Ahh Orrin Hatch, who previously brought us gems like the Induce Act. I hope people will vote accross partisan lines in this election and get rid of clueless Senators like Hatch. Next up, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner's Digital Transition Content Security Act. Hold your politicians accountable!
The reason such anonymizing systems, like Tor are blocked from Wikipedia, is because they can be used by vandals/spammers who have been blocked from editing to continue vandalising the site. It's too bad that such measures have to be taken, but the real solution here is political, not technical. I think your method of using a Freenet-like decentralized system probably won't fly for the same reasons. Vandal fighting would become impossible, and it would become almost impossible to track which contributor added which content.
There has traditionally been a lot of resistance to the introduction of advertisements to Wikipedia. In fact, a section of the Spanish Wikipedia forked the project, simply because the inclusion of ads was being proposed. I think the best thing for Wikipedia to do is to stay independent for as long as it is viable.
This is just not true. Anonymous editors can still edit articles. There is a difference in that they can no longer start articles. However, creating an account takes mere seconds, so your accusation that it is "accesible for contribution by only an elite few" is simply false. There do exist tools that allow administrators to "protect" articles that are experiencing especially heavy vandalism, however, this is used only as a last resort.
Tycho seems to have a grudge left over from the whole Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs episode. I'm sorry Tycho, but He-man and Pokemon are a part of popular culture, and therefore belong in Wikipedia. Legends of the Hierarchs does not.
"I am almost certain that - while they prune their deep mine of trivia - they believe themselves to be engaged in the unfolding of humanity's Greatest Working. "
Well, not quite that, but we do feel that providing a Free (as in speech) encyclopedia to the world is a Good Thing (tm). We're pretty proud of what we've accomplished so far. Just as you should be for organising your Child's Play Charity.
"If I don't like it, why don't I go edit it myself? To which I reply: because I don't have time to babysit the Internet. Hardly anyone does. If they do, it isn't exactly a compliment. "
"The second response is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you've proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information."
Is someone pointing a gun to your head forcing you to use Wikipedia? Don't use it if you don't want to. But please quit bashing for no apparent reason.
My experience over the last few months has been totally different. I've been working with others in the Wikiproject CVG and I find that by far the most contributions are from good contributors, not vandals. On certain articles, like the Bush article, sure there are a lot of vandals. Besides, others are actively working on countering vandalism.
Perhaps. I'm waiting to see the system in use before I make a judgement. However, if it turns out as you fear it might, I'm sure there will be a big push to remove it again. ~~~~
Isn't it a bit ironic that Wikipedia (supposedly a reliable encyclopedia) has less advanced moderation than Slashdot (famously unreliable)? Perhaps it's time they got a bit more structure.
Actually, a new feature called article validation is about to go live on wikipedia. See the article from this week's signpost. The feature will hopefully help adress some of the issues being raised in this story.
I do also notice that Wikipedia has a lot of entries for stuff that might not otherwise be considered important enough to be in an encyclopedia - open source software that is not yet out of beta, cars in video games etc.
Yeah, so? Jimmy Wales:"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."... That includes obscure topics like video games that you might not care about.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Google's potential bid for AOL. If AOL goes to Microsoft, Google stands to lose a lot of advertising revenue. So it wouldn't surprise me to hear they're cosying up to Time Warner.
If I were a reporter interviewing chinese bloggers, censorship would be high on my list. Some of these bloggers maintain there's not much censorship going on. Have they forgotten the whole MSN Spaces fiasco? In my book, government censorship is never acceptable, and we should never stop criticising it. That includes journalists being annoying and asking tough questions.
Government is standing up to IP owners? That must be why the US Congress keeps on extending the copyright term, or why just yesterday, it became known that the music industry is trying to hijack serious crime legislation in Europe, which would equate file sharers with terrorists and mobsters.
The suggestion that the IP debate is balanced against IP owners seems ludicrous to me. See this article for more more arguments (Bugmenot - countrywise/globalportal).
I'm wish there was some sort of open standard for this kind of thing. Personally, I don't like to use Yahoo (Using http://www.tviv.org/ ) and I think I should be able to use any indexing service I like. Should be easy for Tivo to create some simple web service.
Fine, usually I would agree with you, but in my experience it is usually necessary to launch firefox anyway since most feeds only include an excerpt. Which totally defeats the purpose of running the app.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahh Orrin Hatch, who previously brought us gems like the Induce Act. I hope people will vote accross partisan lines in this election and get rid of clueless Senators like Hatch. Next up, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner's Digital Transition Content Security Act. Hold your politicians accountable!
Correct link for Tor:
r k)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_netwo
The reason such anonymizing systems, like Tor are blocked from Wikipedia, is because they can be used by vandals/spammers who have been blocked from editing to continue vandalising the site. It's too bad that such measures have to be taken, but the real solution here is political, not technical. I think your method of using a Freenet-like decentralized system probably won't fly for the same reasons. Vandal fighting would become impossible, and it would become almost impossible to track which contributor added which content.
