Once Wikipedia has the ability to easily show a page as it was on a particular day that would probably mean the end of Britannica.
That day, my friend, is here. Go to any Wikipedia article and click on "history" in the top row. All previous versions of the article are listed, and you can look at them (and link to them) by clicking on the date. A link like that will be permanent and will always refer to the same version. You can also compare versions with the "Compare selected versions" tool.
If you are looking at the current version of an article and you want a permanent link to that specific version, use the "permanent link" in the toolbox on the left.
Britannica is authored by an entity which takes responsibility for its errors and has a long history of accuracy.
That belief, largely a result of advertising, has been throughly undermined by this study. I read any EB article on science, I just learned three false facts. How exactly do they take responsibility for that failing? Can I ask for my money back?
Note also that they "surveyed more than 1,000 Nature authors" and found that "more than 70% had heard of Wikipedia and 17% of those consulted it on a weekly basis." I wonder what percentage of Nature authors consult the Encylopaedia Britannica on a weekly basis.
Nature also published an editorial which asks scientists to contribute to Wikipedia: "Nature would like to encourage its readers to help. The idea is not to seek a replacement for established sources such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but to push forward the grand experiment that is Wikipedia, and to see how much it can improve. Select a topic close to your work and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. And imagine the pay-off: you could be one of the people who helped turn an apparently stupid idea into a free, high-quality global resource."
This Nature editorial asks scientific experts to kick in: "Select a topic close to your work and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. And imagine the pay-off: you could be one of the people who helped turn an apparently stupid idea into a free, high-quality global resource."
They only compared articles that were preselected to have about the same length. Obviously that introduces a bias, but it's not clear in whose favor. The full Nature article is here.
There is generally a great depression and feeling of loss in mothers after they have an abortion.
And at the same time, of course, a great feeling of relief. Also, one should not forget that many women fall into a deep depression after having given birth (look up post partum depression). It causes quite a number of suicides every year.
If my parents had decided to use birth control, I would not be here today and would never have been able to feel or think; if my parents had decided on an abortion, I would likewise not be here today and would never have been able to feel or think. To me, there's no difference in the sadness level of the two scenarios.
One is preventing a process from ever starting, the other is terminating a process already in motion.
That depends on where you put the boundaries of the process, which is ultimately subjective. I could describe the process as two people of the opposite sex meeting, falling in love, having sex, conceiving a child, and the child being born. Granted that contraception interrupts this natural process at an earlier stage than abortion (and abstinence interrupts even earlier), but they all interrupt.
Being against abortion is preventing a murder (my viewpoint, and that of pro-lifers).
But surely you recognize a difference between an 8-cell human embryo and a full-grown human being? The embryo cannot think, cannot feel, indeed cannot do anything that your skin cells can't do just the same. Except, you will say, the embryo can develop into a full-grown thinking and feeling human being, and the skin cell cannot. And I say: you're wrong, the skin cell, just like the embryo, has the full potential to become a grown human being, given the right environment. We will soon be able to take a skin cell of yours, place it in the right environment, and produce a clone of you. Now does that mean killing skin cells is murder too?
often against giving all the information before the "procedure" is performed (sonogram, statistics on mental and physical after effects, etc).
Do you really want to give out all information, or only preselected bits? For example, how about statistics about the life prospects of unwanted children of single mothers, or statistics showing that carrying a child to term is much more dangerous for the mother's health than an abortion?
Have you considered that some of us came to have different views of abortion through learning that we ourselves nearly got aborted?
That can of course easily be turned into an argument against all forms of birth control ("some of us learned that we ourselves nearly were prevented from being conceived altogether!"), indeed it is an argument against allowing anyone of reproductive age to spend a waking minute not having unprotected sex.
Daylight savings time as energy conservation makes sense to me: most people are awake from about 7am to 12pm, and the daylight before 7am in the summer is thus wasted; DST reduces the daylight before 7am.
But why do we switch back in the winter? There's not enough daylight in the winter no matter how you slice it. Whether the sun comes up at 8am and goes down at 4pm, or comes up at 9am and goes down at 5pm, what's the difference? In both scenarios we need 10 hours of artificial lighting per day.
So why not simply set clocks one or two hours ahead once and for all, and be done with it?
Does anyone know of a serious statistical survery of the factual accuracy of articles in Wikipedia?
There was just one such study, and that involved the German Wikipedia. It was matched against the German Encarta and Brockhaus (which is essentially the German equivalend of Britannica), with subject experts evaluating 66 articles whose topics had been blindly chosen beforehand. Wikipedia won based on article quality (though not on multimedia and presentation). Further details here.
Pretty funny how the guy, at the end of the article, wants to fire a parting shot at Wikipedia by pointing to the supposedly inferior "Baby Washington" article. Except he doesn't even know that the background singer Jeanette Washington (to which he linked) is different from the soul singer Jeanette Washington (which he meant).
If you check the history of edits for any page on a contentious subject (e.g Islam, or even dicier, Homosexuality In Islam)you'll see the cascading waves of opposing edits
It is indeed true that the Wikipedia articles on contentious issues are often biased, poorly organized and in a constant state of disrepair. But by studying their history and the associated discussion page (which you should always do when evaluating a Wikipedia article), you will typically get an excellent overview of the relevant issues and a summary of the different positions of the involved parties.
When it comes to controversial topics, no other encyclopedia comes even close; they are Wikipedia's biggest strength. For the fun of it, compare Encyclopedia Britannica's treatment of "abortion" to Wikipedia's.
the People's Republic of China probably already has the research and is testing the idea.
