet usable goods to a mass market?
I rarely shop there, don't work there, don't own stock - but I'm glad they exist. Because they show, better than anything, the hypocracy of anti-capitalist whiners. You know the type - those who complain that they are entitled to everything the world has to offer, for free from the government.
Walmart has shown that the goverment need not provide every citizen with a DVD player. Instead, Walmart has shown the real way for every American who wants a DVD player to get one - is to make it cheaply and sell it cheap enough.
And that's really why people hate Walmart - it shows that capitalism does what utopian socialism never could.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451191145/103-4
-Ben
It doesn't have to be the writers either, it can also be editors or anyone else that has input into how, what, and when things are published.
So what are the 'core beliefs' of the right?
Reasoned discussions based on fact with a lack of consipracy theories?
That used to apply to the left as well but I guess they decided it was more fun to make stuff up, just like newspapers with sensational headlines.
http://www.whitedust.net/article/55/Wal-marts_Wiki pedia_War/
"Unfortunately it is very difficult to prove that any one user is corrupted, let alone paid for this by a particular company, especially with only a few days of research. Sorting through thousands of edits and user contribution pages is not an easy task[7]. A lot of these edits are done by anonymous users, just IPs to me. Some others actually have logins. Usually these accounts have very few edits other than on the Wal-mart page, and they have either blank user pages or simple statements."
He does state that he actively tries to trace down the location and identities of Wiki-users based on their IP in order to determine whether they are "corrupted". I assume a 'corrupted person' is someone who edits a wiki because they are motivated by money to do so, as opposed to someone who edits it because they are motivated by their ideology or worldview to do so.
Should this be worrying?
Would there be an outcry from those same activists if people who contributed anti-WalMart-views were traced, identified and logged in a database? Or is this objectionable only if done "For The Cause Of Evil"?
Oops, you seem to have omitted a key word here. Let me fix it for you:
Since you presenting yourself as an objectivist, let me explain to you in objectivist cant why the word you omitted is important.
Objectivists make a big deal about ownership. And while Wikipedia is run as if it is a 'common', actually it is owned by people, who have guidelines on how it should be used.
One of those guidelines is "Improve pages wherever you can, and don't worry about leaving them imperfect.However, avoid deleting information wherever possible".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_pol icy
Now regardless of your opinion of Walmart, there are people out there with opinions critical of Walmart. It is a FACT that those opinions exist. It is the kind of data some people wish to be informed of when they visit that Wikipedia article.
Now a person who thinks those critical opinions is welcome to ADD to the article why they think those opinions are 'frothy-mouthed [Far Left babble]'. But to remove things, so as to hide that such opinions exist is counter to the quoted guideline.
If you respect property so much, why can't you respect the effort to keep Wikipedia operating the way its OWNERS envisioned, by ADDING information, not censoring information out?
It seems that there evident "real bias" exhibited here. One side follows the guidelines, such as putting up a standard flag that something is under dispute (a fact because the flagger did dispute it). The other side just vanishes things and orders others not to participate.
Which side is biased to using Wikipedia the way its OWNERS intended is clear.
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
Unions controlled by organized crime syndicates are the ones behind the anti-WalMart websites, but the retailer is the "bad guy". that's fucking warped.
The article you link to says this
"The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt."
You say this
"7 have since been found to be alive."
Your link does not support your assertion. As is all to common, the facts are cast aside in favor of an inflammatory statement.
Providing a particular slant along with the news, if the slant is overwhelming enough to create the vast distortions perpetrated by the likes of Fox News, then said organization isn't really informing, rather, they are misleading.
Afterall, sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken :) You can say it does, pretend it does, demand that it does, get legislation passed that says it does, but it doesn't.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
One thing I wont buy from walmart is media of any kind. I know that they refuse to carry things that they object to on their own religious beleifs, and carry edited copys of top-selling artists. Therefore, I would have to research every piece of media to make sure walmart does not carry an edited version of it, and I don't have the time to do that.
I already can't stand watching movies on TV with important pieces of the story edited out to alleviate concerned parents fears. I don't want to have to deal with it for movies that I purchased as well.
Don't forget that they also employ many people, purchase many products from many suppliers, and provide a valued service to consumers - valued enough to allow Walmart to become the biggest revenue taker in the world.
There are two sets of premises here. Both of these sets are true. One set is represented in the wikipedia article, the other is not. Ignoring such an important set of facts is an example of bias.
"When Wal-Mart moves in, the people in the community undercut all the local businesses by buying from Wal-Mart when they sell at a loss, driving them out of business"
I added the parts that you intentionally left out, in order to demonize Wal-Mart.
As has happened in MANY MANY other places, small businesses can and do stay viable while competing with Wal-Mart. They simply have to offer some extra value to go along with the higher prices.
If people really agreed with you, they would support the mom and pop businesses with their money. They don't, and that should tell you how they feel about what you think.
You are blaming a company for providing a product that the people in the community want. It is not the fault of the company, it is the fault of the population of that town.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
It has crushed suppliers into a no-win situations.
That sounds like an opinion to me. Did they crush the suppliers with their giant Thor hammer? Do they keep said hammer in the back office?
Someone was complaining about how a contract with WalMart had her freaking great uncle or someone who sold pickles go out of business because they signed a contract that they could barely keep up with, and then couldn't supply to their other clients.
My recommendation is, don't sign a contract that has your company go out of business.
I agree with most everything else you say, however, especially that reporters that report lies are lying reporters. Well spoken.
*All my lovin', I will send to you-ou-ou*
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Last time I was at Wal-Mart, they kidnapped my kid sister, and stole her clothes so they could restock some children's clothing (ever wonder where those LOW, LOW prices come from??) They then threw her into the street stark naked, but not before taking photos for their highly profitable underground child porno ring.
Then I also read that every mother, before having her baby, has lab results sent to Wal-Mart, at her expense. If the Wal-Mart lab results determine that the fetus's liver does not have enough beta-9 proteins by the end of the first trimester, 85% of women will abort the baby, because she will be unable to sell a portion of the baby's liver to Wal-Mart at birth, thus covering her birthing costs and starting the nest egg for the child's college education.
How far will Wal-Mart's control over our lives go? When will we draw the line? What about the children??
Finally, how can we forget the CNN Headline News report that Wal-Mart is responsible for slaughtering dozens of oceanic dolphins with cyanide-laced harpoons -- just for fun -- during executive "team building" sessions. What next???
It's a fucking store. Nothing more, nothing less. Channel your passion into something more worthwhile.
That statement is flawed in that it jumps to the conclusion that correlation implies causation. (The actual study was pretty clear in stating it only found correlation, but of course all the left-wingers went nuts over it mistakenly jumping to the conclusion that it meant causation.)
If you were to ask the Fox and NPR audience if they believed it had been scientifically proven that man is causing global warming, you'd probably find that the Fox viewers are "better informed." It hasn't been scientifically proven that man is causing global warming, but a greater percentage of the NPR audience probably believes it because it's dear to them and their threshold for belief on it is lower. In other words, it's just a correlation due to the political leanings of the two audiences.
