8. Having an opt-out to mailings check box on your sign-up page, rather than an opt-in one.
Deceiving users makes you a spammer. Mlb.com, this means you. And you are not alone.
Wikipedia is the embodiment of altruism. People helping people for reasons other than to further their own status... sickening. Jimbo should be out exploiting people, not helping them.
I think the word "altruism" doesn't mean what you think it means. I've seen plenty of people on Wikipedia attacking others to further their own status - some editors attack too, not just "vandals". Wikipedia is an exercise in vanity as much as it is even approaching altruism. As to Jimbo exploiting people... certainly not obviously or openly, but I do very much question his motives. His love affair with Ayn Rand does make me suspicious, as does his self-aggrandization. Wikipedia is certainly not my idea of an "open" project.
Just try touching an Ayn Rand article, go on, I dare you... you'll see how "open" it is.
Agreed, he could work two jobs for a couple of years. Worst case is going to jail, but hey, he still got into space. If he was any way smart he'd work a book deal and make even more money - there are many worse books written about more trivial things.
Yeah, cos the unabomber had his own lear jet and imaging equipment. Don't discount the threats from the general public. There's a lot more of them. And some of them are more crazy than the average terrorist.
Don't see myself how it would work for domains, unless they contact the registrar as ask for the information. As to listing sites like Craigslist, I can't see how the spider will gather anything. As to auction sites, that's easier, eBay already coughs up that information to Tax Authorities with ease.
Whether creating a database or carrying a memory card, the IT issues can be solved. However, that still leaves human problems.
Most especially language. While (if I understand correctly) most medical journals are published in English, and most doctors should thus be able to understand English, in practice this is not always the case.
Where I live in former East Berlin, there are many doctors and ancillary staff who can't speak a word of English. Since the database is most useful in an emergency, there's an even money chance of the patient being dead before someone has translated their notes for the doctor. Or alternatively, the records would need to be kept in all 25+ languages of the EU, or have some means of the database itself translating these automatically - and I think we all know how well translation software works to date. Would you risk your life on it? Not every medical term can be succinctly summed up in one standard word or phrase.
This requires doctors to have a consistent and international standard practice of notation - and be diligent in using it. Yep, good luck with that. I used to work with doctors, and I've often spent hours trying to decipher what they meant to say in their notes - assuming they actually noted everything in the first place. The nature of illness means there will also always be rare occasions where no standard terminology will exist - what do you do then?
I see carrying a card to be the most viable short term option. Certainly the cheapest way of solving the issues above before they're universally applied. Not everyone travels, in fact probably the majority of EU citizens don't. Cards are already available, it just means adding more to that program. An international database is potentially a good idea, but only once the language and notation issues are resolved, medical records from 1953 or whatever are rewritten in the standard notation, and everyone retrained. Which would be expensive, and likely take years, if not decades. With a phased approach and good long term planning it may be possible.
While your suggestion has merits, it would mean that articles would have to be locked (or even more locked than many already are). This would further defeat the wiki model more than the sometimes heavy handed and sometimes biased controls already in force. It would simply become just another encyclopedia.
However, It would certainly solve one problem with the wiki model though - that where, if you hold an unpopular view, no matter how provable in fact it may be, it may be it will always be edited to match popular opinion, whether that's reality or wikiality regardless.
That's wikifailure. And one more reason why it should never ever be cited.
If you know what you're doing, ActiveX is perfectly "safe".
um, remind me why phishing / identity theft is big business, and spam too for that matter. Hands up everyone who thinks many Microsoft users know what they are doing.
Technically, but although I hate to defend Microsoft, why should they be singled out for trying to do this. I have no doubt that other firms, organizations, and individuals do exactly the same thing. There's plenty of articles on Wikipedia that look like they've been written directly by that organizations marketing dept. They don't get deleted either.
Any firm that's not trying to use Wikipedia directly, or through grassroots shills, to manipulate its image is wasting an easy opportunity.
Your post is contradictory. You imply that Wales is nothing to do with Wikipedia in your first sentence, then state that he's the "Final Authority on English Wikipedia". You can't have it both ways.
Regardless, probably the main reason the press and everyone else is "confusing" Wales' role with Wikipedia is entirely due to the man himself. As a successful self-publicist he frequently wades in with his two cents worth on Wikipedia. Here, on/. too, in person.
You may say he's separate, but I, for one, do not believe this to be true. Truthy or Wikiality perhaps, but a representation of facts? - no more than the average wikipedia article.
