The one problem I see with most of the discussions about Wikipedia is that they all focus on authority+profit rather than the social impact of free access to fairly decent information. I would argue that society would be better off if anyone could gain reasonable access to information at no charge with no requirement for membership or any kind of exclusivity vs. the financial interests of various encyclopedia companies being preserved. What "gaming" of the system that does take place in terms of intentional errors/omissions/"slander" is not likely to affect anyone who really matters. Traditional encyclopedias CAN compete if thet do the following:
1. Open their content for free distribution to the entire world 2. Form a cooperation between the so-called "experts" (a term I have great hatred for) and the end-users so that user edits are checked byt these so-called authorities 3. Realize that the only reason information of this kind should be compiled is to make the world a better place and not to make money
Remember, it's not the shareholders who matter, but the average person anywhere on the globe. At least that's the way things SHOULD be.
Good point. I think that perhaps the "graduation" from one level to another could be dependent on system generated tests that could be requested by the user. If the user passes the test (knows a certain percentage of the functionality of their assigned level, say... 90%) they get to "gradutate" to the next level. This would remove the admin from the test portion of the mix since the test would be autogenerated by the admin's definition of each level with some kind of randomization to thwart "cheat sheets".
No worries mate. I made a bonfire upon receipt of this message and proceeded to burn everything involved. The laptop, the router, and my own fingers (that was an accident though). I then flew in a plane to Spokane where my ISP is based and set fire to their building. Now... what's your address so I can burn up your computer as well since my IP violating work is sitting in your IE cache? I can be there within a day...;P
Even if this man did not know what was done on his machines, he's still responsible. That is the law that the law givers made. The punishment must be death by mahi mahi. Feigning ignorance of the law by claiming that he did not know what was done is a white herring designed to try and make people think otherwise. This displeases the law givers. He will feel their wrath for his ignorance as they beat him.
-Grobo, Son of Chinea in the Tenth Dynasty of Koll
Not exactly... It's not so much "my way" as much as it is the most efficient and logical way. This equates to the smallext number of mouse clicks or menu levels. Wizards are usually pretty stupid once you get beyond three Next buttons. Anything that forces you to click on Next more than three times is a waste of your time. There should be tons of assumptions made about what you're doing with wizards so that there is minimal required input. If you need more than three clicks, you should be using a different kind of interface with forms on a single page. Make sense?
I still have yet to see any themes for KDE that actually make it operate the way a GUI should operate (ie. Just like Enlightenment). I will say that I'm impressed with the functionality of KDE, but I also have to say that giving users multiple ways of doing the same thing is stupid. It's too confusing. You're better off restricting users to only one way of doing things until they have enough experience to start trying other things.
Here's a case in point. When I was providing Windows support for end-users a few years back, I'd been using Windows 95 and NT4 for about a year myself. I'd explored the various ways to create an application shortcut and decided that the most efficient way to do it was to open find your EXE in Explorer, then right click and drag the shortcut to wherever you wanted it and select "Create Shortcut Here". Why on earth anyone would use the stupid wizard interface is beyond me. So when it came time to show users how to create shortcuts for folders, or documents on their desktop, I assumed that they would agree. IN general, they did. But here's what shocked me. There was another support guy who worked with me who chose to actually use the idiot wizard! Why?! And since he'd been showing the users how to use the wizard when I wasn't around the users were getting confused. In many cases they thought that we were teaching them separate things and started creating shortcuts multiple times using each method. I confronted him on it and he said he didn't even KNOW that you could create a shortcut using my method. WTF!!!??? How do you do support for people without knowing every way to do something? It was at that point that I made the decision that having more than one way to do something for most users is a HORRIBLE idea.
Yes there are different working styles and there should be ways to accomodate them. But... when you are dealing with basic end-users who don't know the difference between the monitor and the computer, you really need to have just one way to do things. What's really needed for ANY UI is a way to restrict users to only one way of doing things until you can say for sure that they've progressed to a level where they can do things in more than one way and actually "get it".