If you select a fact on a topic that's widely liked or disliked by the groups, you're going to come up with a bias independent of the quality of the news service. Therefore to test the quality of news services, you need to select facts that are neutral or equally liked to disliked by both audiences.
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/4/objective-cunning ham.asp Re-thinking Objectivity
a snippit:
But our pursuit of objectivity can trip us up on the way to "truth." Objectivity excuses lazy reporting. If you're on deadline and all you have is "both sides of the story," that's often good enough. It's not that such stories laying out the parameters of a debate have no value for readers, but too often, in our obsession with, as The Washington Post's Bob Woodward puts it, "the latest," we fail to push the story, incrementally, toward a deeper understanding of what is true and what is false. Steven R. Weisman, the chief diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times and a believer in the goal of objectivity ("even though we fall short of the ideal every day"), concedes that he felt obliged to dig more when he was an editorial writer, and did not have to be objective. "If you have to decide who is right, then you must do more reporting," he says. "I pressed the reporting further because I didn't have the luxury of saying X says this and Y says this and you, dear reader, can decide who is right."
And as you have demonstrated, bias is something that is not easily quantified.
..."
For example
"In this case, Wal-Mart has indeed made a policy of annihilating unions, shutting down entire stores to do so."
In this statement, "annihilating" is POV. Biased.
"It has crushed suppliers into a no-win situations."
Absolutely, unequivocally opinion, with "crushed" and "no-win situations" being unacceptable POV. Biased and opinion.
"It has dropped wages overall."
What does "overall" mean?
"It has pumped manufacturing overseas."
Why use "pumped" which, while not demonstrably negative in connotation, does invoke a feeling of negativity, such as in "pump and dump" stock schemes (although, it could refer to sorority houses just as easily...)
"It has passed health care costs onto the taxpayers."
Opinion. You are using creative econiomics and semantic games to describe behavior that you disagree with. POV.
"These are things that are real."
Perhaps
"They are not opinions."
I've shown that some of them most certainly are opinions.
More importantly, it's not always about what you say, but how you say it.
For example instead of
"It has crushed suppliers into a no-win situations."
The statement
"Wal-Mart has a policy of price negotiation, that sometimes causes suppliers to sell
One is VERY POV, and totally opinion and unacceptable. The other is (hopefully, I admit I miss it sometimes too) not POV, and describes facts.
Lastly, I took serious issue with this
"an open mind in the face of overwhelming fact is willful refusal to pass judgement, not a lack of bias."
No, it is reporting. Reporting is not the injection of your assessment of whther something is supported by overwhelming fact. That is editorializing, and you suggestion that it is the correct way to approach journalism is ludicrous.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
!! Nativity what?! there's been a virgin birth at Wal-Fart now?!! Oh... i think you meant naïveté. lol
...idiot uses hyperbole instead of intelligence in /. post. 15 second spot on it at 11.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/20 05-06-15-walmart-shift_x.htm
"NITRO, W.Va. (AP) - Workers at a West Virginia Wal-Mart (WMT) store have been ordered to be available to work any shift at any time or face dismissal."
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"Now a person who thinks those critical opinions is welcome to ADD to the article why they think those opinions are 'frothy-mouthed [Far Left babble]'. But to remove things, so as to hide that such opinions exist is counter to the quoted guideline."
I think you present this in a one-sided way. If someone added a "criticisms" subheader to the Red Cross page, or NAACP do you think it would be allowed to stay? Why is "Criticsms" on the Amnesty International page entitled "Criticisms and Rebuttals"? Can ALL "Criticisms" sections for all Wiki-articles be appended with "and Rebuttals"?
I've seen a very short criticism edit on a page about - I believe it was La Raza - removed, and the poster was called a "prickface" with, I believe it was, a "racist mentality", not evident in the post) by a long-term poster and highly active contributor on Wikipedia. Criticisms that are not based on irrefutable evidence are frequently removed from some articles while they are fought for at other articles, and in this case whether critical claims are "Proven" is applied in a philosophical sense.
For example, a claim from a named person or organisation based on weak substantiations and the self-granted authority of the claimant (who can in turn be criticised) that an imam that preached terror had widespread support from his congregation may be removed as UnProven, while a claim from a named person or organisation based on weak substantiations and the self-granted authority of the claimant (which can in turn be criticised) that a certain Wal-Mart treated its customers harshly may be fought for despite being UnProven. As evidenced here.
Given that Walmart now knows how to use a Wiki, they won't stop at covering up the awful truth about their company while highlighting all the altruistic fausts. They'll start to edit other articles as well.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Man, there have a been a ton of edits to that page since it went up on Slashdot. Almost all of them trying to "fix" the article to match the slashdot summary. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, slashdot is kind of like a flock of birds...any old claim in some guys blog will cause the entire group to shift towards that line of though.
> Unless I've been living under a rock, Wal-Mart is, without a shred of bias, bad
> by many objective definitions of the word.
Sure. Here is one objective definition of the word bad: "Any entity whose English name start with a W is bad". Objective doesn't mean "true" or "useful", it just means that different people using this criteria will come to the same conclusion.
A more useful observation would be that no widely accepted definition of the word "neutral" can be applied to the words "bad" or "good".
1)
Walmart wages are HIGH!
You should be paid shit for being a Walmart employee, want a better job get a fucking education. Being a stock boy is not a career path, it is somethign you do until you can grow the fuck up and become an adult.
2)
They force nothing on unwilling communities. They siimply say, you want us here, it is on our terms . There is nothing wrong with that. The amoutn of shit walmart gets balmed fo ris fuckign amazing. I live in a rural community, Beofre walmart moved into town (25 miles away mind you) there was NO place to buy the merchandise they sell within 75 miles.
3)
Unions shoudl be illegeal. They are fucking bullshit. If you are worth something then you have the company by the balls. Only people who want to contantly fuck off at work and get paid for things the rest of the un-unionized world does not like unions. Half a day on friday becasue it takes 2 hours to drive formthe job site. (Mass carpenters Union), Double pay for working a Saturday, (Mass carpenters Union)
4)
I'll give you 4. Then again, I can't afforcd 'organic" food so...
WMD's *were* found in Iraq, specifically Sarin, which fully qualifies as a WMD.
You need a better news source.
Slashdot Moderation Guidelines: Leftist viewpoint (+4), Conservative viewpoint (-4, Troll)
I have a Rush Limbaugh-loving, card-carrying right-wing friend who swears NPR is entirely left-wing.
If you think that they are right-leaning, does this make them neutral?
so I am voicing it here.
The parent has Score:1, never mind "Insightful", due to the fact that 30% of moderators decided it was "Funny".
Why don't you add "Unintentionally Funny" to the list of qualifiers?
PS. If you choose to mod my post down, please use "Unintentionally Redundant".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
What happens when Walmart and the U.S. Government combine?
WalmartDotGov: There's a new Uncle Sam at the top.
When Congress passes the Sam Walton Federal Savings Act, Walmart is awarded an exclusive contract to supply the U.S. Government with discount body armor, health care, and tube socks. Elected officials available at unbeatable values!
Link in Walmart Wikipedia entry still going strong...http://www.walmartdotgov.us/
Oh yeah, Jack Thompson and Wikitruth.info would have made a perfect pair, they use basically the same methodology, after all...
