The thing that happens when you're 18 or older, though, is that you then have to be responsible for your decisions. When you're less than 18, the consequences get handled by society at large. Not in America (where the author resides, so I could presume this discussion to have an American slant to it)
In the USA children and incompetents can be charged and sentenced for breaking the law, and charged as adults even. So there is obviously hypocrisy behind age-based restrictions in the law. Notable examples would be murder (that, like anti-smoking and anti-sex laws are generally driven by belief systems and emotion).
Basically this is how such laws work out: - The Law assumes that children are not responsible enough to make decisions - The law punishes children for making (socially unacceptable) decisions Therefore one could conclude that the REASONING behind such laws are fallacious (even if the law itself may have redeeming qualities). That's presuming of course that the law is based on a child's inability to take responsibility for their actions.
Also, laws are generally enforced based on the pecking-order of your social status, children of course being at the bottom rung, along with poor people. How many US presidents take irresponsibility for their actions when they break the law? No need to answer, it's a rhetorical question. The point being that the responsibility reasoning has a lot flaws in it.
Laws by themselves merely punish people. They are NOT very effective in actually controlling people. Any P2P downloaders or pot smoke disagree?
I find it interesting (and disappointing) however, that people only (tend) to view these types of arguments from their own biases (like what they have learned from the anti-tobacco commercials, in school, etc). I don't see too much open-mindedness or originality here. Yep, as you stated, (to paraphrase) it's the same old arguments just being reposted.
I think a more intriguing learning process would be to take a contrarian view point (not for the sake of arguing on Slashdot, as that would be trollish); I mean making a concerted and serious effort of trying to think up reasons that would counter ones own belief system (thinking-outside-of-the-box) as it were.
Personally I have never encountered anyone (baring those employed in the tobacco industry) who actually is against society as a whole discouraging smoking by anyone You've met your first one then: me! I don't go around compelling people to live by my standards.
I have always thought that we should implement a law that totally bans the use of tobacco products... Like the anti-marijuana laws in America?... or the anti-alcohol laws in places like Saudi Arabia? It's not the type of world I want to be living in. I could think of far better arguments for banning the use of cars in cities, but I digress.
in my opinion When this article first came up on the front page I was expecting posts to deteriorate into mainly a rant from the anti-child-smoking community arguing whether cigarette smoking is bad or good, with the anti-child-smoking community getting most of the up-mods.
It would have been more interesting (for me at least) to see comments on logical processes (or the way our own biases will compel us as thinking of such an argument as being totally bogus in the first place), rather than just merely reasons why children should not smoke. I think that's what the author wanted to gain. It's still early though. Let's hope:)
One such difference is that adolescents are highly susceptible to addictive substances such as nicotine. They are also generally regarded as more subject to peer pressure than adults. As I've said in an earlier post; trying to find a quality argument out of somebody can be difficult. Opinions are not facts btw, and "facts" without proof is useless.
Damage can be caused by a growing person smoking that is impossible to replicate in an adult Making claims without having an authoritative reference is a bad argument. I may be wrong, but I am not aware of any long term (preferably controled and double-blind) scientific studies done on children with regards to smoking.
Another assumption is that people stop growing over the age of eighteen, and that the same effects would be equivalent on anybody in the age range of 0 to 17.
Finding people for a quality argument would be difficult though. It's not like programming where you make a mistake and it doesn't work. Garbage-in does not always lead to garbage out with programming; it often leads to nothing out. Not so with verbal communication.
Finding people to argue with who use Logic as opposed to logical fallacies would be the difficult part. In the case of something controversial like smoking (especially underage smoking), it would be easy to presume that most people would concentrate their arguments (more) on their own biased world view instead of concentrating on the logical process of the argumentation itself. I see this enough on Slashdot itself. You criticize an argument, and some people seem to think that you are criticizing them, or their products or ideals.
On the Web page of www.whitehouse.com:
This site is neither affiliated nor endorsed by the US Government The original Website had this notice conspicuously missing (at least throughout Bush's reign of terror; not sure 'bout during the Clinton years).
I would suppose that http://www.whitehouse.org/ would be the (un)official word from the White House (since it has a dot org tld).