Normally I agree with Linus on a lot of what he has to say, but I can't agree on the KDE issue. I think all the UIs on *nix are kind of screwed right now because they won't cooperate with each other well. Even though many of the Gnome people have come out saying that they don't make changes because "users are stupid" I have to say that users can be quite stupid indeed. We all know that. The solution is to have multiple experience levels (like Xine does) that would let administrators assign users to various UI user levels (that can be created by the admin) in relation to their level of knowledge. If it was established as a standard across UIs then this wouldn't be much of an issue. For the people who can handle and need to have more than one way of doing things, they can get assigned to an advanced user level. For the people who need to be told to switch on their monitors lest they think their PC is off, they can be assigned to the neanderthal user level. Etc...
Enlightenment is the only UI I've seen for *nix that actually looks and feels "right". It's just a shame that KDE and Gnome don't want to play nice and let their apps run without needing to load those stupid and unneccessary services... For my general comments on UIs, see here.
I will have to agree to disagree with you on that. There was a certain charm in the greenish tinge left on your hands from working with bronze all day. Can't get that from plugging in PCI/AGP and USB devices all day. Feh! Give me the good old days...
What the hell kind of question is, "not sure if it's for you"? Why is that even being asked on Slashdot. This is supposed to be the place where DIYers congregate and talk about technology. But I see that ever since the sheeple have been admitted things must have gone downhill. You wouldn't have seen this kind of thing on Slashdot in 1957. Back then it would have been a bunch of guys with nicknames like "Buzz", "Jupiter" and "Mousemeat" working on a project like this. And they would have been happy to share the info just for the sake of how cool it is to share instead of profit. And they would have all been members of the ARRL (American Radio Relay League to you greenies who don't know anything about REAL technology) who were excited about their QSL card collection. THAT was the REAL geek. None of this namby-pamby "for a fee you can join our club and get access to the good stuff" tack that these people are up to. Truly a sad day and age we live in. The 50s were much better. At least every kid knew how to build a crystal radio set and knew what a "cat whisker" was.
Wait a minute. Are you telling me that you took my request to write for the Register SERIOUSLY? You must be on some really powerful mind-altering drugs to not be able to read between the lines there NineNine. Let me give you a tip. NEVER take anything I write on Slashdot seriously unless I SOUND serious. The only thing you can take seriously is when I'm sharing scripts in my JE. My main purpose for being here, If you'd bother to read my Profile is pretty much to entertain. Apparently you have no wit and I can't afford to pity you. Better luck next time and take care... you need to.
Mr. Otto Z. Stern has a few lessons to learn about life on the internet and the cause of Free/Open Source software. For one... I take issue with his assertion that a "normal" 25 year old with a blue tooth device should even be allowed to put that anywhere near a computer unless he's a Linux user. Can you imagine what kind of havoc we'll see when the first bluetooth capable virus hits? Can you say "Beowulf cluster of all Nokia cell phones on the planet DDoSing the US DOD via bluetooth"?
Next, the guy talks about free/open source coders like they're here to solve his personal problems. Look Otto... if you can't be arsed to hit the man pages, edit a few thousand text config files and generally RTFM, then you have no business EVER using a computer for anything. Keep your interaction with technology where it should be: With ATMs and game consoles. In fact I fear that ATMs might even be too complicated for you.
How is it that someone like Otto can get in print at the Register and I can't rub two fity cent pieces together for all the writing I've done on Slashdot? I'll tell ya what Mr. Register, if ya give me a temporary writing gig, I'll take my payments in 10 packs of Cadbury Cherry Ripe Slices from down under. Do we have a deal or what?
What the hell kind of dog attacks someone so badly that they lose their lips and nose? I had a friend in high school who was attacked by one of the family Dobermans because she came over the fence late at night. It tore up her nose a good deal and she needed some plastic surgery to correct the damage. But in the end she wound up looking totally normal without needing a face transplant. This must have been some monstrous dog to actually beat out a Doberman. I'm just asking because I find this really strange.
You actually chose that Slashdot UID of your own free will?;P
OK. Time to change my tune [record selector arm drops a new 45]. But, but, but... wasn't Tivo a Linux company or something? What happened? Are they going to turn their backs on their alliance with the Linux corporation and stab them in the back by joining with Microsoft and Intel???? What's going to happen to all the open source stuff that Tivo was making like MythTV and Freevo? Oh woe is me!!!
