Maybe you should do a little research first. As seeing as I know the guy who started the whole group back in the 1980's (something that Wikipedia's admins and users voting in the VfD continued to not believe as they deleted the article) and having access to some of their old content, I think I know what I "mean".
In regards to their trolling activities, your reply PROVES that ideology constantly gets in the way of Wikipedia. One of the many reasons stated in the VfD is that "trolls" do not deserve to be noted in Wikipedia. This shows an inability for people to distance themselves from ideological viewpoints and common social attitudes. If Wikipedia states to be "NPOV" then I would expect it to actually be NPOV. But of course, Wikipedia is trying to be a psuedo-"democratic" encyclopedia where everyone gets a say. Being objective an NPOV is obviously exclusive to appealing to masses of people who do hold differing attitudes.
No, things just aren't uniformly scrutinized. Period. Some vandalism sits around for a year or two before it's noticed. Some things get AfD'd two minutes after they're created. It's random and doens't have anything to do with topic
Its definitely not random. They choose only to pay attention to something that doesn't fit within their ideological norms. i.e. a group that espouses social contrarian views. Something like a soccer player "looks normal" and thus does not get scruitinized.
One of my problems with "notability" is that it's really very much in the eye of the beholder. If someone says "that's not notable", it can simply mean that they don't know very much about the topic, and maybe there are some obscure 13th century specialist academics who think it is very much notable.
Right.
A lot of the gray-area votes are arbitrary.
I wouldn't say double standards, it's just different editors have different standards because there's no single policy that specifies what's notable and what's not.
I disagree.
Ideological attitude is reflected within Wikipedia's admins. Sure there may be some diversity that exists, but the most active editors tend to be the most ideological at the same time. They don't look at everything they see with an objective eye. Otherwise, this garbage about notability wouldn't be so contentious. They wouldn't include some of the most boring and mundane topics and then try to exclude other topics that are obviously more noteworthy.
Case in point - an article about neo nazism and a wikipedia admin (I'll have to dig this one up in a bit - I don't have all the documentation handy).
Wikipedia does very little to control the arbitary nature of the standard of how articles are written and how they are "administrated". Since very little structure existts to control these problems, the ideological nature of those who are given power is showing.
Well, there are some procedural things about wikipedia that unnerves me. I would like to see a competing project give a serious go at an alternative structure, to see if things can be done better.
While I hold Wikipedia in somewhat high regard for their noble efforts, I dont think we need new encylopedias. Brittanica does a wonderful job. So does Google and a bit of cross referencing. In reality, the information is already out there.
Actually, the non-existant soccer player got unanimously deleted as soon as it was discovered. I simply saved a copy because it was one of the more unique examples of vandalism I'd seen (most are almost exactly the same).
I never said otherwise. The problem is a double standard - some things don't get throughly scrutinized right away while others do because of how people precieve certian topics or issues.
What's the BBS, by the way?
American Nihilist Underground Society, back in the late 80's, in Houston. Known for anti-social activities, nihilist, and worhsip of death metal.
Sure, its not like it was some big thing (and it wasn't huge by any means) but if Wikipedia is going to call this non-notable, then I can cite plenty of articles regarding things that are unquestionably obscure and barely known at all on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is also different from things like Slashdot and such because the goal is to have one big, cohesive database of human knowledge. On Slashdot, comments are only read for a couple days. On Wikipedia, I might think something should be phrased a certain way, but someone else might think it would be better phrased another way, and we have to actually settle those disagreements.
The fact that everyone has to cooperate on Wikipedia a lot more means that things won't always go my way. And that's not something that will ever change.
I don't think the goals of having a database of human knowledge requires the structure that Wikipedia has.
I also don't call what goes on "cooperation". Alot of times, things are done arbitarily by editors (by editors, perhaps I should have defined my terms earlier, I mean the "administrators" or people who have more power than the common user). I also don't call someone who doesn't like a particular article and unilaterally changing it to fit their ideology or interpertaion cooperation either.
I could care less whether or not Wikipedia wants to accept my article. What makes me miffed is the hypocrisy, bias, and double standards that exist (and this isn't the only example, just one).
Re:True, but not a big deal
on
Printing Wikipedia
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· Score: 3, Insightful
The problem I have with wikipedia is that there is clearly a bias amongst both the users and editors.