Too bad Wikitruth.info decided to publish the wrong version of the article, so JT might have some problems cooperating with them.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&n ame=ViewPrint&articleId=11299
Never let it be said I don't do the legwork...
It's fitting, then, that after some hanging chads lynched his political ambitions, he returned to his roots, accepting a post at Columbia's journalism school to teach about the intersection between journalism, his first career, and the Internet, his longstanding obsession. The class, which began in Spring 2001, was entitled "Covering National Affairs in an Information Age." Gore's first lecture engaged objectivity itself, challenging the journalistic trope that fairness resides in controversy and an article has to represent all sides -- no matter how marginal -- equally. Instead, Gore argued that the journalistic impulse to exalt even the most fringe views to parity in order to furnish opposing perspectives is harmful to basic accuracy. This didn't sit well with more than a few of the wannabe reporters in the class, many of whom were aghast at the suggestion that the media should attempt to actually mediate between truth and spin. As Josh Bearman, a student in that class and now an editor at the LA Weekly, recalls it, "He stood up there challenging the entire dogma of the journalism school. First semester, you learned that objectivity was emperor, then Gore came in and told you it had no clothes."
And along with that backlash, the old anti-intellectualism Gore experienced in 2000 made a reappearance. As Bearman tells it, "He knew more than everyone in the room. So the class basically turned against him because he was smarter than they were, and they didn't like that. We witnessed exactly what had happened on the campaign plane in the year prior." Gore did not return to teach the class in 2002.
This has to stop.
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
However even the facts you choose to present, order presented in, and context can exhibit bias.
Two facts given in the article:
These are two verifiable facts. The facts make Wal-Mart look bad. Now assume we remove the second fact, or move it into a list of stores which have been closed, so that its no longer easily connectable. All the facts are still present, but Wal-Mart in that case comes out looking neutral or good.
There is always bias. Even when sticking to the facts. I think the idea here is that one sides point of view is being systematically repressed by eliminating even the mention of facts and controversy. This is not in the interest of a healthy public debate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart
The section "Competition in the United States" is blank... is that trying to make some sort of statement?
Wow-- you're leaning so far left that you think you're mainstream! You're like a human buffer overflow exploit!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I fucking hate people who cover their eyes and ears and justify ignoring something because they can trivialize it to themselves. Yes, it's a store. A chain of stores, actually. And it affects the lives of millions of people. Try telling all of the people and communities that Wal-mart has affected that discussing the issue isn't "worthwhile".
"It has crushed suppliers into a no-win situations.
Absolutely, unequivocally opinion, with "crushed" and "no-win situations" being unacceptable POV. Biased and opinion."
Right there. Calling it a no-win situation is an opinion. Did you not bother to read the post?
"Without reference, stating that something is POV is POV."
You need to look up what POV means. I think maybe you have no idea what we're talking about.
"Your VERY in "VERY POV" is opinion too, no?"
So the fuck what? Where did I ever claim MY POST wasn't going to be POV? What the fuck did you think you were adding to the conversation by making an observation that EVERYONE ELSE understood already? Seriously, did you think that was an insight? IT WS SUPPOSED TO BE POV. And it doesn't mean it's wrong.
MY point, which you clearly didn't bother to even attempt to comprehend, is that the original poster made several claims of "fact" that were not fact but opinion. You disagree. I showed you (twice now) that I was right and you are not.
Where in my post did you think I wrote anything about my obaervations not being my observations? What on earth made you think otherwise?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
I will give you that it's a fact that is stated in wording so broad, ambiguous, and poorly selected that it comes off as an opinion. You don't crush people into situations that require the other person's consent.
It sounds like you're telling me I should be inferring information that is NOT included in the sentence. Which is, while somewhat reasonable, not a very effective way to communicate. I notice how you infer that I imply the stupidity of the small business that signed a contract that put them out of business, when I intended no such thing.
Should I infer that you're an intellectual elitist from your overall tone? Should I then infer from that that you perceive massive shortcomings in yourself that have you overcompensate by putting others down for perceived shortcomings in the only area you find refuge? Should I infer that you'll be upset by this inferrence and reply with a scathing deconstruction of my psyche, as I have so subtly and non-commitally done with yours?
All I really said was, "That sounds like an opinion to me," which is a fact. How it got you riled up is a mystery to me.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
And there were ties between Rumsfeld and Saddam. For every link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda you find, I can find another that links Bush to a terrorist too.
As for WMD, please show at least 0.01% of the quantities alleged prior to invasion. You can find nerve gas at my house too (in the can of Raid that I use on the ants), but that doesn't mean that I am planning a terrorist attack on the subway.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
"NPOV does not mean "give equal treatment to all viewpoints".
Where exactly did I say that it did?"
Ok Mr. I like to accuse others of using logical fallacies while using one myself. WHERE DID I ATTRIBUTE THAT STATEMENT TO YOU?
Right.
However, this little gem
"Where do you get off deleting opposing points of view?"
Justifies MY statement quite nicely. Your assumption that opposing viewpoints belong in an article is the explanation for MY statement. I'm sorry if you didn't understand it, but you should have asked instead of tossing around a logical fallacy in your attempt to disprove the "fallacy" you mistakenly thought I made.
The rest of your post is just restating what I have already refuted. I ahve no will or reason to refute you again. If you are incapable of understanding why you are wrong, read the link. They do a much better job of explaining why all of your assertions aren't appropriate for the article.
You clearly DO NOT undertsand what NPOV means. I won't waste any more time trying to help you educate yourself.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
So is Wal-Mart just the so-so Satan then?
"Shouldn't honest reporting be about presenting facts?"
Yes, what did you misunderstand that makes you think I disagree?
"Shouldn't a journalist be asked to evaluate the quality of information they're getting and decide what's credible enough to report?"
Yes, what did you misunderstand that makes you think I disagree?
"Why is it good enough to simply repeat what both sides say (or just one side, or whatever) rather than trying to find out what's really going on?"
Where did I suggest otherwise? You seem to be reading something into my post that doesn't exist. Please wuote the exact statement that makes you think am against trying to find out "what is really going on"?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Wish I had some mod points left... I found your response very interesting.
Next time don't post as AC!
No discussion on Wal-Mart would be complete without a link to PBS's Frontline Documentary, "Is Wal-Mart Good For America?" - it's a brilliant show that covers many of the bases and it's available free online.
If some would have their way, there wouldn't be this level of high quality documentaries on corporate America. Watch it while it's still available.
I just wanted to come forward as the person who actually split the criticisms off into a new article (now titled "Debates over Wal-Mart"). I am hardly a "Wal-Mart lobbyist" (ha!) I did this purely because of size. The article was huge, still is, and the criticisms was taking up more than half the space...most of it poorly referenced material from POV-pushers on both sides of the issue. The strategy was to move it off to a seperate article, get it down to size, and then fold it back into the main article. That goal is still out there, but it's getting harder to do. The "Debates" article has continued to grow (and has itself been forked). The tricky issue here is balancing the criticisms (which are very notable) with the other encyclopedic aspects of Wal*Mart, while remaining neutral. It's easy to sit back and take potshots at Wikipedia. It's another thing entirely to sit down and help edit it. If you can see a way to help improve the situation, please join us in trying to get these articles up to snuff.