...what about Microsoft? Microsoft and Intel have done soooo much to make the PC a standard already. How much more standard can you get without being fascists like Apple?
Goofus (AKA * * Beatles-Beatles) runs a pointless business simply to make money without providing any useful service or good other than serving his own avarice by raising his Google rating.
Gallant works as a programmer for a company that releases most of their products into the Free/Open software world and simply has a social conscience that extend beyond himself.
Goofus works very hard at finding quick and easy ways to make money with nothing productive being done.
Gallant knows the value of hard work combined with the end goal of making the world a better place to live and uses his work as a way of improving life for others. Anything that he benfits from is incidental and not the reason for working.
Goofus loathes REAL work and is always keeping his eyes open for scams like abuse of Google link ratings as opposed to actually making a product or providing a REAL service of any kind.
Gallant spends his free time trying to warn citizens of the internet of the various ways in which supposed "businesses" abuse internet resources to try and raise page ranking.
Goofus looks at the hive mind picture and says, "Haw haw!! I'll pick the wrong color so I can screw with the picture".
Gallant looks at the hive mind picture and says, "Oh. It looks like they're trying to draw a classic Macintosh. I think the pink pixel should be white".
Goofus gets a message from the hive mind site saying that he has used up all his chances for the day. "Stupid fools. I'll go to the next PC in the lab and get another IP so I can keep screwing with that picture"!
Gallant gets a visit from the Borg queen and seeing that he is a wuss, she assimilates him. Gallant says, "I am Wusseutis of Borg. Resistance is futile"...
Goofus gets a visit from Wusseutis. "Hey freakboy what are you up to today"? Wusseutis extends his tendrils and assimilates Gooofus.
Gallant, "I am Wusseutis of Borg. Resistance is futile. You're own uniqueness will be assimilated into the collective".
Goofus, "I am Jerkutis of Borg. Resistance is futile. You're own uniqueness will be assimilited into the collective or something"...
Aha!! A naysayer!!! But what you don't realize is that Gallant already knew Jenna well enough that she would never consider anything he did to be negative because he's an all around good guy. Goofus on the other hand is a typical male pig and if Jolene knew what he was doing, she'd be all over his ass with her biker friends. And THAT... is the rest of the story! Good day! (For you whipper snappers that's a Paul "Horse Molester" Harvey reference)
Spoken like a true Duh-merican. Whether or not you're the original poster, I think you deserve death by mohi mohi with a whale. I don't hate America. I hate Duh-merica (translates to neocon capitalist pig fuckers).
Goofus is an extrovert. He enjoys making an ass of himself in the name of "good fun" even if it's self-destructive and unproductive.
Gallant is an introvert. Much of his time is spent up in his head dreaming up new plans for things to do around the house for his family, improving his work skills and trying to stay several steps ahead of life in general.
Goofus, as an extrovert, gets great pleasure from gloating about how "great" he is at sports, work, relationships, driving or whatever. But the reality is that Goofus is seen as an obnoxious self-serving lout by his co-workers, family, girlfriends (nearly all ex) and other drivers on the road.
Gallant, as an introvert, is mindful that he shares the world with other people. He is quiet about his achievments and derives pleasure from simply accomplishing goals so long as they are beneficial to everyone concerned. He sees more value in cooperation than competition and is percieved by all as a kind, thoughtful and genrous individual.
Goofus would far rather socialize by the water cooler even though his break is only fifteen minutes because in his own words, "Gawd!! Work is so borrrrring. Wouldn't it be great if we could find a way to make money and never lift a finger? Haw haw haw"!!!
Gallant takes his fifteen minutes to grab a quick snack in the cafeteria and take it back to his cubicle. "Excellent! If I put in another solid four hours I can finish this Perl script and get some time to work on compiling the latest Linux kernel at home tonight after reading a bit of that Dashiel Hammett mystery. Reading is the greatest hobby"!
