No encyclopedia is ever a primary source. To be a reputable primary source, publications need experts to peer-review things.
Also, though it's possible to use Wikipedia to promote and/or trash public figures, it's explicitely against policy to do so (eg. WP:NOT a soap box, NPOV).
"4) Have two versions of articles: 'newest' and an 'approved'"...... This, of course, is where the gold is at. This idea has been in the works for months now. I'm not sure when the developers will actually release it, but it should definitely improve the site, and bring us closer to stable content and civil discussions among editors.
It's a perennial proposal, and it's unlikely to become part of Wikipedia policy, even if devs provide the functionality. (on the other hand, "don't let anons edit" was a constantly suggested and constantly dismissed proposal too, and a very limited version of it has had to be implemented for pragmatic reasons, so who knows).
I personally think that having the ability to vote on specific historical versions as "good", and just hilighting as something that's good to diff with, may be a good idea. But for the forseeable future, the version that's displayed by default will almost certainly be the most recent version.
No, new users on the whole tend to vandalize much more often than editors who have been editing for several days. New/anonymous users have nothing to lose, whereas established editors want to improve their reputation a bit, and therefore do have something to lose, and therefore they rarely vandalize or intentionally disrupt articles. (a decent reputation may let you run for admin eventually, but more importantly, it lets you make well-intentioned edits that are controversial (eg. "hey! so and so wasn't born in 1711, they were born in 1712!"... if that was a person's first edit, that was very likely to be a vandal edit... if that was a person's 150th good edit with no prior history of vandalism, it was probably fixing a mistake)
Also, some of the anonymous/new-editor edits come from determined vandals, who will edit with multiple IP's, or will create multiple new accounts. That also increases the proportion of vandalism that comes from new/anon edits.
High-volume pages are sometimes a person's first impression of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia doesn't want their first impression to be a giant picture of a penis or other vandalism (eg. same reason the main page is locked from editing).
Also, high-volume pages tend to have a relatively high number of newcommers. And, there's a at least a perception that if a page is left to newcommers, that it won't be maintained as well as if it had a more even mix of newcommers and established editors. (eg. it may not be 100% obvious to new users how to revert vandalism if they do spot it... new users may not know about NPOV, and may not be sure whether they should remove blantant POV statements... high-traffic pages may have edit conflicts, and that may frustrate well-meaning users attempting to fix vandalism...)
Another thing is that for articles like George W. Bush... it kind of sucks if 80% of history is vandal-revert-vandal-revert-vandal-revert... it makes it harder to review legitimate edits.
On the other hand, it will have the usability of a PS2 DVD player and the bugs of first-gen disc format, so you'll have to buy a better Blu-ray player soon anyway.
The reason that some scalers are better than others is that, once you throw interlaced content into the mix, scaling gets a lot more complicated, and is sometimes just an educated guessing game.
The reason it's in the player is because it's easier to upgrade your player to have a decent scaler than it is to upgrade your TV to get a decent scaler (lots of $$ just for the new TV), or to buy a standalone scaler (standalone scalers aim for the top end of the market).
Ultimately though, you want a scaler that can work with many different inputs, so that your Dreamcast, DVD player, and your video recorder all look good. So having your best scaler be in the DVD player isn't optimal either. Fortunately, scalers in newer TV's are starting to get better (eg. with names like DCDi showing up more).
IARNAAS (I'm not remotely an atmospheric scientist), but... it's pretty likely that worldwide energy consumption has increased monotonically over time, no matter what fuel source used (wood, coal, oil). And, prior to the increased emissions standards, that has probably meant monotonically increasing human-based CO2 emissions.
Also, it's likely that (again, IARNAAS) smaller amounts of human-caused emissions wouldn't have a noticable impact on mean temperature, but at some level, it does start impacting global temperatures. That is... one person starting a campfire => below the noise floor of global temperature... lots of Eurasians starting campires => still below noise floor... everybody in England burning the King's forests => still below the noise floor... 1980's oil burning => possibly the first time human CO2 makes a measurable impact on mean world temperature.
Since 1975 though, the global mean surface temperature has been on a strictly upward trend. Oil production/consumption started spiking in 1960/65... and I don't think it's surprising that one atmospheric effect lags another by 10-15 years.
Blu-Ray does not succeed or fall based on Sony alone
The PS3, however, DOES succesd or fail based to some extent on Sony's ability to implement Blu-ray. There's a $100-200 price difference between the PS3 and the previously most expensive successful console, and the only reason for the cost difference is the Blu-ray drive. Granted, some percentage of gamers will eat the cost difference simply because PS2 was so successful. But that doesn't change the fact that if Blu-ray turns out to be a mistake, that it's a mistake that customers are paying for. And it doesn't change the fact that at least some gamers will not buy the PS3 if they perceive the Blu-ray drive to be a non-valuable addition to the console.