A friend of mine used to run a popular local BBS. I helped to write the article about it, because I wasn't associated with it, my perspective was a little more "NPOV" than his. Then, a day later, some users get mad, because of the controversial opinions that were associated with this BBS and puts it up for VfD. The VfD wasn't going well for the article (most people were voting to delete because they never heard of it, the primary chief cop out reason). Then an editor comes along and decides its a candidate for "Speedy Deletion" and it gets deleted pretty quickly. The reason was non-notability.
This is rediculous because, as you state, a non-existant soccer player gets ZERO questions because its not controversial or expresses any opinions against the grain of Wikipedia groupthink. Considering how popular the BBS was back in the day, the arguments were totally rediculous. The editors and users voting on the VfD were citing cross-links in Google as a guide for "notability" of something that existed before the Internet was a mainstream (or even something that you or me could access). Then you have to also note the number of other articles that are totally pointless in terms of cultural relevance to anything - less than the BBS in question was.
Until Wikipedia fixes issues like these, I will never take them seriously. Yes, I have tried to talk to some of the higher ups, they are no better. They just call you a "troll" and ignore you.
Wikipedia is the perfect example of pitifully poor organizational structure marred by populist tendencies and groupthink.
Barclay stood nearly trembling, his eyes drawn to the back of the slim body of young Cadet Crusher cavorting naked under the gentle waterfall. His round pale buttocks, so smooth, so pink, so... virginal. And with that doofy art-boy haircut plastered wetly to his head he seemed even more attractive...
Wesley turned, full lips, flaccid, uncircumsized penis hanging limp from his near-hairless groin over two unimpressive wrinkled little testicles, his arms awkwardly akimbo, he stared at Barclay, a grin spreading across his face.
"Broccoli! Come for a swim." He reached into the pool of water swirling around his thighs, waded toward the older man, splashing and grinning wickedly.
"W-Wes, d-don't... stop splashing me!" Barclay staggered awkwardly, backing away from the waterfront, away from the wet, naked boy. His stretchy standard-issue uniform pants only accentuated the bulge swelling from his groin.
Wesley grinned, enjoying the lieutenant's discomfort, smug in the knowledge that his youthful body excited the officer. He stepped out of the water and grabbed Barclay's wrist; heaving backward and to the side as he'd learned in his judo class, he sent Barclay to his knees in the muddy bank of the pool...
But Barclay *had* somehow managed to get through the Academy's basic training, and he did outweigh the lad by nearly 30 lbs... his hand snaked out catching Wes' ankle and the two were on the ground in a flash. Blue uniform wet and muddied sliding against the laughing slippery wet young boy Barclay's hands grabbing whatever appendage was handy in his efforts to pin the brat rubbing himself hard against the smooth hairless body he easily pinned the arrogant little snot-nose face-first in the mud.
"Well, Wesley..." Barclay rubbed his clothed groin against the firm round crack of young Ensign Crusher's nether region.
Wesley giggled, even as Barclay leaned forward to keep Wes pinned down by the weight of his upper body as he lowered his soggy pants to let his hard penis spring forth, using his free hand to guide it between Wesley's pink firm cheeks, tapping against the virginal little brown button hidden therein.
"I've been wanting to to d-do this for a l-long time, you little... little BRAT!"
Barclay plunged his penis into Wesley's rectum; the lad squealed, impaled, as Barclay proceeded to ride his ass. He began humping back at the cock violating his hind quarter, moaning in youthful excess...
"Gee Broccoli, this is *great*... what do you call it?"
"COMPUTER! FREEZE PROGRAM."
Barclay continued cornholing young ensign Crusher. Having secured his program so that only he could access or stop it, he was at the moment oblivious to the presence of his commanding officer, lost in his lusty revenge fantasy.
"CAPTAIN'S OVERRIDE!"
Barclay landed with a thud, the head of his penis slamming into the cold matrix grid of the holodeck floor howling in agony his pants around his hips his erection vanished rolling onto his back clutching his injured organ attempting to curl into a fetal position.
"Mr. Barclay..." his features etched in stone, so much control over his facial muscles that it was difficult to move his jaw enough to speak, Jean Luc Picard spat his words out very carefully.
"Consider yourself on report. Mister. Barclay." Picard tugged meaningfully at the bottom of his uniform shirt.
Barclay lay with his knees drawn to his chest, his buttocks exposed, his genitals clutched protectively, his eyes squeezed tightly shut rolling desperately from side to side.
If I go to Kinkos or some other place with self-serve copying (where I pay at the copier or where I tell them how many copies I made), I could literally shut down an entire bank of copiers by putting money into them and hitting copy?
