> Do you really feel that a normal person viewing Wiki would somehow give less credence to an > article because of an add? Really? Are you sure? Does an add for say Coke or Ford somehow make > an article on say the history of hamburgers less credible?
That's not quite what the problem is.
Let me give you an analogy which I hope will illustrate the matter.
Consider news on television.
News on television is a half-hour programme. That half-hour is broken up into one or two minute slots, each of which carries a seperate story, with sport and weather at the end.
What sort of news comes in these one and two minute slots?
Well, some of the news is very serious; wars, famine, death, injustice. Some of it is significant but not horrific, such as information on the state of the economy or interest rates or traffic problems. Some of it is lightweight; pleasent human interest stories.
The problem is that the juxtaposition of these different classes of story instrinsically debases the serious news.
You can't watch atwo minute slot about a human rights atrocity and then watch a one minute slot about a nice old granny without being *told*, by the very act of following such a serious story with something so frippant, that the serious story is *not to be taken seriously*.
The very structure of the news tells us not to take it seriously - even more so when you consider the news will then be followed by a comedy, or an engaging film, or a soap...all entertainment, distraction, amusement.
This is what I mean about the medium being the message.
In a similar vein, putting adverts next to the Wiki tells you; this isn't so serious. It's a bit of a game. Look - the latest movie!
It may be that you're right, and I'm talking rubbish - in which case, why the insults?
If I was simply factually wrong, then you could just tell me. But that's not what happened - what happened was you flamed me.
Your response doesn't actually equate to what I wrote, what actually happened; something else is going on.
I think the thing is, people get nasty when they *want* something to be wrong, when their feelings, their *beliefs* are involved. I could be wrong, but I think you believe that all this stuff about ethos is utter crap - you can't prove it, it's not like math, but you believe it. And so, now, that belief has been challanged, and your belief is threatened, and you've basically lashed out in response.
> While I wouldn't put wikipedia in some kind of holy light
Hmm. This I feel is kinda what I mean about people looking at the words "profane" and "sanctity" and so on as being religious. These words exist outside and independently of religion.
The issue is the nature and character of an entity.
If a man builds a web-site and pays for it himself, or through donations from others supporting his cause, it's quite noble; it's his effort, it's about what he cares about, it has meaning, a message - it has sanctity.
But if you go to that site and now it's not paid for by that man or donations, but by adverts, how can you then feel the same? for that man seems by his actions to no longer be so committed to his cause - it's easy, cheap even, to just throw the adverts on and watch the money come in. And the site itself certainly suffers directly, for the message, the meaning - perhaps it's human rights - is now flanked by adverts for fluffy toys and books and DVDs. The adverts tell you that the main message of the site isn't that important after all, that you shouldn't take is seriously, because while you're reading about murder and rape, you're also being asked (by their very presence) to read about the latest movie or book.
The two messages are incompatable. You cannot have a message about human rights along with a message about the latest movie in the cinema.
The medium is the message; and when the medium comes with adverts, all the messages are somewhat prostituted.
> It's not enough for you to just be a critic and then sit back. If not advertising, then how would you > provide the funds to keep wikipedia running.
Well you know they're most of the way through I think it's a 1.5 million USD fund raising drive right now, and it's going really well; it's at about 900k USD after a week or two.
I think in fact that fund-raising like this, voluntary contributions, are the right way to provide funds.
You see, it's not just about how effectively you can get hold of dollars.
It's also about HOW you get hold of the dollars.
Having people voluntarily contribute is entirely different in its character and nature, and impliciation for the nature of the organisation, than, for example, advertising.
It's very important people get involved, materially involved, with things that matter to them.
Our society rather discourages this - our State tends to tax us and then spend that money on our behalf, so not only do we have less cash anyway, with which to support causes, we are find that we are *not* performing the act of consciously choosing to provide money, since the State is doing it.
I think that's really bad - actually choosing, yourself, to give you money, is a very particular experience and event and it is a message from that person to themselves about who and what they are. Taking that away from people is really not good, but that's what tax-and-spend is all about. You earn the money, they take it, and they spend it. Might as well be a robot!
> First, we're on/.--scroll to the top of the page, and tell me what you see.
