My outlook on the everyday world (especially marketing and the media) has changed immensely since I started getting Stats lectures in my second year at Uni. H. G. Wells was right:
Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read or write
It's just unfortunate that so few people do have an understanding of statistics. I've lost count of the newspaper stories, even years-long media-fuelled "controversies"-, which are based entirely on misunderstood, misrepresented, or malformed statistics. "How to Lie with Statistics" should be required reading in high school.
Causing pain and fear is sometimes necessary. It's the only way you can study the effects of pain and/or fear responses in living things. The biochemistry of pain is obviously of great interest in medicine.
In this case they're finding out what genes are expressed during death by strangulation. While we're well aware that there is a biochemical response in these sitations, it's not been particularly well characterised in terms of the gene expression that's going on at the time.
That's a fair cop, I get your point now, I just thought the logic was ropey. I really meant the comment as a Dell joke anyway.
Microsoft don't distribute other people's software with their software, simply because they're a commercial entity and don't want to put themselves out of business. Combined with the competitiveness pressure, meaning they can't distribute much of their software with their OS, you get Windows as more or less a blank slate. Off topic, but when MS tries to go the other way, they often come across as turning the PC into a Mac-like closed system, with home system builders migrating to less restrictive OSes as a result.
Unlike Linux distributions, it's mostly left to the end user to find the software they need (either by nabbing it on CD or downloading it). I personally don't get too upset about that as I have the installers I need kicking around on other machines on the network. This would certainly place the newcomer at a disadvanage, though.
You could just as easily download the applications and install them in that case. Either way, it's a blank slate when the OS finishes installing, as per the antitrust situation (which is what I prefer, anyway).
You'd actually like to have three different office suites, three different media players, three different browsers, and three different email clients installed from the word "go"? Do you work for Dell or something?
The AC reply got this about right, but for completeness, I imagine that every product that's sent out for review will be double and triple checked for faults. If a unit's even slightly below the quality that the company's trying to convey (most products do vary in quality throughout a single batch) then it's sent back and another brought forward. That way the 5% of units (or 3%, or whatever the industry average is these days) which are considered faulty are not represented in the reviews.
If you're expecting the interesting little original titles to be as boldy trumpeted as MGS4, you've got some pretty funny ideas. The Katamaris and Collosuses of the past arried with little fanfare: the original little games of the future will arrive just as unexpectedly.
This isn't a single individual, though, it's a large group of them in the form of a company. While Bob from the legal division may personally care greatly about democracy and free speech, his primary professional aim is keeping the company on the path of least legal resistance.
It could be that review units were manufactured to a higher standard, or subjected to more rigorous quality control, than general retail units. All they'd have to do is cherry-pick 30 perfect laptops from 30,000 wonky ones, send that 30 to review sites, and the product looks good. After all, CNet are testing the quality and design of the hardware, not its reliability.
That sounds really good, actually. I'm not sure how you'd pull it off (Slashdot-style system for rating edits, maybe) but worth thinking about further.
The French Parliment over-reacted here, but it's good to see that the kind of ridiculous measures requested by record companies and their ilk are resulting in equally ridiculous responses from those who disagree. Given the way politics seems to work these days (argue for a few years then go for a 50/50 compromise) then France might wind up with sensible legislation taken from the middle-ground.
I'm not sure that'd fit into the Wiki ethos, though. In theory, all editors are equal, the only special powers being granted to admins responsible for deleting/protecting articles etc. If you grant certain editors superiority, then there could be accusations of biasing the articles in their jurisdiction towards their viewpoints. That's besides the problems of choosing who the experts are, of course, particularly in esoteric fields.
That'd probably be cheaper, too, considering the volume of edits the experts are likely to be dealing with. Get the paid experts to do the bit with the expertise, and the volunteering public to do the volume work.
I'm looking for the phrase "compared to", and I'm not seeing it. What was their control group? If it was rats recieving no sugar, for example, there's something seriously wrong with that study.
The big problem with the wikipedia is that in order to perform a non-minor edit (I'd call a minor edit a clarification of phrasing, or a spelling fix, or something incontrovertible), you really have to sit down and discuss it on the talk page with the other editors. Heck, you might even need to get arbitration if you can't agree on a particular phrasing. This takes time and effort. The payoff is usually worth it- you become aware of errors or omissions in your own knowledge of the subject, while improving the article as a whole.
Unfortunately it's the sort of thing that the average professional gets paid to do. No matter how passionate, I don't think anyone in a particular field is going to want to work on an encyclopedia or textbook for free when they could be paid to do the same.
