Don't forget the Price-Anderson Act, as there will be no nuclear industry without it because no insurer accepts to fully cover a disaster, therefore the federal gov has to do it. As far as I know there is no other industry benefiting from such a huge gift, failing to obtain a required insurance policy usually puts directly out of business.
> Wind generally has a production factor of around 30%, while nuclear has one of over 90%
False for offshore windfarms (90% is common),
> mostly demand based
Because they are many plants. A set of windfarms in different locations also can produce in a "mostly demand based" fashion.
They easy way to explain it is "politicians canceled it" but a more accurate abstract is: gigabucks during decades, always "we will soon fix all problems!"... and nothing delivered.
USA: Clinch River, 8 billions bucks spent, canceled after 20+ years (take also a look at "Fermi 1", closed after nearly a decade, after an accident. This beast was cooled thanks to sodium, which is absolutely not Frenchies unique choice but, back then, a raw need)
Japan: Monju, closed for now after an accident, its successor may be built in 20 years
UK: Dounreay, one of the very first, canceled after nearly 40 years of R&D
Germany: project (SNR-300) canceled, the site is an amusement park (but it led to an eye-opening end),
Let's push the ball: an answer to the question may be "let's have a list of what is needed (goals, not means) then let's establish a protocol to assess how it is provided (always? fast?...), objective, user-understandable and user-runnable". Here is a piece about such an approach.
>> "if you don't believe me: read this WP article!" (and they mean it, this is, for them, not a fallacy).
> It's NOT a fallacy. It's the same as if I said, "if you don't believe me: read this newspeper".
I will take it (pepper)... with a grain of salt:-) Please read below for a less pun'y explanation of my point of view
> It's perfectly rational and a good argument.
One has the right to think that "some published matter, not sourced" is a good argument. But it is a fallacy to conclude that anyone has to be. My point is that many think that quoting WP is a "definitive" way to establish something "as true, false or mu", which may be OK for them but is not for me.
> Something does not have to fit some definition of 'authoritative' in order to be evidence
Something does have to fit my definition of 'authoritative' in order to be evidence for me.
> and rules of authority certainly don't apply in casual conversation!
Granted. I'm reasoning, here, at the ambitious level of an honest dialog seriously aiming at establishing something.
> The response to this appeal to Wiki evidence (note -- NOT authority), that 'Wiki is not authoritative' is a *terrible* argument. It's like saying, "Newspapers aren't everything."
((...)) > Both newspapers and Wiki CAN be wrong and both newspapers and wiki are *usually* right
((...)) > A good response to this kind of evidence would be to show a conflicting source with at least as much or better reliability
Indeed: when one _can_ add some serious information missing to the quoted assertion, which somewhat changes the whole picture, he (for me) gains the right to reject the quote. My point is that a stable WP article contents are, for many, somewhat "exhaustive" and "more reliable" than most other sources, even specialized ones which are, in fact, more "authoritative" but less known.
>> (older people are more likely not to have heard of it or have only heard the word without any opinions as to its usage) Therefore they just can't be misleaded by its contents My point stands.
> So you're comparing a youngster who uses Wikipedia to an adult who doesn't know what it is, in order to prove that young people are more ignorant about the reliability or unreliability of Wikipedia?
Your point was (quoting): "Younger people are far more aware *as a group* of the idea that Wiki is unsuitable for research than older people". From my point of view many old ones don't even know WP (therefore they cannot be misled by it) and are much less confident in Web-published material.
>>> The reason is that this lesson is now being hammered into them in schools at every grade
>> I disagree: most youngsters I know are able to defy authority (and willing to!) but unable to doubt of any "authoritative" statement on most topics (and not interested by it).
> let's say you're right, and young people are far more likely to respect 'authority' when it comes to information. What does that have to do with whether they are aware that Wikipedia should not be used for formal research and why? They are aware, man. All of them. Just ask a few point blank instead of assuming that they are quoting Wikipedia at you because they are ignorant.