Postscript: For those unaware, www.whitehouse.com used to have naked woman on their site. But now unfortunately the Web appears to be more and more a place for politics instead of pornography:(
If the colleges won't help the RIAA with their "Investigations" could this be the beginning of the end of the RIAA going after college students? Let's hope so. They already gave up on Harvard, too many students and professors that actually understand the law. I would suspect that the RIAA would simply just try to have the law changed, or have new ones created to close any loop-holes. I think this is a distinct possibility given how consumer interests and individual rights often take a back seat to federal or corporate interests when making laws. The DMCA is the most obvious example. And the riddance of the Net neutrality law is the most recent example. In Canada we are expected to sign into law pro-CRIA legislation within the next few months thanks to lobbying by the CRIA (and this with a minority government in power).
From my perspective, there appears to be a mod-war between moderators up-modding my comment and down-modding my comment. About once every hour or two (I haven't been keeping track of time), the moderation on this comment has been changing from positive to Overrated to positive to Overrated.
I'm suspecting that people who are moderating me Overrated are either: - Students - Teachers - WikiPedians - Journalists - or "fanboys" of either or all of the above
I'm only stating this because only my first moderation (that I noticed) was at a +3; all other moderations (since I lost my Karma-bonus) never got above +2 (not that I can remember seeing anyways). People may be taking my comments as being derogatory to themselves or their professions or interests. It seems obvious that at least some people don't even want the comment to be at +2, and perhaps lower than +1. So be it.
If anyone takes offense at my comments, then please understand that my arguments deal with processes, and not with individual professions or interests. One can like something and be critical of it. Much like Canadians like Americans;) Trust me on this one, we criticize a lot, but the same people often have American friends and go to Disney world.
The point is about what should be done. The point is that people should not write Wikipedia articles just for the sake of writing Wikipedia articles (or passing a course)
and
That's how Wikipedia is supposed to work, not by dictating arbitrary rules about who should or shouldn't contribute based on someone's expectations about the quality of anybody else's work. I agree with your last point.
are direct contradictions. Do you or do you not support a criteria for limiting students contributing to Wikipedia as homework, based on your expectations of low quality?
These are NOT "direct contradictions". They are two different points about the same general subject of Wikipedia submissions.
To address your question:
Do you or do you not support a criteria for limiting students contributing to Wikipedia as homework, based on your expectations of low quality? That's a rather vague question to begin with. My answer(s):
- If you are referring to the WikiPedia administration limiting access to students (merely because they are students) then the answer is no.
- If you are referring to a formal school policy of not allowing teachers or students to do work on WikiPedia then the answer is no. If somebody feels they have the knowledge, discipline and motivation to work on WikiPedia, then by all means feel free. The lamers will (hopefully) be vetted.
- The criteria that I support (for limiting submissions) is not invested in any authority, but it is in the PROCESS itself. A Math teacher could for example have an assignment for students to create their own mathematical theorems, the theorems may or may not be bunk, but the process is bogus because most people don't have the capability to create (or discover if you will) a mathematical theorem, although it would be a great learning process.
In the case of WikiPedia, one has to realize that a VERY large amount of subject matter is already completed. Expecting a student to create a brand new article on a subject not already in WikiPedia seems dubious. The only results I could expect are "non-notable" articles or on articles so esoteric that the average person would not be capable of doing with any competence (something relevant to quantum mechanics for example). If these were PhD students doing a thesis in quantum mechanics, then this may be appropriate. If these are just undergrads choosing arbitrary subjects just to get a grade, then very little will be gained from the WikiPedia readership.
Thus, if you indeed happen to have the skill to 'improve the knowledge of mankind' (will not comment on the implications of the 'Weltanschauung' that shows up here), do not practice it on Wikipedia. Agreed
Rest assured, most with only a semblance of this competence will avoid to waste their energy anyway. Not IMHO. I've read many very good articles on WikiPedia.
Using Wikipedia (for article submission) merely as an academic exercise
Last time I pondered about it, I thought that facilitating access to knowledge is 'the academic exercise' per se, aka research.
