These were bottom-rung machines bought by people who didn't give a shit. All they wanted was a computar thingy to access thar intarwebs.
When people like this walk into these stores to buy the cheapest computer they can, nothing can move that mountain. You can tell them time and time again that the performance will suck, that it won't work with newer operating systems, and they still won't pony up another dollar.
This was not remotely the norm in my experience as an Easy Tech salesman at Staples. The vast majority of customers (including many on tight budgets) did not want a "bare minimum" machine if there was a reasonably superior alternative available within a few hundred dollars of the price tag.
And if people do come in intending to buy the cheapest piece of junk available (regardless of performance), it's the job of the salesman to put the (healthy) fear of God into them about the nightmare of running Vista on those dinosaurs.
Watching it reminded me of the kind of news propaganda that the Nazi's used in WW2 to convince their population that their cause was just and righteous, and demoralize their enemies.
Because apparently the only certain things in this life are death, taxes, and the application of Godwin's Law.
First, you're mischaracterizing my statement. I didn't say 20% of the articles on Wikipedia are garbage. I said about 20% of the approximately 20 articles I have read; i.e. four articles contain significant errors or omissions. And now I add, for purposes of clarification, that since I lack the time and interest to do a comprehensive study of my own, I conclude on this admittedly insufficient sample that Wikipedia isn't good enough for me. If you prefer to take your chances, feel free, but if you claim Wikipedia is as good as a print source then you'll have to go into a bit of detail to refute the evidence of my own eyes.
In my humble, anecdotal, undocumented personal experience, Wikipedia is vastly more useful to the average information-seeker than any print encyclopedia by an incredible margin. As to whether that renders it "as good as" such a source, well, I'll leave that up to the individual to decide. But I certainly don't read such print encyclopedias for spot-on accurate information down to the last detail.
Second, your assertion that errors are "generally restricted to... articles so obscure or specific" makes it impossible to argue against you, because I can point to 20 articles containing errors and then you can dismiss them all because, in your exalted opinion, they're "obscure or specific" topics.
By "obscure or specific" I intend to indicate that they are such articles as you would not find in a print encyclopedia anyway, or at least not in the same level of detail. God forbid you should find a minor error in two in the 17-page article on Lightsaber combat, or even the vastly more useful 15-page Kabbalah article complete with 37 citations and 31 credible sources. Of course you'll find a much more accurate, equally comprehensive source in the Encyclopedia Britannica, I'm sure.
Finally, a rebuttal to the defense that "it's just an encyclopedia." Would you consult an encyclopedia, any encyclopedia, where 50% of the articles were known to be utterly false? Would you tolerate a 25% error rate? The question I pose is, what error rate really is acceptable and does Wikipedia exceed that rate, or not? My experience is a sample size of about 20 articles and in that sample, the rate of error or omission is about 20%. For me, that's far too high -- but I admit that's a biased analysis.;-)
I'm calling you out on this one. Wikipedia holds content equating to thousands of times the degree of information available in a standard print encyclopedia. The majority of articles of any real importance on Wikipedia are kept spic and spam at all times by a team of a rabid fact-hounds, and the inaccurate garbage (to which you ascribe a questionable 20% occurrence) is generally restricted to the host of articles so obscure or specific that they would be omitted in a standard encyclopedia anyway! How ma
...but it still isn't going to keep people from making these assertions. Wikipedia has changed nothing but the scope of information covered by encyclopaedic content. The ignorant sods who considered Brittanica and World Book a reliable source twenty years ago are the same geniuses that quote Wikipedia on research papers. Rampant prejudice specifically directed at Wikipedia exists only because of gross misunderstanding of its peer review format and a general bias against the great evil that is (*GASP*) technology.
FARNSWORTH: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
FRY: "Oh. What's it called now?"
FARNSWORTH: "Urectum."
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These were bottom-rung machines bought by people who didn't give a shit. All they wanted was a computar thingy to access thar intarwebs.
When people like this walk into these stores to buy the cheapest computer they can, nothing can move that mountain. You can tell them time and time again that the performance will suck, that it won't work with newer operating systems, and they still won't pony up another dollar.
This was not remotely the norm in my experience as an Easy Tech salesman at Staples. The vast majority of customers (including many on tight budgets) did not want a "bare minimum" machine if there was a reasonably superior alternative available within a few hundred dollars of the price tag. And if people do come in intending to buy the cheapest piece of junk available (regardless of performance), it's the job of the salesman to put the (healthy) fear of God into them about the nightmare of running Vista on those dinosaurs.
Watching it reminded me of the kind of news propaganda that the Nazi's used in WW2 to convince their population that their cause was just and righteous, and demoralize their enemies.
Because apparently the only certain things in this life are death, taxes, and the application of Godwin's Law.
First, you're mischaracterizing my statement. I didn't say 20% of the articles on Wikipedia are garbage. I said about 20% of the approximately 20 articles I have read; i.e. four articles contain significant errors or omissions. And now I add, for purposes of clarification, that since I lack the time and interest to do a comprehensive study of my own, I conclude on this admittedly insufficient sample that Wikipedia isn't good enough for me. If you prefer to take your chances, feel free, but if you claim Wikipedia is as good as a print source then you'll have to go into a bit of detail to refute the evidence of my own eyes.
In my humble, anecdotal, undocumented personal experience, Wikipedia is vastly more useful to the average information-seeker than any print encyclopedia by an incredible margin. As to whether that renders it "as good as" such a source, well, I'll leave that up to the individual to decide. But I certainly don't read such print encyclopedias for spot-on accurate information down to the last detail.Second, your assertion that errors are "generally restricted to ... articles so obscure or specific" makes it impossible to argue against you, because I can point to 20 articles containing errors and then you can dismiss them all because, in your exalted opinion, they're "obscure or specific" topics.
By "obscure or specific" I intend to indicate that they are such articles as you would not find in a print encyclopedia anyway, or at least not in the same level of detail. God forbid you should find a minor error in two in the 17-page article on Lightsaber combat, or even the vastly more useful 15-page Kabbalah article complete with 37 citations and 31 credible sources. Of course you'll find a much more accurate, equally comprehensive source in the Encyclopedia Britannica, I'm sure.Finally, a rebuttal to the defense that "it's just an encyclopedia." Would you consult an encyclopedia, any encyclopedia, where 50% of the articles were known to be utterly false? Would you tolerate a 25% error rate? The question I pose is, what error rate really is acceptable and does Wikipedia exceed that rate, or not? My experience is a sample size of about 20 articles and in that sample, the rate of error or omission is about 20%. For me, that's far too high -- but I admit that's a biased analysis. ;-)
I'm calling you out on this one. Wikipedia holds content equating to thousands of times the degree of information available in a standard print encyclopedia. The majority of articles of any real importance on Wikipedia are kept spic and spam at all times by a team of a rabid fact-hounds, and the inaccurate garbage (to which you ascribe a questionable 20% occurrence) is generally restricted to the host of articles so obscure or specific that they would be omitted in a standard encyclopedia anyway! How ma...but it still isn't going to keep people from making these assertions. Wikipedia has changed nothing but the scope of information covered by encyclopaedic content. The ignorant sods who considered Brittanica and World Book a reliable source twenty years ago are the same geniuses that quote Wikipedia on research papers. Rampant prejudice specifically directed at Wikipedia exists only because of gross misunderstanding of its peer review format and a general bias against the great evil that is (*GASP*) technology.
FARNSWORTH: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
FRY: "Oh. What's it called now?"
FARNSWORTH: "Urectum."