The real problem is that people who have no knowledge or experience with the Wikipedia talking about it being too big and impossible to control. Yet, realistically, it's well under control and its bigness is a wonderful thing, useful to many, many people.
"So it looks like crybaby Siegenthaler accomplished what many community activists could not achieve--controlling what anons could do in the Wikipedia. However, even though I feel favorable to restricting the creation of articles (and even "major degree" changes) by anons, it appears that Mr. Wales has trumped any community discussion of this. That is rather alarming. That he has allowed an old crybaby to force through a change in the nature of Wikipedia portends bad things ahead if this decision isn't entered into a proper community decision process as soon as possible."
Whine, whine, whine. Destructive criticism without producing alternative better ideas means you're wasting our time.
Wikipedia is the *best* at what it does. Until something better comes along. I'm fine with that.
Instead of pissing on a great creation slaved over by multitudes of caring contributors, I choose to *not* look this gift horse in the mouth. I appreciate it and use it.
And yet every Wikipedia advocate argues strongly that it is objective, neutral, and authoritative.
I am a Wikipedia advocate, and I never made that argument. I would say instead that it tries to achieve a neutral point of view (which is not the same as objectivity), that some articles achieve this by presenting all significant points of view, and that it's only authoritative as far as representing the combined knowledge of many contributors (which is often spectacularly good).
Until Wikipedia disallows anonymous editing and starts vetting contributions, it will never have credibility.
Contributions are already vetted, by other contributors. It's called peer review--you might want to actually look at the Wikipedia to see how this great (albeit imperfect) system works. But then, no peer review system is perfect.
Your post is an affront to free expression and you are aiding/abetting Siegenthaler's whining. And to call anything that makes it into the Wikipedia as "libel" is so laughable I am literally falling off my chair. This is an effing community reference that constantly mutates, not old-fashioned journalism! Geez!
The Wikipedia absolutely does not need to "pay closer attention to some of these edits". It already has adequate mechanisms for doing just that.
Perhaps Siegenthaler's article languished with bad info because almost nobody in the world cares about Mr. Siegenthaler?
Siegenthaler was actually the one here who was most irresponsible. Instead of whining like a banshee, he could seen to it that the article was changed and monitored for future infactual content creeping back in. To take to the airwaves to shit on the entirely of the Wikipedia because one articles gets it wrong is a demonstration of extreme thin-skinism.
I have no sympathy for Siegenthaler. The man has no class.
But I will say this... he is a step above the nut who wrote the crap about him. But just one step.
Attack free expression and you have earned a top spot on my shit list.
but what a sick egocentric f**k he is to condemn the entirety of Wikipedia just because there was some corrupt text in the article about him.
Siegenthaler is a crybaby and his suggestions of suppressing free expression are downright appalling.
If he didn't like the stuff written about him, it was easy enough to change it (or have somebody change it). And those changes would have propagated to the mirrors in time.
His "whine! whine! whine!" is FUD and should be slammed down by everyone who believes in freedom.
MS has learned much from the radical liberal movement in the US: if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.
Methinks you boo-booed. You just described the M.O. of the radical right, not "radical liberal movements". Progressive efforts concentrate on spreading facts that that big business wants to keep from the public, via the use of lies and public relations.
First, Clinton didn't make the choice to invade Iraq. Bush did. Even supposing they had the same evidence before them (or believed it the same), and knowing that neither president was against using the military, the decision and the responsibility for attacking Iraq rests 100% on Bush's shoulders. No way around that.
Second, and I'm sorry to have to keep beating this down right-winger's throats, but Bush went well beyond the generally agreed notion that Saddam *may* still have WMDs. His administration said 1) Saddam was allied with al Qaeda, and 2) This alliance would lead to use of WMDs by al Qaeda in the U.S. (e.g., Condi spoke of "mushroom clouds"). Both of these factors were used to spell out an "imminent threat".
Clinton's admin never said Saddam was an imminent threat. Never. "Building threat" and "eventual threat" are not "imminent threat".
The economy is actually in tatters, but the mainstream media just isn't tell the public this.
The long-term unemployment rate is one key to understanding. The last time I checked, it was above 20% in the U.S., and it is historically diverging from the reported unemployment rate.
The reality is that the middle class in the U.S. is being hollowed out as we change from a producer into a consumer nation, a manufacturing into a services economy, an insourcing into an outsourcing country.
The U.S. economy is falling apart, but many living in the few bubbles where this reality hasn't hit yet won't know until it's way past started. Oh well.
Wouldn't it be nice if we actually took the time to understand and solve our problems instead of coming up yet another utopian panacea doomed to failure?