"facilitating access to knowledge" MAY be an academic exercise, but it is not an academic exercise in its own right. Having a newspaper boy deliver a news paper may facilitate access to knowledge for example, but it is not academic.
Like posters here, especially the one of the submission referred to, in which case 'dubious' may be in place as a means for augmentation of the addressed concepts. Not sure what you mean by that because you are not being very articulate, but that sounds (IMHO) like a (pompous) slight. Something that I avoid doing. I have noticed that some people on slashdot seem to post without putting a lot of thought into what they post.
Wikipedia does NOT require that contributors have background knowledge True, but irrelevant. The point is about what should be done. The point is that people should not write Wikipedia articles just for the sake of writing Wikipedia articles (or passing a course)
the teacher is supervising their students' work, so I would expect the contributions from their students to be of better average value than the average wikipedia post. That depends on the quality of the teachers AND the students. I'd like to keep my expectations high when reading Wikipedia. Overall I am impressed by Wikipedia. I am not against students or anybody else writing Wikipedia articles. I am against writing WikiPedia articles merely as an exercise.
anything that is not of encyclopedic value should be corrected by the community. That's how Wikipedia is supposed to work, not by dictating arbitrary rules about who should or shouldn't contribute based on someone's expectations about the quality of anybody else's work. I agree with your last point.
You brought up a lot of points. I would have to go through each one thoughtfully and peruse my arguments to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. One obvious mistake (IMHO) on your side is:
An appeal to authority that doesn't have any - you were a student for six years, congratulations. Nope that was anecdotal. Experience by itself can be very informative. I claim no authority and do not claim to be an expert. And the anecdotal evidence was backed up by the subsequent references.
I am curious as to why you listed me as a Friend though.
By definition, this is what most students are in my 6 plus years of formal post-high school education, and my many years of informal or work-sponsored education. Students are NOT by definition experts. Students are by there very nature not professionals. But there is a difference between the word "scholar" and the word "student" that should be noted. Not all students are scholars, but all scholars are students.
Most students (in my experience) are students because they want to get a token degree or diploma because they want a reasonably paying job doing something that isn't manual or tedious labour.
In my experience most students cheat and are quite frankly not as interested in learning or doing something good as they are in passing or getting good grades. This is so ubiquitous I shouldn't even have to mention it. For good measure I will leave you with a couple of references:
Recent survey results from the Educational Testing Service and the Ad Council suggest that 75 percent to 98 percent of students cheat in high school, compared to just 20 percent of students during the 1940s. Indications are that just as many students cheat in college and graduate school too. Students say they resort to cheating due to heavy workloads, unclear rules, and lack of faculty assistance.
The typical comment is that what's important is getting the job done. How you get it done is less important... Other grad-student cheaters include: engineering students, 54%; physical sciences, 50%; medical and health-care, 49%; law, 45%; liberal arts, 43%; and social science and humanities students, 39%.
Being able to expect to contribute "publishable" material as a reference for the world to use as a learning exercise for a "student" is highly suspect. Learning is learning. Publishing as a learning exercise is something else. Publishing because you are motivated, and expert in your field is yet again something completely different. A person does not have to have a PhD to be an expert. But a student by it's very definition is not an expert.
Your quotes:
They'd still do well to undertake the exercise of writing and expressing ideas like an academic.
Sure, as long as they are not exploiting WikiPedia just to pass a course, it makes sense to me.
If you're studying at tertiary level, you should be getting the background knowledge of your field, and you should have an interest in your chosen field
- You use the word "should" a lot, and I agree, but the word "should" is not relevant to actually being a student. Medical students should practice on patients, but most people would not want any random medical student doing heart surgery on them, much less an under-grad or pre-med.
Furthermore, I'm intrigued (/amused) by your idea that academics shouldn't have to do research and publish papers.
Don't mean to sound sarcastic, but you sound like a student. Of course I NEVER said what you stated, but your in
As opposed to books? Last I checked, anybody can write a book True, anybody can write a book, but books found in libraries tend to be vetted by librarians (although not experts in any particular subject, it is better than the randomness of the Internet). And Academic journals tend to be peer reviewed (again, not perfect, especially since "peers" often don't check all the references, much less try to duplicate any experiments, etc in a scientific journal, for example). Caveat emptor.
