It didn't work before, as mentioned elsewhere, with artificial scarcity in the VHS rental days. It won't work now either with the DVD days. Why?
NOTE: My wife and I have SEVEN full bookshelves of DVD & Blu-Ray. We're movie nuts. We love to watch them. We love to go back and watch ones we particularly like. If they're good, we'll buy multiple editions we want--I've bought two copies of Iron Man, two full sets of Lord of the Rings, and lord knows how many Star Wars. I'll rebuy the latter two on Blu-Ray when they come out. I like to think we're the model of good customers. I don't bit torrent films because unlike some I like the way it looks on the shelf. The same as I like the way my books look on the shelf. Screw E-readers and stacks of ripped discs.
We also consume Netflix and Comcast OnDemand ravenously, and sometimes the Amazon download rental service or the local actual DVD rental store. Why?
I don't want to buy EVERY film I see. Some I'm fine with only seeing the once. I don't know if I'll like it. We only go to 10-15 films a year maximum in theaters (probably a lot compared to most). It's one of our main hobbies. Do I buy every film I see in theater on disc? Of course not. Half of them I'll never want to see again because they're either not memorable, not important to me, or total shit. Do I buy films that I've rented? ABSOLUTELY! All of them? Absolutely not! I recently watched GI Joe on a flight. Then we downloaded it on Amazon on a lark. My wife loved it, and she hates that sort of film. Now I want to buy it on Blu-Ray--why? It's fun, and it's a fun film you can watch again and toss on with company over to show off the pretty HDTV and laugh about the heinous execution of our childhood memories of GI Joe. Most importantly, again:
It's rewatchable.
Put out consistently quality, engaging films. Aim for every film to be Oscar caliber in some way. That doesn't mean every film has to have an Avatar budget or 99% of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the speaking cast. Pay for a good script. It doesn't have to be a great film--see my GI Joe example above. It's not a great film, but visually? Amazing, and rewatchable for sheer fun with people over. Pay for a good director. Pay for good lighting, decent CGI, good cinematograpy. Make films people will ****WANT**** to see more than once. You many music CDs I've bought in my life for one track that, after I played that track several times, I never listened to that CD ever, ever again? The same thing. Your trailer may be ace--but the film shit. Don't make shit films, and I'll be more likely to buy them. I'm sure the same goes for everyone else too.
Most importantly, don't piss on your devoted customers that pay your salaries. Rentals drive sales. Quality films drive sales. Crap product to simply have a release will never drive sales.
You ever notice how each week we get 3-5 new major film releases? You ever notice how 3-4 of them are substandard to the others? I think they're put out as loss leaders. You put out shit like that, and then complain that people don't all buy your annual release catalog on DVD? What did you expect would happen?
You work at our pleasure. We don't watch your products at yours.
The principle problem is simple. The site has rules, but Jimmy Wales long, long, long ago screwed up the entire structure with:
1. Blind adherence to demonstrably useless and vile ideals like those of Ayn Rand, one of the greatest ideological jokes in the history of modern thought. She was a waste of meat and ideals. Wikipedia in any capacity embracing those ideals was like giving birth to a newborn child with multiple cancers already in place.
2. The rather stupid "Ignore All Rules" rule that too many take as gold. It leads to all decisions and policies being overseen on a case by case basis. This leads to absurd political gamesmanship to ensure that "preferred" text remains in the public's view.
3. Elevation of personality over content. Entrenched users can get away with relative murder. This needs no explanation of why it's a "bad thing". You need to basically create something on the level of a United States Supreme Court case to actually get some "senior" members restricted, let alone tossed, from the website.
4. The fact that people are allowed to remain as editors on the site that are useless bags of mostly water, who contribute nothing but politics, rather than those who focus on content.
There are other reasons beyond this, but those to me are the core four. The stupidity of how the site is ran is what is going to inexorably tilt it ever further into the abyss. Remember how we just mourned the passing of Geocities? 10-15 years from now, that will be the English Wikipedia project. I think the other projects may thrive in different ways, but the main donation cash cow--English Wikipedia--is fuxxored. Like the Titanic, it's been doomed since it was first hit. In this case, it was Jimmy Wales foolishly applying his apparent Randian worldview onto the project (he used to either frequent or admin some Randroid newsgroup).
I like a lot of the contributors and actually consider some small number friends from when I used to edit, but I'm absolutely glad I gave it up cold turkey (I was once an admin on several projects there) and utterly don't miss it.
To scrap them. If they do add 'another way' they should all the retention of tabs. Tabbing, with forcing new tabs on inline clicks to open in the background, is intuitive, simple, and easy. I--and I'm sure others--can't even imagine reading lots of content another way now.