Well, an empty space. I block adverts. But indeed,/. has adverts and I think it suffers from them in, in fact, *exactly* the same way the Wiki would suffer from them.
> Dikembe Mutombo moved to the US to practice medicine to go back to the Congo to provide health care for > his people. In college, NBA scouts gave him good offers if he chose to play basketball, so he gave up > medicine, got into the NBA, and has contributed large sums of money and time to people in developing > nations worldwide. He opened a volunteer medical center in his native Congo. Now, the NBA is driven by > pimps, whores, and let's not forget a love of the game, but because of Dikembe, those pimps and whores > have benefited many many people.
I think this is likely to be a seperate - but related - issue.
You see, my original post was talking about advertising changing the character of its surroundings.
You're talking about a *justification for doing this*, e.g. the cost is worth the benefit.
In Dikembe's case, it seems entirely reasonable - but in his case, the issue in hand was extremely important, being medical care for people who have no medical care. It matters a lot that as much as done is possible.
With the Wiki, we're dealing with an encylopedia, not medical care, so it's far less important to do as much as we can; and, crucially, for the Wiki, the occasionally fund-raising drive seems to work very well.
So why move on to advertising when it carries a cost to the very character, the essense, of the Wiki?
> The real world includes things like money, advertising and probably many other things you may consider to > be corrupting or evil but it is often because of and not in spite of these facets of society that progress > and learning advance.
The real world also includes humans and our emotions; and, what's more, the real world as such does not exist - for we only perceive the world through our senses and our feelings.
> In this case Wikipedia has the opportunity to raise very large amounts of money in a manner which need > not interfere at all with their current operation,
But that IS the mis-understanding I have in mind.
The Wikipedia is not merely a collection of web-pages and a server. It is an ethos, a belief, an emotional experience.
You are right to say in the pure technical sense advertising will make no difference. The web-pages will still be editable, etc.
But in the human sense, our perception of the Wikipedia - that will change.
The Wiki with advertising is not "everything as it was before, but with advertising on the side". It's something *new and different*.
Advertising inherently trivialises its surroundings.
If the Wiki is bare, it stands alone as a mass of knowledge.
If it is adorned by adverts for books and DVDs and so on, it becomes profane; it loses its sanctity.
People I think see these words and dismiss them, I suspect because of their somewhat religious association; but they represent human feelings and impressions of the world around them. They represent real states of mind and impressions.
As is, for example, breaking the official secrets acts to publish deeply unethical behaviour by the State - something the State, "in accordance with the law", would, I'm certain, use the full power of mass surveilliance and mass databases to prevent.
> Because we punish criminals and the risk of being punished is generally greater then the benefits of > commiting the crime.
You're saying all people would commit crime, if it wasn't for the punishment that would occur?
Wouldn't that lead to a lot of crime when the police forces are weak or ineffective, since it would be very unlikely you'd be caught?
> We've also been conditioned to behave a certain way... so most people do...
If this is true, then how come some people aren't conditioned? the basic point I'm getting at is - why does crime occur?
I'm asking this question because as far as I see, everyone is thinking about the rights and wrongs of cameras - no one is thinking "how come we find we need cameras in the first place?"
> You will not get rid of crime Toby. You can try to reduce it, control it, limit it, and sure there are > underlying factors for some acts... but you're not going to be able to eliminate all of it.
Why not?
Also, what you seem to be implying is that the crime we have now is part of an irreducable minimum. How can you know if the crime we have now is part of an irreducable minimum, or is part of a level of excessive crime, which could be reduced?
The superficial issue here is whether or not mass surveillance is acceptable, in that one on hand it can be used to defeat unethical crime, on the other hand, it can be used by the State to defeat ethical crime.
But the real issue, the underlying issue, is *why do people perform unethical crimes?*
I see no one asking this question or wondering how to fix it - and if this problem was fixed or largely fixed, there wouldn't be a need for cameras at all.
> Pre-installed Linux, Firefox, Openoffice.org. What rock have you been living under?
The one where MS have 97% of PCs running Windows, Linux only exists in server rooms and Firefox, despite being massively superior to IE6, has stabilized at 10% of marketshare.
Are there other rocks? I really don't want to be under this one.
