According to the results of that Nature study, Wikipedia had, on average, 32% more errors per article than the Encyclopedia Britannica. How cnet.com translates that into "as accurate as" is beyond me. The Nature summary even acknowledges that Wikipedia is not as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.
...Wikipedia has been a massive success but has always had immense flaws, the greatest one being that nothing it publishes can be trusted. This, you might think, is a pretty big flaw. There are over 21million editors with varying degrees of competence and honesty. Rogue editors abound and do not restrict themselves to supposedly controversial topics, as the recently discovered Hillsborough example demonstrates....
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Isn't this what science is about? Discovery, exploration, learning.
Of course mistakes will be made along the way. The fact that we can look back and see those mistakes for what they are is a part of the scientific process.
I'm sick of replying to this, but...
Your apology for high ISP prices would carry a whole lot more water if the ISPs did not have very much lower prices in areas where they have competition than in those areas (more densely populated, btw) where they do not have competition.
I can't speak for "we all" (and neither can you:) ) but I can say that I have had that experience on more than one occasion. But it is a small percentage of my overall community support experiences. A very small percentage.
.
There have been User Groups providing customer-to-customer support almost as long as there have been computers.
Most of the time, the answers I receive from the community forum are received more quickly and are of better quality than those I receive from first tier support in the more formal support channels.
On the other hand, there are some companies that use the community support as the sole means to provide support, and the community has little or no employee involvement. Those companies, the ones that use the community to hide from their customers, I do not like. And I avoid their products.
I have a technical website serving a niche, with 100% content and no adverts. So far this month I have had 10 referrals from Bing, 130 from the most relevant Wikipedia page and 2200 from Google.
It's not so much the worldwide web these days as the Googleverse.
---sigh---
I see similar numbers for my website also, however, you are seeing much more bing activity than I see.
... that google appears to be the main generator of traffic for some websites. The way to solve the root problem is not to change how google does or does not work, but to bring other traffic generators on board.
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A company that relies upon one customer for a great majority of its sales will always be beholden to that customer. That is why companies diversify their customer base.
Websites should diversify their traffic generators instead of just relying on good ole google to generate traffic for them.
... i think the biggest bugbear is going to be Windows 8....
Agreed. Windows 8 is going to be a strategic problem for Microsoft going forward. The reputation of Windows 8 is so soiled presently, that I doubt it is going to be an easy sell, even on touch screens.
You need to take back the web from Firefox, because it has a toolbar button you don't like, and a third-party addon didn't work correctly?
Please reread my comment, it was not that I did not like the toolbar button.
As I also mentioned in my comment, those issues were the last straw for me, i.e., the last of a series poor planning decisions that the Firefox developers have made. So I, like many other FireFox users, am going elsewhere.
...Mozilla's case hasn't been helped by a steady drain on its desktop user share, which in April slipped to 17% of all desktop browsers, down from 20% a year earlier....
I think this whole situation has been blown out of proportion....
Possibly. However, what is adding to the fire is string of stupid decisions made by the FireFox developers. Those stupid decisions are convincing users that FireFox may be going in the wrong direction. Hence the uproar.
They are losing market share and their actions will accelerate, not reverse, that trend, just as previous missteps have done.
Ah yes... previous missteps.
.
The last straw, the item that chased me off FireFox was the developers' stupid decision to lock down the reload and stop buttons on the FireFox UI. Yes, I know there is a "Classic" add-on that attempts to restore the previous look and feel of the UI. But like many add-ons, the quality level of that add-on is much lower than that of FireFox. I ran into too many issues trying to get that add-on to work properly. During my attempts, various items in the UI would actually disappear, and I would have to restore the browser's profile directory and try again to configure the Classic add-on.
Yes, FireFox developers are chasing away their users.. Now I just need to figure out what to do with my "Take Back The Web" FireFox t-shirt. Ironically, it looks to be time to take back the web from FireFox.
The ultimate responsibility for the failure to detect this vulnerability prior to release lies not with any individual programmer but with the culture in which the code was produced.
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I've often said that you don't fix a software bug until you've fixed the process that allowed the bug to be created. The above quote is of a similar sentiment.
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This was destined to pass from the day it was first proposed. All the public commenting was merely window dressing to make it appear as if there were public involvement. The ISPs control the Internet (and apparently the FCC) in the United States, and this is their way of assuring they will continue to do so and profit handsomely in the process.
... only optimum conditions are envisioned. I did not see any attention paid to less than optimum conditions. As such, this project fails before it even starts.
Though it seems that there are so many ways for a person to smuggle a MicroSD card into a secure area that an eReader is probably not a huge concern.
How much experience do you have in securing high-value military devices and how much knowledge dop you have about the reasons for securing such devices?
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None and none, you say? Gee, I would have never known that from your comment.
Indeed! Australis (FF29 in general) has very nearly pinched my last nerve with Firefox. What the fuck is going on at Mozilla? The last two versions have run like complete and utter shit on my systems, from freezing windows to outright random crashes. What happened to my lightweight and reliable browser?
>
I'm reluctant to try the FireFox OS for one main reason --- FireFox developers have demonstrated a bad habit of arbitrarily changing important parts of the software they publish (e.g. the FireFox 29 user interface fiasco, making the UI much less customizable, in spite of the developers asserting that it is more customizable).
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The last thing I would want would be a dependence upon an operating system from those change-happy short-sighted developers.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the results of that Nature study, Wikipedia had, on average, 32% more errors per article than the Encyclopedia Britannica. How cnet.com translates that into "as accurate as" is beyond me. The Nature summary even acknowledges that Wikipedia is not as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.