Did Wales, or did Wales not, overrule the Wiki Foundation on this matter? Simple question.
I know that I am not alone in thinking that Wikipedia is not as altruistic and open as it claims, or markets itself as. Wales is not the great benefactor he styles himself as. Wikipedia information is manipulated by various groups, sometimes this is regarded as a response to vandalism (Stephen Colbert for example) although it is legitimate freedom of expression and valid criticism.
There's way too much ego and hubris where Wikipedia is concerned, and that starts with Jimbo.
While I understand the need to reduce spam, I do believe that this should have been a consensus decision by the Foundation. Rather than a suspiciously dictatorial one.
They're part of the Government, but not Parliament. The Police, Judiciary and the Armed forces ultimately answer to the Queen, not necessarily to Parliament.
I was personally surprised to see no mention of where they keep the ponies and glitter. I was sure that was how they ran of their technology. Must be a industrial secret...
A tagging standard? Never gonna happen. Probably not even possible.
Some words have more than one meaning in English alone, and different meanings throughout the different versions of English, then you can add in foreign languages too.
Take for example the words "strip" or "ass" as an example (um, not sure why those came into my head first...). Search for "ass" and you get things about donkeys, amongst a variety of more or less interesting things. My guess is that the few mental patients searching for donkeys are as upset as those of us looking for more interesting things.
Tags work on trust. For the most part they work 30%-40% of the time as they are on a bad day. There is plenty of tag spamming going on, and that's only going to get worse if standards are "enforced". God knows how anyone could enforce this, gaming tags is a piece of cake.
I'm not clear why the web 2.0 tagerazzi ever thought tags were going to work in the first place. It is essentially the system that search engines used before Google. It failed miserably in many cases, being the reason why Google was successful - they moved away from tags to search algorithms that worked much much much better.
Does everyone really have such short memories? Or is it really 1996 and I'm living in my own solipsism?
In large companies, no matter how apparently rude your IT guy is, at least you always know where you stand. Compare and contrast with the HR department who are sweetness and light only minutes before firing someone. Gimme sarcasm and honesty over smarm and deception any day.
And in my experience a lot of people's issue with IT guys are their own fault. In any large company there are certain people, no matter however important your job title, you have to ensure you always treat well. I've seen several Senior Managers throw their weight around and talk down to people who are in all likelihood far smarter than they are, just with lesser job titles.
IT guys are really great people to be friendly to, as are cleaners, canteen staff, and the security guys. If you look after them, they look after you. You absolutely need them, but middle management? Yeah, maybe not so much...
Yes, this is very true. I used to work with UK doctors years ago, and there's lots more acronyms they use too. For example, one doctor I worked with wrote a prescription for one of his Irish patients which he sealed in an envelope, and the patient then duly took to the pharmacy. The Rx stated: " Mr ---- is perfectly well, but a PITA (Pain in the Arse). Give him a one way ticket to Dublin, preferably to be administered rectally." Fortunately for the doctor the pharmacist didn't show this to the patient.
And one other doctor always made a point of using white (very large) needles for injections in patients he didn't like.
Yahoo's on the list? Well, I guess it's a trade off - good working conditions and benefits along with an even money chance of being fired in the Yahoo shake-up in 2007.
Not really. Didn't stop Germany during World War II, and won't stop them again when the Nazis return to power. They are there for security duties and to back up the police against their own citizens.
Yes and no. Lawyers are NOT innocent pawns. It's chicken and egg, lawyers do facilitate and encourage this sort of behaviour. Otherwise management would have to act reasonably and negotiate like most ordinary people.
Lawyers would be out of a job, and corporate lawyers doubly so, if they didn't promote and perpetuate this kind of behavior.
Lawyers can say no. But they don't. Lawyers are NOT without blame here, they just share it.
Best selling is, however, misleading. Back in the 60s or 70s a song topping the UK top 40 sold 1,000,000s of units. Today, you can get in top 10 after selling only 25,000 units. The UK Top 40 is in no way representative of music tastes, or popularity. It's just a PR exercise.
Some people are actually astonishingly stupid. The Internet is simply a reflection of this, not the cause.
I used to work for a large multinational company. Occasionally customers would be asked to prove their identity for certain services. For this, they would be asked to send/fax in photocopies of documents proving their identity. Which is of course normal practice for many companies.
Regularly, and I mean at least one a week, people would send in things like their passports. Not copies, their actual passport. Picked it up, put it in an envelope and put it in the post. Regular mail, not even registered (as they were instructed).
There's no way you can regulate against that - well, except in a fascist state maybe.