Funny you mention that. As that is exactly what scientists do. But then, nobody accuses neocons, Libertarians or historical totalitarian communists of being scientists. It would indeed be a good thing if we actually were intent on solving problems by their own merits rather than taking trips to Pollyanna-ville, whether the left side or right side of town.
I don't think anyone thinks that there should or must be a goal to achieve a 100% gift economy in the software development industry.
It has always seemed obvious to me that we're going to end up with some kind of perpetual balance between OSS and proprietary software. OSS is great for the "commodity" software, whereas proprietary software will often work best for highly custom or highly niched software.
OK, this person is coming from a Microsoft-backed shilling outfit, and she's framing the issues the same way a right-winger or extremist Libertarian would, and thus, she's not even on this planet in terms of rationality.
Frame: "This policy has pitted those in favor of government mandates to meet 'larger considerations' against others in the industry who favor a more market-oriented approach."
Reality: Decreeing open standards *is* a free-market-oriented approach. What the MS-backed org wants in place of this is Microsoft's continued monopoly, the monopoly-oriented approach. I choose a free market. It's a time-honored tradition for government to level the playing field to produce rich competition. What Massachusetts is doing is nothing new, and is a clear benefit to the people of Massachusetts and beyond.
Frame: "It reflects the currently fashionable idea that confiscatory government policy must be used to even the score (whatever that means), thrusting highly demanded, privately risked IP out of the hands of legitimate property owners and into the hands of other, favored actors to further 'develop' it."
Reality: It's definitely the currently fasionable idea for government to deploy confiscatory policy, but what we have actually seen are pro-corporate policies (and inaction) that have been working in favor of monopolies and many big corporate interests for at least a generation. That government has not been ensuring a level playing field has led to increasing corporate confiscation of national wealth that could be better used, let's say, to ensure most human beings received adequate health care.
More reality: Massachusetts is not taking IP away from anyone and handing it to anyone. It's merely saying that government agencies will use an array of software products not constrained by IP issues, and that open standards will be implemented so that a wider array of products (open source or not) can be considered in purchase decisions.
Massachusetts is making changes to create a more competitive, freer market, and this reactionary, dim-bulb, MS shill has the gall to attack it. She needs to go ahead and come out as "pro-monopoly" and "pro-monopoly-confiscation-of-national-wealth" and be done with it. Because that is exactly her position.
as much as that we're letting so many math/science/engineering/programming smarties fall by the wayside by continuing the hollow out these type of jobs from the economy.
How about finding ways to re-employ these people for the national good? I'm sure most of them have great ideas to contribute!
consequences such as bodily harm, government repression or corporate SLAPP suits, but free speech can never obviate others' right to criticize your speech or to choose whether or not to associate with you.
companies not being able to sue individuals over their speech, even if damaging.
Even though this is from Canada, this reminds me (again) that it's high time to protect our freedom of speech, not only from government encroachment, but also from corporate interference.
It matters nothing to me that any company is damaged from the speech of individuals. Such speech must be protected in these days of de facto corporate rule.
If a company cannot shield itself from one individual's speech, perhaps they should decide to fold their tents rather than harassing this good lady? It seems to me this must be a company that has worn out its privilege to exist.
The thought has crossed my mind that it would be nice if people could report and compare prices they encounter at various local stores. But I've then wondered: Is it legal to take the price information for an array of items from a store and offer them up to a public forum? Or is this info considered part of the public domain?
to promote mediocrity. I've been there... IBM, before unions came into play, and Prudential. Lots of dead wood in both of these shops.
As far as I'm concerned, capitalism is wonderful, BUT big corporations become fat and lazy. Why else do they tend to feed off the public trough? Because they don't know how to run a lean/energetic business after they get so big. They get too accustomed to fat profits and thus squeeze the fed's teats to ensure continued fat profits. I've had enough of this 'corporatism'.
I sympathize with the idea of requiring that SBC allow access to all companies. But I'm afraid this is one of those things that looks great on paper, but sucks in reality.
In my own experience, I've gotten residential phone service from secondary phone companies who were allowed to run off the same lines as the primary phone company. However, the secondary phone company seemed to be frequently tripped up by the primary company in how service issues were handled, as the primary company still was responsible for much of it. I recall my secondary provider complaining that the primary provider was giving them a lot of run-around with regards to getting things done.
This is why I think nationalizing might work better. That way all service providers become equalized, where one cannot trip up the other except through a free market competition of services The libertarian in me likes that aspect. Sometimes the government we elect is needed to bring about greater freedom, by binding the freedom of one powerful entity.