That's a good point. I did that sampling and the overall result is "most somewhat know that WP is not adequate for formal research but think that WP is sufficient for them". The net result is, as I wrote it, that they conclude "any piece of information published in a stable WP article is OK"
> Maybe they know the possibility reliability issues and are quoting it anyway because in their opinion it's still valid (this is my own opinions, and the opinion of many scholars in their fields about Wikipedia -- still a valid resource -- NOT something verboten to use in any debate: only FORMAL RESEARCH)
This may be our main point: a good debate is, in my opinion, not very different f
> First of all, Wikipedia not being authoritative has nothing to do with whether it can be quoted to make a point. What's the relationship between those two uses?
My point is: many people think that any 'stable' (meaning "form OK" and "no edit war in progress") Wikipedia article contains a complete and accurate (remember: authoritative also means "highly accurate; definitive", this is the whole point of our dialog) account of his subject. In this perspective they think that WP is "authoritative", they say "if you don't believe me: read this WP article!" (and they mean it, this is, for them, not a fallacy).
> The Encyclopedia Britannica is not 'authoritative' either
Indeed.
> my observation has been the exact opposite to yours. Younger people are far more aware *as a group* of the idea that Wiki is unsuitable for research than older people
Most youngs I know, as stated above, think that "a stable WP article is complete and accurate". This is foolish, albeit often true for some technical and scientific topics
> (older people are more likely not to have heard of it or have only heard the word without any opinions as to its usage)
Therefore they just can't be misleaded by its contents
My point stands.
> The reason is that this lesson is now being hammered into them in schools at every grade, and has been for some time. (You may not have been aware of this.) Nobody gets out of school these days without being recited this litany literally dozens of times. They may not practice what they've been preached, but believe me -- they know.
I disagree: most youngsters I know are able to defy authority (and willing to!) but unable to doubt of any "authoritative" statement on most topics (and not interested by it). Isn't it a famous experiment about an accomplice teacher delivering some stupid assertion then making a fuss when a student asks for confirmation, letting the whole class accepting the BS?
> 'Wikipedia is not authoritative' has so run its course that everybody knows this already
A fair amount of people, esp. among the youngsters, think that WP is authoritative. Take, for example, the amount of quotes of WP, in nearly every online medium, used to "make" a point.
Linux is not mandatory to use GPG. It runs dandy under MS-Windows and MacOS and there is a bunch of thingies to let most users benefit from it in a more-or-less transparent fashion.
Google earns money thanks to AdSense (ads banners), which is boosted by an efficient way to quickly know which topic is of interest for a given Web user. There is a quick way for Google to enhance their current set of tools: http://www.makarevitch.org/rant/google_strategy.ht ml
We need to share trust about what other people publish, and identity is a special form of this: you know that this man is Mr Sixpack because of somebody introduced you. Somebody you trust.
Here is an attempts: WebDSign http://www.makarevitch.org/webdsign/
By "whereabouts" I meant "did they have any breakdown and where, did they drop any radioactive stuff..."
> My point in calling it 'speculative fiction' was not say it is impossible, but rather that it is not well supported. I saw nothing in that article that would convince me that the authors had any more of an idea what they were talking about than the people who claim it is safe.
A factual and detailed answer from those last people to the document published by Greenpeace may let us progress but I could no find one.
> the document was heavily skewed in favor of those that paid for its publication (Greenpeace.)
Could be, but IMHO its value can be pretty high despite of this (dubious intentions can lead to an useful/true discovery)
>> Where is the large group scientist declaring "we analyzed those blueprints and are absolutely sure it is not dangerous as a whole"
> Being ignored by anti-nuke activists who say that they must be being "paid off by industry" to come to that conclusion.
If it exists, one may find it. No-one can forbid them (or the powerful industrialists and gov agencies sustaining the nukes) to publish. Where is the academic paper, or the Web site, with all the assertions and author's names and qualifications? Or are you really thinking that anti-nuke activists can put a whole team of scientists, along with their publications, into oblivion?
> the same design as has been used on atomic icebreakers > It is a proven, reliable
As far as I know 10 of them existed, a handful are presently in activity, they operate very remotely (let's bet that, one day, someone may find a huge source of radionuclides at the bottom of a cold sea:-( ) and there are no real information about their whereabouts. The plants, on the other hand, will be numerous and their hot points (or did I misunderstand?) will be on land.
