Great idea in theory. But in practice, it leads to Eastern European weightlifters being deleted because pimply-faced American 'admins' haven't heard of them, but that every single Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon card ever created has its own separate page.
So... um... when did this happen? You don't give a specific example, and I'm pretty sure the Pokemon thing was settled a loooong time ago. And, again, remember that deletion review can undelete stuff if more references can be supplied, and that an article can be recreated after a poor version is deleted. (Although recreating a poor article with another poor version a couple times is a sure way to get a ban.)
Sigh... every time any article on Slashdot mentions Wikipedia, there's always a flood of people saying "oh, no, I don't dare write anything lest my poor little article get deleted". Yes, there are cases of admins abusing power and deleting articles that never should be deleted. However, these cases are few and far between compared to the number of articles that are deleted for the legitimate reason that no one except the author would ever want to read about the topic.
Have you actually even read WP:N? The third sentence of the page begins "Notability is distinct from 'fame,' 'importance,' or 'popularity'...". For the most part, there is a very simple rule for deciding what is notable: if someone independent of the specific community of people related to the topic has written about the topic, it is notable; otherwise, it is not notable. Many stubs can automatically be saved from deletion by spending five minutes Googling for references.
In short: the few unusual cases of articles being deleted improperly has caused everyone to believe that there are no solid criteria for deletion. There are. Read them. And, of course, there's always Deletion Review.
Could someone please give me a quick comparison between OOo and MS Office?
Here you go: OpenOffice.org has every feature that any practical user would ever want or need. Microsoft Office has these, too, but it also has the ability to generate charts in seventeen dimensions, which for some reason is the one feature absolutely essential to whoever you happen to be trading documents with.
If bugfixing is all that's left to do, of course no-one new joins the project.
That's not the point. The point is that there is most definitely still work to be done to make OpenOffice usable in a major business environment. And by "usable", I mean "PHBs will be willing to use it instead of MS Office".
Not understanding the difference between a patent application and a granted patent is a common feature of articles and commentary here.
Most people on Slashdot believe that an alarmingly large percentage of patent applications are granted. The number of outright stupid patents that are granted is often exaggerated into the "application == patent" phenomenon you mention. Sadly, some of the time, they're right.
Microsoft Thumbscrew! The product guaranteed to make you scream in agony! Now with even more boneheaded user interface design decisions! Order now, and we'll somehow work in DRM and the Internet Explorer rendering engine, too!
Oh, the irony. Look at Slashdot's moderation system. The panicky and pessimistic comments are automatically modded to +5 Insightful, thereby confirming them...
Here's some more validation for the "most people are making stuff up" argument. Out of my almost 350 edits to Wikipedia, including several major article redesigns and a couple complete section deletions, I have never had an edit reverted.
Guidelines for inclusion are: "I wrote this." Thats all.
Incorrect. The guidelines for inclusion are 1) "I wrote this" and 2) "no one else deleted it or mangled it beyond recognition". This is a much stricter requirement, and the reason that most vandalism gets deleted within a matter of minutes.
This is how you test wikipeida. Click on 'Random Article' until you find something you actually know something about...
As a test, I clicked "Random article" 20 times and counted the types of articles I got. Here are the results:
4 articles about writing or literature 3 articles about politics 3 articles about sports 2 articles about a place or geographical feature 1 article about music 1 article about ancient history 1 article about religion 1 article about a film director 1 article about a fashion model 1 article about a game (and not the video type!) 1 article about a ship 1 disambiguation page for multiple unrelated topics 0 articles about mathematics, computer science, software, hardware, or any other topic with which I am significantly familiar
It's easy to say "let's try out some shit and drop it if it doesn't work" when very few people grow dependent on your work; when the whole world does so, it's a bit more difficult.
In fact, that was what got us into this mess in the first place. We can't replace any part of the internet without breaking everything, so we just keep tacking on new standards and quick-fix patches. Someone needs to redesign the whole thing with an generalized, expandable security model. But then we would have two internets...
"I think the problem here may be more of a question of getting rid of the bad internets and keeping the good internets."
I've often wondered how long it will be until mainstream computing consists entirely of thin clients with web browsers and servers that provide all storage and applications. You can encrypt everything to make sure the server can't read it, but you have no guarantee that the server will give you back your data after you've stored it.
But no one will care, because, despite all of the horror stories of their friends' favorite storage sites going under and losing all their data, people will think, "It won't happen to me!".
They update it at ridiculous intervals, multiple times per week. It's really irritating because it always brings up their website every time it gets updated, but I'm sure that any exploitable bugs would get patched immediately.
Slashdot Mirror
Great idea in theory. But in practice, it leads to Eastern European weightlifters being deleted because pimply-faced American 'admins' haven't heard of them, but that every single Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon card ever created has its own separate page.
So... um... when did this happen? You don't give a specific example, and I'm pretty sure the Pokemon thing was settled a loooong time ago. And, again, remember that deletion review can undelete stuff if more references can be supplied, and that an article can be recreated after a poor version is deleted. (Although recreating a poor article with another poor version a couple times is a sure way to get a ban.)
Sigh... every time any article on Slashdot mentions Wikipedia, there's always a flood of people saying "oh, no, I don't dare write anything lest my poor little article get deleted". Yes, there are cases of admins abusing power and deleting articles that never should be deleted. However, these cases are few and far between compared to the number of articles that are deleted for the legitimate reason that no one except the author would ever want to read about the topic.