Guess what? Academics are often "MANDATED" to "(not just submit, but) actually publish articles" in peer-reviewed journals, or at least publish their findings in other area-specific literature (perhaps books, etc.). 1. Academics are NOT dilitantes: - They already have the background knowledge - They already have the interest in their subject area (or they would not have gotten PhDs in their field) 2. Academics should NOT be under pressure to do research and publish papers (as this leads to plagiarism and poor quality research as well)
I am very well aware of the controversy of "experts" and PhD's not citing the work of graduate students, not doing diligent research, being paid by corporations to do biased research, etc. Yes, those academics also should not be mandated to write Wikipedia articles.
It's a great learning process for the students, but exploiting an open-source encyclopedia as a learning experiment is not an ideal. Perhaps my ideals are greater than most people.
JustShootMe writes: quote>There is a certain amount of irony in people moderating comments like this "troll" and "flamebait"
I would have modded you down just because of your nick;)
I have a feeling a teacher who's on the ball enough to assign Wikipedia article writing to his students will understand the environment surrounding the wiki and will take such things into account. I think you've got it all wrong. I think a teacher who is MANDATING students to (not just submit, but) actually publish articles to an encyclopedia is an indication of arrogance and incompetence.
Why this is: - Authors should WANT to write an article without being under duress - Wikipedia (as a publishing medium) should not be used to learn or practice ones skills, but to actually help improve the knowledge of mankind (let the students use the sandboxes, sure) - People should already have a good knowledge of what they will publish as a reference for the rest of the world. Research and referencing ones research should be secondary to the base knowledge. Using Wikipedia (for article submission) merely as an academic exercise diminishes the importance of Wikipedia
Expecting quality from an arbitrary sample of students who have time pressures to release something that SOUNDS intelligent is more akin to journalism. We all know that journalists have a tendency to make things up (fill in the gaps), or plagiarize because many just don't have the time (or attitude or aptitude) to spend a year researching or vetting their stories (on say, Cold Fusion), to produce anything of quality. (I was planning to reference an example here, but there is so much on Google that I will merely use Google as a general reference. An example search string: "times journalist lied".)
An encyclopedia, no matter how open it may be, is something of greater human interest and importance than to be used as merely an academic exercise for an arbitrary sample of students with unknown levels of experience, honesty, or intelligence.
It's yet another public embarrassment for an institution that has great ideals.
Speak for yourself. I use whois every day. It's invaluable. Are you a spammer?
There would be no other reason to use whois since it is unreliable. If people want to give out their information to the entire World Wide Web then they should do it on their own Web sites. People should not have to pay extra money, or risk losing their domain names (because they are breaking ICANN rules), or possibly risk going to jail (in at least some countries I would presume) for not wanting spammers, stalkers, poperotzy, or law enforcement officials to know where they live (police are a tool that can be used for good and for bad). The sad thing is that only the ignorant and frugal will have accurate information. Businesses can always use certificates to authenticate themselves (although this too is a rather lame form of authentication that can be abused by criminals). I can think of no good reason for whois to exist in this day and age. If you can come up with reasons, then I could probably think of even better counter-arguments. It was good in it's day, but like all good things that become too popular, it gets used mainly for it's lowest common denominator attributes.
I suppose the 12 year olds creating Geocities pages have grown up and want to incorporate all the extravagant flash into their more grown up web pages.
Earlier today I went to get an update to Process Explorer from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/ProcessExplorer.mspx), and noticed a link to a Video by Mark Russinovich (http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/Mark_Russinovich_Advanced_Malware_Cleaning.aspx). To watch this movie you need to install Microsoft's proprietary Silverlight spyware, oooops, I meant software. To even realize that you need to install this software you need a JavaScript capable browser with JavaScript enabled (M$ Web sites don't tend to be Lynx compliant). So OK I figured I'd read the user agreement, and after following a link to another page I found their privacy policy. There was a whole section entitled "Collection and Use of Information About Your Computer" (http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/privacy.aspx).