This guy hits the nail on the head. I'm from Connecticut originally, and aside from my friends back home, and the natural beauty of the coastal areas that aren't aggressively choked out by private property, Seattle > Connecticut in every sense of the greater than sign.
It was like moving from a 200 mile wide bedroom community to a city of like-minded people, where everyone is incredibly relaxed most of the time in their attitudes, and people are genuinely nice, that I have met.
If you Google around, also, all the nonsense about the "Seattle Chill" from natives is bullshit. I've never encountered it or personally known anyone who has. It's always, "A friend of a friend..."
This really is an absurd law, in it's sweepingly naive format. It reeks of a knee-jerk reaction by people to what is likely an outcry by a vocal and irrelevant handful of local conservative constituents, now being capitalized on for political gain by career bureaucrats.
I wonder if anyone would be so bold as to do the right thing, and suggest a law protecting artistic expression in the UK, equivalent in scope to American Freedom of Speech?
This is all easily remedied.
1. No government system with anything even vaguely sensitive let alone classified is allowed anything but heavily secured access routed through random proxies (so you can't see.gov whatever for source IP), no-admin/no-root systems, and heavily micro-managed/monitored systems.
2. All VOIP or communications systems come with high-level encryption on only open-source systems, with no government backdoors.
Sounds like a perfect example for Wikipedia to actively enforce their Conflict Of Interest policies and prohibit the United States military from interfering with these articles.
The same way they would stop Microsoft IPs from interfering against policy with the Microsoft articles, and the same weigh they reign in Congressional edits.
Its really not a giant conspiracy, Cyde. It's a pretty hamfisted bunch of tiny little ones, which makes it even worse. Especially as the scale of things they're willing to go to war over is pretty tiny and pathetic.
Nice signature quote, by the way. Did you know they're gearing up for pre-production for a sequel? Last I read they're just buttoning down the funding.
* http://www.wikipediareview.com
WR is a forum that is populated by a mix of Wikipedia administrators posting openly, regular users, and a few "banned" users. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia 'elite' routinely badmouth the holy hell out of the WR forums because of the fact that "banned" users are allowed. Also, the Wikipedia "BADSITES" final solution (which is still active--disregard that rejected notice, its just been implemented anyway), was a direct revenge response against Wikipedia Review and similar sites that the Wikipedia leaders have no ability to silence or control in any way.
* http://www.wikitruth.info
Wikitruth is a private Wiki, which is ran by a variety of actual Wikipedia administrators, who post deleted content from Wikipedia and other insider information. Wikipedia HATES Wikitruth, almost as much as they hate Wikipedia Review, but are both helpless and powerless against them. Why? Because anything posted to Wikipedia is posted under the GFDL, and you can't de-GFDL Wikipedia content. Wikipedia just "chooses" not to display deleted content as an editorial decision. Oops.
Go to Wikipedia Review for frank and uncensored discussion about Wikipedia. Yes, some lunatics and social and/or mental defectives live there; the same as on the Slashdot comments. But a frightening number of smart and eloquent people post there. Those are the ones that Wikipedia is truly frightened of, because they can't be controlled or stopped. Go to Wikitruth for the best insider dirt.
I'm sure someone will mod me down as flame bait, or trolling, or someone who edits Wikipedia will be along to troll me. However, isn't it funny how whenever this sort of thing happens, you *cannot* get a straight answer out of the Wikipedia "executives"? It's always spin control, and damage control, sadly. Irresponsible.
It appears that Durova, aka Lise Diane Broer, who can be seen in this YouTube interview about Wikipedia, leaked the name of a Congressional staffer that edited Wikipedia, and the man was fired. Lise Diane Broer, aka Durova, is the admin that was part of the secret list that was used to harass and cyber-stalk real people, and was the main admin in the linked
See the "Criticism of Wikipedia" article, where admin "Jossi" is suppressing mention with troll Chip Berlet's assistance of the Register article. Sadly, to get the real story, you need to read external sources such as:
"On-Wiki" they are already in spin control. The best thing about the secret mail list is that it is hosted on Wikia.com servers, the private for-profit company owned by Jimbo Wales, which is legally supposed to be seperate from registered charity the Wikimedia Foundation. Various people have already informed the IRS.
Trust is reliability. The problem is that (as others mention below) trust, truth, and fact are not subject to deviation or consensus. No matter HOW much some want it to be. The problem with Wikipedia is everything is subject to groupthink review and approval.
Science isn't. Facts aren't. The sky is blue, the planet is billiions of years old, two airplanes flown by terrorists brought down the World Trade Center, intellegient design is myth.
If enough people say otherwise aggressively enough, though, Wikipedia--even if they don't outright say otherwise--will leave it gray enough to be contested.