Have you actually even read WP:N? The third sentence of the page begins "Notability is distinct from 'fame,' 'importance,' or 'popularity'...". For the most part, there is a very simple rule for deciding what is notable: if someone independent of the specific community of people related to the topic has written about the topic, it is notable; otherwise, it is not notable. Many stubs can automatically be saved from deletion by spending five minutes Googling for references.
In short: the few unusual cases of articles being deleted improperly has caused everyone to believe that there are no solid criteria for deletion. There are. Read them. And, of course, there's always Deletion Review.
Finally, I refer you to one of my previous comments.
Could someone please give me a quick comparison between OOo and MS Office?
Here you go: OpenOffice.org has every feature that any practical user would ever want or need. Microsoft Office has these, too, but it also has the ability to generate charts in seventeen dimensions, which for some reason is the one feature absolutely essential to whoever you happen to be trading documents with.
If bugfixing is all that's left to do, of course no-one new joins the project.
That's not the point. The point is that there is most definitely still work to be done to make OpenOffice usable in a major business environment. And by "usable", I mean "PHBs will be willing to use it instead of MS Office".
How about fixing some of the 12058 open bugs?
Not understanding the difference between a patent application and a granted patent is a common feature of articles and commentary here.
Most people on Slashdot believe that an alarmingly large percentage of patent applications are granted. The number of outright stupid patents that are granted is often exaggerated into the "application == patent" phenomenon you mention. Sadly, some of the time, they're right.
Brain Plasticity - his subconscious is figuring out how to make use of some form of input, to give him a sense that something is there.
Alright, then. How about you suggest an experiment that would isolate the correct variable.
Stop coming up with excuses. If you can't suggest a better experiment, don't complain.
So would any animal that doesn't shit in its own water dish.
I'm not really sure that octopuses need a water dish. They kind of live in it and stuff.
The Orange Box sold very well on the PC, according to Valve's Doug Lombardi, surpassing 360 sales.
Wow! 360 sales! That's particularly amazing, since there's only a world market for five computers.
Microsoft Thumbscrew! The product guaranteed to make you scream in agony! Now with even more boneheaded user interface design decisions! Order now, and we'll somehow work in DRM and the Internet Explorer rendering engine, too!
Oh, the irony. Look at Slashdot's moderation system. The panicky and pessimistic comments are automatically modded to +5 Insightful, thereby confirming them...
Indeed, if it weren't for Hitler, whose law would we invoke when someone mentions Hitler?
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's an ape in an ape's body.
I have mod points, but I couldn't bring myself to mod you offtopic. It's just too weird a comment.
Now go swim upstream and spawn.
And that would be the one-hour Godwin. Thread's over; nothing to see here, move along.
I'm pretty sure that 24 hours from the time of this post, either it will be at +5 Funny, or only people browsing at -1 will see it.
You've got a solid +3 right now. Keep trying!
Actually, I think the scarier thing is that it's +3 Informative...
Stop...talking...like...Shatner!
Here's some more validation for the "most people are making stuff up" argument. Out of my almost 350 edits to Wikipedia, including several major article redesigns and a couple complete section deletions, I have never had an edit reverted.
Never.
Interpret that as you wish.
Guidelines for inclusion are: "I wrote this." Thats all.
Incorrect. The guidelines for inclusion are 1) "I wrote this" and 2) "no one else deleted it or mangled it beyond recognition". This is a much stricter requirement, and the reason that most vandalism gets deleted within a matter of minutes.
This is how you test wikipeida. Click on 'Random Article' until you find something you actually know something about...
As a test, I clicked "Random article" 20 times and counted the types of articles I got. Here are the results:
4 articles about writing or literature
3 articles about politics
3 articles about sports
2 articles about a place or geographical feature
1 article about music
1 article about ancient history
1 article about religion
1 article about a film director
1 article about a fashion model
1 article about a game (and not the video type!)
1 article about a ship
1 disambiguation page for multiple unrelated topics
0 articles about mathematics, computer science, software, hardware, or any other topic with which I am significantly familiar
This could take a while...
Both of those also apply to human soldiers.
It's easy to say "let's try out some shit and drop it if it doesn't work" when very few people grow dependent on your work; when the whole world does so, it's a bit more difficult.
In fact, that was what got us into this mess in the first place. We can't replace any part of the internet without breaking everything, so we just keep tacking on new standards and quick-fix patches. Someone needs to redesign the whole thing with an generalized, expandable security model. But then we would have two internets...
"I think the problem here may be more of a question of getting rid of the bad internets and keeping the good internets."
No, that only makes price, rather than freedom, matter.
Then let's rephrase it:
does it matter that it's open source or not?
It doesn't if you don't have $2400 to spend on a copy of Mathematica.
I've often wondered how long it will be until mainstream computing consists entirely of thin clients with web browsers and servers that provide all storage and applications. You can encrypt everything to make sure the server can't read it, but you have no guarantee that the server will give you back your data after you've stored it.
But no one will care, because, despite all of the horror stories of their friends' favorite storage sites going under and losing all their data, people will think, "It won't happen to me!".
They update it at ridiculous intervals, multiple times per week. It's really irritating because it always brings up their website every time it gets updated, but I'm sure that any exploitable bugs would get patched immediately.
I see i will need to change to Linux when XP support gone out.
Why wait? Start dual-booting now. It'll probably save a lot of grief with hardware compatibility issues later.