Slashdot Mirror
It wold be great to see that happen, but I suspect it won't, far too many lobbyists.
Just imagine..."I can't believe it's not butter" would be become "I believe it's a petroleum industry by-product"
Can I add...
8. Having an opt-out to mailings check box on your sign-up page, rather than an opt-in one.
Deceiving users makes you a spammer. Mlb.com, this means you. And you are not alone.
Ah, I shall never forget those words that first gave me so much frustration with MS products.
Not ready reading drive A: ()Abort ()Retry (Y)Fail?
Just try touching an Ayn Rand article, go on, I dare you... you'll see how "open" it is.
I think I saw this movie... didn't it star Leonardo DiCaprio, Christopher Walken and Tom Hanks?
Agreed, he could work two jobs for a couple of years. Worst case is going to jail, but hey, he still got into space. If he was any way smart he'd work a book deal and make even more money - there are many worse books written about more trivial things.
I suspect we don't have the full story here.
or...
Someone in Norway really needs to write ©Slartibartfast.
Yeah, cos the unabomber had his own lear jet and imaging equipment. Don't discount the threats from the general public. There's a lot more of them. And some of them are more crazy than the average terrorist.
Don't see myself how it would work for domains, unless they contact the registrar as ask for the information. As to listing sites like Craigslist, I can't see how the spider will gather anything. As to auction sites, that's easier, eBay already coughs up that information to Tax Authorities with ease.
Whether creating a database or carrying a memory card, the IT issues can be solved. However, that still leaves human problems.
Most especially language. While (if I understand correctly) most medical journals are published in English, and most doctors should thus be able to understand English, in practice this is not always the case.
Where I live in former East Berlin, there are many doctors and ancillary staff who can't speak a word of English. Since the database is most useful in an emergency, there's an even money chance of the patient being dead before someone has translated their notes for the doctor. Or alternatively, the records would need to be kept in all 25+ languages of the EU, or have some means of the database itself translating these automatically - and I think we all know how well translation software works to date. Would you risk your life on it? Not every medical term can be succinctly summed up in one standard word or phrase.
This requires doctors to have a consistent and international standard practice of notation - and be diligent in using it. Yep, good luck with that. I used to work with doctors, and I've often spent hours trying to decipher what they meant to say in their notes - assuming they actually noted everything in the first place. The nature of illness means there will also always be rare occasions where no standard terminology will exist - what do you do then?
I see carrying a card to be the most viable short term option. Certainly the cheapest way of solving the issues above before they're universally applied. Not everyone travels, in fact probably the majority of EU citizens don't. Cards are already available, it just means adding more to that program. An international database is potentially a good idea, but only once the language and notation issues are resolved, medical records from 1953 or whatever are rewritten in the standard notation, and everyone retrained. Which would be expensive, and likely take years, if not decades. With a phased approach and good long term planning it may be possible.
While your suggestion has merits, it would mean that articles would have to be locked (or even more locked than many already are). This would further defeat the wiki model more than the sometimes heavy handed and sometimes biased controls already in force. It would simply become just another encyclopedia.
However, It would certainly solve one problem with the wiki model though - that where, if you hold an unpopular view, no matter how provable in fact it may be, it may be it will always be edited to match popular opinion, whether that's reality or wikiality regardless.
That's wikifailure. And one more reason why it should never ever be cited.
I think we disagree on the definition of "safe".
Technically, but although I hate to defend Microsoft, why should they be singled out for trying to do this. I have no doubt that other firms, organizations, and individuals do exactly the same thing. There's plenty of articles on Wikipedia that look like they've been written directly by that organizations marketing dept. They don't get deleted either.
Any firm that's not trying to use Wikipedia directly, or through grassroots shills, to manipulate its image is wasting an easy opportunity.
Your post is contradictory. You imply that Wales is nothing to do with Wikipedia in your first sentence, then state that he's the "Final Authority on English Wikipedia". You can't have it both ways.
/. too, in person.
Regardless, probably the main reason the press and everyone else is "confusing" Wales' role with Wikipedia is entirely due to the man himself. As a successful self-publicist he frequently wades in with his two cents worth on Wikipedia. Here, on
You may say he's separate, but I, for one, do not believe this to be true. Truthy or Wikiality perhaps, but a representation of facts? - no more than the average wikipedia article.
Did Wales, or did Wales not, overrule the Wiki Foundation on this matter? Simple question.