> Microsoft faces competition from three quarters:
Let me rephrase.
What *meaningful* competition?
> Linux has set the price for a functioning operating system as essentially $0; Microsoft has to milk as > much out of the market as it can before the price of the OS hits $0.
Linux doesn't exist outside of server rooms.
> Apple
Just stop right there.
Apple have 3% of the market. That's not competition, that's a niche.
> has set the stage to usurp Microsoft;
Yeah. In Steve Job's fantasies. I bet Gates is dressed up in a nurses outfit, too:-)
> Finally Microsoft faces competition from itself; if it can't make Vista compelling enough, fewer people > will "upgrade" from XP. There are still companies and people running Windows 2000!
Oh no! they're not buying our new OS - they're still using the old one! with all the lock in and software sales and support being exactly the same. And hey, all the new PCs coming out have Vista on. And these old PCs, well, strange, but they keep wearing out, and we don't sell w2k licenses any more, what are these people going to do?
The fact that 0.0001% of PCs still run W2K is utterly irrelevant. In fact, it proves the point, about just how effect MS is at getting people to upgrade, sooner or later. If they weren't any good, we'd ALL still be running W2K (and I am!), because XP has NOTHING over 2K.
MS owns our asses.
They should have been broken up into seperate OS and apps companies.
The fact that didn't happen still has me wondering who was bought by who to revoke that decision.
There is also a significant issue in any change of *behaviour* in critical equipment.
Drivers become entirely accustomed to the accelerative and breaking behaviour of their car.
If, for example, breaking behaviour changed and/or is impaired, because of the loss of ancillary data due to bus failure, the very fact the car is now breaking *differently* is a significant risk factor.
The fact that a given subsystem is not directly involved in things like braking isn't actually that reassuring.
There was a submission to the RISKS digest a while ago - I cannot recall the exact details, but the problem was that non-critical software was able to cause what was effectively a denial of service attack on the car-wide shared data bus ring, and THAT stopped the brakes from working.
If a software can affect a component or module which is necessary for a critical function, then that software *is* critial. Given the existance of for example shared data buses, pretty much everything is in fact critical.
> The 2004 and 2006 surveys by Dittmar Associates Inc. revealed high levels of indifference among 18- to > 25-year-olds toward manned trips to the moon and Mars.
Erm, that's it? that's all we get?
How big was the sample? how were they chosen? was it ten people chosen from a Big Brother audience? what questions were they asked? how exactly do you decide what "indifference" is?
What a complete load of tosh. An utterly unsubstaniated story.
> There is a lot of potential to know if people have been looking at specific sites.
And this is why I've given up my mobile phone, why my hard disks are encrypted, why I'm going to run my own SMTP/POP servers, and why I'm starting to think about not using Google any more.
If you don't reject it, you're passively accepting it.
I can however confidently predict that since a very large number of people are involved in making the decision, the worst possible product will be chosen.
So it won't be TrueCrypt, or something decent - it'll be something like the latest commerical version of PGP.
> the CERTStation Threat level Aggregator displays the current threat level,
Well, it does if you have Flash installed.
Which makes the page 100% useless to all those who do not.
Making a page useless to a proportion of your viewers, in exchange for (supposedly!) looking better, is a poor exchange; even more so when you consider that Flash sites in practise often violate user-interface guidelines and are a nightmare for users.
My view is that the larger the number of people involved, the more strongly the decisions taken gravitate towards the worst possible choice.
This is why they have Flash on their site.
If just one reasonably talented bloke had been given responsibility for the site, it would, I think, be likely to be useable and functional.
Slashdot Mirror
> Do you really feel that a normal person viewing Wiki would somehow give less credence to an
> article because of an add? Really? Are you sure? Does an add for say Coke or Ford somehow make
> an article on say the history of hamburgers less credible?
That's not quite what the problem is.
Let me give you an analogy which I hope will illustrate the matter.
Consider news on television.
News on television is a half-hour programme. That half-hour is broken up into one or two minute slots, each of which carries a seperate story, with sport and weather at the end.
What sort of news comes in these one and two minute slots?
Well, some of the news is very serious; wars, famine, death, injustice. Some of it is significant but not horrific, such as information on the state of the economy or interest rates or traffic problems. Some of it is lightweight; pleasent human interest stories.
