Not really. Anarchism wouldn't have a near all powerful elite sitting on top of a very large mass of editors. I don't think anarchism would work either, but I wouldn't call Wikipedia anarchist in style. I think it's a failed largely unstructured bureaucracy.
It's useful as a starting point for real research.
Sure, but so are scandal sheets. You don't rely on them for accuracy or reliable information.
It's influenced by its own organizational culture and editorial bias.
What if this example, Wikipedia, has a particularly deleterious organizational culture, and an extremely rampant and calcified editorial bias? The problem is not the existence of an organizational culture or editorial bias, but to the degree that it is existent.
The RfAs are not a good procedure for elevating anyone to administrator, as the most actively involved are administrators, I'm not entirely certain it's a straight majority vote (all votes may not be equal, if administrators are given more weight, the power of the oligarchy increases), and an infinitely small percentage of users vote on RfAs. It is extremely uncommon for an abusive administrator to be stripped of powers. The system is not designed to remove abusive administrators via any established procedure or independent third-party mechanism. I can count the incidents where abusive administrators have been punished on one hand, two at most.
You've assumed a premise and set up a syllogism. I do not find your argument to be a rational one. You are overly enthusiastic, without giving any supportive evidence, which will not convince anyone to take Wikipedia seriously beyond the dwindling fan base.
"When you have the ability to add to Wikipedia like this, it's clearly eventually going to become the most reliable source of information in a few decades."
Aside from the point it is highly speculative that Wikipedia will be around "in a few decades," how and why do you believe it can or will eventually "become the most reliable source of information?"
How about instead of going after corporate IP addresses, a study of the corrupted power structure, administrator abuses, and Linda Mack/Jayjg? The problems are not from IP address on the outside. The problem is that there are not and have never been any objective criteria for delegating power to accounts, and while I don't know if it's a majority or not, a very good plurality of administrators believe their purpose is to use their power to ensure articles reflect only their point of view, and anyone that tries to change that, even with multiple citations and sources, find themselves personally attacked wikilawyered, and often blocked. There is no system separate from the administrators to handle this kind of abuse, so it almost never is addressed. Sure, edits from organizational IP addresses can be annoying, but they wield no power in the system, and cannot hurt anyone. Administrators and bureaucrats, they have a bad habit of supporting vandals and trolls that are later banned by Wikipedia, and harassing users that have not been able to protect themselves by becoming administrators, as being elevated to administrator largely depends on the desires of the current administrators, who are very adept at gaming the system. It is almost impossible to become an administrator unless you have the same character flaws as those in power. It's the iron law of bureaucracy; those that seek power and only power, to the detriment of the organization, seize and hold power. Wikipedia is a failed experiment, it failed a long time ago due to structural deficiencies, and the attention it continues to receive is like a bad addiction on the part of internet users.
Ok, it appears that due to my unfamiliarity with GSM (I understand it broke 50% US market share a year ago, http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/100821, although CDMA then took 50.3% of the North American market share, breaking 50%, for the first time in Q1 2007, to GSM's 38.5%, http://www.cellular-news.com/story/24950.php), I was not aware that unlocked phones can be used at will on GSM networks with appropriate SIM cards. Can one buy just the SIM card when subscribing to a GSM cellular provider?
Will anyone in the US be able to legally purchase and use a miniOne? Obviously people can and do buy large amounts of fake Louis Vuitton handbags, but you don't need to subscribe to a third-party to make use of the handbag. US cell phone companies will have to recognize and allow the miniOne into their cellular networks. Won't Apple lawyers have something to say about this? I'm not at all certain the miniOne would pass legal scrutiny.
One would have to be rather ignorant, incurious and highly malicious to work for the IRS in the first place, so worming out user names and passwords from bottom of the barrel angry and/or purely selfish people shouldn't be very hard.
Linux is for hackers and various niche environments.
Linux does not need to support gaming. Windows does that quite well. Anyone that wants to game can dual-boot with Windows, or buy a console. Linux will not support gaming, for the same reasons AIX or Solaris are not chock full of gaming goodness. It isn't required or desired, and the OS is far more suitable for other, often more "serious," applications.
If you're going to treat people that disagree with you like this, especially when they fulfill your implied requests for citations, you don't belong here.
I have found the source. I gave an incorrect figure. 81% of Fox News Channel employees contribute to Democrats, not 80%. See http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi?ar ticle=192, second bullet. Presumably, this figure is also present in Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't, by John Lott.
I think someone is confusing Fox News Channel with a plain old Fox news station, member of the mainstream media. 80% of FNC staff are Democrat, so if you have a problem with FNC, you're probably too far off the deep end to be relevant.
I agree that in the US, censorship by the government is unconstitutional, whereas censorship by private organizations is not. I wouldn't say censorship by private organizations is "fine," though. However, the uber-parent deals with censorship by foreign governments of their subjects, not with censorship in the US.
Bin Laden was never among those funded by the US government against the Soviets. I've never suggested Hitler was "somehow intimately associated with Muslims." I stated that there was an alliance between Muslims in the Middle East and Nazi Germany, which is a matter of historical record.
There were many Muslims that were allied with Nazi Germany, but I think you've just evoked Godwin's Law, as I never brought up the Nazi angle, as it's not relevant to the discussion.
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Not really. Anarchism wouldn't have a near all powerful elite sitting on top of a very large mass of editors. I don't think anarchism would work either, but I wouldn't call Wikipedia anarchist in style. I think it's a failed largely unstructured bureaucracy.