The guy wrote a research paper about it and filed for a patent. Therefore, the idea is out in the open and published and everyone is free to test it. There's nothing secret about it. That's how research works.
Slashdot Mirror
That day, my friend, is here. Go to any Wikipedia article and click on "history" in the top row. All previous versions of the article are listed, and you can look at them (and link to them) by clicking on the date. A link like that will be permanent and will always refer to the same version. You can also compare versions with the "Compare selected versions" tool.
If you are looking at the current version of an article and you want a permanent link to that specific version, use the "permanent link" in the toolbox on the left.
That belief, largely a result of advertising, has been throughly undermined by this study. I read any EB article on science, I just learned three false facts. How exactly do they take responsibility for that failing? Can I ask for my money back?
Note also that they "surveyed more than 1,000 Nature authors" and found that "more than 70% had heard of Wikipedia and 17% of those consulted it on a weekly basis." I wonder what percentage of Nature authors consult the Encylopaedia Britannica on a weekly basis.
Nature also published an editorial which asks scientists to contribute to Wikipedia: "Nature would like to encourage its readers to help. The idea is not to seek a replacement for established sources such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but to push forward the grand experiment that is Wikipedia, and to see how much it can improve. Select a topic close to your work and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. And imagine the pay-off: you could be one of the people who helped turn an apparently stupid idea into a free, high-quality global resource."
This Nature editorial asks scientific experts to kick in: "Select a topic close to your work and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. And imagine the pay-off: you could be one of the people who helped turn an apparently stupid idea into a free, high-quality global resource."
They only compared articles that were preselected to have about the same length. Obviously that introduces a bias, but it's not clear in whose favor. The full Nature article is here.
It says 17% of 70%.
One new interesting tidbit: about 12% of all nature authors consult Wikipedia on a weekly basis. I wonder how many consult EB on a weekly basis...
Ringtones seem to be big business these days. Why do people buy them? Don't these phones allow you to upload your own mp3 ringtone?
From the Terms of Service: "Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google Base. "
In principle yes, but in practice any item in base is limited to 1000 characters (no HTML markup) plus 10 images.
What court case are you referring to?
No OGG? Then you can't even listen to Wikipedia. What do people use these things for?
And at the same time, of course, a great feeling of relief. Also, one should not forget that many women fall into a deep depression after having given birth (look up post partum depression). It causes quite a number of suicides every year.
If my parents had decided to use birth control, I would not be here today and would never have been able to feel or think; if my parents had decided on an abortion, I would likewise not be here today and would never have been able to feel or think. To me, there's no difference in the sadness level of the two scenarios.
That depends on where you put the boundaries of the process, which is ultimately subjective. I could describe the process as two people of the opposite sex meeting, falling in love, having sex, conceiving a child, and the child being born. Granted that contraception interrupts this natural process at an earlier stage than abortion (and abstinence interrupts even earlier), but they all interrupt.
But surely you recognize a difference between an 8-cell human embryo and a full-grown human being? The embryo cannot think, cannot feel, indeed cannot do anything that your skin cells can't do just the same. Except, you will say, the embryo can develop into a full-grown thinking and feeling human being, and the skin cell cannot. And I say: you're wrong, the skin cell, just like the embryo, has the full potential to become a grown human being, given the right environment. We will soon be able to take a skin cell of yours, place it in the right environment, and produce a clone of you. Now does that mean killing skin cells is murder too?
often against giving all the information before the "procedure" is performed (sonogram, statistics on mental and physical after effects, etc).
Do you really want to give out all information, or only preselected bits? For example, how about statistics about the life prospects of unwanted children of single mothers, or statistics showing that carrying a child to term is much more dangerous for the mother's health than an abortion?
That can of course easily be turned into an argument against all forms of birth control ("some of us learned that we ourselves nearly were prevented from being conceived altogether!"), indeed it is an argument against allowing anyone of reproductive age to spend a waking minute not having unprotected sex.
No, it depends on where you sit in your timezone. For the vast majority of people, highest point of the sun does not occur at noon.
But why do we switch back in the winter? There's not enough daylight in the winter no matter how you slice it. Whether the sun comes up at 8am and goes down at 4pm, or comes up at 9am and goes down at 5pm, what's the difference? In both scenarios we need 10 hours of artificial lighting per day.
So why not simply set clocks one or two hours ahead once and for all, and be done with it?
There was just one such study, and that involved the German Wikipedia. It was matched against the German Encarta and Brockhaus (which is essentially the German equivalend of Britannica), with subject experts evaluating 66 articles whose topics had been blindly chosen beforehand. Wikipedia won based on article quality (though not on multimedia and presentation). Further details here.
Pretty funny how the guy, at the end of the article, wants to fire a parting shot at Wikipedia by pointing to the supposedly inferior "Baby Washington" article. Except he doesn't even know that the background singer Jeanette Washington (to which he linked) is different from the soul singer Jeanette Washington (which he meant).
It is indeed true that the Wikipedia articles on contentious issues are often biased, poorly organized and in a constant state of disrepair. But by studying their history and the associated discussion page (which you should always do when evaluating a Wikipedia article), you will typically get an excellent overview of the relevant issues and a summary of the different positions of the involved parties.
When it comes to controversial topics, no other encyclopedia comes even close; they are Wikipedia's biggest strength. For the fun of it, compare Encyclopedia Britannica's treatment of "abortion" to Wikipedia's.
The guy wrote a research paper about it and filed for a patent. Therefore, the idea is out in the open and published and everyone is free to test it. There's nothing secret about it. That's how research works.
Is that so?
When it comes to speech on the internet: yes. I only know the situation in Germany:
But you're right, in the real world Europe typically has more freedoms than the US.