You'll find there's always someone willing to be paid to give a corporation a (voice/vote/means) to an end.
...I'm looking at you, Military/Industrial Complex...
Religious zeal is a well used tool. I do not believe there can be liberty until corporations are stripped of their rights... (as in, they should not have political power)
No effort was made to quiz NPR-listeners about any facts that might have made the war seem justified. Facts that, of course, the Fox listeners are much more familiar with.
It's like getting a bunch of Math and History professors together, then giving them all a math test to see which group is smarter.
Oh, goodness, you have a terrible misspelling there. Let me fix that for you:
Never forget to look at where the motivation comes from. Walmart (and any other non-employee-owned large corporation) couldn't give a rodent's posterior for its employees beyond what they bring to the bottom line. For easily replaced menial labor, there's not much contribution made by any single individual, so there's no incentive for Walmart to allow any employee organizing that could even potentially lead to demands from the rank and file for higher pay, more benefits, etc., all things that would only reduce that already meager added value.
Remember, Walmart is beholden to the interests of its shareholders, not those of its employees. José, Leroy, and Nancy on the checkout line don't have any leverage over company policy, whereas JP Morgan and Prudential wield considerable influence. When it comes to business, follow the money.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Well, let's see: you used quotes. You replied to my post. And you implied that you were refuting my arguments, even though you had made up your own. Can you not see it from my POV? Lacking some objectivity are we? I can see it from your POV, and I can see how it would be an honest (or at least mostly-honest) mistake. Apology accepted.
Your assumption that opposing viewpoints belong in an article is the explanation for MY statement.
Your implicit assumption that opposing viewpoints do NOT belong in a given article is downright scary. Your One-POV-per-article idea reeks of fascism. And it has become clear that it is you who does not understand NPOV, so let me quote it for you:
Emphasis mine.So, while you were quick to tar me as ignorant, it is you who does not understand. I think what you're missing is that NPOV is a meta-point-of-view. It contains multiple contradictory POVs within it. It is neutral in that it does not claim that one of the POVs is unquestionably correct, nor does it attempt to find the middle ground and declare that correct. The idea is to describe all significant POVs, fairly, and let the reader decide.
I can see where the next sticking point is: the word "significant." Well, let me just say that I am as surprised as anyone that my original post wasn't modded into oblivion. Perhaps the alternative theories are more popular than you might imagine. But as mentioned above, popularity is not the deciding factor. We have to look at the evidence; something you've been reluctant to do, it seems. Maybe you should spend less time arguing with me and more time researching what may be the greatest crime/coverup in our lifetimes.
Electric Monkey Pants
Speaking of Wikipedia astroturfing, look at what it has to say about The Home Depot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Home_Depot), a company that is nearly as controversial as Walmart, considering environmental issues, EEO problems, excessive executive pay, "voluntary" employee contributions, etc.
What a terrific PR job!
i buy *all* my stuff at Wal-Mart because i save money... and the money i save i donate to my local church and the local Republican committees...
it is a win-win when you get your din-din from Wally World!
"In fact, your use of such a snarky, distortive phrase suggests that you didn't want to tackle my argument, but instead resort to an attempt to discredit me."
You misunderstand. You assume his use of sarcasm is an attempt to avoid debating you on the merits of your arguments.
First, there are no merits of your argument, only blind assertions that are totally unsupported by anything other that gross, unfounded speculation.
Second, his dismissive tone indicates just how much he thinks of your argumnet, that is, very little.
And lastly, I am a "psychology ninja", and let me say, you Mr. MBA are a shining example of why people shouldn't be allowed to discuss behavioral psychology without some type of indemnification from talking out of their ass. If you're going to discuss the principles of deceptive advertising, link to some studies. There are literally hundreds of them, and all you did was touch on a point you thought you understood.
I despise how people think taking Intro Psych justifies giving your opinion. Even worse is your use of your MBA to justify your opinion. You know that old phrase "sex sells"? Guess what Mr. MBA, IT DOESN'T. Did you know that? Did they teach you that in MBA school? I bet they didn't. I know that because, yes you guessed, I had CLASSES ON IT. REAL psych classes with REAL psych professors, not PHB's (sorry, MBA's) who thought because some other MBA told them it was true that it was actually true.
There is exactly the same amount of evidence to show that Wal-Mart PR goons are posting on Wikipedia as there is to suggest that you know what the fuck you're talking about.
None.
The irony here of course is that most "News Organizations" are companies, hence really at the root have a profit motive. Any that are not may well have a non-profit but perhaps equally slanting agenda.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
The author you responded to was a little fast and loose with his wording, but by responding to his words specifically and not the concept presented you've only revealed your bias.
Were WMDs found? Yes, as the response accuratly indicated WMDs were found . . . in amounts radically, stupendously, tremendously less than the public was led to believe.
Was the amount of previously unknown WMDs found in Iraq after the invasion, in retrospect, enough to justify a war with Iraq over WMDs? You'd have to be seriously mental to answer "yes", so save your credibility by contesting some other issue.
Now for the $64,000 question--what did Bush know and when did he know it? We've heard everything from that he intentionally ignored evidence that there were no WMDs and is guilty of treason to that Congress had all of the same intelligence Bush had and that the whole world believed Saddam had stockpiled of WMDs and so Bush was 100% right. Me, I think we had crappy intelligence, and I do believe Bush knew we had crappy intelligence but went forward anyway when one very legitimate option at the time would have been to attempt to secure better intelligence before acting rashly and foolishly. To that end, I think he was negligent, or perhaps grossly negligent, regarding the use of WMD "intelligence" to bolster his case for war with Iraq, but not part of some grand conspiracy and he did not commit treason.
Just IMO anyway. I also agree with the study cited in this topic--for some reason Fox News viewers seem to have more misconceptions about the Iraq War and its lead-up than people who closely followed the "liberal media". Me, I am still waiting for a serious news competitor in the market whose news slant is libertarian. The Cato Institute's work for Fox News is probably as close as I'm going to get in the near future.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
What you are missing is that there is a vast difference between organized not-for-profit efforts vs. self-organized not for profit efforts.
Especially in the case of anti-walmart organizations, do you doubt there are literally thousands of people willing to monitor Wiki 24x7 to change something? There is no way WalMart would hire that many people to do the same, even if they felt like it was important.
Self-organized efforts mean that people decide each day, as individuals, to contrbite to a common goal. Organizations like you speak of motivate people enough to donate some time, but for many it is still like work, just work they feel strongly about - for most of those people I doubt it is as much a part of thier being as is working on an open source project or doing what you can to put down Wal-Mart.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For the sake of comparison, .00107% of the pupulation of the U.S. was killed on 9/11. It would take a 9/11 every single day for nearly a year to kill a proportionate number of the U.S. population, based on the low side of the estimated deaths in Iraq.
QE-fucking-D.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
...actually stopped shopping/working there I am sure it would collapse on its own without using smear campaigns, picketting and pointless lobbying. Of course thats assuming that there is more than just a niche group of vocal people that dislike the store.