What is this? Such a slow news day that we can't even copy a story off Digg? Or at the very minimum, rewrite the article summary to give plausable deniability that it's spam? Sheesh.
Re:They already pay their "fair share".
on
Net Neutrality or Not?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Well put. When roads need improvement, it's the local government that improves them, funded by local taxes. And FedEx and grocery chains deliver goods over the roads as efficiently as they can, because that's what capitalism motivates them to do.
If we let companies own major local roads, they might try to put up roadblocks to charge FedEx and other wealthy companies extra money. And then local governments would have to pass laws that say "companies that own road infrastructure can't block competitors from driving around". But, as you said, that's really a band-aid. Having the ability to deny access or charge extra to individuals or corporations for really basic things like driving or communicating is a really big deal, and maybe it's better for local taxes to fund the development instead.
And it's not as if social networking sites are bastions of truthful facts. People who want to explore gender identity issues often do so online. People who want to hook up with hot people may exagerate information about themselves. Even if the NSA eventually figures out that someone goes by the opposite gender online from what they really are in the real world, how does all this time and effort help national security exactly?
Would any of these ISP's even think about suggesting they would double-dip if most people had three or four broadband ISP's to choose from? No way, that's not what the market wants. Is there a legitimate need for QoS, and would companies clearly know to not cross the line between them, if there was more competition? Absolutely.
Unfortunately, we don't have a market that's diverse enough for most ISP's to pay attention to all of a customer's needs. So, we have to settle for the next-best solution: having government tell companies more forcefully what the majority of customers want. It's not the best solution by any means, but it's better than letting companies greatly hamper small startups, who have been the lifeblood of the internet's wonderful growth.
Well, various US states also say that a coin flip is a valid way to break a tie in elections (eg. in Washington).
I mean, sometimes officials can state with a fair bit of certainty that 1) it very important to make a choice... you can split the baby in half, and 2) with statistical certainty, that either outcome is equally prefered. In this case, such a procedure is appropriate even in law or elections.
Try any IP protocol out there... IP headers include the to/from address, so that the receiver of a message can turn around and reply. So RFC 791 is prior art for this.
Does the tool you use to measure speed only count the data payload size, or does it count the size of all packet headers involved (including the lowest protocols used over the cable line)? eg. over ethernet cables (just a dumb cable), you can lose 8% speed just due to packet headers...
How is FLV a new or non-established codec? (you missed the train on complaining about that a while ago...) Also, how is it a good thing if a super-low-bitrate video is re-encoded (a second time) into another low-bitrate codec?
Email address??? Considering that's one field that people sometimes fake to avoid spam, I hope the government takes it with a grain of salt. Also, am I considered suspicious if I have an unusually large number of addresses, and regularly hand out throw-away accounts? (eg. *@mydomain.com)
The Xbox 360 didn't sell on Ebay for $1000+ for more than ~2 weeks. The reason it was $1000 was that on the eve of the launch, people suddenly realized just how much demand exceeded supply, and people who just had to have one near launch would pay quite a bit. Yes, console manufacturers could increase the price for a while, but only while demand exceeds supply. But they don't raise prices while supply is still low, possibly because they don't want to upset potential buyers. Companies spend a lot on advertising just to get people to have a somewhat positive view of their product.
Slashdot Mirror
No encyclopedia is ever a primary source. To be a reputable primary source, publications need experts to peer-review things.
Also, though it's possible to use Wikipedia to promote and/or trash public figures, it's explicitely against policy to do so (eg. WP:NOT a soap box, NPOV).
Oops, this is the right perennial proposal link.
"4) Have two versions of articles: 'newest' and an 'approved'" ...... This, of course, is where the gold is at. This idea has been in the works for months now. I'm not sure when the developers will actually release it, but it should definitely improve the site, and bring us closer to stable content and civil discussions among editors.
It's a perennial proposal, and it's unlikely to become part of Wikipedia policy, even if devs provide the functionality. (on the other hand, "don't let anons edit" was a constantly suggested and constantly dismissed proposal too, and a very limited version of it has had to be implemented for pragmatic reasons, so who knows).
I personally think that having the ability to vote on specific historical versions as "good", and just hilighting as something that's good to diff with, may be a good idea. But for the forseeable future, the version that's displayed by default will almost certainly be the most recent version.
Also, some of the anonymous/new-editor edits come from determined vandals, who will edit with multiple IP's, or will create multiple new accounts. That also increases the proportion of vandalism that comes from new/anon edits.
Also, high-volume pages tend to have a relatively high number of newcommers. And, there's a at least a perception that if a page is left to newcommers, that it won't be maintained as well as if it had a more even mix of newcommers and established editors. (eg. it may not be 100% obvious to new users how to revert vandalism if they do spot it... new users may not know about NPOV, and may not be sure whether they should remove blantant POV statements... high-traffic pages may have edit conflicts, and that may frustrate well-meaning users attempting to fix vandalism...)