The problem is that the juxtaposition of these different classes of story instrinsically debases the serious news.
You can't watch atwo minute slot about a human rights atrocity and then watch a one minute slot about a nice old granny without being *told*, by the very act of following such a serious story with something so frippant, that the serious story is *not to be taken seriously*.
The very structure of the news tells us not to take it seriously - even more so when you consider the news will then be followed by a comedy, or an engaging film, or a soap...all entertainment, distraction, amusement.
This is what I mean about the medium being the message.
In a similar vein, putting adverts next to the Wiki tells you; this isn't so serious. It's a bit of a game. Look - the latest movie!
It may be that you're right, and I'm talking rubbish - in which case, why the insults?
If I was simply factually wrong, then you could just tell me. But that's not what happened - what happened was you flamed me.
Your response doesn't actually equate to what I wrote, what actually happened; something else is going on.
I think the thing is, people get nasty when they *want* something to be wrong, when their feelings, their *beliefs* are involved. I could be wrong, but I think you believe that all this stuff about ethos is utter crap - you can't prove it, it's not like math, but you believe it. And so, now, that belief has been challanged, and your belief is threatened, and you've basically lashed out in response.
> While I wouldn't put wikipedia in some kind of holy light
Hmm. This I feel is kinda what I mean about people looking at the words "profane" and "sanctity" and so on as being religious. These words exist outside and independently of religion.
The issue is the nature and character of an entity.
If a man builds a web-site and pays for it himself, or through donations from others supporting his cause, it's quite noble; it's his effort, it's about what he cares about, it has meaning, a message - it has sanctity.
But if you go to that site and now it's not paid for by that man or donations, but by adverts, how can you then feel the same? for that man seems by his actions to no longer be so committed to his cause - it's easy, cheap even, to just throw the adverts on and watch the money come in. And the site itself certainly suffers directly, for the message, the meaning - perhaps it's human rights - is now flanked by adverts for fluffy toys and books and DVDs. The adverts tell you that the main message of the site isn't that important after all, that you shouldn't take is seriously, because while you're reading about murder and rape, you're also being asked (by their very presence) to read about the latest movie or book.
The two messages are incompatable. You cannot have a message about human rights along with a message about the latest movie in the cinema.
The medium is the message; and when the medium comes with adverts, all the messages are somewhat prostituted.
> It's not enough for you to just be a critic and then sit back. If not advertising, then how would you
> provide the funds to keep wikipedia running.
Well you know they're most of the way through I think it's a 1.5 million USD fund raising drive right now, and it's going really well; it's at about 900k USD after a week or two.
I think in fact that fund-raising like this, voluntary contributions, are the right way to provide funds.
You see, it's not just about how effectively you can get hold of dollars.
It's also about HOW you get hold of the dollars.
Having people voluntarily contribute is entirely different in its character and nature, and impliciation for the nature of the organisation, than, for example, advertising.
It's very important people get involved, materially involved, with things that matter to them.
Our society rather discourages this - our State tends to tax us and then spend that money on our behalf, so not only do we have less cash anyway, with which to support causes, we are find that we are *not* performing the act of consciously choosing to provide money, since the State is doing it.
I think that's really bad - actually choosing, yourself, to give you money, is a very particular experience and event and it is a message from that person to themselves about who and what they are. Taking that away from people is really not good, but that's what tax-and-spend is all about. You earn the money, they take it, and they spend it. Might as well be a robot!
> First, we're on /.--scroll to the top of the page, and tell me what you see.
/. has adverts and I think it suffers from them in, in fact, *exactly* the same way the Wiki would suffer from them.
Well, an empty space. I block adverts. But indeed,
> Dikembe Mutombo moved to the US to practice medicine to go back to the Congo to provide health care for
> his people. In college, NBA scouts gave him good offers if he chose to play basketball, so he gave up
> medicine, got into the NBA, and has contributed large sums of money and time to people in developing
> nations worldwide. He opened a volunteer medical center in his native Congo. Now, the NBA is driven by
> pimps, whores, and let's not forget a love of the game, but because of Dikembe, those pimps and whores
> have benefited many many people.
