Here's an idea to address the comments of some posters and press articles about accountability and quality control.
Although I don't consider Wikipedia's model inherently worse for accountability or QC than a traditional encyclopedia model, some will find value in addressing these points, just as some people find value in GNU/Linux indemnification.
My question is, "What do you think of the following idea?"
Create a community of users with credentials for whatever topics they are knowledgeable in, each with a web page showing their credentials.
Create a mechanism that lets these people validate Wikipedia entries at whatever points in the article's revision history they feel is appropriate.
Provide a link from validated article to validator's web page so users who can see who validated the article at what point.
This plan maintains free access and allows anyone to edit and provides some accountability. Users can trust the validator as much as they trust his or her reported credentials. If trolls edit a page away from validity, users can revert to the last validated version. More than one validator can validate a page at different versions, so users can choose which version to trust.
If you wanted yet more accountability, you could have meta-validators validate the validators. Around this level, you probably have the same level of accountability as a traditional encyclopedia.
Side question:
What establishes the accountability of traditional encyclopedias? Their long history? Their brand names? Those properties are not inherent to paper encyclopedias. Is it their profit motive? Many counterexamples exist to a profit motive achieving accountability.
For better or for worse, accountability these days often means you can be accountable for damages if you are wrong. I doubt any traditional encyclopedias have that property any more than Wikipedia.
I bought a Sony laptop dual boot from emperorlinux. I haven't had any problems. USB, Firewire, etc. all work (jogdial works much better in Linux than Windows). Emperorlinux upgrades its software for free periodically.
Most importantly, their customer service is excellent.
GNU/Linux moving faster than a competitor which is so much more funded and is so much more accepted in the corporate world, particularly by Intel itself, should be much bigger news.
Imagine what its PR machine would do if M$ had displaced a rival that much bigger than itself. The news would be absolutely everywhere.
Growth of GNU/Linux use has such higher potential. Distribution of news items like this would help so much, but the community has no unified PR voice. If you were a CTO wanting to adopt free software for your company, wouldn't you want to know about this article?
Is there any way we as a community can form a unified voice to publicize information like this? Should RHat, VALinux, etc. lead the way? Does anyone have any better ideas?
WPO2K works on neither Suse nor Slackware and I am still waiting to hear back from their "free" email support. I guess it's easy to make it free by just not having anyone to respond.
If they GPL'd their code, they'd have a much better product alot sooner. They probably say they won't give it away to protect their revenue stream or the value of their company. But Red Hat's market cap is ten times greater than Corel's, they've been around a tenth as long, and their software is available for free (beer and speech).
It looks like Corel is just more afraid of figuring out a new business plan. That's too bad, because nobody wins in the closed source game. Certainly not my company, with a hundred dollar so-far worthless CD. Certainly not Corel, who's been competing with and losting to Microsoft forever, and then someone like Red Hat passes them by like they were standing still.
Figure it out, Corel. You aren't going to win at this game, and please don't claim that you are supporting linux or free software in general while you are trying. You can GPL the product and make money, just figure out how.
I'm only writing this because my operating system needs an office package that works. It's probably better to wait for someone to improve gnumeric and magicpoint and integrate them with latex.
Why not just have a lighted digital display on the outside of the car saying what speed the car is moving at? Or at least a light that goes on if a car is moving faster than 65 mph?
Even as great a proponent I am for rights to privacy, I cannot see how this would be reasonably objectionable since a speeding car can be very dangerous. It doesn't stop someone who needs to speed (to get to a hospital or avoid an accident...) from speeding when necessary, and it makes it extremely easy for a cop to give a fair ticket.
It's relatively cheap to implement, saves lives, saves fuel, and will make it easier for cops to make the roads safer.
I've been wondering about this idea for a long time. It seems reasonable for police to ticket speeders even though people always try to get out of their tickets.