What if I am photocopying play money that has a similar color composition?
Whatever the case, this is rediculous. Maybe I'll go down and piss some people off by shutting off their copiers and then get the feds on them.
I dont know how the search appliances work differently than Google.com, but what I do know is that they work damned well at our company for indexing informration just like Google.com does for the whole net.
If Google is marketing these appliances at various sized companies, then I would imagine they would have taken the time to make the algorithims appropriate for the target audience.
Whats wrong with attaching files? Having files online is more retarded, I can't take them with me when I am going to be offline. Plus, keeping the files on your computer is far more secure than the letting Google have yet another part of my life to tabulate, catalog, market, and database for their own profit.
Wiretaps are only given with permission of a court to a specific person (or specific people). Being permitted by a judge to wiretap a suspected bomb plotter and then accidentily tapping the wrong line and overhearing someone doing a drug deal is not a "good faith" effort. You were not making an effort to tap the WRONG phone (how can it be a "good faith" effort to admit into evidence of a phone line you didn't mean to tap?). You were not given permission to tap that phone so the evidence is not admissable in any court. Anything less would mean that the police would have carte blanche to use the order to wiretap one person's phone lines as an excuse to tap EVERYONE's phone lines and then finding whatever illegal information they can and using that to arrest totally unrelated people.
Yes, they are. However, the fact you're not required to honor the list does not mean I am all of the sudden interested in a particular type of unsolicited marketing.
What you just mentioned about loopholes in the system just confirms that people like us who don't want to be called are being purposefully being harassed by means of these loopholes.
I do have a family and they could need to call me for any reason, including an emergency. I have no idea if its one of them or not when the caller ID says "UNKNOWN".
I should not have to be harassed by the phone ringing from people whom I am not interested in the first place.
What did I say about government teaching anything?
I've worked on a number of local grassroots campaigns where telephone campaigning has been necessary to get the message out and recruit people to volunteer.
Good for you. Please respect my wishes when I declare I do not want to be called and understand that those of us who don't want to be called are not going to mend to your ways.
Sure, some people don't want to hear anything. But some people do. Don't generalize and assume that all groups that call people are not honestly interested in educating the public. Yes, they may have an agenda, but points of view you haven't already heard should be welcome.
Good for them. Call them, not me. I signed up for the DNC so please respect that. I do not wish to impose anything on anyone, except those who wish to impose their views on me, I wish to tell them to fuck off and leave me alone forever.
I am saying that it is not out of the question. Outreach to citizens is very important, politically, and can contribute to quality of life in myriad ways. The economy also contributes to quality of life.
Thats some twisted thinking. Do people exist outside of their homes and telephones?
Most businesses do not use telemarketing to gain sales.
Don't like it? Don't pick up the phone. Nothing is stopping you, nothing at all.
Who gave you the right to keep calling and harassing me at all odd hours of day and night even after I said stop calling me and putting myself on a DNC?
What I don't agree with, is not allowing communication about an issue just because the method annoys you.
Television ads bother the crap out of me -- but I'm not saying they should be banned.
Um, its my phone. If I don't want to be called, I think you should respect my wish. Way to alienate people you want to sway to your side. I have no problem with you calling people who have not made their wish clear that they don't want to be called. I have a problem when you think you are entitled to bother my free time or my family's time for your own selfish interests.
I don't like TV ads either but the TV does not go RING RING RING and then require me to either listen to it ring for several minutes or turn it on and be forced to hear some spiel from idotic politican. (I don't own a TV anyway, thankfully).
Agreed. How is having self-serving politicans who want to impress their agenda onto the population via the means of forced telemarketing tantamount to healthy democratic involvement? Turning apathetic citizens into misinformed but "politically active" citizens is hardly an achievement.
I've been on the receving end of political calls.. from spokesmen for various candidates to people from special interest groups. Their tactics are borderline harassment and the frequency of their calls makes it very harassing as well.
No one is demanding that everyone be forced not to give a shit. Do you know how a do not call registry works? We ask not to be called. Everyone else who doesn't sign up (i.e. they do not do anything at all) will receive all the BS telemarketing calls they please (though, I belive, political groups are exempt from the DNC list and do not have to honor requests when asked to stop calling)
I'm being forced to get up and figure out who is calling me. Thats pretty much being forced to me. If people don't want to listen, whats the point?
