I am with Stallman on this one. For the life of me I can't understand what this sucking up to LT is about. Stallman himself thinks GPLv3 is a good thing. So why do people keep whining about it.
Without Stallman FOSS never would've gotten started. Not following Stallman is dangerous for the survival of FOSS.
Well, it's just an array of microscopically short needles. If they push hard, the substrate pushes against your skin, and nothing happens. If they shove laterally, a few of the needles might nudge around in your skin. Worst case, you lose a few micrometers of dead skin.
If you're worried about the wells rupturing, such an event would probably mean the excess drug ends up on your skin. This may or may not be harmless. However, if the drugs could be effective that way, why use needles at all?
I doubt such ruptures are likely (depending, of course, on what they're made of), given the fact that the surface area/volume ratio is pretty good for such small objects.
But seriously, looking at a random article can be quite enlightening.
Uhhh.... maybe. Just like looking at a single random person on the street can be enlightening. With precisely the same cautions. As I've left Wikipedia, I'm not particularly in the mood to go on and do a bunch of statistical analysis on the articles.
That, well, seems to be the epitome of bureaucracy? Lots of (virtual) paper generated, with the actual decision left in the hands of an official. I don't think a majoratarian rule is the way to go of course, but the direction of wikipedia in the last few years has trended towards greater and greater bureaucratic and centralized control. If I had to suggest one major change to improve wikipedia right now, it would be to have administrators serve only for a limited time (order of months), and require a wait period (order of months) before an exadmin can return to RFA.
The problem with that is that it ensures people who don't have experience are the ones in control. The only issue I really have with AfD and similar processes is that it's a bit of a crapshoot. There's no real way to take a look at the debate and see how it will close beforehand (except possibly as the total cop-out "no consensus", which I think boils down to "Thinking is haaaard"). I think we're really putting our fingers on some of the fundamental philosophical debates over governance. Wikipedia is not perfect. Far from it. But I think it's about as good as things can get along its particular avenue (i.e. egalitarian encyclopedia).
For what it's worth, I disagree with "flagged revisions". It takes away the ego motivation that I think is responsible for a lot of positive contribution to wikis.
[Thanks for adding me as a "foe". Warning contrary opinion to yours follows, avert your eyes!]
Actually, I added you as a foe quite some time ago. I don't remember what it was for. In case you're wondering, I have no modifiers on "foe" posts; they're not censored.
I find it telling (in as much as a stratified sample can tell you anything) that the two millionth article:
1. was a rather trivial piece on a TV show.
2. triggered a bureaucratic response.
Contrary to what you may believe, bureaucracy is not a good thing in most circumstances. It is certaintly not the only source of fairness in the world, and indeed in many cases it actually generates large amounts of unfairness as a by-product.
Nice statistical analysis with your single data point there. It's easy to point to the vast amount of fictional coverage on Wikipedia, as those sorts of things are very easy to find in common experience. People can very easily visualize the enormous quantity of fictional crap that Wikipedia accumulates, as it's easy to get an idea of how much fictional stuff there is. However, it's much harder for people to understand the large number of articles on subjects they barely even know exist. "Unknown unknowns", as some have called them. Therefore, people sometimes assume that the vast majority of articles are about fictional junk. In essence, what you're saying boils down to a statistically invalid argument trying to justify a preconception based on ignorance.
As a side note, based on my own prior use of the "Random page" function, it seems like a lot of small articles are listings about towns or counties.
Regarding the AfD discussion, how is that a particularly bureaucratic process? Everyone gets a chance to voice their concerns, and they are evaluated. Can you think of a method that is better?
If you're wondering about me, I am a former administrator on Wikipedia. I left (ironically enough) after it became clear that people were quite willing to ignore the rules about notability and trivia in order to stuff the encyclopedia full of crap.
How is it an example of horrible bureaucracy? It was speedily kept, and left alone. Is it a horrible bureaucracy simply because a user's opinions got a fair hearing before being dismissed?
But is there anything that can even remotely approximate this? How much does a touch screen matter for the iPhone? What is such an estimate based on? I realize it's optional, but I'm having a hard time thinking of any situation that is really fair. Identically sized corporations, with similar market testing, and a market loaded with finely-grained differences in features? Even still, I think there's a great deal of random speculation.
While I respect intentions to reform the patent system, I suppose my more cynical side should've known that it'd be either evil or botched. I guess the latter is better than the former.
So, it's either "all the effect" or "none", eh? Based on the sort of thought that it fosters, isn't it possible that religion just increases the likelihood of violence?