The problem is that police have a hard time determining exactly what speed cars are moving at. And yet every car has a perfectly good speedometer in it.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's an idea to address the comments of some posters and press articles about accountability and quality control.
Although I don't consider Wikipedia's model inherently worse for accountability or QC than a traditional encyclopedia model, some will find value in addressing these points, just as some people find value in GNU/Linux indemnification.
My question is, "What do you think of the following idea?"
Create a community of users with credentials for whatever topics they are knowledgeable in, each with a web page showing their credentials.
Create a mechanism that lets these people validate Wikipedia entries at whatever points in the article's revision history they feel is appropriate.
Provide a link from validated article to validator's web page so users who can see who validated the article at what point.
This plan maintains free access and allows anyone to edit and provides some accountability. Users can trust the validator as much as they trust his or her reported credentials. If trolls edit a page away from validity, users can revert to the last validated version. More than one validator can validate a page at different versions, so users can choose which version to trust.
If you wanted yet more accountability, you could have meta-validators validate the validators. Around this level, you probably have the same level of accountability as a traditional encyclopedia.
Side question:
What establishes the accountability of traditional encyclopedias? Their long history? Their brand names? Those properties are not inherent to paper encyclopedias. Is it their profit motive? Many counterexamples exist to a profit motive achieving accountability.
For better or for worse, accountability these days often means you can be accountable for damages if you are wrong. I doubt any traditional encyclopedias have that property any more than Wikipedia.
The above set theory is western-Europe focused.
In Set Theory Union
A + ~A = 1
In Soviet Union it's the other way around.
Most importantly, their customer service is excellent.
That's quite a spread! What has to happen to drop the payment to three hundred sixty seven dollars?
Imagine what its PR machine would do if M$ had displaced a rival that much bigger than itself. The news would be absolutely everywhere.
Growth of GNU/Linux use has such higher potential. Distribution of news items like this would help so much, but the community has no unified PR voice. If you were a CTO wanting to adopt free software for your company, wouldn't you want to know about this article?
Is there any way we as a community can form a unified voice to publicize information like this? Should RHat, VALinux, etc. lead the way? Does anyone have any better ideas?
"quote.yahoo.com/q?s=rhat&d=t" says the market cap for Red Hat is 4.759B.<p>
That's the factor of ten I mentioned. Maybe I'm reading the web page wrong or looking at the wrong column. But at least now I've cited my sources.
If they GPL'd their code, they'd have a much better product alot sooner. They probably say they won't give it away to protect their revenue stream or the value of their company. But Red Hat's market cap is ten times greater than Corel's, they've been around a tenth as long, and their software is available for free (beer and speech).
It looks like Corel is just more afraid of figuring out a new business plan. That's too bad, because nobody wins in the closed source game. Certainly not my company, with a hundred dollar so-far worthless CD. Certainly not Corel, who's been competing with and losting to Microsoft forever, and then someone like Red Hat passes them by like they were standing still.
Figure it out, Corel. You aren't going to win at this game, and please don't claim that you are supporting linux or free software in general while you are trying. You can GPL the product and make money, just figure out how.
I'm only writing this because my operating system needs an office package that works. It's probably better to wait for someone to improve gnumeric and magicpoint and integrate them with latex.
Why not just have a lighted digital display on the outside of the car saying what speed the car is moving at? Or at least a light that goes on if a car is moving faster than 65 mph?
Even as great a proponent I am for rights to privacy, I cannot see how this would be reasonably objectionable since a speeding car can be very dangerous. It doesn't stop someone who needs to speed (to get to a hospital or avoid an accident...) from speeding when necessary, and it makes it extremely easy for a cop to give a fair ticket.
It's relatively cheap to implement, saves lives, saves fuel, and will make it easier for cops to make the roads safer.
I've been wondering about this idea for a long time. It seems reasonable for police to ticket speeders even though people always try to get out of their tickets.
The problem is that police have a hard time determining exactly what speed cars are moving at. And yet every car has a perfectly good speedometer in it.