Personally I wish less people shopped at Wal-Mart so that I could get through the checkout faster.
This is nonsense. I had sort of a long and aggravated response, so I posted it on my blog instead.
Short version: it's not Walmart versus Reasonable Viewpoints, it's Wikipedia versus All Viewpoints. NPOV isn't about hearing all viewpoints, it's about hearing none. An encyclopedia is a collation of information, not a presentation of judgements.
Whitedust is just missing the point.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
I couldn't think of a better title at the moment...
So Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and Intel may have had completely different origins and intentions, but they all strangely arrived at the same place: Near-absolute market dominance. It took a while, but they all became giants.
But here's my "opinion" on the matter. Microsoft may have dominated the industry for a couple of decades, but take a look at what we're witnessing now. IE is losing some ground to upstarts like Firefox and Opera. Windows is being challeneged on a number of fronts from Apple to FreeBSD. A titan like IBM has moved their contract to Linux.
Intel, a former defacto answer to what processor you should buy, is being challenged/attacked by AMD. Large companies, such as Acer and Dell, are shifting to AMD.
Wal-Mart, while it has grown exponentially over the past decade and a half, has actually seen a decrease in overall sales growth. Think of it like the RIAA posting decreased sales of albums... they omit the fact that it is referencing sales "growth" because the attorneys feel the average consumer won't know the difference. Wal-Mart is slowing, if ever so marginally.
Wal-Mart is reaching a point of market saturation... which usually precedes a paradigm shift in the business structure. While I was in Florida (just outside of St. Cloud,) I encountered the Starbuck's Effect: a super-center across the street from a super-center. Now, to be perfectly fair, they were closer to a mile apart, but the basic idea remains. Just like having two coffee shops of the same name with identical offerings is problematic, so too is having two enormous discount department stores nearly side by side with identical offerings.
At some point, building additional stores loses any semblance cost-effectiveness. I personally believe that Wal-Mart is in the beginning stages of this paradigm. Best Buy has not lost any market share to Wal-Mart. Target has gained ground. Bed, Bath & Beyond has seen sales increase. OfficeMax and Staples both cater to a higher standard.
I know that only time will tell us, but this is why I believe what I believe about Wal-Mart. But please do not misunderstand me: As a former employee (5-month stint after a lay-off from an IT department,) I can't stand the place. A store that has a wide selection for specific type of product, i.e. boutiques, are far more to my liking.
Right Wingers only like private property that they themselves own.
Everyone else's property doesn't matter, and they will shove a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" down your throat to prove it.
FACTOID - Republican governments invariably seize more property without compensation than Democrat ones. Look it up.
Right Wingers like private property so that the government can seize it from you and give it to them. You can't do that if everything's owned in common or shared.
And don't forget, they hate America. Obviously so, since Ann Coulter says everyone to the left of her does, and there isn't anyone to the right of her.
Bullshit! Allow me to quote from the Washington Post:
Almost all of what "informed" conservatives bring up for WMDs falls into this kind of category: True, but only in summary, and totally irrelevant to the larger debate. They're either pre-1990 relics, things created post-invasion, or since discredited.
Well, I listen to NPR for maybe thirty-minutes a week total, and never FOX, so I'm going with NPR.
You seem to be trying to give the impression that news organizations and businesses are different things. Most modern news organizations (NYTimes, CNN, Fox, WSJ, etc., etc.) are businesses. For them, the bottom line is the driving force. To the extent that being good at informing people is good for their bottom line, they try to be good at informing people. We are all familiar with the result, and capable of making our own judgements of how well this all works out.
I have a Rush Limbaugh-loving, card-carrying right-wing friend who swears NPR is entirely left-wing.
I’ve got a Rush Limbaugh-loving, card-carrying right-wing relative who also happens to be a transvestite! Not sure of his opinion on NPR, I can’t get past the astounding cognitive dissonance of that first bit long enough to ask him.
I’ve been an NPR listener for a few years and find their actual news to be utterly neutral on the left-right axis. NPR stations do tend to carry some non-news shows that are quite obviously left-leaning, so that may explain the pervasive misconception. But their newscasters never deliver the obvious jabs that I expect them to when reporting on some of the more egregrious gaffes of the GOPpies.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I suspect reading some of the points of view in this series of postings
p er.html
m l
y .cfm?Story_ID=2593089
0 /b3852001_mz001.htm
m art/china/trade.html
the facts will likely be lightly treated...
Here are some interesting articles and other sources of information I've come across that have helped me form my opinion of Walmart.
Do your homework before having an opinion. Google, some judgement and
chosing reputable sources goes a long way.
The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/102/open_snap
The Wal-Mart You Don't Know
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.ht
Wal-Mart
How big can it grow?
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStor
Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_4
Is Walmart good for America? US Trade with China: Expectations vs. Reality.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wal
For those of you that don't read, check out:
Walmart the high cost of low price.
http://www.walmartmovie.com/
Personally I believe the market only works to the benefit of the consumer in the long run when there is true competition. This is something that becomes very difficult when the competition is the size of Walmart and shops in China.
I see Walmart as part of the negative side globalization that is leading to a hollowing out of America, and in the long run is a significant part of what is feeding the trade deficit with China. What makes Walmart so profitable is that in many areas it has little or no competition (small town America) and effectively has almost a monopoly. A monopoly is a form of market failure, and in the long run is never good for the consumer (although its great for the shareholder). In the short term it has lowered prices in many areas, but then its lowered wages too.
Hey but don't take my word for it. Get your own facts, and then make a decision. That's what democracy is about, be an informed citizen, not an opinionated one.
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
Walmart (and any other non-employee-owned large corporation) couldn't give a rodent's posterior for its employees beyond what they bring to the bottom line.
True! And yet your theory doesn't explain why wages have risen, in fits and starts, over the course of the last four hundred years. If nobody every pays more than they have to, why do they EVER pay more than they did the day before?
If you come up with a theory, it has to explain the facts better than competing theories. Otherwise a synonym for your theory is "wrong".
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
They are indeed different things. That does not mean an entity cannot be both. History, however, proves that it's unlikely. But, a News organization can be judged by its "track record," so whether or not its motivation is to make money is irrelevent.
For example... it is conceivable that a News organization's mission statement could be: To make a profit by being the most honest and unbiased News provider out there, no matter how much we personally dislike it.
In fact, I suggest that that's a pretty damn good business model, as there's untold millions of apolitical, centrist or issue-by-issue folk out there that just want to know what the fucking fuck is actually going on.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Which part about that didn't you understand? Since there is no authority responsible for content, it means that anyone can change it to be what they please. If there are two opposing viewpoints, then the content will seesaw back and forth between those two points in an edit war until someone gets bored. Neutrality is inherently subjective, and so therefore if there is disagreement -- in good faith or not, it doesn't matter -- then nothing will be properly resolved until a authority steps in and decides: But then that's against the whole idea of Wikipedia in the first place. You can't really have it both ways, here.