I know that I am not alone in thinking that Wikipedia is not as altruistic and open as it claims, or markets itself as. Wales is not the great benefactor he styles himself as. Wikipedia information is manipulated by various groups, sometimes this is regarded as a response to vandalism (Stephen Colbert for example) although it is legitimate freedom of expression and valid criticism.
There's way too much ego and hubris where Wikipedia is concerned, and that starts with Jimbo. While I understand the need to reduce spam, I do believe that this should have been a consensus decision by the Foundation. Rather than a suspiciously dictatorial one.
They're part of the Government, but not Parliament. The Police, Judiciary and the Armed forces ultimately answer to the Queen, not necessarily to Parliament.
I was personally surprised to see no mention of where they keep the ponies and glitter. I was sure that was how they ran of their technology. Must be a industrial secret...
A tagging standard? Never gonna happen. Probably not even possible.
Some words have more than one meaning in English alone, and different meanings throughout the different versions of English, then you can add in foreign languages too.
Take for example the words "strip" or "ass" as an example (um, not sure why those came into my head first...). Search for "ass" and you get things about donkeys, amongst a variety of more or less interesting things. My guess is that the few mental patients searching for donkeys are as upset as those of us looking for more interesting things.
Tags work on trust. For the most part they work 30%-40% of the time as they are on a bad day. There is plenty of tag spamming going on, and that's only going to get worse if standards are "enforced". God knows how anyone could enforce this, gaming tags is a piece of cake.
I'm not clear why the web 2.0 tagerazzi ever thought tags were going to work in the first place. It is essentially the system that search engines used before Google. It failed miserably in many cases, being the reason why Google was successful - they moved away from tags to search algorithms that worked much much much better.
Does everyone really have such short memories? Or is it really 1996 and I'm living in my own solipsism?
In large companies, no matter how apparently rude your IT guy is, at least you always know where you stand. Compare and contrast with the HR department who are sweetness and light only minutes before firing someone. Gimme sarcasm and honesty over smarm and deception any day.
And in my experience a lot of people's issue with IT guys are their own fault. In any large company there are certain people, no matter however important your job title, you have to ensure you always treat well. I've seen several Senior Managers throw their weight around and talk down to people who are in all likelihood far smarter than they are, just with lesser job titles.
IT guys are really great people to be friendly to, as are cleaners, canteen staff, and the security guys. If you look after them, they look after you. You absolutely need them, but middle management? Yeah, maybe not so much...
Yes, this is very true. I used to work with UK doctors years ago, and there's lots more acronyms they use too. For example, one doctor I worked with wrote a prescription for one of his Irish patients which he sealed in an envelope, and the patient then duly took to the pharmacy. The Rx stated: " Mr ---- is perfectly well, but a PITA (Pain in the Arse). Give him a one way ticket to Dublin, preferably to be administered rectally." Fortunately for the doctor the pharmacist didn't show this to the patient.
And one other doctor always made a point of using white (very large) needles for injections in patients he didn't like.
IT guys are fluffy bunnies by comparison.
Yahoo's on the list? Well, I guess it's a trade off - good working conditions and benefits along with an even money chance of being fired in the Yahoo shake-up in 2007.
Not my first choice of employer...
hmmm, not impossible in Geneva, you may yet be lucky.
Not really. Didn't stop Germany during World War II, and won't stop them again when the Nazis return to power. They are there for security duties and to back up the police against their own citizens.
Yes and no. Lawyers are NOT innocent pawns. It's chicken and egg, lawyers do facilitate and encourage this sort of behaviour. Otherwise management would have to act reasonably and negotiate like most ordinary people.
Lawyers would be out of a job, and corporate lawyers doubly so, if they didn't promote and perpetuate this kind of behavior.
Lawyers can say no. But they don't. Lawyers are NOT without blame here, they just share it.
Best selling is, however, misleading. Back in the 60s or 70s a song topping the UK top 40 sold 1,000,000s of units. Today, you can get in top 10 after selling only 25,000 units. The UK Top 40 is in no way representative of music tastes, or popularity. It's just a PR exercise.
Some people are actually astonishingly stupid. The Internet is simply a reflection of this, not the cause.
I used to work for a large multinational company. Occasionally customers would be asked to prove their identity for certain services. For this, they would be asked to send/fax in photocopies of documents proving their identity. Which is of course normal practice for many companies.
Regularly, and I mean at least one a week, people would send in things like their passports. Not copies, their actual passport. Picked it up, put it in an envelope and put it in the post. Regular mail, not even registered (as they were instructed).
There's no way you can regulate against that - well, except in a fascist state maybe.