The choice is between paying for an encyclopedia by a collaboration of professionals, or recieving - for free - an encyclopedia by a collaboration of knowledgable amateurs.
Problem: you're doubling the number of people needed for a given number of edits, as you have the editor, and the proofreader. On the upside, this would (assuming all proofreaders are perfect and totally knowledgable on a given subject) wipe out errors. On the downside, this would be seriously expensive. You have to lure someone from editing textbooks on thermodynamics to editing online encyclopedia entries on thermodynamics which would probably call for a respectable wage (unless they're an enthusiastic volunteer, of course).
I'm assuming that by "procedures to ensure that they work" you mean "procedures to ensure that they are enforced", in which case I agree. Optional peer-review isn't nearly as good as mandatory peer review. Of course there's the risk that something incorrect goes up without being disputed, and if disputed, users can frequently get into bickering matches rather than get the issue resolved by third parties. However, when used, the fact-checking procedures are effective.
The only way to ensure that all content is verified would be to have a knowledgable individual check every edit before it goes "live", which I can imagine being a practical nightmare, and which would have the same problems as a print encyclopedia. It would be limited by the knowledge and biases of those doing the checking.
Wikipedia has a policy for dealing with assessing the veracy of information. If there's a question about the accuracy of information, you first and foremost do not get into an edit war. You make a request for comment or page protection, perhaps call for a vote on the article's talk page, cite your sources and either your peers or The Wikipedia Powers That Be assess who's correct. If the editor putting up incorrect information persists in spite of a decision from the "higher-ups", they may be suspended from editing or banned altogether.
Alas, nobody seems to bother reading any of the editing policies, rules, and regulations, so you get such fun as edit wars an knowledgable people whose sole edits are large-print "THIS IS NOT A PRIMARY SOURCE, IT CONTAINS ERRORS, JOHN Q DOCTORATE PHD" across the top of a page. If the wikipedia fails, it's because people wade in, edit, and fail to realise that there are rules attached to it, not because the rules are themselves faulty.
Slashdot Mirror
I see your point, even with the Wikipedia articles that went straight over my head.
It's just unfortunate that so few people do have an understanding of statistics. I've lost count of the newspaper stories, even years-long media-fuelled "controversies"-, which are based entirely on misunderstood, misrepresented, or malformed statistics. "How to Lie with Statistics" should be required reading in high school.
Gaming.
Causing pain and fear is sometimes necessary. It's the only way you can study the effects of pain and/or fear responses in living things. The biochemistry of pain is obviously of great interest in medicine.
In this case they're finding out what genes are expressed during death by strangulation. While we're well aware that there is a biochemical response in these sitations, it's not been particularly well characterised in terms of the gene expression that's going on at the time.
Point taken. Better make that "rabid commercial entity".
That's a fair cop, I get your point now, I just thought the logic was ropey. I really meant the comment as a Dell joke anyway.
Microsoft don't distribute other people's software with their software, simply because they're a commercial entity and don't want to put themselves out of business. Combined with the competitiveness pressure, meaning they can't distribute much of their software with their OS, you get Windows as more or less a blank slate. Off topic, but when MS tries to go the other way, they often come across as turning the PC into a Mac-like closed system, with home system builders migrating to less restrictive OSes as a result.
Unlike Linux distributions, it's mostly left to the end user to find the software they need (either by nabbing it on CD or downloading it). I personally don't get too upset about that as I have the installers I need kicking around on other machines on the network. This would certainly place the newcomer at a disadvanage, though.
You could just as easily download the applications and install them in that case. Either way, it's a blank slate when the OS finishes installing, as per the antitrust situation (which is what I prefer, anyway).
You'd actually like to have three different office suites, three different media players, three different browsers, and three different email clients installed from the word "go"? Do you work for Dell or something?
The AC reply got this about right, but for completeness, I imagine that every product that's sent out for review will be double and triple checked for faults. If a unit's even slightly below the quality that the company's trying to convey (most products do vary in quality throughout a single batch) then it's sent back and another brought forward. That way the 5% of units (or 3%, or whatever the industry average is these days) which are considered faulty are not represented in the reviews.
If you're expecting the interesting little original titles to be as boldy trumpeted as MGS4, you've got some pretty funny ideas. The Katamaris and Collosuses of the past arried with little fanfare: the original little games of the future will arrive just as unexpectedly.