Your apathy is disturbing. You can indeed make a difference, whether locally or on a state or national level.
Your faith in the democratic process is disturbing. I fundamentally disagree with the concept of a populist government and no matter how I try to campaign for reform, there will always be groups more powerful than me who are in control and masses of people who are willing to cede the government to them becuase they believe its the right thing to do, even after years of education and propaganda from political groups.
Whether you agree with my view or not, I am not going to be swayed by political propaganda and special interest groups calling. So why not make it easier for both of us and just not waste each other's time?
My point is that some people do want to hear the message, and may choose to get involved in something based upon a telephone call they receive.
SO CALL THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE CALLED!
Give me a break!
When I say I don't want to be called, I DO NOT WANT TO BE CALLED. Do you get it yet?
You don't want to be bothered? Then don't pick uo the phone. There are plenty of autoscreening solutions out there, so you wouldn't have to lift a finger. Is it so hard to get off the couch?
Why can't they just honor a do not call list? What difference is it if I pay $100 for some stupid system to keep these idiots off my phone or if they just agree not to call me in the first place?
How are they benefiting by calling me when I make it clear I don't want to be called? How do they benefit when I continue to not purchase their products or services when they call? This seems like rocket science to the telemarkters but they don't get it.
Who are you to say I or anyone else who refuses to listen to political groups (who are almost always the very special interest groups you sit here and decry) phone calls do not care about politics? Many of us are very active politically and are well educated on the issues.
The uneducated masses do not need special interest group propaganda, whether it is a solitication for votes or an attempt to "educate" (again, LOL) them. This also shuts out minor political parties that cannot afford telemarketing either. The whole idea is retarded anyway. This is what schools are supposed to teach, not special interest groups.
Are you really seriously telling me that telemarketing is nessecary to ensure the "best quality of life"? Are you really telling me that those of us who desire to not hear from telemarketers (its not as if they do not have a MULTITUDE OF OTHER WAYS to advertise their presence) cannot figure out how to spend our money, how to be politically involved (or choose to shut out politics because we think the system is fundamentally broken and cannot be solved within the means of the system), etc?
There are plenty of businesses that cannot afford to telemarket, yet they are sucessful.
I can't make it better. It would take a revolution to do that, something I'm not really capable of doing.
How is being forced to hear from them going to 'make it better'? Oh please tell!
Why should I have to waste my time screening or answering calls from people I don't want to hear from in the first place? What good is "educating" (LOL) people via the telephone if they do not want to listen to the message?
Umm.. I don't want to be called by anyone. This includes political parties, charities (thanks, I already donate hundreds of dollars yearly to local community groups, the Red Cross, and others I deem fit), and I am prefectly capable of finding the best goods/services to fit my needs on my own.
I already know enough about our political system to know that our form of democracy is badly broken. I don't need their "information".
Why does the rest of the world need to help us? We're the ones who pour billions of aid and resources into the rest of the world yearly - we can handle our own affairs just fine.
In fact, I think it would be an embarassment to our status as a wealthy and resourceful nation if we can't take care of something like this.
Our society has some of the best military, engineering, and public safety resources of the world. We don't need to beg less capable countries for help they can't give.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you should do a little research first. As seeing as I know the guy who started the whole group back in the 1980's (something that Wikipedia's admins and users voting in the VfD continued to not believe as they deleted the article) and having access to some of their old content, I think I know what I "mean".
In regards to their trolling activities, your reply PROVES that ideology constantly gets in the way of Wikipedia. One of the many reasons stated in the VfD is that "trolls" do not deserve to be noted in Wikipedia. This shows an inability for people to distance themselves from ideological viewpoints and common social attitudes. If Wikipedia states to be "NPOV" then I would expect it to actually be NPOV. But of course, Wikipedia is trying to be a psuedo-"democratic" encyclopedia where everyone gets a say. Being objective an NPOV is obviously exclusive to appealing to masses of people who do hold differing attitudes.
No, things just aren't uniformly scrutinized. Period. Some vandalism sits around for a year or two before it's noticed. Some things get AfD'd two minutes after they're created. It's random and doens't have anything to do with topic
Its definitely not random. They choose only to pay attention to something that doesn't fit within their ideological norms. i.e. a group that espouses social contrarian views. Something like a soccer player "looks normal" and thus does not get scruitinized.
One of my problems with "notability" is that it's really very much in the eye of the beholder. If someone says "that's not notable", it can simply mean that they don't know very much about the topic, and maybe there are some obscure 13th century specialist academics who think it is very much notable.