Good for them. That means that more profit and web traffic for Wikia, Jimbo Wale's for-profit spin-off of Wikipedia. Did you know that Wikipedia blocks *ALL* search engine spider follow-through for all outbound links from Wikipedia...
...but allows them through for Wikia, the for-profit firm that Wales owns?
More details of this fiscal conflict of interest, that pads Wikia's pockets with each public relations brouhaha like this:
Slashdot Mirror
May I please have a Pixar animated film adaptation of Calvin and Hobbes?
It's called a hobby, one of many we have.
NOTE: My wife and I have SEVEN full bookshelves of DVD & Blu-Ray. We're movie nuts. We love to watch them. We love to go back and watch ones we particularly like. If they're good, we'll buy multiple editions we want--I've bought two copies of Iron Man, two full sets of Lord of the Rings, and lord knows how many Star Wars. I'll rebuy the latter two on Blu-Ray when they come out. I like to think we're the model of good customers. I don't bit torrent films because unlike some I like the way it looks on the shelf. The same as I like the way my books look on the shelf. Screw E-readers and stacks of ripped discs.
We also consume Netflix and Comcast OnDemand ravenously, and sometimes the Amazon download rental service or the local actual DVD rental store. Why?
I don't want to buy EVERY film I see. Some I'm fine with only seeing the once. I don't know if I'll like it. We only go to 10-15 films a year maximum in theaters (probably a lot compared to most). It's one of our main hobbies. Do I buy every film I see in theater on disc? Of course not. Half of them I'll never want to see again because they're either not memorable, not important to me, or total shit. Do I buy films that I've rented? ABSOLUTELY! All of them? Absolutely not! I recently watched GI Joe on a flight. Then we downloaded it on Amazon on a lark. My wife loved it, and she hates that sort of film. Now I want to buy it on Blu-Ray--why? It's fun, and it's a fun film you can watch again and toss on with company over to show off the pretty HDTV and laugh about the heinous execution of our childhood memories of GI Joe. Most importantly, again:
It's rewatchable.
Put out consistently quality, engaging films. Aim for every film to be Oscar caliber in some way. That doesn't mean every film has to have an Avatar budget or 99% of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the speaking cast. Pay for a good script. It doesn't have to be a great film--see my GI Joe example above. It's not a great film, but visually? Amazing, and rewatchable for sheer fun with people over. Pay for a good director. Pay for good lighting, decent CGI, good cinematograpy. Make films people will ****WANT**** to see more than once. You many music CDs I've bought in my life for one track that, after I played that track several times, I never listened to that CD ever, ever again? The same thing. Your trailer may be ace--but the film shit. Don't make shit films, and I'll be more likely to buy them. I'm sure the same goes for everyone else too.
Most importantly, don't piss on your devoted customers that pay your salaries. Rentals drive sales. Quality films drive sales. Crap product to simply have a release will never drive sales.
You ever notice how each week we get 3-5 new major film releases? You ever notice how 3-4 of them are substandard to the others? I think they're put out as loss leaders. You put out shit like that, and then complain that people don't all buy your annual release catalog on DVD? What did you expect would happen?
You work at our pleasure. We don't watch your products at yours.
Why don't they say anything about going after news agencies that reposted the documents? Or is that a battle they don't want to fight? I don't get it.
Really, I was modded flamebait? I challenge anyone to prove me wrong on any of my four points.
1. Blind adherence to demonstrably useless and vile ideals like those of Ayn Rand, one of the greatest ideological jokes in the history of modern thought. She was a waste of meat and ideals. Wikipedia in any capacity embracing those ideals was like giving birth to a newborn child with multiple cancers already in place.
2. The rather stupid "Ignore All Rules" rule that too many take as gold. It leads to all decisions and policies being overseen on a case by case basis. This leads to absurd political gamesmanship to ensure that "preferred" text remains in the public's view.
3. Elevation of personality over content. Entrenched users can get away with relative murder. This needs no explanation of why it's a "bad thing". You need to basically create something on the level of a United States Supreme Court case to actually get some "senior" members restricted, let alone tossed, from the website.
4. The fact that people are allowed to remain as editors on the site that are useless bags of mostly water, who contribute nothing but politics, rather than those who focus on content.
There are other reasons beyond this, but those to me are the core four. The stupidity of how the site is ran is what is going to inexorably tilt it ever further into the abyss. Remember how we just mourned the passing of Geocities? 10-15 years from now, that will be the English Wikipedia project. I think the other projects may thrive in different ways, but the main donation cash cow--English Wikipedia--is fuxxored. Like the Titanic, it's been doomed since it was first hit. In this case, it was Jimmy Wales foolishly applying his apparent Randian worldview onto the project (he used to either frequent or admin some Randroid newsgroup).
