This is quite interesting: Wikipedia as an impromptu but secure archive.
If I were in possession of, say, classified government documents that I needed to leak or save a copy of but didn't want to go through the risk of doing it directly or storing it somewhere it could be found, I could type it into Wikipedia (from the library)!
Then later, even after it got edited out and forgotten, it would be available either in the page history or, if hidden by an admin and important enough, available by subpoena.
It's neat how you're getting progressively more hostile and making increasingly presumptuous judgments. As for the relevancy, emoticons are relevant to everyone and more than one person I know (as well as someone I don't know, namely the one whom you originally replied to, somewhat sarcastically as it were) has lamented the obligatory nature of the presence/pervasiveness of emoticons in IM communication.
(Off-topic) I have no problems with your use of redundant adjectives, but here's a tip: when you start doubling them up (for example, "worthless" followed by the redundant "ultra-pointless" (where, incidentally, the "ultra" is itself redundant due to the absolute quality of something being "pointless"), it's a good indication that
You've run out of relevant rebuttal, or even meaningful things to say (also evidenced by the heavy vulgarity which, hey, I don't have a problem with, but sort of shoots yourself in the foot considering you're becoming increasingly unsuccessful with your "arguments" and have started posting "anonymously").
You've run out of effective rhetoric (if there was any to begin with) to cover up the lack of meaningful things to say.
But then *I* take responsibility for a gap in communication. It's not left up to a piece of software. That's the rub. I'm fully willing to be the accountable party for a lack in understanding during a conversation; however, I don't want to not know that what I was saying was not getting through how I intended. It's NOT clear when you turn off emoticons in, say, MSN messenger, that they're still being parsed on the other end into graphical flourishes--except to the slightly observant user. From an application designer's point of view, in terms of the services an IM client should provide, that's misleading.
Off-topic: I never asserted that I was insightful; in fact I thought my comment was just an observation in conjunction with some facts. Your urge to point out that I needed to "get over myself" was kind of an assumption that I was into myself, but we all know what happens when you assume...
Further off-topic, feeding the troll: I pointed out that your post wasn't really all that insightful not based on assumption or desire to "take you down a notch", but based on its moderation. So, in actuality, my comment was directed at your comment's reception more than the comment itself. Calm down.
But you don't get to REALLY disable emoticons in other clients.
Sure, I can avoid seeing them on my IM application, but that doesn't stop or guard against
My old-skool emoticons such as:o) getting parsed incorrectly as:o, the "surprised fool" look, plus an out-of-place end parenthese. Don't even try parsing my signature "demented ballerina",
;>-|= (tm),
My chatting partner who's using emoticons thinking that they'll display on my end as cutesy yellow ball faces,
...both problems which lead to a very serious communication chasm. In the world of IM, the nuances of each letter speak volumes. What if it's important to me that everything I type, and my partner types, shows up exactly how we've intended?
Yes, the "voice of the community" is important. In some cases we might even argue that the voice of the community is MORE important than the parents', in situations where parenting skills are found sorely lacking (here's ducks, but the same applies equally for people).
However, government--even local government--is notoriously bad at representing "the community". Like just about all other politically-driven interests, legislated morality is driven far less by widely-perceived social benefit than by economics, personal gain, and dogma.
Do you trust your representatives and senators (whom you might not even have voted for or, similarly, wanted to vote for, despite your best intentions replete with self-admonishments months in advance of election day to actually make it to the polls this year) to have exactly the same moral and ethical sensibilities as you do? On every issue? On issues that obviously weren't foreseen and introduced as part of your legal proxy's campaign platform?
Furthermore, do you trust these legal proxies in this wonderful republic of ours to be able to actually represent the views of others in "our community" ? The views of everyone?
Of course not.
That's why legislative morality is fundamentally error-prone, alienating, and self-serving. Moral concerns come not in black and white but more gradations of rightness and wrongness than your fancy HDTV has colors. The only good way to play ethics is to reject the role of government in it. Unfortunately this fact seems to be missed by, well, everyone important.
To put it right to the./ community: giving government the choice is like putting a conditional too far upstream, where it doesn't belong.