It's ironic, that with simple HTML Microsoft could have animations and video downloads on their Web sites without any so-called DHTML, Ajax, Web 2, or whatever the popular catch-phrase is for the combination of bloat and spyware.
I think it's mainly just the marketing people who like Flash and the like. The rest of us just prefer to see and read information without the glut.
Didn't they get like 70% in the elections? Which would mean that they do represent their people.
Yes, and it's similar to the US. In the US the political party who has the most control over the media wins the election (I'm mainly thinking of advertising dollars here... and you can't even run if you can't afford to canvas for a large amount of signatures supporting your candidacy). Similar to Russia, but the brute force issues involved in representing your people are more financial in the US than outright physical harassment (i.e. arresting or killing journalists).
Saddam Hussein got a lot more than 70% in his elections, and Robert Mugabe (in Zimbabwe) continues to win his elections without any hanging-chad controversies. And Bush continues to win his elections...
I guess it depends what you mean by "represent their people". In the US at least the powers that be aren't as blatant in their abuses as some other countries. But in the US they don't have to be. Corporations often give political donations to both parties. Not much plurality if you have the same lobbyists and bureaucrats and political donors year after year.
does a failure to make that distinction really make me a troll? It was a judgment call. At any rate the mod for that post was lost. According to the FAQ I think it could be. It was a very short statement without any explanation, and I've seen people rate those kind of posts as Troll (esp. when discussing Linux / Windows). I tend to be more sensitive on issues like "Drugs" or "think of the children" because there is so much more FUD and misinformation with these issues. And your subsequent description I would describe as unusual for a typical person to have with a normal dose (although perhaps more accurate for larger doses or more sensitive individuals). The individual effects of the drug would be a debate in itself however.
In regards to alcohol, people can get the "DTs" from withdrawal, and can actually have real hallucinations: "Other common symptoms include intense hallucinations such as visions of insects, snakes or rats (or stereotypically, pink elephants)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTs. So if somebody stated that alcohol can cause hallucinations without going into the details or listing a reference I would probably feel inclined to rate that a Troll as well. Don't get me wrong, I generally tend to err on the side of caution, and tend to look for insightful posts to up-mod.
I don't think you seemed to take it personally, as you shouldn't, and I too appreciate the feedback. In hindsight I think it would probably have been better if I logged out and posted feedback anonymously instead of labeling your post a "Troll". But at the time it was a way to give feedback for the post (as a moderator), without posting. Well I'm still learning here through experience.
digitalunity:
The answer is simple. When their actions become so brash that the generally uninformed public becomes annoyed with them, people will simply stop buying their products and the **AA mafia will go broke. Vancorps:
is there an example in history where a corporation's behavior was changed using this sort of strategy? Something similar to this happened in India when Indians where forced to buy salt from the British. Mahatma Gandhi went to the ocean and picked up a handful of salt and told people to take it for free.
Slashdot Mirror
In the USA children and incompetents can be charged and sentenced for breaking the law, and charged as adults even. So there is obviously hypocrisy behind age-based restrictions in the law. Notable examples would be murder (that, like anti-smoking and anti-sex laws are generally driven by belief systems and emotion).
Just a couple of references:
Prosecutors, media distorted case against Chicago boys charged with murder
http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/aug1998/chig-a15.shtml
USA: Thousands of Children Sentenced to Life Without Parole
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR511602005
Kip Kinkel was an untreated schizophrenic who murdered his parents and went to jail for it (and he got in trouble in class for being disruptive when he complained about voices in his head). The only (rather lame) reference I could find to the case:
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:JtaCEEKSpckJ:www.drugsandyourmind.com/Prozac.html+Kip+klinkel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5
Basically this is how such laws work out:
- The Law assumes that children are not responsible enough to make decisions
- The law punishes children for making (socially unacceptable) decisions
Therefore one could conclude that the REASONING behind such laws are fallacious (even if the law itself may have redeeming qualities). That's presuming of course that the law is based on a child's inability to take responsibility for their actions.
Also, laws are generally enforced based on the pecking-order of your social status, children of course being at the bottom rung, along with poor people. How many US presidents take irresponsibility for their actions when they break the law? No need to answer, it's a rhetorical question. The point being that the responsibility reasoning has a lot flaws in it.