This isn't a single individual, though, it's a large group of them in the form of a company. While Bob from the legal division may personally care greatly about democracy and free speech, his primary professional aim is keeping the company on the path of least legal resistance.
It could be that review units were manufactured to a higher standard, or subjected to more rigorous quality control, than general retail units. All they'd have to do is cherry-pick 30 perfect laptops from 30,000 wonky ones, send that 30 to review sites, and the product looks good. After all, CNet are testing the quality and design of the hardware, not its reliability.
I can picture the responses from conspiracy theorists already. "They lost the backdrop since the last mission", for example.
"Parallel, curse you, you're meant to be parallel!"
My eyes! Ze carriage returns, zey do notting!
I'm getting the idea now. Presumably what projects like this need is an arbitration panel known to be knowledgable in the subject.
That sounds really good, actually. I'm not sure how you'd pull it off (Slashdot-style system for rating edits, maybe) but worth thinking about further.
The French Parliment over-reacted here, but it's good to see that the kind of ridiculous measures requested by record companies and their ilk are resulting in equally ridiculous responses from those who disagree. Given the way politics seems to work these days (argue for a few years then go for a 50/50 compromise) then France might wind up with sensible legislation taken from the middle-ground.
I'm not sure that'd fit into the Wiki ethos, though. In theory, all editors are equal, the only special powers being granted to admins responsible for deleting/protecting articles etc. If you grant certain editors superiority, then there could be accusations of biasing the articles in their jurisdiction towards their viewpoints. That's besides the problems of choosing who the experts are, of course, particularly in esoteric fields.
That'd probably be cheaper, too, considering the volume of edits the experts are likely to be dealing with. Get the paid experts to do the bit with the expertise, and the volunteering public to do the volume work.
I'm looking for the phrase "compared to", and I'm not seeing it. What was their control group? If it was rats recieving no sugar, for example, there's something seriously wrong with that study.
The big problem with the wikipedia is that in order to perform a non-minor edit (I'd call a minor edit a clarification of phrasing, or a spelling fix, or something incontrovertible), you really have to sit down and discuss it on the talk page with the other editors. Heck, you might even need to get arbitration if you can't agree on a particular phrasing. This takes time and effort. The payoff is usually worth it- you become aware of errors or omissions in your own knowledge of the subject, while improving the article as a whole.
Unfortunately it's the sort of thing that the average professional gets paid to do. No matter how passionate, I don't think anyone in a particular field is going to want to work on an encyclopedia or textbook for free when they could be paid to do the same.
The choice is between paying for an encyclopedia by a collaboration of professionals, or recieving - for free - an encyclopedia by a collaboration of knowledgable amateurs.
Problem: you're doubling the number of people needed for a given number of edits, as you have the editor, and the proofreader. On the upside, this would (assuming all proofreaders are perfect and totally knowledgable on a given subject) wipe out errors. On the downside, this would be seriously expensive. You have to lure someone from editing textbooks on thermodynamics to editing online encyclopedia entries on thermodynamics which would probably call for a respectable wage (unless they're an enthusiastic volunteer, of course).
I'm assuming that by "procedures to ensure that they work" you mean "procedures to ensure that they are enforced", in which case I agree. Optional peer-review isn't nearly as good as mandatory peer review. Of course there's the risk that something incorrect goes up without being disputed, and if disputed, users can frequently get into bickering matches rather than get the issue resolved by third parties. However, when used, the fact-checking procedures are effective.
The only way to ensure that all content is verified would be to have a knowledgable individual check every edit before it goes "live", which I can imagine being a practical nightmare, and which would have the same problems as a print encyclopedia. It would be limited by the knowledge and biases of those doing the checking.
Wikipedia has a policy for dealing with assessing the veracy of information. If there's a question about the accuracy of information, you first and foremost do not get into an edit war. You make a request for comment or page protection, perhaps call for a vote on the article's talk page, cite your sources and either your peers or The Wikipedia Powers That Be assess who's correct. If the editor putting up incorrect information persists in spite of a decision from the "higher-ups", they may be suspended from editing or banned altogether.
Alas, nobody seems to bother reading any of the editing policies, rules, and regulations, so you get such fun as edit wars an knowledgable people whose sole edits are large-print "THIS IS NOT A PRIMARY SOURCE, IT CONTAINS ERRORS, JOHN Q DOCTORATE PHD" across the top of a page. If the wikipedia fails, it's because people wade in, edit, and fail to realise that there are rules attached to it, not because the rules are themselves faulty.