I think this is likely to be a seperate - but related - issue.
You see, my original post was talking about advertising changing the character of its surroundings.
You're talking about a *justification for doing this*, e.g. the cost is worth the benefit.
In Dikembe's case, it seems entirely reasonable - but in his case, the issue in hand was extremely important, being medical care for people who have no medical care. It matters a lot that as much as done is possible.
With the Wiki, we're dealing with an encylopedia, not medical care, so it's far less important to do as much as we can; and, crucially, for the Wiki, the occasionally fund-raising drive seems to work very well.
So why move on to advertising when it carries a cost to the very character, the essense, of the Wiki?
> The real world includes things like money, advertising and probably many other things you may consider to
> be corrupting or evil but it is often because of and not in spite of these facets of society that progress
> and learning advance.
The real world also includes humans and our emotions; and, what's more, the real world as such does not exist - for we only perceive the world through our senses and our feelings.
> In this case Wikipedia has the opportunity to raise very large amounts of money in a manner which need
> not interfere at all with their current operation,
But that IS the mis-understanding I have in mind.
The Wikipedia is not merely a collection of web-pages and a server. It is an ethos, a belief, an emotional experience.
You are right to say in the pure technical sense advertising will make no difference. The web-pages will still be editable, etc.
But in the human sense, our perception of the Wikipedia - that will change.
The Wiki with advertising is not "everything as it was before, but with advertising on the side". It's something *new and different*.
I'm against.
Advertising inherently trivialises its surroundings.
If the Wiki is bare, it stands alone as a mass of knowledge.
If it is adorned by adverts for books and DVDs and so on, it becomes profane; it loses its sanctity.
People I think see these words and dismiss them, I suspect because of their somewhat religious association; but they represent human feelings and impressions of the world around them. They represent real states of mind and impressions.
As is, for example, breaking the official secrets acts to publish deeply unethical behaviour by the State - something the State, "in accordance with the law", would, I'm certain, use the full power of mass surveilliance and mass databases to prevent.
Why in the name of God has someone marked this Flamebait?
> Because we punish criminals and the risk of being punished is generally greater then the benefits of
> commiting the crime.
You're saying all people would commit crime, if it wasn't for the punishment that would occur?
Wouldn't that lead to a lot of crime when the police forces are weak or ineffective, since it would be very unlikely you'd be caught?
> We've also been conditioned to behave a certain way... so most people do...
If this is true, then how come some people aren't conditioned? the basic point I'm getting at is - why does crime occur?
I'm asking this question because as far as I see, everyone is thinking about the rights and wrongs of cameras - no one is thinking "how come we find we need cameras in the first place?"
> You will not get rid of crime Toby. You can try to reduce it, control it, limit it, and sure there are
> underlying factors for some acts... but you're not going to be able to eliminate all of it.
Why not?
Also, what you seem to be implying is that the crime we have now is part of an irreducable minimum. How can you know if the crime we have now is part of an irreducable minimum, or is part of a level of excessive crime, which could be reduced?
But then why do so many people NOT perform unethical crimes?
We're loosing sight of the real question.
The superficial issue here is whether or not mass surveillance is acceptable, in that one on hand it can be used to defeat unethical crime, on the other hand, it can be used by the State to defeat ethical crime.
But the real issue, the underlying issue, is *why do people perform unethical crimes?*
I see no one asking this question or wondering how to fix it - and if this problem was fixed or largely fixed, there wouldn't be a need for cameras at all.
> > > The competition is fierce.
> > What competition?
> Pre-installed Linux, Firefox, Openoffice.org. What rock have you been living under?
The one where MS have 97% of PCs running Windows, Linux only exists in server rooms and Firefox, despite being massively superior to IE6, has stabilized at 10% of marketshare.
Are there other rocks? I really don't want to be under this one.
> Microsoft faces competition from three quarters:
:-)
Let me rephrase.
What *meaningful* competition?
> Linux has set the price for a functioning operating system as essentially $0; Microsoft has to milk as
> much out of the market as it can before the price of the OS hits $0.
Linux doesn't exist outside of server rooms.
> Apple
Just stop right there.
Apple have 3% of the market. That's not competition, that's a niche.