Laws by themselves merely punish people. They are NOT very effective in actually controlling people. Any P2P downloaders or pot smoke disagree?
I find it interesting (and disappointing) however, that people only (tend) to view these types of arguments from their own biases (like what they have learned from the anti-tobacco commercials, in school, etc). I don't see too much open-mindedness or originality here. Yep, as you stated, (to paraphrase) it's the same old arguments just being reposted.
I think a more intriguing learning process would be to take a contrarian view point (not for the sake of arguing on Slashdot, as that would be trollish); I mean making a concerted and serious effort of trying to think up reasons that would counter ones own belief system (thinking-outside-of-the-box) as it were.
It would have been more interesting (for me at least) to see comments on logical processes (or the way our own biases will compel us as thinking of such an argument as being totally bogus in the first place), rather than just merely reasons why children should not smoke. I think that's what the author wanted to gain. It's still early though. Let's hope
They are also generally regarded as more subject to peer pressure than adults. As I've said in an earlier post; trying to find a quality argument out of somebody can be difficult. Opinions are not facts btw, and "facts" without proof is useless.
Another assumption is that people stop growing over the age of eighteen, and that the same effects would be equivalent on anybody in the age range of 0 to 17.
Finding people for a quality argument would be difficult though. It's not like programming where you make a mistake and it doesn't work. Garbage-in does not always lead to garbage out with programming; it often leads to nothing out. Not so with verbal communication.
Finding people to argue with who use Logic as opposed to logical fallacies would be the difficult part. In the case of something controversial like smoking (especially underage smoking), it would be easy to presume that most people would concentrate their arguments (more) on their own biased world view instead of concentrating on the logical process of the argumentation itself. I see this enough on Slashdot itself. You criticize an argument, and some people seem to think that you are criticizing them, or their products or ideals.
I would suppose that http://www.whitehouse.org/ would be the (un)official word from the White House (since it has a dot org tld).
Postscript:
For those unaware, www.whitehouse.com used to have naked woman on their site. But now unfortunately the Web appears to be more and more a place for politics instead of pornography
From my perspective, there appears to be a mod-war between moderators up-modding my comment and down-modding my comment. About once every hour or two (I haven't been keeping track of time), the moderation on this comment has been changing from positive to Overrated to positive to Overrated.
;) Trust me on this one, we criticize a lot, but the same people often have American friends and go to Disney world.
I'm suspecting that people who are moderating me Overrated are either:
- Students
- Teachers
- WikiPedians
- Journalists
- or "fanboys" of either or all of the above
I'm only stating this because only my first moderation (that I noticed) was at a +3; all other moderations (since I lost my Karma-bonus) never got above +2 (not that I can remember seeing anyways). People may be taking my comments as being derogatory to themselves or their professions or interests. It seems obvious that at least some people don't even want the comment to be at +2, and perhaps lower than +1. So be it.
If anyone takes offense at my comments, then please understand that my arguments deal with processes, and not with individual professions or interests. One can like something and be critical of it. Much like Canadians like Americans
These are NOT "direct contradictions". They are two different points about the same general subject of Wikipedia submissions.
To address your question: Do you or do you not support a criteria for limiting students contributing to Wikipedia as homework, based on your expectations of low quality? That's a rather vague question to begin with. My answer(s):
- If you are referring to the WikiPedia administration limiting access to students (merely because they are students) then the answer is no.
- If you are referring to a formal school policy of not allowing teachers or students to do work on WikiPedia then the answer is no. If somebody feels they have the knowledge, discipline and motivation to work on WikiPedia, then by all means feel free. The lamers will (hopefully) be vetted.
- The criteria that I support (for limiting submissions) is not invested in any authority, but it is in the PROCESS itself. A Math teacher could for example have an assignment for students to create their own mathematical theorems, the theorems may or may not be bunk, but the process is bogus because most people don't have the capability to create (or discover if you will) a mathematical theorem, although it would be a great learning process.