...Wikipedia has been a massive success but has always had immense flaws, the greatest one being that nothing it publishes can be trusted. This, you might think, is a pretty big flaw. There are over 21million editors with varying degrees of competence and honesty. Rogue editors abound and do not restrict themselves to supposedly controversial topics, as the recently discovered Hillsborough example demonstrates....
.
Isn't this what science is about? Discovery, exploration, learning.
Of course mistakes will be made along the way. The fact that we can look back and see those mistakes for what they are is a part of the scientific process.
This is a good thing.
They can't. I get sick of posting this but:
I'm sick of replying to this, but... Your apology for high ISP prices would carry a whole lot more water if the ISPs did not have very much lower prices in areas where they have competition than in those areas (more densely populated, btw) where they do not have competition.
... google fiber's gigabit speeds, Cox should also commit to rolling out google fiber's reasonable prices.
We've all had that experience.
I can't speak for "we all" (and neither can you :) ) but I can say that I have had that experience on more than one occasion. But it is a small percentage of my overall community support experiences. A very small percentage.
.
There have been User Groups providing customer-to-customer support almost as long as there have been computers.
Most of the time, the answers I receive from the community forum are received more quickly and are of better quality than those I receive from first tier support in the more formal support channels.
On the other hand, there are some companies that use the community support as the sole means to provide support, and the community has little or no employee involvement. Those companies, the ones that use the community to hide from their customers, I do not like. And I avoid their products.
I have a technical website serving a niche, with 100% content and no adverts. So far this month I have had 10 referrals from Bing, 130 from the most relevant Wikipedia page and 2200 from Google.
It's not so much the worldwide web these days as the Googleverse.
---sigh---
I see similar numbers for my website also, however, you are seeing much more bing activity than I see.
.
A company that relies upon one customer for a great majority of its sales will always be beholden to that customer. That is why companies diversify their customer base.
Websites should diversify their traffic generators instead of just relying on good ole google to generate traffic for them.
.... disguised as a posting.
... i think the biggest bugbear is going to be Windows 8....
Agreed. Windows 8 is going to be a strategic problem for Microsoft going forward. The reputation of Windows 8 is so soiled presently, that I doubt it is going to be an easy sell, even on touch screens.
You need to take back the web from Firefox, because it has a toolbar button you don't like, and a third-party addon didn't work correctly?
Please reread my comment, it was not that I did not like the toolbar button. As I also mentioned in my comment, those issues were the last straw for me, i.e., the last of a series poor planning decisions that the Firefox developers have made. So I, like many other FireFox users, am going elsewhere.
Firefox risks irrelevance as mobile browsing booms --- Without an effective mobile browser strategy, in four months Mozilla will fall to No. 4 in a five-browser market
...Mozilla's case hasn't been helped by a steady drain on its desktop user share, which in April slipped to 17% of all desktop browsers, down from 20% a year earlier....
Why does this posting reek of a PR person's assignment? Has /. sunk that low?
I think this whole situation has been blown out of proportion....
Possibly. However, what is adding to the fire is string of stupid decisions made by the FireFox developers. Those stupid decisions are convincing users that FireFox may be going in the wrong direction. Hence the uproar.
They are losing market share and their actions will accelerate, not reverse, that trend, just as previous missteps have done.
Ah yes... previous missteps.
.
The last straw, the item that chased me off FireFox was the developers' stupid decision to lock down the reload and stop buttons on the FireFox UI. Yes, I know there is a "Classic" add-on that attempts to restore the previous look and feel of the UI. But like many add-ons, the quality level of that add-on is much lower than that of FireFox. I ran into too many issues trying to get that add-on to work properly. During my attempts, various items in the UI would actually disappear, and I would have to restore the browser's profile directory and try again to configure the Classic add-on.
Yes, FireFox developers are chasing away their users.. Now I just need to figure out what to do with my "Take Back The Web" FireFox t-shirt. Ironically, it looks to be time to take back the web from FireFox.
.
I've often said that you don't fix a software bug until you've fixed the process that allowed the bug to be created. The above quote is of a similar sentiment.
You mean this: Adobe Creative Cloud suffering extended outage
FCC Gives Initial OK To New Internet Rules
.
This was destined to pass from the day it was first proposed. All the public commenting was merely window dressing to make it appear as if there were public involvement. The ISPs control the Internet (and apparently the FCC) in the United States, and this is their way of assuring they will continue to do so and profit handsomely in the process.
... only optimum conditions are envisioned. I did not see any attention paid to less than optimum conditions. As such, this project fails before it even starts.
This threat is exhibit #1 that the ISPs have gotten too large, and need to be regulated.
Though it seems that there are so many ways for a person to smuggle a MicroSD card into a secure area that an eReader is probably not a huge concern.
How much experience do you have in securing high-value military devices and how much knowledge dop you have about the reasons for securing such devices?
.
None and none, you say? Gee, I would have never known that from your comment.
Indeed! Australis (FF29 in general) has very nearly pinched my last nerve with Firefox. What the fuck is going on at Mozilla? The last two versions have run like complete and utter shit on my systems, from freezing windows to outright random crashes. What happened to my lightweight and reliable browser? >
Pale Moon
Take a look at Pale Moon browser. It's built with FireFox source, but with a rational user interface layout.
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The last thing I would want would be a dependence upon an operating system from those change-happy short-sighted developers.