> has set the stage to usurp Microsoft;
Yeah. In Steve Job's fantasies. I bet Gates is dressed up in a nurses outfit, too
> Finally Microsoft faces competition from itself; if it can't make Vista compelling enough, fewer people
> will "upgrade" from XP. There are still companies and people running Windows 2000!
Oh no! they're not buying our new OS - they're still using the old one! with all the lock in and software sales and support being exactly the same. And hey, all the new PCs coming out have Vista on. And these old PCs, well, strange, but they keep wearing out, and we don't sell w2k licenses any more, what are these people going to do?
The fact that 0.0001% of PCs still run W2K is utterly irrelevant. In fact, it proves the point, about just how effect MS is at getting people to upgrade, sooner or later. If they weren't any good, we'd ALL still be running W2K (and I am!), because XP has NOTHING over 2K.
MS owns our asses.
They should have been broken up into seperate OS and apps companies.
The fact that didn't happen still has me wondering who was bought by who to revoke that decision.
> Apple is obviously competing well with microsoft.
This statement flies in the face of the evidence.
Everywhere I go, I see PCs.
I very, very, VERY occasionally see *A* Mac.
One company I contracted for a year or two ago, one of the guys there was a Maccie and had one at work.
Macs have 3% of the market, I believe. That isn't competition, that's a niche.
There is also a significant issue in any change of *behaviour* in critical equipment.
Drivers become entirely accustomed to the accelerative and breaking behaviour of their car.
If, for example, breaking behaviour changed and/or is impaired, because of the loss of ancillary data due to bus failure, the very fact the car is now breaking *differently* is a significant risk factor.
I recall this particular problem was with a German car - might have been an Audi.
But I have to say, this US law - I wonder how long it will last for?
> Additionally, every critical device on the bus has generic defaults.
I don't understand - for what use is a default if a device needs a signal to know when to operate?
> EVEN IF the critical data bus went down, the brakes would stop the car.
If that bus is the only signal route to the brake, how could this be so?
> The brake controller doesn't need a message on the bus to stop.
> It uses a unique input for the brakes, and doesn't require the bus.
So why is it on the bus?
> Microsoft can't afford to wait another five years for an operating system.
Why not?
> The competition is fierce.
What competition?
The fact that a given subsystem is not directly involved in things like braking isn't actually that reassuring.
There was a submission to the RISKS digest a while ago - I cannot recall the exact details, but the problem was that non-critical software was able to cause what was effectively a denial of service attack on the car-wide shared data bus ring, and THAT stopped the brakes from working.
If a software can affect a component or module which is necessary for a critical function, then that software *is* critial. Given the existance of for example shared data buses, pretty much everything is in fact critical.
> The 2004 and 2006 surveys by Dittmar Associates Inc. revealed high levels of indifference among 18- to
> 25-year-olds toward manned trips to the moon and Mars.
Erm, that's it? that's all we get?
How big was the sample? how were they chosen? was it ten people chosen from a Big Brother audience? what questions were they asked? how exactly do you decide what "indifference" is?
What a complete load of tosh. An utterly unsubstaniated story.
Notes isn't compatible?
There IS a reason to upgrade to Vista!
> There is a lot of potential to know if people have been looking at specific sites.
And this is why I've given up my mobile phone, why my hard disks are encrypted, why I'm going to run my own SMTP/POP servers, and why I'm starting to think about not using Google any more.
If you don't reject it, you're passively accepting it.
This is absolutely the right thing to do.
I can however confidently predict that since a very large number of people are involved in making the decision, the worst possible product will be chosen.
So it won't be TrueCrypt, or something decent - it'll be something like the latest commerical version of PGP.
> the CERTStation Threat level Aggregator displays the current threat level,
Well, it does if you have Flash installed.
Which makes the page 100% useless to all those who do not.
Making a page useless to a proportion of your viewers, in exchange for (supposedly!) looking better, is a poor exchange; even more so when you consider that Flash sites in practise often violate user-interface guidelines and are a nightmare for users.
My view is that the larger the number of people involved, the more strongly the decisions taken gravitate towards the worst possible choice.
This is why they have Flash on their site.
If just one reasonably talented bloke had been given responsibility for the site, it would, I think, be likely to be useable and functional.