In the case of WikiPedia, one has to realize that a VERY large amount of subject matter is already completed. Expecting a student to create a brand new article on a subject not already in WikiPedia seems dubious. The only results I could expect are "non-notable" articles or on articles so esoteric that the average person would not be capable of doing with any competence (something relevant to quantum mechanics for example). If these were PhD students doing a thesis in quantum mechanics, then this may be appropriate. If these are just undergrads choosing arbitrary subjects just to get a grade, then very little will be gained from the WikiPedia readership.
"facilitating access to knowledge" MAY be an academic exercise, but it is not an academic exercise in its own right. Having a newspaper boy deliver a news paper may facilitate access to knowledge for example, but it is not academic. Like posters here, especially the one of the submission referred to, in which case 'dubious' may be in place as a means for augmentation of the addressed concepts. Not sure what you mean by that because you are not being very articulate, but that sounds (IMHO) like a (pompous) slight. Something that I avoid doing. I have noticed that some people on slashdot seem to post without putting a lot of thought into what they post.
I am curious as to why you listed me as a Friend though.
Regards
My point was that students aren't dilettantes either
Then your point is by its very nature fallacious.
diletante:
- An amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge
(WordWeb 4.5a wordweb.info)
- http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=define:dilettante&spell=1
By definition, this is what most students are in my 6 plus years of formal post-high school education, and my many years of informal or work-sponsored education. Students are NOT by definition experts. Students are by there very nature not professionals. But there is a difference between the word "scholar" and the word "student" that should be noted. Not all students are scholars, but all scholars are students.
Most students (in my experience) are students because they want to get a token degree or diploma because they want a reasonably paying job doing something that isn't manual or tedious labour.
In my experience most students cheat and are quite frankly not as interested in learning or doing something good as they are in passing or getting good grades. This is so ubiquitous I shouldn't even have to mention it. For good measure I will leave you with a couple of references:
- http://www.live-pr.com/en/the-majority-of-us-students-cheat-r1048171088.htm
Also:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/21/1614232
Also:
- http://www.school-for-champions.com/character/newberger_cheating2.htm
Being able to expect to contribute "publishable" material as a reference for the world to use as a learning exercise for a "student" is highly suspect. Learning is learning. Publishing as a learning exercise is something else. Publishing because you are motivated, and expert in your field is yet again something completely different. A person does not have to have a PhD to be an expert. But a student by it's very definition is not an expert.
Your quotes:
They'd still do well to undertake the exercise of writing and expressing ideas like an academic.
Sure, as long as they are not exploiting WikiPedia just to pass a course, it makes sense to me.
If you're studying at tertiary level, you should be getting the background knowledge of your field, and you should have an interest in your chosen field
- You use the word "should" a lot, and I agree, but the word "should" is not relevant to actually being a student. Medical students should practice on patients, but most people would not want any random medical student doing heart surgery on them, much less an under-grad or pre-med.
Furthermore, I'm intrigued (/amused) by your idea that academics shouldn't have to do research and publish papers.
Don't mean to sound sarcastic, but you sound like a student. Of course I NEVER said what you stated, but your in
- They already have the background knowledge
- They already have the interest in their subject area (or they would not have gotten PhDs in their field)
2. Academics should NOT be under pressure to do research and publish papers (as this leads to plagiarism and poor quality research as well)
I am very well aware of the controversy of "experts" and PhD's not citing the work of graduate students, not doing diligent research, being paid by corporations to do biased research, etc. Yes, those academics also should not be mandated to write Wikipedia articles.
It's a great learning process for the students, but exploiting an open-source encyclopedia as a learning experiment is not an ideal. Perhaps my ideals are greater than most people.
quote>There is a certain amount of irony in people moderating comments like this "troll" and "flamebait" I would have modded you down just because of your nick
Why this is:
- Authors should WANT to write an article without being under duress
- Wikipedia (as a publishing medium) should not be used to learn or practice ones skills, but to actually help improve the knowledge of mankind (let the students use the sandboxes, sure)
- People should already have a good knowledge of what they will publish as a reference for the rest of the world. Research and referencing ones research should be secondary to the base knowledge. Using Wikipedia (for article submission) merely as an academic exercise diminishes the importance of Wikipedia
Expecting quality from an arbitrary sample of students who have time pressures to release something that SOUNDS intelligent is more akin to journalism. We all know that journalists have a tendency to make things up (fill in the gaps), or plagiarize because many just don't have the time (or attitude or aptitude) to spend a year researching or vetting their stories (on say, Cold Fusion), to produce anything of quality. (I was planning to reference an example here, but there is so much on Google that I will merely use Google as a general reference. An example search string: "times journalist lied".)