> All concerns of pebble bed nuclear reactors (which the floating plant is not one of) are based purely on speculative fiction
When a study bashes one's opinion he can name it "fiction", but a better way is to prove it wrong
> Reading your pdf, it is clear to me that any disaster they describe would require an unbelievable series of events
Chernobyl and TMI were others "unbelievable series of events". In a way the very fact that TMI did not degenerate into a major disaster (the reactor vessel did not melt) is unbelievable.
> but the containment would have to fail and a separate oxygen explosion would have to occure. All of these events would have to occure within a period of time before any one of them are addressed by the technicians.
This seems a good point to me, but we already are far of the "there is absolutely no danger" motto
> Skimming through a variety of other claims in this release paper makes it all the more clear what it is: pure and simple fear mongering. They use figures unecessarily formatted like 100.000 km^2 instead of 100 km^2
Isn't it numerically equivalent? Does it impedes their results?
> sources ((...)) backing their claims of safety issues.
Which major assertion isn't backed?
> Greenpeace is a fear mongering organization. If these documents don't show it, their commercials do.
They have to draw public attention, and no commercial can convey all proofs. Seeing "fear mongering" there is saying either "you lie!" (one, then, has to prove their studies wrong) or to say "shut up, don't reveal anything to the public" (which is be... well... let's say "inappropriate")
Pebbles nukes do have their problems: http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/internationa l/press/reports/nuclearreactorhazards.pdf , page 41 (see the authors references page 4)
During the soviet era, before the Chernobyl disaster, local "powers that be" claimed that "those nuke plants are so sure we may build one on the Red Square!". Do we really have total confidence in the guys who, here and now, claim the same? Where is the large group scientist declaring "we analyzed those blueprints and are absolutely sure it is not dangerous as a whole" (in any other case, after a disaster, there will be the usual bunch of "I checked my part, it was OK, I could not knew that another part was not, so let's devise a complete new architecture")
> "to be able to recognize him under another pseudonym" (which goes against the very concept of pseudonym, does it not?)
Indeed. This is one of the major point. Pseudos are OK for ranting in./ and chating on dating sites, but for serious encyclopedic work it is useful and dangerous (some people just can't behave when anon).
> or "to detect the lies" (maybe wikipedia should get some lie detectors?)
Bah
>> Compunction makes the boot more useful because, without it, redemption seems somewhat far away (the leaders cannot hope that he will not lie again if he comes back)
> Perhaps this is true in the church (and I mind you not just any old church), but not in wikipedia.
I mean "no remorse => he will probably err again". I may have failed to make myself clear, or you just want to rant. Let's forget about it
>> Many potentially serious people will simply not deliberately write BS/propaganda under their real-life identity,[...]
> Then you probably would not believe me if I tell you how much propaganda of the worst kind has been written by people under their "real-life" names.
I don't wrote "there is no BS under the author's realname" but I sure tried to express and think that many write less BS when the are identified. You already distorted this way twice.
> Maybe they were not "potentially serious" but instead actually serious, or just serious, or were they not joking?
Verry funny
>> [...]and the other are often easy to detect.
> Who are the other?
Crackpots, fools, jokers writing "I was here!"...
> Would not the method of "detecting" then depend on who you are talking about?
I'm not sure to understand but, for example in this case, detecting credential falseness is much more difficult if he is anon. This is totally unrelated to the real identity or credential type.
>> I did not write that barring anonymous authors will be sufficient, but I do think that it will reduce the BS and cruft
> Oh, and what if all of authors of wikipedia are under pseudonyms, I mean anonymous?
Many give their real life identity in their userpages or reveal it to other contributors during parties. Been there, done that. Therefore they don't act completely anon, and I bet that many (if not most) of the most useful contributors are in this set.
>>> What if he comes back under another pseudonym?
>> It will prove that there is no sanction/compunction/efficient way to kick liars/...
> why is it necessary to kick him
Because he lied about his credentials in order to sustain his declarations
> , and furthermore efficiently?
Because when somebody induces a problem in a project, the leaders have a serious problem if they cannot boot him for sure, if they only can hope that he will not lie again if he discreetly comes back, or to be able to recognize him under another pseudonym or to detect the lies (and, then, be courageous enough to prolly endure other chases). They may prefer work in a more useful or even interesting way
> Isn't this a bit extreme, especially considering the matter in question
If a project's goal is to compendium that contains information there is no place for people lying in order to enforce their assertions.