There has traditionally been a lot of resistance to the introduction of advertisements to Wikipedia. In fact, a section of the Spanish Wikipedia forked the project, simply because the inclusion of ads was being proposed. I think the best thing for Wikipedia to do is to stay independent for as long as it is viable.
This is just not true. Anonymous editors can still edit articles. There is a difference in that they can no longer start articles. However, creating an account takes mere seconds, so your accusation that it is "accesible for contribution by only an elite few" is simply false. There do exist tools that allow administrators to "protect" articles that are experiencing especially heavy vandalism, however, this is used only as a last resort.
Wikipedia also has a lot of information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%24100_laptop
I've created a stub, please help to expand: Digital Transition Content Security Act.
Check out this article on Ars Technica, which speculates along the same lines you have.
Well, I would have posted it on penny arcade, but they don't allow comments. Emailing him? No thanks, I'd rather discourse in public.
"the first is usually a paean to that pure democracy which is the project's noble fundament."
My, sounds like someone doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Tycho seems to have a grudge left over from the whole Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs episode. I'm sorry Tycho, but He-man and Pokemon are a part of popular culture, and therefore belong in Wikipedia. Legends of the Hierarchs does not.
"I am almost certain that - while they prune their deep mine of trivia - they believe themselves to be engaged in the unfolding of humanity's Greatest Working. "
Well, not quite that, but we do feel that providing a Free (as in speech) encyclopedia to the world is a Good Thing (tm). We're pretty proud of what we've accomplished so far. Just as you should be for organising your Child's Play Charity.
"If I don't like it, why don't I go edit it myself? To which I reply: because I don't have time to babysit the Internet. Hardly anyone does. If they do, it isn't exactly a compliment. "
See: Altruism.
"The second response is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you've proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information."
Is someone pointing a gun to your head forcing you to use Wikipedia? Don't use it if you don't want to. But please quit bashing for no apparent reason.
I've created a small stub on wikipedia. I'm sure people here could help out flesh out a nice "criticism" section. Here's the article:
_ Protection_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment
Yes, just look in the history of the article at who actually wrote it.
Have a look at Counter vandalism unit. Most policy changes are first discussed on the Wiki-en mailinglist.
My experience over the last few months has been totally different. I've been working with others in the Wikiproject CVG and I find that by far the most contributions are from good contributors, not vandals. On certain articles, like the Bush article, sure there are a lot of vandals. Besides, others are actively working on countering vandalism.
See this article for the details on the dispute.
Jimbo Wales and John Seigenthaler Sr. were on CNN to debate this issue. There's a partial transcript being worked on now.
Perhaps. I'm waiting to see the system in use before I make a judgement. However, if it turns out as you fear it might, I'm sure there will be a big push to remove it again. ~~~~
I thought Google had a policy of no longer talking to CNet/ZDNet reporters. Did they change this?
Isn't it a bit ironic that Wikipedia (supposedly a reliable encyclopedia) has less advanced moderation than Slashdot (famously unreliable)? Perhaps it's time they got a bit more structure.
... That includes obscure topics like video games that you might not care about.
Actually, a new feature called article validation is about to go live on wikipedia. See the article from this week's signpost. The feature will hopefully help adress some of the issues being raised in this story.
I do also notice that Wikipedia has a lot of entries for stuff that might not otherwise be considered important enough to be in an encyclopedia - open source software that is not yet out of beta, cars in video games etc.
Yeah, so? Jimmy Wales:"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
I wonder if this has anything to do with Google's potential bid for AOL. If AOL goes to Microsoft, Google stands to lose a lot of advertising revenue. So it wouldn't surprise me to hear they're cosying up to Time Warner.
If I were a reporter interviewing chinese bloggers, censorship would be high on my list. Some of these bloggers maintain there's not much censorship going on. Have they forgotten the whole MSN Spaces fiasco? In my book, government censorship is never acceptable, and we should never stop criticising it. That includes journalists being annoying and asking tough questions.
Government is standing up to IP owners? That must be why the US Congress keeps on extending the copyright term, or why just yesterday, it became known that the music industry is trying to hijack serious crime legislation in Europe, which would equate file sharers with terrorists and mobsters.
The suggestion that the IP debate is balanced against IP owners seems ludicrous to me. See this article for more more arguments (Bugmenot - countrywise/globalportal).
"Juniper said it has been aware of the problem since June, so software issued on or after July 28 provide fixes for the flaw."
Gee, thanks for letting the rest of the world know too!
I'm wish there was some sort of open standard for this kind of thing. Personally, I don't like to use Yahoo (Using http://www.tviv.org/ ) and I think I should be able to use any indexing service I like. Should be easy for Tivo to create some simple web service.
Fine, usually I would agree with you, but in my experience it is usually necessary to launch firefox anyway since most feeds only include an excerpt. Which totally defeats the purpose of running the app.