Attempting to apply terms like "intolerance" to the act of judging people based on their choices (such as religion) is inappropriate.
Here we go again... of course, it can *never* be the fault of Apple!
Hah! I find it quite amusing that you've implied I'm an Apple zealot. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do, however, try and stay realistic. Do you really think that Apple's engineers couldn't manage to make the phone unlocked? Or that they couldn't make allow native apps for the platform? Admittedly, the second may have been as much their own internal hubris, but it's reminiscent enough of the telecoms attitude toward their phones that my original claim has a certain ring of truth.
Yet, 99% of all the personal computers in the world run either Windows or Mac OS X, both from companies firmly planted on the West Coast of America. Just sayin'... Now if you would have been talking about cars or pretty much any other consumer product, I'd agree.
Those products are deliberately inferior. OSX isn't all that hampered by paranoia and corrupt laws, but Vista sure as hell is.
Operating systems get a bit of a pass on this because they of how very deeply they entrench themselves. It's easy to change car manufacturers. Not so easy to change OSes.
...so much as crippling ourselves. The iPhone has some obvious flaws. Not engineering ones, really. Not things that couldn't've been overcome by the engineers at Apple. But things enforced by the telecoms. The phones are deliberately damaged. The Chinese ripoff is carrier independent. Allows people to write their own applications. And it's probably easier to use it like a general purpose machine, too. There is no technical reason why Apple could not do these things. But, because of corrupting influence (I suspect the pure-evil, anti-free market attitude of the telecoms), the iPhone doesn't have them. Americans are deliberately making inferior products. No wonder there are issues competing.
...has never produced a useful or even tolerable story about women. These replies practically write themselves, and the impact of the paltry few who have any actual experience ia quickly overwhelmed by the torrent of horrifically juvenile +5 funny comments.
no - I've given you several examples. I've never had issue myself, I've had issue watching administrators such as yourself attack people and then attack those who stood up to say that the administrators had it wrong and were violating the rules themselves by their verbal attacks and behavior.
Inconsistent with your earlier post (emphasis mine):
Actually, I was never abused personally - I just watched, and was chided by clique members, for daring to stand up for people who were being abused, whether it was clique members who were being rude to (or even swearing at) someone and then blocking them for responding in kind, or abusing them verbally for daring to file an unblock request, or worse.
You continue to paint me as an abusive admin. Has it not occurred to you that I simply look in other areas of the encyclopedia? I block obvious vandals, and those that make direct personal attacks and bad faith edits. Why do you indicate that I don't care? What indication have I given of that? If nothing else, I would think my patience here would indicate the contrary.
Unfortunately, it seems to late for me to do anything for the poor fellows you mentioned. I would agree, actually, that sometimes fear of sockpuppetry is taken much too far, with negative results. I will make it a point to watch the adminstrators' noticeboard more often.
You seem desperate to claim that I've been attacking you. Why do you think this is the case? You've been rude to me from the outset, and I can't help but suspect that that attitude is what has caused you previous problems.
Now, if I might break character a little: You're a huge asshole. Seriously. You've done nothing but attack me from the outset. It reveals a deep-seated paranoia and hate that you must consistently label everything I do as negative, with no evidence to indicate. You are so convinced of the accuracy of your statements, that I am part of some faceless, abusive cabal, that you can't seem to think that I might've been interested in what you had to say. Not considering for a moment that I'm really just another person who is trying to help the project. I am sincerely glad that you'll have nothing further to do with Wikipedia; you'd only make the place a lot worse.
I've fed you long enough, troll. And before you declare victory, crying "Ha! Look, the admin gets angry and yells!", read your own damn posts, which have demonstrated no desire to be civil or helpful, serving only to vent your pathetically vitriolic complaints.
How about a tenured science ministry, overseeing all research funding and hirings/firings. It seems to work OK for the best research institutions in the world.
Stop counting other people's money (CEOs') and rejoice at the progress your side of the war is making.
Hell, if it were just money, I wouldn't care. The problem is that moneyed interests tend to do subversive things that I alluded to in my initial posts. They corrupt the political system. They could sail on yachts all day and I wouldn't give a damn. I get upset when they start making congress pass bad laws.
You've given me a lot of links to other people's problems. Let's see yours.
Though from what I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if you ran into trouble. You've been consistently rude to me, with little cause. But, by all means, show me your gallant side.
Pro: Well-paid engineers and scientists are kept in the U.S. at work on neat toy, keeping valuable talent working on a difficult problem.
Con: Obscenely-paid CEOs who came up with idea to push this useless weapon get a huge payoff, keeping destructive leeches working on the simple problem of continuing corrupt government.