Tennessee salary with those berries? Pretty funny you didn't think of that while you're hanging your hat on a free market argument. And are you sure you're talking about berries from California? Because we've got a helluva lot of acres of strawberries in West Tennessee. Anyway, things are never as simple as you slashdot clowns make them.
After reading the /. post, the Whitedust article and looking at the relevant Wikipedia posts, my conclusion is the author and Whitedust are highly biased against Walmart and are having a hissy fit because the relevant Wikipedia listings don't conform to their biases.
/. article submitter doesn't have a clue what neutral is, is biased (or is that highly biased?) against Walmart, and is throwing in suppositions with fact whether intentional or not to justify his bias.
/. article submitter and Whitedust are upset with Walmart. That's obvious. But without a shred of documentation or corroboration, he/Whitedust (whether one and the same or not) claim "lobbyists" are behind what the he/Whitedust apparently regard as evil edits. He/Whitedust believe that the general consensus is against Walmart, and anyone editing in favor of Walmart is a "lobbyist" or is biased (employee, paid shill, etc.).
As a side note, can one be biased without being highly biased, as the anon reader who submitted the complaint uses the terms?
I've never shopped at Walmart. Never been inside one. Never been closer than passing one at least a mile away from the highway I happened to be travelling on. Never owned its stock. Never owned a mutual fund which owned Walmart stock. Never supplied Walmart with any products or services, never had my business or those of friends or relatives impacted by the presence of a Walmart. I don't have any friends or relatives who work for Walmart, or any that I know of who shop at Walmart. I'm a former union member (years before slamming Walmart was pc).
With the above disclaimer noted, my take on the issue is that the
The
One of the problems he/Whitedust has is that anyone who is neutral on an issue, or gives issues a fair shake prior to making a judgement, or who don't even make a judgement on an issue, all would tend to regard he/Whitedust as hopelessly biased and unable to consider alternatives that make just as much or even more sense.
Is Walmart really paying a group of individuals to carefully manage their ip addresses so no pattern is easily discernable (on a heavily edited site which would require the type of edits he/Whitedust is alleging, any coordinated effort on maintaining edits from specific ips would easily be determined, just like Congressional ip addresses were fingered in Congressional web site edits). When going through my logs, or watching a site's logs regularly, I find it very easy to pick up on patterns and multiple visits, without even using Webalizer or any other log analysis tool.
Is Walmart really paying "lobbyists" to do same? Did Walmart have the foresight to require the "lobbyists" to log in from different ip addresses for every edit or every other edit? Or did the "lobbyists" take it upon themselves to do this? Are Walmart and the "lobbyists" technologically savvy enough to know to do this? Was the extra cost of managing extra ip addresses for edits added to the cost of the contract the "lobbyists" signed?
How about a more likely scenario? I have multiple inboxes being inundated with spam about KOKO Petroleum. Obviously a pump and dump scam. But they aren't giving up. My isp uses Spamassassin to add headers which score each email. I use filters to automatically mark spam as spam, move the spam to a separate folder, forward a copy of the spam to UCE@ftc.gov, forward an additional copy of the spam to the BSA if it hawks software, forward an additional copy of the spam to the licensing agency for schools in my state for spams hawking diplomas, forward an additional copy of the spam to the SEC if the spam hawks pump and dump scams or stocks for any reason, etc.
Thanks to adjustments and refinements of my spam filters over time, they catch about 97% of the spam I receive in a day. Which ones are caught? KOKO Petroleum pump and dump. Which ones get passed the filters daily? KOKO Petroleum pump and dump, and a few
But if our government was really evil, we would have found WMD.
Wait, maybe I am getting evil smart confused?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
GuloGulo
I hope you are a Wikipedia editor. You made a perfect assessment of how supposedly factual information can really be opinion. If Wikipedia is making more people think like this, then they're really doing something great in addition to everything else. The neutral language part of Wikipedia's articles is something I think they do amazingly well.
Those complaining about Walmart are really complaining about capitalism itself.
This is bull, because there are a great many other retailers, large and small, who maintain better practices towards both their employees and their customers than Wal-Mart does, and work continuously to improve those practices. Check out Costco, which pays about twice what Wal-Mart does and makes better profits than Wal-Mart's comparable Sam's Club. Costco is the exception though, in being able to beat Wal-Mart on its own turf. That's because Wal-Mart outcompetes most firms by (1) forcing unpaid overtime, (2) avoiding providing health insurance, (3) giving one-year lucrative contracts to Chinese factories, then the next year, when the factories have made large investments in plant to produce for Wal-Mart, sharply cutting the prices offerred for their production. Oh, and Wal-Mart was busted for not just using illegal aliens to clean its stores, but for often locking them in overnight.
The rest of retailing hates Wal-Mart not just because of its competitive threat, but because it competes underhandedly, illegally, unethically. It's not just people who are "anti-capitalist" or "anti-American" who hate Wal-Mart - the rest of our retailing firms are not populated by un-American socialists.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
So, a useless amount of nerve gas was found. Useless. An ineffective amount. Insufficent quantities to serve ANY purpose. Not enough to incapacitate a single person.
You must be a lawyer, since your threshold is absurd. Let's use your approach for other situations: Someone alleges that the local gas station has poisoned the groundwater with MTBE. After investigation, the levels are found to be 0.001ppb. The person then asserts that his claims were justified, since MTBE was found, even though those hippies at the EPA say that levels below 20ppb are unlikely to cause any health risks.
Your explaination that all the WMDs went to Syria is about as credible as the pre-war assertions that Saddam was planning to attack us with WMDs, and is probably based on the same disproven sources.
But hey, it's all about bringing freedom to Iraq, anyway, right?
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
So Reagan was, in fact, poking a nest full of leftests with an out of context fact.
BTW everybody should be prefacing their discussions regarding Iraqi weapons and particularly weapons programs with the notation that they have not been found YET. In fact many chemical weapons have been found, they were just old vintage. Ever heard of an October surprise? Do you think information is'nt released on a schedule? And Clinton bombed the asprin factory on that particular day because that's just how it worked out, right.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Unlikely to happen, even IF you are Rupert Murdoch. Damn reporters, getting their biases in.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That is the only fair question.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Compared to "the middle of the Silicon Valley area", is Tennessee more or less expensive? Labor? Land? Various state and local taxes? Hmmmm.
:-( News for nerds: if you all live in the same area, your high paycheck distorts the economy to your disadvantage.
Silicon Valley was prime farmland until all the nerds showed up. It was cheap too.
zshzn sucks
People in Fairbanks, AK acted against Wal-Mart by filling carts and leaving them in the store. Is this a crime or not? http://www.organicconsumers.org/btc/walmart11.cfm Personally, I'd love it if the protestors would pay for the stuff and abandon it in the parking lot.
Very clever of the litcrit community to notice that with multitudinous overlaying of semantic fields over top of a single symbol set (words in a language) renders it impossible to construct any symbol sequence that is non-zero only once (in a single semantic field).
To a physicist, however, black means "absence of photons" and carries no connotation whatsoever of "melanin enhanced".
Those among us who get to the point where they refuse to peel away and discard these multitudinous (and often dubious) semantic overlays render themselves incapable of action. Water is also black if one refuses to filter out the crap. I for one refuse to drink from the Ganges of litcrit.