> even if he did not show any compunction?
Compunction makes the boot more useful because, without it, redemption seems somewhat far away (the leaders cannot hope that he will not lie again if he comes back)
> Even wikipedia has disclaimers on its pages on whether the content of a particular page is disputed.
Somebody has to detect the bias then publish the disclaimer, therefore BS can stay for a while, esp. when the author is a well-known sysop and lies about his credentials. Many contributors will not argue, and the few others will often be crushed by the sysops (the culprit will just say to them: "hey, pals, help me kick this vandal!")
> And usefulness and "balance" of information there is rarely in direct relation to its source
I beg to differ. Many potentially serious people will simply not deliberately write BS/propaganda under their real-life identity, and the other are often easy to detect. Moreover WP encourages to "source" (official policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Attribution ) and one can only quote (source) an non-anonymous author (famous old work excluded).
> Apparently even Britannica contains errors
Indeed. I did not write that barring anonymous authors will be sufficient, but I do think that it will reduce the BS and cruft
> the identity of an encyclopedist is not the substitute for critical thinking and research [...]
It will prove that there is no sanction/compunction/efficient way to kick liars/...
>> How a serious encyclopedist may not reveal his (real-life) identity is beyond me.
> It is beyond you.
Therefore you read information without ever determining its source? And you hope to learn something useful and balanced, esp. on controversial subjects? I just cannot think you are so dumb, sorry to put it more frankly than you did
There is an efficient way to avoid such tempering, or at least to hope that those tricks will be quickly discovered by somebody: seal (sign) your published works, dammit!
have a well-signed and published (on the keyservers) GnuPG (GPG) key
do only transfer/store the private key on absolutely sure boxes, and only if it is strictly necessary
keep a backup of the private key in an ultra safe place
give a copy of the revocation certificate to a few very good friends
publish the public key on a good keyserver
Then sign every archive published, let the file be mirrored everywhere... and the hell with the polluters!
For now most users will not verify the signature but at least a few of them will do, and with time a growing number will join.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget the Price-Anderson Act, as there will be no nuclear industry without it because no insurer accepts to fully cover a disaster, therefore the federal gov has to do it. As far as I know there is no other industry benefiting from such a huge gift, failing to obtain a required insurance policy usually puts directly out of business.
> Wind generally has a production factor of around 30%, while nuclear has one of over 90% False for offshore windfarms (90% is common), > mostly demand based Because they are many plants. A set of windfarms in different locations also can produce in a "mostly demand based" fashion.
One can show/prove how/why something is bad science, not state it without further comment.
Let's push the ball: an answer to the question may be "let's have a list of what is needed (goals, not means) then let's establish a protocol to assess how it is provided (always? fast?...), objective, user-understandable and user-runnable". Here is a piece about such an approach.
Exactly! And as Wikipedia and Google may be mutual benefitors...
>> "if you don't believe me: read this WP article!" (and they mean it, this is, for them, not a fallacy).
:-) Please read below for a less pun'y explanation of my point of view
> It's NOT a fallacy. It's the same as if I said, "if you don't believe me: read this newspeper".
I will take it (pepper)... with a grain of salt
> It's perfectly rational and a good argument.
One has the right to think that "some published matter, not sourced" is a good argument. But it is a fallacy to conclude that anyone has to be. My point is that many think that quoting WP is a "definitive" way to establish something "as true, false or mu", which may be OK for them but is not for me.
> Something does not have to fit some definition of 'authoritative' in order to be evidence
Something does have to fit my definition of 'authoritative' in order to be evidence for me.
> and rules of authority certainly don't apply in casual conversation!
Granted. I'm reasoning, here, at the ambitious level of an honest dialog seriously aiming at establishing something.
> The response to this appeal to Wiki evidence (note -- NOT authority), that 'Wiki is not authoritative' is a *terrible* argument. It's like saying, "Newspapers aren't everything."
((...))
> Both newspapers and Wiki CAN be wrong and both newspapers and wiki are *usually* right
((...))