Another thing is that for articles like George W. Bush... it kind of sucks if 80% of history is vandal-revert-vandal-revert-vandal-revert... it makes it harder to review legitimate edits.
In other words, bandaids on top of bandaids. It's better to simply fix the root problem.
On the other hand, it will have the usability of a PS2 DVD player and the bugs of first-gen disc format, so you'll have to buy a better Blu-ray player soon anyway.
The reason it's in the player is because it's easier to upgrade your player to have a decent scaler than it is to upgrade your TV to get a decent scaler (lots of $$ just for the new TV), or to buy a standalone scaler (standalone scalers aim for the top end of the market).
Ultimately though, you want a scaler that can work with many different inputs, so that your Dreamcast, DVD player, and your video recorder all look good. So having your best scaler be in the DVD player isn't optimal either. Fortunately, scalers in newer TV's are starting to get better (eg. with names like DCDi showing up more).
Also, it's likely that (again, IARNAAS) smaller amounts of human-caused emissions wouldn't have a noticable impact on mean temperature, but at some level, it does start impacting global temperatures. That is... one person starting a campfire => below the noise floor of global temperature... lots of Eurasians starting campires => still below noise floor... everybody in England burning the King's forests => still below the noise floor... 1980's oil burning => possibly the first time human CO2 makes a measurable impact on mean world temperature.
Since 1975 though, the global mean surface temperature has been on a strictly upward trend. Oil production/consumption started spiking in 1960/65... and I don't think it's surprising that one atmospheric effect lags another by 10-15 years.
Maybe he was just AGF, and assuming that you were on-topic.
Lots of them are good... 1UP's, IGN's, PC gamer's, and maybe G4's. Lots of gaming goodness for MP3 players.
Guess what? You got a fever. And the only prescription...is more wiki.
The PS3, however, DOES succesd or fail based to some extent on Sony's ability to implement Blu-ray. There's a $100-200 price difference between the PS3 and the previously most expensive successful console, and the only reason for the cost difference is the Blu-ray drive. Granted, some percentage of gamers will eat the cost difference simply because PS2 was so successful. But that doesn't change the fact that if Blu-ray turns out to be a mistake, that it's a mistake that customers are paying for. And it doesn't change the fact that at least some gamers will not buy the PS3 if they perceive the Blu-ray drive to be a non-valuable addition to the console.
Doesn't that just mean that they'll triple their bribes to your opponent in the next election?
If we let companies own major local roads, they might try to put up roadblocks to charge FedEx and other wealthy companies extra money. And then local governments would have to pass laws that say "companies that own road infrastructure can't block competitors from driving around". But, as you said, that's really a band-aid. Having the ability to deny access or charge extra to individuals or corporations for really basic things like driving or communicating is a really big deal, and maybe it's better for local taxes to fund the development instead.
And it's not as if social networking sites are bastions of truthful facts. People who want to explore gender identity issues often do so online. People who want to hook up with hot people may exagerate information about themselves. Even if the NSA eventually figures out that someone goes by the opposite gender online from what they really are in the real world, how does all this time and effort help national security exactly?
Unfortunately, we don't have a market that's diverse enough for most ISP's to pay attention to all of a customer's needs. So, we have to settle for the next-best solution: having government tell companies more forcefully what the majority of customers want. It's not the best solution by any means, but it's better than letting companies greatly hamper small startups, who have been the lifeblood of the internet's wonderful growth.
I mean, sometimes officials can state with a fair bit of certainty that 1) it very important to make a choice... you can split the baby in half, and 2) with statistical certainty, that either outcome is equally prefered. In this case, such a procedure is appropriate even in law or elections.
Try any IP protocol out there... IP headers include the to/from address, so that the receiver of a message can turn around and reply. So RFC 791 is prior art for this.
Does the tool you use to measure speed only count the data payload size, or does it count the size of all packet headers involved (including the lowest protocols used over the cable line)? eg. over ethernet cables (just a dumb cable), you can lose 8% speed just due to packet headers...
How is FLV a new or non-established codec? (you missed the train on complaining about that a while ago...) Also, how is it a good thing if a super-low-bitrate video is re-encoded (a second time) into another low-bitrate codec?
Email address??? Considering that's one field that people sometimes fake to avoid spam, I hope the government takes it with a grain of salt. Also, am I considered suspicious if I have an unusually large number of addresses, and regularly hand out throw-away accounts? (eg. *@mydomain.com)
The Xbox 360 didn't sell on Ebay for $1000+ for more than ~2 weeks. The reason it was $1000 was that on the eve of the launch, people suddenly realized just how much demand exceeded supply, and people who just had to have one near launch would pay quite a bit. Yes, console manufacturers could increase the price for a while, but only while demand exceeds supply. But they don't raise prices while supply is still low, possibly because they don't want to upset potential buyers. Companies spend a lot on advertising just to get people to have a somewhat positive view of their product.