There's a big difference between "sorta kinda" and "really" slave labor. China does not use slave labor in its export industries. Its government puts prisoners to work in what can be called slave labor, but this is as punishment, not intended to generate monetary gain. Neither link you gave claimed slave labor, just bad working conditions, which is different from "slave labor". There can be bad working conditions without slavery (as in Chinise manufacturing) and there can be good working conditions during slavery. (doesn't justify slavery of course)
Of course, even the "bad" allegation is questionable when compared to local standards. A dollar buys much more in China than in America, for example. Plus, whenever foreign investors try to reduce their hours and with it their pay, the workers protest, often violently. (I tried to get an article about this posted on Slashdot, but surprise, it was rejected.) I also find it odd that if the same Chinese worker makes less as a farmer (and with more volatility) than in manufacturing, no one complains.
None of this is to defend the Chinese government's policies; I just wanted to correct the common misconception that imported Chinese goods come from slave labor.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
We should have the best intelligence in the world, and we knew our information was outdated or unreliable, at best. Significantly less sophisticated countries should never be able to bluff us.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
Well, that's nice. I guess it comes down to injecting humor and entertainment into what are actually pretty serious issues. Pollution? hah! trees pollute! Who cares about choking on fumes and higher cancer rates! Fair and balanced? hah! Who cares about being informed on a given subject, or even accountability by members of public office? Currently the world is a clusterfuck here and abroad...but like I said, who cares?!
Maybe we should try this approach to everything serious. Cancer? God hates you anyway! SIDS? Maybe we should give those babies meth to keep them awake. Sure they'll be sunken faced junkie preschoolers, but at least they'll live. Failing public schools? They'll all be working horrible, brainless jobs when they get older anyway!
Maybe you're onto something here. But there's a catch. What if some people don't actually get the joke and instead start espousing crazy ideas that are harmful to society just because they heard it and are repeating it without actually thinking about it? There are very likely many people that still say and believe wholeheartedly that trees pollute. Maybe those batshit insane ideas actually became policy decisions. What if the world we inhabit suddenly became the joke instead of something to joke at? What if the clowns are running the circus?
Before you call me some dictator wanting to regulate free speech and requiring three forms of ID and a 30-day wait period before making a joke, I thought I'd pre-empt it. Maybe if we didn't marginalize and mock each other we might accomplish the real goal of a society, the betterment of its citizens. But where's the fun in that?
Just start another new section and call it, "Negative points of view about Wal-mart" section.
'nuff said!
-Stan Lee
No sig for you! Come back one year!
"First of all, I don't appreciate your assumption that all disagreement must stem from my misunderstanding. It's arrogant, disingenuous, and doesn't further a good debate."
And yet, completely accurate. I'm sorry that my drawing attention to your misunderstanding upsets you, so I suggest that in the future, you do a better job of trying to understand. It will help you avoid cases like the current one, where only your gross, intentional, misunderstanding of what I wrote is causing you problems.
"I think if there are overwhelming facts supporting a case, good reporting means saying just that, not keeping an open mind and giving equal time both to the overwhelming facts and to the fringe speculation."
Point to the exact quote where I suggested anything otherwise. You are adding things to my post in an attempt to find something to argue about, that is a straw man, and you need to stop. I never claimed that giving "fringe speculation" equal time is desirable, nor did I suggest anything of the kind. You are lying, and that is pathetic. Stop assigning points to my argument that I never made, especially since you blather about "..disingenuous..." as though you doing it in response to your lack of ability to comprehend the difficult reasoning in my post is any excuse.
"P.S. just to illustrate my first point, I could have said "feel free to clarify your earlier misstatements."
Except I didn't misstate anything, I simply stated something in a way that was clearly beyond your meager ability to comprehend. It's only a misstatment if I actually state something incorrectly. Since I was totally accurate, and it was your lack of reading comprehension and cognitive ability that was at fault, if you were to say something about clarifying my "misstatements" it would simply be more eivdence that your ignorance and lack of verbal aptitude are the cause of your ridiculous response.
Please stop blaming others because you lack the intelligence and skills to discuss a difficult subject. More education and practice on your part is the answer, not unfounded assertions based on ignorance.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
You're an asshole if you can't imagine a person being any other way. STOP PROJECTING!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
You're one of those
Well, let me ask then
"Well, let's see: you used quotes. You replied to my post. And you implied that you were refuting my arguments, even though you had made up your own. Can you not see it from my POV?"
Yes, you're a an arrogant asshole, who is too tied up in himself to actually think about how ignorant his statement is.
IF YOU NEVER SAID IT, THEN HOW COULD I POSSIBLY QUOTE YOU? Right. I won't do that stupid "apology accepted" thing you did, because I'm not a jackass.
And this
"Your implicit assumption that opposing viewpoints do NOT belong in a given article is downright scary."
Never said that nor implied it, but based on the elementary level reasoning you've displayed so far, I can see how you got here.
Do me a favor, unless I EXPLICITY state something, don't assign it to me. Is that simple enough for you? I realize you're out of your depth here, but my being smarter and more informed is no reason to rely on childish banter like "apology accepted" and straw men.
You should try to rise above your obvious intellectual inferiority and accept that my points are stronger, more reasoned, and more accurate than yours.
I'm sure it's not the first time you've failed to win a debate. In fact I can guess it's not the first time today (since I've wiped the floor with you repeatedly already).
I will assume any response by you other than an unequivocated mea culpa is just more childish drivel empoyed in a ridiculous attempt to save face. Since that was the entire sum of your current post, I dare say that I am already correct.
I look forward to your admissions of failure. I only hope that now that you've seen for certain that you lack the intelligence and debate savvy necessary to intelligently discuss these issues, that you'll strive to do better and avoid making a fool of yourself again.
It's ok to be wrong. I would think that you would be used to it by now, so why fight so hard when it's obvious to everyone but you?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Read the whole interview: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.a sp?ID=20154
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
AHAHaahahahaaaaaa!!! Funny. Good one. That was very Stephen Colbert of you. You're relying on "truthiness" rather than "truth." Very funny, except that Colbert does it better and I get the nagging impression that you weren't trying to be funny.
Anyway, I shouldn't even reply to your "post", but I thought I'd call you on a couple of your more obvious failings. First, you threatened not to reply last time... but you did. In fact, it took you 3 days to come up with a reply to my post. But your reply contains nothing but insults. NOTHING. It's not even a reply so much as a random insult generator. Your insults of my intellect have revealed nothing but your own lacking in that regard. You have no facts. You have no arguments. You were afraid to attack the meat of my argument wherein I stripped your argument to the bone and reduced it to confetti-like shreds. You were proven absolutely, 100% wrong, and you don't seem to be taking that very well. So you decided to flame me instead of taking on my arguments. What are we even arguing about except your damaged ego? That's what this is really about, isn't it? Look, you gave yourself some good advice: get over it. It's okay to be wrong.... as long as you're man enough to admit it.
I'm sure it's not the first time you've failed to win a debate. In fact I can guess it's not the first time today (since I've wiped the floor with you repeatedly already).