Slashdot Mirror
The one problem I see with most of the discussions about Wikipedia is that they all focus on authority+profit rather than the social impact of free access to fairly decent information. I would argue that society would be better off if anyone could gain reasonable access to information at no charge with no requirement for membership or any kind of exclusivity vs. the financial interests of various encyclopedia companies being preserved. What "gaming" of the system that does take place in terms of intentional errors/omissions/"slander" is not likely to affect anyone who really matters. Traditional encyclopedias CAN compete if thet do the following:
1. Open their content for free distribution to the entire world
2. Form a cooperation between the so-called "experts" (a term I have great hatred for) and the end-users so that user edits are checked byt these so-called authorities
3. Realize that the only reason information of this kind should be compiled is to make the world a better place and not to make money
Remember, it's not the shareholders who matter, but the average person anywhere on the globe. At least that's the way things SHOULD be.
Good point. I think that perhaps the "graduation" from one level to another could be dependent on system generated tests that could be requested by the user. If the user passes the test (knows a certain percentage of the functionality of their assigned level, say... 90%) they get to "gradutate" to the next level. This would remove the admin from the test portion of the mix since the test would be autogenerated by the admin's definition of each level with some kind of randomization to thwart "cheat sheets".
No worries mate. I made a bonfire upon receipt of this message and proceeded to burn everything involved. The laptop, the router, and my own fingers (that was an accident though). I then flew in a plane to Spokane where my ISP is based and set fire to their building. Now... what's your address so I can burn up your computer as well since my IP violating work is sitting in your IE cache? I can be there within a day... ;P
Even if this man did not know what was done on his machines, he's still responsible. That is the law that the law givers made. The punishment must be death by mahi mahi. Feigning ignorance of the law by claiming that he did not know what was done is a white herring designed to try and make people think otherwise. This displeases the law givers. He will feel their wrath for his ignorance as they beat him.
-Grobo, Son of Chinea in the Tenth Dynasty of Koll
Not exactly... It's not so much "my way" as much as it is the most efficient and logical way. This equates to the smallext number of mouse clicks or menu levels. Wizards are usually pretty stupid once you get beyond three Next buttons. Anything that forces you to click on Next more than three times is a waste of your time. There should be tons of assumptions made about what you're doing with wizards so that there is minimal required input. If you need more than three clicks, you should be using a different kind of interface with forms on a single page. Make sense?
Here's a case in point. When I was providing Windows support for end-users a few years back, I'd been using Windows 95 and NT4 for about a year myself. I'd explored the various ways to create an application shortcut and decided that the most efficient way to do it was to open find your EXE in Explorer, then right click and drag the shortcut to wherever you wanted it and select "Create Shortcut Here". Why on earth anyone would use the stupid wizard interface is beyond me. So when it came time to show users how to create shortcuts for folders, or documents on their desktop, I assumed that they would agree. IN general, they did. But here's what shocked me. There was another support guy who worked with me who chose to actually use the idiot wizard! Why?! And since he'd been showing the users how to use the wizard when I wasn't around the users were getting confused. In many cases they thought that we were teaching them separate things and started creating shortcuts multiple times using each method. I confronted him on it and he said he didn't even KNOW that you could create a shortcut using my method. WTF!!!??? How do you do support for people without knowing every way to do something? It was at that point that I made the decision that having more than one way to do something for most users is a HORRIBLE idea.
Yes there are different working styles and there should be ways to accomodate them. But... when you are dealing with basic end-users who don't know the difference between the monitor and the computer, you really need to have just one way to do things. What's really needed for ANY UI is a way to restrict users to only one way of doing things until you can say for sure that they've progressed to a level where they can do things in more than one way and actually "get it".
Normally I agree with Linus on a lot of what he has to say, but I can't agree on the KDE issue. I think all the UIs on *nix are kind of screwed right now because they won't cooperate with each other well. Even though many of the Gnome people have come out saying that they don't make changes because "users are stupid" I have to say that users can be quite stupid indeed. We all know that. The solution is to have multiple experience levels (like Xine does) that would let administrators assign users to various UI user levels (that can be created by the admin) in relation to their level of knowledge. If it was established as a standard across UIs then this wouldn't be much of an issue. For the people who can handle and need to have more than one way of doing things, they can get assigned to an advanced user level. For the people who need to be told to switch on their monitors lest they think their PC is off, they can be assigned to the neanderthal user level. Etc...