I like a lot of the contributors and actually consider some small number friends from when I used to edit, but I'm absolutely glad I gave it up cold turkey (I was once an admin on several projects there) and utterly don't miss it.
To scrap them. If they do add 'another way' they should all the retention of tabs. Tabbing, with forcing new tabs on inline clicks to open in the background, is intuitive, simple, and easy. I--and I'm sure others--can't even imagine reading lots of content another way now.
Where can we find a list of the 200 companies that oppose this plan?
The news stories are saying there are suspected cases in California, Texas, New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County now.
It was like moving from a 200 mile wide bedroom community to a city of like-minded people, where everyone is incredibly relaxed most of the time in their attitudes, and people are genuinely nice, that I have met.
If you Google around, also, all the nonsense about the "Seattle Chill" from natives is bullshit. I've never encountered it or personally known anyone who has. It's always, "A friend of a friend..."
Linux is crime and danger, wrapped in CLI silence and darkness.
Doing so would actually work for the public good, in this one instance, due to this frankly stupid action.
I wonder if anyone would be so bold as to do the right thing, and suggest a law protecting artistic expression in the UK, equivalent in scope to American Freedom of Speech?
This is all easily remedied. 1. No government system with anything even vaguely sensitive let alone classified is allowed anything but heavily secured access routed through random proxies (so you can't see .gov whatever for source IP), no-admin/no-root systems, and heavily micro-managed/monitored systems.
2. All VOIP or communications systems come with high-level encryption on only open-source systems, with no government backdoors.
Black Morass, on the other hand, is a fantastic PITA.
Way, not weigh. Oops.
The same way they would stop Microsoft IPs from interfering against policy with the Microsoft articles, and the same weigh they reign in Congressional edits.
Nice signature quote, by the way. Did you know they're gearing up for pre-production for a sequel? Last I read they're just buttoning down the funding.
* http://www.wikipediareview.com WR is a forum that is populated by a mix of Wikipedia administrators posting openly, regular users, and a few "banned" users. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia 'elite' routinely badmouth the holy hell out of the WR forums because of the fact that "banned" users are allowed. Also, the Wikipedia "BADSITES" final solution (which is still active--disregard that rejected notice, its just been implemented anyway), was a direct revenge response against Wikipedia Review and similar sites that the Wikipedia leaders have no ability to silence or control in any way.
* http://www.wikitruth.info Wikitruth is a private Wiki, which is ran by a variety of actual Wikipedia administrators, who post deleted content from Wikipedia and other insider information. Wikipedia HATES Wikitruth, almost as much as they hate Wikipedia Review, but are both helpless and powerless against them. Why? Because anything posted to Wikipedia is posted under the GFDL, and you can't de-GFDL Wikipedia content. Wikipedia just "chooses" not to display deleted content as an editorial decision. Oops.
Go to Wikipedia Review for frank and uncensored discussion about Wikipedia. Yes, some lunatics and social and/or mental defectives live there; the same as on the Slashdot comments. But a frightening number of smart and eloquent people post there. Those are the ones that Wikipedia is truly frightened of, because they can't be controlled or stopped. Go to Wikitruth for the best insider dirt.
I'm sure someone will mod me down as flame bait, or trolling, or someone who edits Wikipedia will be along to troll me. However, isn't it funny how whenever this sort of thing happens, you *cannot* get a straight answer out of the Wikipedia "executives"? It's always spin control, and damage control, sadly. Irresponsible.
It appears that Durova, aka Lise Diane Broer, who can be seen in this YouTube interview about Wikipedia, leaked the name of a Congressional staffer that edited Wikipedia, and the man was fired. Lise Diane Broer, aka Durova, is the admin that was part of the secret list that was used to harass and cyber-stalk real people, and was the main admin in the linked
Full disclosure here.
* http://www.wikipediareview.com/
* http://www.wikitruth.info/
"On-Wiki" they are already in spin control. The best thing about the secret mail list is that it is hosted on Wikia.com servers, the private for-profit company owned by Jimbo Wales, which is legally supposed to be seperate from registered charity the Wikimedia Foundation. Various people have already informed the IRS.
Science isn't. Facts aren't. The sky is blue, the planet is billiions of years old, two airplanes flown by terrorists brought down the World Trade Center, intellegient design is myth.
If enough people say otherwise aggressively enough, though, Wikipedia--even if they don't outright say otherwise--will leave it gray enough to be contested.
Stable and unstable versions exist on the German wikipedia, but the English (main) Wikipedia users and admins have been very resistant to the idea.
Triffid salad, anyone?
More details of this fiscal conflict of interest, that pads Wikia's pockets with each public relations brouhaha like this:
http://wikipediareview.com/blog/category/wikia/