Slashdot Mirror
The real problem is that people who have no knowledge or experience with the Wikipedia talking about it being too big and impossible to control. Yet, realistically, it's well under control and its bigness is a wonderful thing, useful to many, many people.
"So it looks like crybaby Siegenthaler accomplished what many community activists could not achieve--controlling what anons could do in the Wikipedia. However, even though I feel favorable to restricting the creation of articles (and even "major degree" changes) by anons, it appears that Mr. Wales has trumped any community discussion of this. That is rather alarming. That he has allowed an old crybaby to force through a change in the nature of Wikipedia portends bad things ahead if this decision isn't entered into a proper community decision process as soon as possible."
It looks like we have another corporation here asking for a spanking.
Now, what can we do to bring down their revenue? Hmmmm...
Whine, whine, whine. Destructive criticism without producing alternative better ideas means you're wasting our time.
Wikipedia is the *best* at what it does. Until something better comes along. I'm fine with that.
Instead of pissing on a great creation slaved over by multitudes of caring contributors, I choose to *not* look this gift horse in the mouth. I appreciate it and use it.
And yet every Wikipedia advocate argues strongly that it is objective, neutral, and authoritative.
I am a Wikipedia advocate, and I never made that argument. I would say instead that it tries to achieve a neutral point of view (which is not the same as objectivity), that some articles achieve this by presenting all significant points of view, and that it's only authoritative as far as representing the combined knowledge of many contributors (which is often spectacularly good).
Until Wikipedia disallows anonymous editing and starts vetting contributions, it will never have credibility.
Contributions are already vetted, by other contributors. It's called peer review--you might want to actually look at the Wikipedia to see how this great (albeit imperfect) system works. But then, no peer review system is perfect.
they can go directly to the page in question and make the changes, anonymously. It's as easy as pie.
Your post is an affront to free expression and you are aiding/abetting Siegenthaler's whining. And to call anything that makes it into the Wikipedia as "libel" is so laughable I am literally falling off my chair. This is an effing community reference that constantly mutates, not old-fashioned journalism! Geez!
The Wikipedia absolutely does not need to "pay closer attention to some of these edits". It already has adequate mechanisms for doing just that.
Perhaps Siegenthaler's article languished with bad info because almost nobody in the world cares about Mr. Siegenthaler?
Siegenthaler was actually the one here who was most irresponsible. Instead of whining like a banshee, he could seen to it that the article was changed and monitored for future infactual content creeping back in. To take to the airwaves to shit on the entirely of the Wikipedia because one articles gets it wrong is a demonstration of extreme thin-skinism.
I have no sympathy for Siegenthaler. The man has no class.
But I will say this... he is a step above the nut who wrote the crap about him. But just one step.
Attack free expression and you have earned a top spot on my shit list.
but what a sick egocentric f**k he is to condemn the entirety of Wikipedia just because there was some corrupt text in the article about him.
Siegenthaler is a crybaby and his suggestions of suppressing free expression are downright appalling.
If he didn't like the stuff written about him, it was easy enough to change it (or have somebody change it). And those changes would have propagated to the mirrors in time.
His "whine! whine! whine!" is FUD and should be slammed down by everyone who believes in freedom.
Mr. Siegenthaler, grow a thicker skin, will ya?
Methinks you boo-booed. You just described the M.O. of the radical right, not "radical liberal movements". Progressive efforts concentrate on spreading facts that that big business wants to keep from the public, via the use of lies and public relations.
Logical fallacy time, on two fronts.
First, Clinton didn't make the choice to invade Iraq. Bush did. Even supposing they had the same evidence before them (or believed it the same), and knowing that neither president was against using the military, the decision and the responsibility for attacking Iraq rests 100% on Bush's shoulders. No way around that.
Second, and I'm sorry to have to keep beating this down right-winger's throats, but Bush went well beyond the generally agreed notion that Saddam *may* still have WMDs. His administration said 1) Saddam was allied with al Qaeda, and 2) This alliance would lead to use of WMDs by al Qaeda in the U.S. (e.g., Condi spoke of "mushroom clouds"). Both of these factors were used to spell out an "imminent threat".
Clinton's admin never said Saddam was an imminent threat. Never. "Building threat" and "eventual threat" are not "imminent threat".
Bush lied us into war. This is fact.
The economy is actually in tatters, but the mainstream media just isn't tell the public this.
The long-term unemployment rate is one key to understanding. The last time I checked, it was above 20% in the U.S., and it is historically diverging from the reported unemployment rate.
The reality is that the middle class in the U.S. is being hollowed out as we change from a producer into a consumer nation, a manufacturing into a services economy, an insourcing into an outsourcing country.