Enlightenment is the only UI I've seen for *nix that actually looks and feels "right". It's just a shame that KDE and Gnome don't want to play nice and let their apps run without needing to load those stupid and unneccessary services... For my general comments on UIs, see here.
Parent is not a troll unless you'r the kind of moron who likes to go browsing in people's web dirs... Mods please fix.
Huh? At first I thought he said "Reflectopopcorn" and I said, "PARTY!!!!". ;P I didn't know you sold tea pots... ;O
...there's an inverse relationship to this gene and how often these guys get laid? It pays to be stupid.
I will have to agree to disagree with you on that. There was a certain charm in the greenish tinge left on your hands from working with bronze all day. Can't get that from plugging in PCI/AGP and USB devices all day. Feh! Give me the good old days...
What the hell kind of question is, "not sure if it's for you"? Why is that even being asked on Slashdot. This is supposed to be the place where DIYers congregate and talk about technology. But I see that ever since the sheeple have been admitted things must have gone downhill. You wouldn't have seen this kind of thing on Slashdot in 1957. Back then it would have been a bunch of guys with nicknames like "Buzz", "Jupiter" and "Mousemeat" working on a project like this. And they would have been happy to share the info just for the sake of how cool it is to share instead of profit. And they would have all been members of the ARRL (American Radio Relay League to you greenies who don't know anything about REAL technology) who were excited about their QSL card collection. THAT was the REAL geek. None of this namby-pamby "for a fee you can join our club and get access to the good stuff" tack that these people are up to. Truly a sad day and age we live in. The 50s were much better. At least every kid knew how to build a crystal radio set and knew what a "cat whisker" was.
More Google whining from the submitter. You know what? All you Google nay sayers can go fuck yourselves.
Learn about something called sarcasm. It's one of the greatest comic devices and something sorely lacking in American culture.
Wait a minute. Are you telling me that you took my request to write for the Register SERIOUSLY? You must be on some really powerful mind-altering drugs to not be able to read between the lines there NineNine. Let me give you a tip. NEVER take anything I write on Slashdot seriously unless I SOUND serious. The only thing you can take seriously is when I'm sharing scripts in my JE. My main purpose for being here, If you'd bother to read my Profile is pretty much to entertain. Apparently you have no wit and I can't afford to pity you. Better luck next time and take care... you need to.
Mr. Otto Z. Stern has a few lessons to learn about life on the internet and the cause of Free/Open Source software. For one... I take issue with his assertion that a "normal" 25 year old with a blue tooth device should even be allowed to put that anywhere near a computer unless he's a Linux user. Can you imagine what kind of havoc we'll see when the first bluetooth capable virus hits? Can you say "Beowulf cluster of all Nokia cell phones on the planet DDoSing the US DOD via bluetooth"?
Next, the guy talks about free/open source coders like they're here to solve his personal problems. Look Otto... if you can't be arsed to hit the man pages, edit a few thousand text config files and generally RTFM, then you have no business EVER using a computer for anything. Keep your interaction with technology where it should be: With ATMs and game consoles. In fact I fear that ATMs might even be too complicated for you.
How is it that someone like Otto can get in print at the Register and I can't rub two fity cent pieces together for all the writing I've done on Slashdot? I'll tell ya what Mr. Register, if ya give me a temporary writing gig, I'll take my payments in 10 packs of Cadbury Cherry Ripe Slices from down under. Do we have a deal or what?
What the hell kind of dog attacks someone so badly that they lose their lips and nose? I had a friend in high school who was attacked by one of the family Dobermans because she came over the fence late at night. It tore up her nose a good deal and she needed some plastic surgery to correct the damage. But in the end she wound up looking totally normal without needing a face transplant. This must have been some monstrous dog to actually beat out a Doberman. I'm just asking because I find this really strange.
You actually chose that Slashdot UID of your own free will? ;P
OK. Time to change my tune [record selector arm drops a new 45]. But, but, but... wasn't Tivo a Linux company or something? What happened? Are they going to turn their backs on their alliance with the Linux corporation and stab them in the back by joining with Microsoft and Intel???? What's going to happen to all the open source stuff that Tivo was making like MythTV and Freevo? Oh woe is me!!!