Sure, but so are scandal sheets. You don't rely on them for accuracy or reliable information.
It's influenced by its own organizational culture and editorial bias.
What if this example, Wikipedia, has a particularly deleterious organizational culture, and an extremely rampant and calcified editorial bias? The problem is not the existence of an organizational culture or editorial bias, but to the degree that it is existent.
The RfAs are not a good procedure for elevating anyone to administrator, as the most actively involved are administrators, I'm not entirely certain it's a straight majority vote (all votes may not be equal, if administrators are given more weight, the power of the oligarchy increases), and an infinitely small percentage of users vote on RfAs. It is extremely uncommon for an abusive administrator to be stripped of powers. The system is not designed to remove abusive administrators via any established procedure or independent third-party mechanism. I can count the incidents where abusive administrators have been punished on one hand, two at most.
You've assumed a premise and set up a syllogism. I do not find your argument to be a rational one. You are overly enthusiastic, without giving any supportive evidence, which will not convince anyone to take Wikipedia seriously beyond the dwindling fan base.
Aside from the point it is highly speculative that Wikipedia will be around "in a few decades," how and why do you believe it can or will eventually "become the most reliable source of information?"
How about instead of going after corporate IP addresses, a study of the corrupted power structure, administrator abuses, and Linda Mack/Jayjg? The problems are not from IP address on the outside. The problem is that there are not and have never been any objective criteria for delegating power to accounts, and while I don't know if it's a majority or not, a very good plurality of administrators believe their purpose is to use their power to ensure articles reflect only their point of view, and anyone that tries to change that, even with multiple citations and sources, find themselves personally attacked wikilawyered, and often blocked. There is no system separate from the administrators to handle this kind of abuse, so it almost never is addressed. Sure, edits from organizational IP addresses can be annoying, but they wield no power in the system, and cannot hurt anyone. Administrators and bureaucrats, they have a bad habit of supporting vandals and trolls that are later banned by Wikipedia, and harassing users that have not been able to protect themselves by becoming administrators, as being elevated to administrator largely depends on the desires of the current administrators, who are very adept at gaming the system. It is almost impossible to become an administrator unless you have the same character flaws as those in power. It's the iron law of bureaucracy; those that seek power and only power, to the detriment of the organization, seize and hold power. Wikipedia is a failed experiment, it failed a long time ago due to structural deficiencies, and the attention it continues to receive is like a bad addiction on the part of internet users.
Ok, it appears that due to my unfamiliarity with GSM (I understand it broke 50% US market share a year ago, http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/100821, although CDMA then took 50.3% of the North American market share, breaking 50%, for the first time in Q1 2007, to GSM's 38.5%, http://www.cellular-news.com/story/24950.php), I was not aware that unlocked phones can be used at will on GSM networks with appropriate SIM cards. Can one buy just the SIM card when subscribing to a GSM cellular provider?
I use Verizon. Not everyone uses GSM, you know.
Will anyone in the US be able to legally purchase and use a miniOne? Obviously people can and do buy large amounts of fake Louis Vuitton handbags, but you don't need to subscribe to a third-party to make use of the handbag. US cell phone companies will have to recognize and allow the miniOne into their cellular networks. Won't Apple lawyers have something to say about this? I'm not at all certain the miniOne would pass legal scrutiny.
What? Mac has systems management? That's impossible, everyone knows Mac is so easy to use, and virus-free, that it's the toaster of computers.
One would have to be rather ignorant, incurious and highly malicious to work for the IRS in the first place, so worming out user names and passwords from bottom of the barrel angry and/or purely selfish people shouldn't be very hard.
I think this will cater to machismo, not seen as a drawback.
OS X is for artists and people really into style.
Linux is for hackers and various niche environments.
Linux does not need to support gaming. Windows does that quite well. Anyone that wants to game can dual-boot with Windows, or buy a console. Linux will not support gaming, for the same reasons AIX or Solaris are not chock full of gaming goodness. It isn't required or desired, and the OS is far more suitable for other, often more "serious," applications.
I don't think you understand capitalism. Computing products will become both faster and cheaper.
I would reiterate that while the source is Ann Coulter, she is citing a work by Dr. John Lott.
If you're going to treat people that disagree with you like this, especially when they fulfill your implied requests for citations, you don't belong here.
I have found the source. I gave an incorrect figure. 81% of Fox News Channel employees contribute to Democrats, not 80%. See http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi?ar ticle=192, second bullet. Presumably, this figure is also present in Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't, by John Lott.
Lou Dobbs is a populist.
I'm 99% sure I saw this, but as I cannot find any source or citation at this time, I am withdrawing this figure.
I think someone is confusing Fox News Channel with a plain old Fox news station, member of the mainstream media. 80% of FNC staff are Democrat, so if you have a problem with FNC, you're probably too far off the deep end to be relevant.
I agree that in the US, censorship by the government is unconstitutional, whereas censorship by private organizations is not. I wouldn't say censorship by private organizations is "fine," though. However, the uber-parent deals with censorship by foreign governments of their subjects, not with censorship in the US.
I don't think censorship means what you think it means.
Oxymoronic much?
Bin Laden was never among those funded by the US government against the Soviets. I've never suggested Hitler was "somehow intimately associated with Muslims." I stated that there was an alliance between Muslims in the Middle East and Nazi Germany, which is a matter of historical record.
There were many Muslims that were allied with Nazi Germany, but I think you've just evoked Godwin's Law, as I never brought up the Nazi angle, as it's not relevant to the discussion.