I'm sorry. I really shouldn't belabor the point, but this quote is sooo funny. You're so completely in denial that it's sad, but the fact that you're lying on the ground, bleeding profusely and saying, "okay, I've whopped ya ass. I'll give you one more chance to walk away" is so funny that I can't stop laughing.
Anyway, your bruised ego isn't a laughing matter and I should be more kind. Be that as it may, the fact remains that I won this argument. You may not want it to be true, but it is. In your initial reply to my post, you slagged me for not understanding NPOV. But in subsequent posts I was able to demonstrate exactly what NPOV means in the Wikipedia context by quoting directing from the relevant page. It proved your point wrong. End of story.
Electric Monkey Pants
I said this before
"I will assume any response by you other than an unequivocated mea culpa is just more childish drivel empoyed in a ridiculous attempt to save face."
And, amazingly, you responded exaclty how I said you would. You proved everything I said.
So, I was correct. You couldn't admit you were wrong, so you attacked. I imagine that apart from temper tantrums, that's the sum total of your rhetorical toolbox.
"It proved your point wrong."
In fact, the very idea that you had to look it up AFTER acting as though you knew what it meant demonstrates how far off the mark you were.
"okay, I've whopped ya ass. I'll give you one more chance to walk away" is so funny that I can't stop laughing."
And yet, again I'm right and you're not.
I wouldn't find it funny if I were getting repeatedly proven wrong like you are, and had to resort to to tactics you have.
As I said. mea culp or attack. I guess you think saying the last thing makes it true, but in reality it only leaves the readers of your post with the distinct idea that you're too pathetic and cowardly to admit all the things you got wrong.
So, prove me right and attack again. Assign more points to me that I never made. Make statements of "fact" that aren't fact at all, and resort to childish antics because you've never learned how to debate correctly.
Or, you could just cut and paste your last post and do it all in one fell swoop.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
A Wikipedia (or any other encyclopedia) article is supposed to be about the subject of the article. If this one fails, it fails because of that. How about talking about the history of the company, its founding, its composition and financial results? Its main areas of product lines, it's suppliers and customers? Its executives and stock? Its stores and (the identity of, not commentary on) its policies? It's more than just a company, sure, but the article about the company should be about the company.
The criticism of Walmart is, indeed, a separate topic from the company itself. An article about the USA should discuss the country itself, it's land masses, people, language, culture, religions, political system (but not politics), etc., etc. If it talks about the controversies and opinions about the USA in the world at large at *all*, it should do so with a reference to a different article.
I predicted AGAIN, how you would respond. Childishness and insults.
You came through, so at least you're reliable.
"Your statement makes no sense because I was right initially and I'm right currently."
No, you weren't. Linking to NPOV didn't prove me wrong, it proved you hadn't read it yet, but now, you seem to think you're right about something. None of what you said before or since refuted me. The fact that you think so is why I'm making fun of your childishness.
"I've already listed the major point of contention as a victory for me."
Of course you have. That's the only thing you're capable of doing when you're wrong. Attack, and insist you're right in the face of irrefutable evidence. But AGAIN, SLOWLY because that's how you need it, you NEVER refuted me. YOU refuted a STRAW MAN (look it up, I know such concepts are difficult for those like you) and not MY POSITION.
"So what are all the other sentences for? Oh that's right: insults."
There wasn't a single insult in my entire post.
Which is more evidence that your opinion on anything bears no weight. YOU CAN'T EVEN READ A POST ON SLASHDOT without getting it wrong. What on earth makes you think anything else you say is worth a damn?
"You keep implying that if I reply to your posts that means you were proved right somehow"
No, little fella, I keep TELLING YOU that none of your responses say what you claim, and in fact are rambling, poorly concocted diatribes at the level of an elementary school student.
I'm not IMPLYING anything, I'm TELLING YOU that you're posts have yet to rise above the level of schoolyard banter, and deserve the same consideration.
In other words, YET AGAIN, you respond like a little boy. Like a child. Like a baby who, when shown that he was wrong, resorts to any means necessary including lying and misrepresenting others' arguments, in a vain and embarrassing attempt to avoid admitting failure.
I seriously doubt you have any idea how to respond otherwise.
But it's ok, me showing how wrong and childish you are isn't a big problem. No one pays any attention to what you think anyway, so it's really more of an academic exercise for me.
Perhaps I've helped you understand why you aren't intellectually capable of carrying on this conversation.
Regardless, I've been right the whole time, and the only purpose of this post was to clarify exactly why so many people ignore you when you talk. I was trying to help you, but as in the case of children, you attack irrationally.
JUST AS I PREDICTED YOU WOULD.
That must be very embarassing for you, not having the ability to move outside of the behaviors most people give up on when they grow up. How do you live with yourself, being WRONG and childish?
One last thing, this isn't a flame war, it's me pointing how how you'll dance, and you dancing as though it's your choice. It's about me showing you what you'll do, and you doing it.
It's about you being my toy, and not being bright enough to know when you've been outsmarted.
But, I did have fun. It was way too easy, because you're not much of a challenge, but it was still fun.
Just stop acting like a five year old though, and you wont have to deal with being routinely outsmarted. I'm sure you've grown tired of being inferior to me intellectually.
Just remember though, someone has to be number two.
And, quite frankly, you're the biggest number two I have ever seen.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
I said you'd behave like a child, and you did.
"
I don't know why you keep responding like that, it just makes me more right and you more childish.
I can't believe you keep letting me show you up like that. Well, yes I can actually, you've been acting like a pre-schooler the whole thread, so why expect anything different now.
"AAHAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!
Like that for example.
"COULD you PUT ANY more all-CAPS words IN your POSTS? Hahaa."
Could you act any more LIKE A FIVE YEAR OLD? Actually, I'm not sure you could...
"Liar."
Well, at least you're polite enough to sign your posts.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Hahahaaaa..... You really are a treat. You're just like one of those, uhh.. trolls. Wait, wait, Mr. Troll. Tell me again how when I respond that makes me childish, but when you respond it doesn't. Oh, that's right, you're a liar, who is also a delusional psychotic. You lash out angrily at the world and everyone around you. When somebody calls you on it, you accuse them of being exactly what you know that you are. So when you call me childish, we both know that you are secretly aware that you are the one who is acting like a 4 year old with a temper tantrum. A simple glance at your posting history proves that it is you who is acting like a baby, refusing to own up to the fact that you've been proven wrong, several times over. I guess, when your ego is so brutally damaged, you have no choice. I almost feel sorry for you.
Well, at least you're polite enough to sign your posts.
That was the best you could come up with? I called you a liar, with proof galore, and this is all you've got? That's pretty sad, dude. I think you're slipping up. Maybe your Argument Strategies for Fascist Dummies book didn't have an appropriate trick for you to use. Well, better luck next time. I guess you're pretty much beyond trying to prove any of your points (do you have any?) since I've basically crushed your entire argument into a fine powder. That won't stop you, though. I'm sure you'll write back and call me a child. And man will I be impressed by that. Wow! A child?! That is one awesome insult. Ooooooo.... I'm quaking in my boots just thinking about it.
Electric Monkey Pants