Right.
A lot of the gray-area votes are arbitrary.
I wouldn't say double standards, it's just different editors have different standards because there's no single policy that specifies what's notable and what's not.
I disagree.
Ideological attitude is reflected within Wikipedia's admins. Sure there may be some diversity that exists, but the most active editors tend to be the most ideological at the same time. They don't look at everything they see with an objective eye. Otherwise, this garbage about notability wouldn't be so contentious. They wouldn't include some of the most boring and mundane topics and then try to exclude other topics that are obviously more noteworthy.
Case in point - an article about neo nazism and a wikipedia admin (I'll have to dig this one up in a bit - I don't have all the documentation handy).
Wikipedia does very little to control the arbitary nature of the standard of how articles are written and how they are "administrated". Since very little structure existts to control these problems, the ideological nature of those who are given power is showing.
Well, there are some procedural things about wikipedia that unnerves me. I would like to see a competing project give a serious go at an alternative structure, to see if things can be done better.
While I hold Wikipedia in somewhat high regard for their noble efforts, I dont think we need new encylopedias. Brittanica does a wonderful job. So does Google and a bit of cross referencing. In reality, the information is already out there.
Well, genereally speaking, I tend to think that people should get a grip on their own spelling before criticizing others.
Actually, the non-existant soccer player got unanimously deleted as soon as it was discovered. I simply saved a copy because it was one of the more unique examples of vandalism I'd seen (most are almost exactly the same).
I never said otherwise. The problem is a double standard - some things don't get throughly scrutinized right away while others do because of how people precieve certian topics or issues.
What's the BBS, by the way?
American Nihilist Underground Society, back in the late 80's, in Houston. Known for anti-social activities, nihilist, and worhsip of death metal.
Sure, its not like it was some big thing (and it wasn't huge by any means) but if Wikipedia is going to call this non-notable, then I can cite plenty of articles regarding things that are unquestionably obscure and barely known at all on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is also different from things like Slashdot and such because the goal is to have one big, cohesive database of human knowledge. On Slashdot, comments are only read for a couple days. On Wikipedia, I might think something should be phrased a certain way, but someone else might think it would be better phrased another way, and we have to actually settle those disagreements.
The fact that everyone has to cooperate on Wikipedia a lot more means that things won't always go my way. And that's not something that will ever change.
I don't think the goals of having a database of human knowledge requires the structure that Wikipedia has.
I also don't call what goes on "cooperation". Alot of times, things are done arbitarily by editors (by editors, perhaps I should have defined my terms earlier, I mean the "administrators" or people who have more power than the common user). I also don't call someone who doesn't like a particular article and unilaterally changing it to fit their ideology or interpertaion cooperation either.
I could care less whether or not Wikipedia wants to accept my article. What makes me miffed is the hypocrisy, bias, and double standards that exist (and this isn't the only example, just one).
The problem I have with wikipedia is that there is clearly a bias amongst both the users and editors.
A friend of mine used to run a popular local BBS. I helped to write the article about it, because I wasn't associated with it, my perspective was a little more "NPOV" than his. Then, a day later, some users get mad, because of the controversial opinions that were associated with this BBS and puts it up for VfD. The VfD wasn't going well for the article (most people were voting to delete because they never heard of it, the primary chief cop out reason). Then an editor comes along and decides its a candidate for "Speedy Deletion" and it gets deleted pretty quickly. The reason was non-notability.
This is rediculous because, as you state, a non-existant soccer player gets ZERO questions because its not controversial or expresses any opinions against the grain of Wikipedia groupthink. Considering how popular the BBS was back in the day, the arguments were totally rediculous. The editors and users voting on the VfD were citing cross-links in Google as a guide for "notability" of something that existed before the Internet was a mainstream (or even something that you or me could access). Then you have to also note the number of other articles that are totally pointless in terms of cultural relevance to anything - less than the BBS in question was.
Until Wikipedia fixes issues like these, I will never take them seriously. Yes, I have tried to talk to some of the higher ups, they are no better. They just call you a "troll" and ignore you.
Wikipedia is the perfect example of pitifully poor organizational structure marred by populist tendencies and groupthink.
Barclay stood nearly trembling, his eyes drawn to the back of the slim
body of young Cadet Crusher cavorting naked under the gentle
waterfall. His round pale buttocks, so smooth, so pink, so...
virginal. And with that doofy art-boy haircut plastered wetly to his
head he seemed even more attractive...