> A good response to this kind of evidence would be to show a conflicting source with at least as much or better reliability
Indeed: when one _can_ add some serious information missing to the quoted assertion, which somewhat changes the whole picture, he (for me) gains the right to reject the quote. My point is that a stable WP article contents are, for many, somewhat "exhaustive" and "more reliable" than most other sources, even specialized ones which are, in fact, more "authoritative" but less known.
>> (older people are more likely not to have heard of it or have only heard the word without any opinions as to its usage) Therefore they just can't be misleaded by its contents My point stands.
> So you're comparing a youngster who uses Wikipedia to an adult who doesn't know what it is, in order to prove that young people are more ignorant about the reliability or unreliability of Wikipedia?
Your point was (quoting): "Younger people are far more aware *as a group* of the idea that Wiki is unsuitable for research than older people". From my point of view many old ones don't even know WP (therefore they cannot be misled by it) and are much less confident in Web-published material.
>>> The reason is that this lesson is now being hammered into them in schools at every grade
>> I disagree: most youngsters I know are able to defy authority (and willing to!) but unable to doubt of any "authoritative" statement on most topics (and not interested by it).
> let's say you're right, and young people are far more likely to respect 'authority' when it comes to information. What does that have to do with whether they are aware that Wikipedia should not be used for formal research and why? They are aware, man. All of them. Just ask a few point blank instead of assuming that they are quoting Wikipedia at you because they are ignorant.
That's a good point. I did that sampling and the overall result is "most somewhat know that WP is not adequate for formal research but think that WP is sufficient for them". The net result is, as I wrote it, that they conclude "any piece of information published in a stable WP article is OK"
> Maybe they know the possibility reliability issues and are quoting it anyway because in their opinion it's still valid (this is my own opinions, and the opinion of many scholars in their fields about Wikipedia -- still a valid resource -- NOT something verboten to use in any debate: only FORMAL RESEARCH)
This may be our main point: a good debate is, in my opinion, not very different f
> First of all, Wikipedia not being authoritative has nothing to do with whether it can be quoted to make a point. What's the relationship between those two uses?
My point is: many people think that any 'stable' (meaning "form OK" and "no edit war in progress") Wikipedia article contains a complete and accurate (remember: authoritative also means "highly accurate; definitive", this is the whole point of our dialog) account of his subject. In this perspective they think that WP is "authoritative", they say "if you don't believe me: read this WP article!" (and they mean it, this is, for them, not a fallacy).
> The Encyclopedia Britannica is not 'authoritative' either
Indeed.
> my observation has been the exact opposite to yours. Younger people are far more aware *as a group* of the idea that Wiki is unsuitable for research than older people
Most youngs I know, as stated above, think that "a stable WP article is complete and accurate". This is foolish, albeit often true for some technical and scientific topics
> (older people are more likely not to have heard of it or have only heard the word without any opinions as to its usage)
Therefore they just can't be misleaded by its contents
My point stands.
> The reason is that this lesson is now being hammered into them in schools at every grade, and has been for some time. (You may not have been aware of this.) Nobody gets out of school these days without being recited this litany literally dozens of times. They may not practice what they've been preached, but believe me -- they know.
I disagree: most youngsters I know are able to defy authority (and willing to!) but unable to doubt of any "authoritative" statement on most topics (and not interested by it). Isn't it a famous experiment about an accomplice teacher delivering some stupid assertion then making a fuss when a student asks for confirmation, letting the whole class accepting the BS?
A fair amount of people, esp. among the youngsters, think that WP is authoritative. Take, for example, the amount of quotes of WP, in nearly every online medium, used to "make" a point.
Uh? Do you refer to this set of questions? It seems to me that they were pertinent and civil. Cabal...
Linux is not mandatory to use GPG. It runs dandy under MS-Windows and MacOS and there is a bunch of thingies to let most users benefit from it in a more-or-less transparent fashion.
Google earns money thanks to AdSense (ads banners), which is boosted by an efficient way to quickly know which topic is of interest for a given Web user. There is a quick way for Google to enhance their current set of tools: http://www.makarevitch.org/rant/google_strategy.ht ml
We need to share trust about what other people publish, and identity is a special form of this: you know that this man is Mr Sixpack because of somebody introduced you. Somebody you trust. Here is an attempts: WebDSign http://www.makarevitch.org/webdsign/
The War Nerd had a a good piece about anti-ICBM (second half of his article): http://www.exile.ru/2006-July-15/the_war_nerd.html
> The Yamal's last know position is here
By "whereabouts" I meant "did they have any breakdown and where, did they drop any radioactive stuff..."