An encyclopedia, no matter how open it may be, is something of greater human interest and importance than to be used as merely an academic exercise for an arbitrary sample of students with unknown levels of experience, honesty, or intelligence.
It's yet another public embarrassment for an institution that has great ideals.
There would be no other reason to use whois since it is unreliable. If people want to give out their information to the entire World Wide Web then they should do it on their own Web sites. People should not have to pay extra money, or risk losing their domain names (because they are breaking ICANN rules), or possibly risk going to jail (in at least some countries I would presume) for not wanting spammers, stalkers, poperotzy, or law enforcement officials to know where they live (police are a tool that can be used for good and for bad). The sad thing is that only the ignorant and frugal will have accurate information. Businesses can always use certificates to authenticate themselves (although this too is a rather lame form of authentication that can be abused by criminals). I can think of no good reason for whois to exist in this day and age. If you can come up with reasons, then I could probably think of even better counter-arguments. It was good in it's day, but like all good things that become too popular, it gets used mainly for it's lowest common denominator attributes.
Earlier today I went to get an update to Process Explorer from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/ProcessExplorer.mspx), and noticed a link to a Video by Mark Russinovich (http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/Mark_Russinovich_Advanced_Malware_Cleaning.aspx). To watch this movie you need to install Microsoft's proprietary Silverlight spyware, oooops, I meant software. To even realize that you need to install this software you need a JavaScript capable browser with JavaScript enabled (M$ Web sites don't tend to be Lynx compliant). So OK I figured I'd read the user agreement, and after following a link to another page I found their privacy policy. There was a whole section entitled "Collection and Use of Information About Your Computer" (http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/privacy.aspx).
It's ironic, that with simple HTML Microsoft could have animations and video downloads on their Web sites without any so-called DHTML, Ajax, Web 2, or whatever the popular catch-phrase is for the combination of bloat and spyware.
I think it's mainly just the marketing people who like Flash and the like. The rest of us just prefer to see and read information without the glut.
Yes, and it's similar to the US. In the US the political party who has the most control over the media wins the election (I'm mainly thinking of advertising dollars here... and you can't even run if you can't afford to canvas for a large amount of signatures supporting your candidacy). Similar to Russia, but the brute force issues involved in representing your people are more financial in the US than outright physical harassment (i.e. arresting or killing journalists).
Saddam Hussein got a lot more than 70% in his elections, and Robert Mugabe (in Zimbabwe) continues to win his elections without any hanging-chad controversies. And Bush continues to win his elections...
I guess it depends what you mean by "represent their people". In the US at least the powers that be aren't as blatant in their abuses as some other countries. But in the US they don't have to be. Corporations often give political donations to both parties. Not much plurality if you have the same lobbyists and bureaucrats and political donors year after year.
In regards to alcohol, people can get the "DTs" from withdrawal, and can actually have real hallucinations: "Other common symptoms include intense hallucinations such as visions of insects, snakes or rats (or stereotypically, pink elephants)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTs. So if somebody stated that alcohol can cause hallucinations without going into the details or listing a reference I would probably feel inclined to rate that a Troll as well. Don't get me wrong, I generally tend to err on the side of caution, and tend to look for insightful posts to up-mod.
I don't think you seemed to take it personally, as you shouldn't, and I too appreciate the feedback. In hindsight I think it would probably have been better if I logged out and posted feedback anonymously instead of labeling your post a "Troll". But at the time it was a way to give feedback for the post (as a moderator), without posting. Well I'm still learning here through experience.
Regards
I've learned one thing today. I should log-out when posting as an AC. My moderations for this topic are lost. I wish the FAQs were more informative.
Reference:
http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/India/SaltMarch.html