Sorry to say it, but Tycho's commentary is as full of pseudo-intellectual bullshit as the rest of his writing. He's clever, but rarely insightful.
And how am I denying the problem? Wikipedia most certainly has problems. Right there. People have been abused, and that's sad. I try and correct it where I can. Sometimes Jimbo makes a ruling that I find supremely ill-advised. Hopefully that will change with time.
The biggest (solvable, not fundamentally rooted in the problems of the real world a la Israel and Palestine) problem is that people in Wikipedia don't know what to do. They best thing to do is go looking for other people. There are a lot of caring Wikipedians (I'd like to include myself there) that always try and help someone who needs it.
You can point to a bunch of problems, but that doesn't mean that there is "a problem". Not to say that it's perfect, but just because people have been abused doesn't mean the system is utterly broken beyond repair. That's a conflation that you seem desperate to make. You point to an abuse in hiding things, but I'm afraid I don't find someone deleting their private article workspace to be particularly egregious.
Incidentally, since you rather obviously have an axe to grind, when were you abused and by whom?
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest you consider the art of parody through parallel form.
I am with Stallman on this one. For the life of me I can't understand what this sucking up to LT is about. Stallman himself thinks GPLv3 is a good thing. So why do people keep whining about it. Without Stallman FOSS never would've gotten started. Not following Stallman is dangerous for the survival of FOSS.
Well, it's just an array of microscopically short needles. If they push hard, the substrate pushes against your skin, and nothing happens. If they shove laterally, a few of the needles might nudge around in your skin. Worst case, you lose a few micrometers of dead skin.
If you're worried about the wells rupturing, such an event would probably mean the excess drug ends up on your skin. This may or may not be harmless. However, if the drugs could be effective that way, why use needles at all?
I doubt such ruptures are likely (depending, of course, on what they're made of), given the fact that the surface area/volume ratio is pretty good for such small objects.
Or, at least, self-parodying scientific humor.
Uhhh.... maybe. Just like looking at a single random person on the street can be enlightening. With precisely the same cautions. As I've left Wikipedia, I'm not particularly in the mood to go on and do a bunch of statistical analysis on the articles.
The problem with that is that it ensures people who don't have experience are the ones in control. The only issue I really have with AfD and similar processes is that it's a bit of a crapshoot. There's no real way to take a look at the debate and see how it will close beforehand (except possibly as the total cop-out "no consensus", which I think boils down to "Thinking is haaaard"). I think we're really putting our fingers on some of the fundamental philosophical debates over governance. Wikipedia is not perfect. Far from it. But I think it's about as good as things can get along its particular avenue (i.e. egalitarian encyclopedia).
For what it's worth, I disagree with "flagged revisions". It takes away the ego motivation that I think is responsible for a lot of positive contribution to wikis.
Nice statistical analysis with your single data point there. It's easy to point to the vast amount of fictional coverage on Wikipedia, as those sorts of things are very easy to find in common experience. People can very easily visualize the enormous quantity of fictional crap that Wikipedia accumulates, as it's easy to get an idea of how much fictional stuff there is. However, it's much harder for people to understand the large number of articles on subjects they barely even know exist. "Unknown unknowns", as some have called them. Therefore, people sometimes assume that the vast majority of articles are about fictional junk. In essence, what you're saying boils down to a statistically invalid argument trying to justify a preconception based on ignorance.
As a side note, based on my own prior use of the "Random page" function, it seems like a lot of small articles are listings about towns or counties.
Regarding the AfD discussion, how is that a particularly bureaucratic process? Everyone gets a chance to voice their concerns, and they are evaluated. Can you think of a method that is better?
If you're wondering about me, I am a former administrator on Wikipedia. I left (ironically enough) after it became clear that people were quite willing to ignore the rules about notability and trivia in order to stuff the encyclopedia full of crap.
How is it an example of horrible bureaucracy? It was speedily kept, and left alone. Is it a horrible bureaucracy simply because a user's opinions got a fair hearing before being dismissed?
But is there anything that can even remotely approximate this? How much does a touch screen matter for the iPhone? What is such an estimate based on? I realize it's optional, but I'm having a hard time thinking of any situation that is really fair. Identically sized corporations, with similar market testing, and a market loaded with finely-grained differences in features? Even still, I think there's a great deal of random speculation.
While I respect intentions to reform the patent system, I suppose my more cynical side should've known that it'd be either evil or botched. I guess the latter is better than the former.
So, it's either "all the effect" or "none", eh? Based on the sort of thought that it fosters, isn't it possible that religion just increases the likelihood of violence?