> My point in calling it 'speculative fiction' was not say it is impossible, but rather that it is not well supported. I saw nothing in that article that would convince me that the authors had any more of an idea what they were talking about than the people who claim it is safe.
A factual and detailed answer from those last people to the document published by Greenpeace may let us progress but I could no find one.
> the document was heavily skewed in favor of those that paid for its publication (Greenpeace.)
Could be, but IMHO its value can be pretty high despite of this (dubious intentions can lead to an useful/true discovery)
>> Where is the large group scientist declaring "we analyzed those blueprints and are absolutely sure it is not dangerous as a whole"
> Being ignored by anti-nuke activists who say that they must be being "paid off by industry" to come to that conclusion.
If it exists, one may find it. No-one can forbid them (or the powerful industrialists and gov agencies sustaining the nukes) to publish. Where is the academic paper, or the Web site, with all the assertions and author's names and qualifications? Or are you really thinking that anti-nuke activists can put a whole team of scientists, along with their publications, into oblivion?
> the same design as has been used on atomic icebreakers
:-( ) and there are no real information about their whereabouts. The plants, on the other hand, will be numerous and their hot points (or did I misunderstand?) will be on land.
> It is a proven, reliable
As far as I know 10 of them existed, a handful are presently in activity, they operate very remotely (let's bet that, one day, someone may find a huge source of radionuclides at the bottom of a cold sea
> All concerns of pebble bed nuclear reactors (which the floating plant is not one of) are based purely on speculative fiction
When a study bashes one's opinion he can name it "fiction", but a better way is to prove it wrong
> Reading your pdf, it is clear to me that any disaster they describe would require an unbelievable series of events
Chernobyl and TMI were others "unbelievable series of events". In a way the very fact that TMI did not degenerate into a major disaster (the reactor vessel did not melt) is unbelievable.
> but the containment would have to fail and a separate oxygen explosion would have to occure. All of these events would have to occure within a period of time before any one of them are addressed by the technicians.
This seems a good point to me, but we already are far of the "there is absolutely no danger" motto
> Skimming through a variety of other claims in this release paper makes it all the more clear what it is: pure and simple fear mongering. They use figures unecessarily formatted like 100.000 km^2 instead of 100 km^2
Isn't it numerically equivalent? Does it impedes their results?
> sources ((...)) backing their claims of safety issues.
Which major assertion isn't backed?
> Greenpeace is a fear mongering organization. If these documents don't show it, their commercials do.
They have to draw public attention, and no commercial can convey all proofs. Seeing "fear mongering" there is saying either "you lie!" (one, then, has to prove their studies wrong) or to say "shut up, don't reveal anything to the public" (which is be... well... let's say "inappropriate")
Read about it http://www.exile.ru/2006-October-06/venezuela_ench ilada_of_evil.htmlVenezuela: Enchilada of Evil
Pebbles nukes do have their problems: http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/internationa l/press/reports/nuclearreactorhazards.pdf , page 41 (see the authors references page 4)
During the soviet era, before the Chernobyl disaster, local "powers that be" claimed that "those nuke plants are so sure we may build one on the Red Square!". Do we really have total confidence in the guys who, here and now, claim the same? Where is the large group scientist declaring "we analyzed those blueprints and are absolutely sure it is not dangerous as a whole" (in any other case, after a disaster, there will be the usual bunch of "I checked my part, it was OK, I could not knew that another part was not, so let's devise a complete new architecture")
Some put plain disinformation among Wikipedia's good material and it often remains unnoticed for a long time. Chernobyl case: http://makarevitch.org/rant/IAEA/tchernobyl-200509 /chernobyl.html#wp
> "to be able to recognize him under another pseudonym" (which goes against the very concept of pseudonym, does it not?) Indeed. This is one of the major point. Pseudos are OK for ranting in ./ and chating on dating sites, but for serious encyclopedic work it is useful and dangerous (some people just can't behave when anon).