The alternative? Pay attention to your REAL community. What a world this would be if we civilly discussed disagreements with our neighbors face-to-face. If we had a "community" intervention to talk some reason into the parents that held a "Hot Coffee Family Night" on Tuesdays because we had scientific evidence to show that Hot Coffee causes children to cannibalize each other. If we didn't turn into tattle-tales and threaten to have our mommy (the government) give our sister (a member of our "community") the spanking we think she deserves (basically, to legislate and enforce absolutes it has no authority to legislate (or even falsely claim to represent that the people wished ("the will of the people" is NOT to be taken lightly, folks!) to legislate). If we stayed the hell out of each other's business in all cases where someone wasn't actually getting hurt.
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This is quite interesting: Wikipedia as an impromptu but secure archive.
If I were in possession of, say, classified government documents that I needed to leak or save a copy of but didn't want to go through the risk of doing it directly or storing it somewhere it could be found, I could type it into Wikipedia (from the library)!
Then later, even after it got edited out and forgotten, it would be available either in the page history or, if hidden by an admin and important enough, available by subpoena.
(Off-topic) I have no problems with your use of redundant adjectives, but here's a tip: when you start doubling them up (for example, "worthless" followed by the redundant "ultra-pointless" (where, incidentally, the "ultra" is itself redundant due to the absolute quality of something being "pointless"), it's a good indication that
But I'm the one that presented meaningful, relevant facts while you have done little more than cop attitude and use vulgarity :)
But then *I* take responsibility for a gap in communication. It's not left up to a piece of software. That's the rub. I'm fully willing to be the accountable party for a lack in understanding during a conversation; however, I don't want to not know that what I was saying was not getting through how I intended. It's NOT clear when you turn off emoticons in, say, MSN messenger, that they're still being parsed on the other end into graphical flourishes--except to the slightly observant user. From an application designer's point of view, in terms of the services an IM client should provide, that's misleading.
Off-topic: I never asserted that I was insightful; in fact I thought my comment was just an observation in conjunction with some facts. Your urge to point out that I needed to "get over myself" was kind of an assumption that I was into myself, but we all know what happens when you assume...
Further off-topic, feeding the troll: I pointed out that your post wasn't really all that insightful not based on assumption or desire to "take you down a notch", but based on its moderation. So, in actuality, my comment was directed at your comment's reception more than the comment itself. Calm down.
Sure, I can avoid seeing them on my IM application, but that doesn't stop or guard against
...both problems which lead to a very serious communication chasm. In the world of IM, the nuances of each letter speak volumes. What if it's important to me that everything I type, and my partner types, shows up exactly how we've intended?
So, no, not really that insightful.
Yes, the "voice of the community" is important. In some cases we might even argue that the voice of the community is MORE important than the parents', in situations where parenting skills are found sorely lacking (here's ducks, but the same applies equally for people).
./ community: giving government the choice is like putting a conditional too far upstream, where it doesn't belong.
However, government--even local government--is notoriously bad at representing "the community". Like just about all other politically-driven interests, legislated morality is driven far less by widely-perceived social benefit than by economics, personal gain, and dogma.
Do you trust your representatives and senators (whom you might not even have voted for or, similarly, wanted to vote for, despite your best intentions replete with self-admonishments months in advance of election day to actually make it to the polls this year) to have exactly the same moral and ethical sensibilities as you do? On every issue? On issues that obviously weren't foreseen and introduced as part of your legal proxy's campaign platform?
Furthermore, do you trust these legal proxies in this wonderful republic of ours to be able to actually represent the views of others in "our community" ? The views of everyone?
Of course not.
That's why legislative morality is fundamentally error-prone, alienating, and self-serving. Moral concerns come not in black and white but more gradations of rightness and wrongness than your fancy HDTV has colors. The only good way to play ethics is to reject the role of government in it. Unfortunately this fact seems to be missed by, well, everyone important.
To put it right to the
The alternative? Pay attention to your REAL community. What a world this would be if we civilly discussed disagreements with our neighbors face-to-face. If we had a "community" intervention to talk some reason into the parents that held a "Hot Coffee Family Night" on Tuesdays because we had scientific evidence to show that Hot Coffee causes children to cannibalize each other. If we didn't turn into tattle-tales and threaten to have our mommy (the government) give our sister (a member of our "community") the spanking we think she deserves (basically, to legislate and enforce absolutes it has no authority to legislate (or even falsely claim to represent that the people wished ("the will of the people" is NOT to be taken lightly, folks!) to legislate). If we stayed the hell out of each other's business in all cases where someone wasn't actually getting hurt.