Attempting to apply terms like "intolerance" to the act of judging people based on their choices (such as religion) is inappropriate.
Those products are deliberately inferior. OSX isn't all that hampered by paranoia and corrupt laws, but Vista sure as hell is.
Operating systems get a bit of a pass on this because they of how very deeply they entrench themselves. It's easy to change car manufacturers. Not so easy to change OSes.
...so much as crippling ourselves. The iPhone has some obvious flaws. Not engineering ones, really. Not things that couldn't've been overcome by the engineers at Apple. But things enforced by the telecoms. The phones are deliberately damaged. The Chinese ripoff is carrier independent. Allows people to write their own applications. And it's probably easier to use it like a general purpose machine, too. There is no technical reason why Apple could not do these things. But, because of corrupting influence (I suspect the pure-evil, anti-free market attitude of the telecoms), the iPhone doesn't have them. Americans are deliberately making inferior products. No wonder there are issues competing.
...has never produced a useful or even tolerable story about women. These replies practically write themselves, and the impact of the paltry few who have any actual experience ia quickly overwhelmed by the torrent of horrifically juvenile +5 funny comments.
In fact, posting of personal information is part of Wikipedia's rules on harassment. However, I'll look into the duration of the block.
I'd like to reaffirm my loyalty for this country and its human president. They may not be perfect but they're the best we've got. For now.
Check the timestamps. I was pissed, yeah. But I'm willing to talk.
You continue to paint me as an abusive admin. Has it not occurred to you that I simply look in other areas of the encyclopedia? I block obvious vandals, and those that make direct personal attacks and bad faith edits. Why do you indicate that I don't care? What indication have I given of that? If nothing else, I would think my patience here would indicate the contrary.
Unfortunately, it seems to late for me to do anything for the poor fellows you mentioned. I would agree, actually, that sometimes fear of sockpuppetry is taken much too far, with negative results. I will make it a point to watch the adminstrators' noticeboard more often.
You seem desperate to claim that I've been attacking you. Why do you think this is the case? You've been rude to me from the outset, and I can't help but suspect that that attitude is what has caused you previous problems.
Now, if I might break character a little: You're a huge asshole. Seriously. You've done nothing but attack me from the outset. It reveals a deep-seated paranoia and hate that you must consistently label everything I do as negative, with no evidence to indicate. You are so convinced of the accuracy of your statements, that I am part of some faceless, abusive cabal, that you can't seem to think that I might've been interested in what you had to say. Not considering for a moment that I'm really just another person who is trying to help the project. I am sincerely glad that you'll have nothing further to do with Wikipedia; you'd only make the place a lot worse.
I've fed you long enough, troll. And before you declare victory, crying "Ha! Look, the admin gets angry and yells!", read your own damn posts, which have demonstrated no desire to be civil or helpful, serving only to vent your pathetically vitriolic complaints.
How about a tenured science ministry, overseeing all research funding and hirings/firings. It seems to work OK for the best research institutions in the world.
You've given me a lot of links to other people's problems. Let's see yours.
Though from what I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if you ran into trouble. You've been consistently rude to me, with little cause. But, by all means, show me your gallant side.
Pro: Well-paid engineers and scientists are kept in the U.S. at work on neat toy, keeping valuable talent working on a difficult problem.
Con: Obscenely-paid CEOs who came up with idea to push this useless weapon get a huge payoff, keeping destructive leeches working on the simple problem of continuing corrupt government.
So you keep saying. Let's see a link.
It seems to me that it's been largely replaced by the "OLPC" acronym.
Sorry to say it, but Tycho's commentary is as full of pseudo-intellectual bullshit as the rest of his writing. He's clever, but rarely insightful.
And how am I denying the problem? Wikipedia most certainly has problems. Right there. People have been abused, and that's sad. I try and correct it where I can. Sometimes Jimbo makes a ruling that I find supremely ill-advised. Hopefully that will change with time.
The biggest (solvable, not fundamentally rooted in the problems of the real world a la Israel and Palestine) problem is that people in Wikipedia don't know what to do. They best thing to do is go looking for other people. There are a lot of caring Wikipedians (I'd like to include myself there) that always try and help someone who needs it.
You can point to a bunch of problems, but that doesn't mean that there is "a problem". Not to say that it's perfect, but just because people have been abused doesn't mean the system is utterly broken beyond repair. That's a conflation that you seem desperate to make. You point to an abuse in hiding things, but I'm afraid I don't find someone deleting their private article workspace to be particularly egregious.
Incidentally, since you rather obviously have an axe to grind, when were you abused and by whom?