> or "to detect the lies" (maybe wikipedia should get some lie detectors?)
Bah
>> Compunction makes the boot more useful because, without it, redemption seems somewhat far away (the leaders cannot hope that he will not lie again if he comes back)
> Perhaps this is true in the church (and I mind you not just any old church), but not in wikipedia.
I mean "no remorse => he will probably err again". I may have failed to make myself clear, or you just want to rant. Let's forget about it
>> Many potentially serious people will simply not deliberately write BS/propaganda under their real-life identity,[...]
> Then you probably would not believe me if I tell you how much propaganda of the worst kind has been written by people under their "real-life" names.
I don't wrote "there is no BS under the author's realname" but I sure tried to express and think that many write less BS when the are identified. You already distorted this way twice.
> Maybe they were not "potentially serious" but instead actually serious, or just serious, or were they not joking?
Verry funny
>> [...]and the other are often easy to detect.
> Who are the other?
Crackpots, fools, jokers writing "I was here!"...
> Would not the method of "detecting" then depend on who you are talking about?
I'm not sure to understand but, for example in this case, detecting credential falseness is much more difficult if he is anon. This is totally unrelated to the real identity or credential type.
>> I did not write that barring anonymous authors will be sufficient, but I do think that it will reduce the BS and cruft
> Oh, and what if all of authors of wikipedia are under pseudonyms, I mean anonymous?
Many give their real life identity in their userpages or reveal it to other contributors during parties. Been there, done that. Therefore they don't act completely anon, and I bet that many (if not most) of the most useful contributors are in this set.
>> It will prove that there is no sanction/compunction/efficient way to kick liars/...
> why is it necessary to kick him
Because he lied about his credentials in order to sustain his declarations
> , and furthermore efficiently?
Because when somebody induces a problem in a project, the leaders have a serious problem if they cannot boot him for sure, if they only can hope that he will not lie again if he discreetly comes back, or to be able to recognize him under another pseudonym or to detect the lies (and, then, be courageous enough to prolly endure other chases). They may prefer work in a more useful or even interesting way
> Isn't this a bit extreme, especially considering the matter in question
If a project's goal is to compendium that contains information there is no place for people lying in order to enforce their assertions.
> even if he did not show any compunction?
Compunction makes the boot more useful because, without it, redemption seems somewhat far away (the leaders cannot hope that he will not lie again if he comes back)
> Even wikipedia has disclaimers on its pages on whether the content of a particular page is disputed.
Somebody has to detect the bias then publish the disclaimer, therefore BS can stay for a while, esp. when the author is a well-known sysop and lies about his credentials. Many contributors will not argue, and the few others will often be crushed by the sysops (the culprit will just say to them: "hey, pals, help me kick this vandal!")
> And usefulness and "balance" of information there is rarely in direct relation to its source
I beg to differ. Many potentially serious people will simply not deliberately write BS/propaganda under their real-life identity, and the other are often easy to detect. Moreover WP encourages to "source" (official policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Attribution ) and one can only quote (source) an non-anonymous author (famous old work excluded).
> Apparently even Britannica contains errors
Indeed. I did not write that barring anonymous authors will be sufficient, but I do think that it will reduce the BS and cruft
> the identity of an encyclopedist is not the substitute for critical thinking and research [...]
I agree
It will prove that there is no sanction/compunction/efficient way to kick liars/...
>> How a serious encyclopedist may not reveal his (real-life) identity is beyond me.
> It is beyond you.
Therefore you read information without ever determining its source? And you hope to learn something useful and balanced, esp. on controversial subjects? I just cannot think you are so dumb, sorry to put it more frankly than you did
How a serious encyclopedist may not reveal his (real-life) identity is beyond me.
- have a well-signed and published (on the keyservers) GnuPG (GPG) key
- do only transfer/store the private key on absolutely sure boxes, and only if it is strictly necessary
- keep a backup of the private key in an ultra safe place
- give a copy of the revocation certificate to a few very good friends
- publish the public key on a good keyserver
Then sign every archive published, let the file be mirrored everywhere... and the hell with the polluters! For now most users will not verify the signature but at least a few of them will do, and with time a growing number will join.