The U.S. economy is falling apart, but many living in the few bubbles where this reality hasn't hit yet won't know until it's way past started. Oh well.
Funny you mention that. As that is exactly what scientists do. But then, nobody accuses neocons, Libertarians or historical totalitarian communists of being scientists. It would indeed be a good thing if we actually were intent on solving problems by their own merits rather than taking trips to Pollyanna-ville, whether the left side or right side of town.
I don't think anyone thinks that there should or must be a goal to achieve a 100% gift economy in the software development industry.
It has always seemed obvious to me that we're going to end up with some kind of perpetual balance between OSS and proprietary software. OSS is great for the "commodity" software, whereas proprietary software will often work best for highly custom or highly niched software.
OK, this person is coming from a Microsoft-backed shilling outfit, and she's framing the issues the same way a right-winger or extremist Libertarian would, and thus, she's not even on this planet in terms of rationality.
Reality: Decreeing open standards *is* a free-market-oriented approach. What the MS-backed org wants in place of this is Microsoft's continued monopoly, the monopoly-oriented approach. I choose a free market. It's a time-honored tradition for government to level the playing field to produce rich competition. What Massachusetts is doing is nothing new, and is a clear benefit to the people of Massachusetts and beyond.
Reality: It's definitely the currently fasionable idea for government to deploy confiscatory policy, but what we have actually seen are pro-corporate policies (and inaction) that have been working in favor of monopolies and many big corporate interests for at least a generation. That government has not been ensuring a level playing field has led to increasing corporate confiscation of national wealth that could be better used, let's say, to ensure most human beings received adequate health care.
More reality: Massachusetts is not taking IP away from anyone and handing it to anyone. It's merely saying that government agencies will use an array of software products not constrained by IP issues, and that open standards will be implemented so that a wider array of products (open source or not) can be considered in purchase decisions.
Massachusetts is making changes to create a more competitive, freer market, and this reactionary, dim-bulb, MS shill has the gall to attack it. She needs to go ahead and come out as "pro-monopoly" and "pro-monopoly-confiscation-of-national-wealth" and be done with it. Because that is exactly her position.
as much as that we're letting so many math/science/engineering/programming smarties fall by the wayside by continuing the hollow out these type of jobs from the economy.
How about finding ways to re-employ these people for the national good? I'm sure most of them have great ideas to contribute!
consequences such as bodily harm, government repression or corporate SLAPP suits, but free speech can never obviate others' right to criticize your speech or to choose whether or not to associate with you.
And the world lost.
companies not being able to sue individuals over their speech, even if damaging.
Even though this is from Canada, this reminds me (again) that it's high time to protect our freedom of speech, not only from government encroachment, but also from corporate interference.
It matters nothing to me that any company is damaged from the speech of individuals. Such speech must be protected in these days of de facto corporate rule.
If a company cannot shield itself from one individual's speech, perhaps they should decide to fold their tents rather than harassing this good lady? It seems to me this must be a company that has worn out its privilege to exist.
n/t
The thought has crossed my mind that it would be nice if people could report and compare prices they encounter at various local stores. But I've then wondered: Is it legal to take the price information for an array of items from a store and offer them up to a public forum? Or is this info considered part of the public domain?
to promote mediocrity. I've been there... IBM, before unions came into play, and Prudential. Lots of dead wood in both of these shops.
As far as I'm concerned, capitalism is wonderful, BUT big corporations become fat and lazy. Why else do they tend to feed off the public trough? Because they don't know how to run a lean/energetic business after they get so big. They get too accustomed to fat profits and thus squeeze the fed's teats to ensure continued fat profits. I've had enough of this 'corporatism'.
I sympathize with the idea of requiring that SBC allow access to all companies. But I'm afraid this is one of those things that looks great on paper, but sucks in reality.
In my own experience, I've gotten residential phone service from secondary phone companies who were allowed to run off the same lines as the primary phone company. However, the secondary phone company seemed to be frequently tripped up by the primary company in how service issues were handled, as the primary company still was responsible for much of it. I recall my secondary provider complaining that the primary provider was giving them a lot of run-around with regards to getting things done.
This is why I think nationalizing might work better. That way all service providers become equalized, where one cannot trip up the other except through a free market competition of services The libertarian in me likes that aspect. Sometimes the government we elect is needed to bring about greater freedom, by binding the freedom of one powerful entity.
bigger government. What's yer point?
Whenever Democrats and Republicans agree on something, that's when you know the public interest is getting screwed. And it applies in this case too.
"pipes" and declare them equal to the public's airwaves. I'm thoroughly sick and tired of these monopolistic antics.