...what about Microsoft? Microsoft and Intel have done soooo much to make the PC a standard already. How much more standard can you get without being fascists like Apple?
Awww.... looks like someone forgot to shut off their serious button for the day. ;P
Goofus (AKA * * Beatles-Beatles) runs a pointless business simply to make money without providing any useful service or good other than serving his own avarice by raising his Google rating.
Gallant works as a programmer for a company that releases most of their products into the Free/Open software world and simply has a social conscience that extend beyond himself.
Goofus works very hard at finding quick and easy ways to make money with nothing productive being done.
Gallant knows the value of hard work combined with the end goal of making the world a better place to live and uses his work as a way of improving life for others. Anything that he benfits from is incidental and not the reason for working.
Goofus loathes REAL work and is always keeping his eyes open for scams like abuse of Google link ratings as opposed to actually making a product or providing a REAL service of any kind.
Gallant spends his free time trying to warn citizens of the internet of the various ways in which supposed "businesses" abuse internet resources to try and raise page ranking.
Goofus looks at the hive mind picture and says, "Haw haw!! I'll pick the wrong color so I can screw with the picture".
Gallant looks at the hive mind picture and says, "Oh. It looks like they're trying to draw a classic Macintosh. I think the pink pixel should be white".
Goofus gets a message from the hive mind site saying that he has used up all his chances for the day. "Stupid fools. I'll go to the next PC in the lab and get another IP so I can keep screwing with that picture"!
Gallant gets a visit from the Borg queen and seeing that he is a wuss, she assimilates him. Gallant says, "I am Wusseutis of Borg. Resistance is futile"...
Goofus gets a visit from Wusseutis. "Hey freakboy what are you up to today"? Wusseutis extends his tendrils and assimilates Gooofus.
Gallant, "I am Wusseutis of Borg. Resistance is futile. You're own uniqueness will be assimilated into the collective".
Goofus, "I am Jerkutis of Borg. Resistance is futile. You're own uniqueness will be assimilited into the collective or something"...
Aha!! A naysayer!!! But what you don't realize is that Gallant already knew Jenna well enough that she would never consider anything he did to be negative because he's an all around good guy. Goofus on the other hand is a typical male pig and if Jolene knew what he was doing, she'd be all over his ass with her biker friends. And THAT... is the rest of the story! Good day! (For you whipper snappers that's a Paul "Horse Molester" Harvey reference)
Spoken like a true Duh-merican. Whether or not you're the original poster, I think you deserve death by mohi mohi with a whale. I don't hate America. I hate Duh-merica (translates to neocon capitalist pig fuckers).
He is a great man. Just had some bad luck as a president...
Goofus is an extrovert. He enjoys making an ass of himself in the name of "good fun" even if it's self-destructive and unproductive.
Gallant is an introvert. Much of his time is spent up in his head dreaming up new plans for things to do around the house for his family, improving his work skills and trying to stay several steps ahead of life in general.
Goofus, as an extrovert, gets great pleasure from gloating about how "great" he is at sports, work, relationships, driving or whatever. But the reality is that Goofus is seen as an obnoxious self-serving lout by his co-workers, family, girlfriends (nearly all ex) and other drivers on the road.
Gallant, as an introvert, is mindful that he shares the world with other people. He is quiet about his achievments and derives pleasure from simply accomplishing goals so long as they are beneficial to everyone concerned. He sees more value in cooperation than competition and is percieved by all as a kind, thoughtful and genrous individual.
Goofus would far rather socialize by the water cooler even though his break is only fifteen minutes because in his own words, "Gawd!! Work is so borrrrring. Wouldn't it be great if we could find a way to make money and never lift a finger? Haw haw haw"!!!
Gallant takes his fifteen minutes to grab a quick snack in the cafeteria and take it back to his cubicle. "Excellent! If I put in another solid four hours I can finish this Perl script and get some time to work on compiling the latest Linux kernel at home tonight after reading a bit of that Dashiel Hammett mystery. Reading is the greatest hobby"!