Wesley turned, full lips, flaccid, uncircumsized penis hanging limp
from his near-hairless groin over two unimpressive wrinkled little
testicles, his arms awkwardly akimbo, he stared at Barclay, a grin
spreading across his face.
"Broccoli! Come for a swim." He reached into the pool of water
swirling around his thighs, waded toward the older man, splashing and
grinning wickedly.
"W-Wes, d-don't... stop splashing me!" Barclay staggered awkwardly,
backing away from the waterfront, away from the wet, naked boy. His
stretchy standard-issue uniform pants only accentuated the bulge
swelling from his groin.
Wesley grinned, enjoying the lieutenant's discomfort, smug in the
knowledge that his youthful body excited the officer. He stepped out
of the water and grabbed Barclay's wrist; heaving backward and to the
side as he'd learned in his judo class, he sent Barclay to his knees
in the muddy bank of the pool...
But Barclay *had* somehow managed to get through the Academy's basic
training, and he did outweigh the lad by nearly 30 lbs... his hand
snaked out catching Wes' ankle and the two were on the ground in a
flash. Blue uniform wet and muddied sliding against the laughing
slippery wet young boy Barclay's hands grabbing whatever appendage was
handy in his efforts to pin the brat rubbing himself hard against the
smooth hairless body he easily pinned the arrogant little snot-nose
face-first in the mud.
"Well, Wesley..." Barclay rubbed his clothed groin against the firm
round crack of young Ensign Crusher's nether region.
Wesley giggled, even as Barclay leaned forward to keep Wes pinned down
by the weight of his upper body as he lowered his soggy pants to let
his hard penis spring forth, using his free hand to guide it between
Wesley's pink firm cheeks, tapping against the virginal little brown
button hidden therein.
"I've been wanting to to d-do this for a l-long time, you little...
little BRAT!"
Barclay plunged his penis into Wesley's rectum; the lad squealed,
impaled, as Barclay proceeded to ride his ass. He began humping back
at the cock violating his hind quarter, moaning in youthful excess...
"Gee Broccoli, this is *great*... what do you call it?"
"COMPUTER! FREEZE PROGRAM."
Barclay continued cornholing young ensign Crusher. Having secured his
program so that only he could access or stop it, he was at the moment
oblivious to the presence of his commanding officer, lost in his lusty
revenge fantasy.
"CAPTAIN'S OVERRIDE!"
Barclay landed with a thud, the head of his penis slamming into the
cold matrix grid of the holodeck floor howling in agony his pants
around his hips his erection vanished rolling onto his back clutching
his injured organ attempting to curl into a fetal position.
"Mr. Barclay..." his features etched in stone, so much control over
his facial muscles that it was difficult to move his jaw enough to
speak, Jean Luc Picard spat his words out very carefully.
"Consider yourself on report. Mister. Barclay." Picard tugged
meaningfully at the bottom of his uniform shirt.
Barclay lay with his knees drawn to his chest, his buttocks exposed,
his genitals clutched protectively, his eyes squeezed tightly shut
rolling desperately from side to side.
and I just debunked your silly journal article, btw
oh, would you mean like just about every case stated here??
yeah, if someone states a fact that is uncomfortable, its a troll.
i get how Slashdot groupthink works!
Except that:
1. The Onion is an obvious parody
2. The Onion is not going to be confused with the actual brands in question
I have every right to parodize you, your username, or anything else I please.
If you RTFA (did you?) you notice that there is a big "Associated Press" logo and several other notes that it is an AP article.
Why is Google all of the sudden exempt from all the privacy criticisms that everyone else gets mad about?
Hahahahaah!
So basically, this is a copier DoS?
If I go to Kinkos or some other place with self-serve copying (where I pay at the copier or where I tell them how many copies I made), I could literally shut down an entire bank of copiers by putting money into them and hitting copy?
What if I am photocopying play money that has a similar color composition?
Whatever the case, this is rediculous. Maybe I'll go down and piss some people off by shutting off their copiers and then get the feds on them.
Oh my, the stupidity of it all.
YHBT YHL HAND
I dont know how the search appliances work differently than Google.com, but what I do know is that they work damned well at our company for indexing informration just like Google.com does for the whole net.
If Google is marketing these appliances at various sized companies, then I would imagine they would have taken the time to make the algorithims appropriate for the target audience.
Whats wrong with attaching files? Having files online is more retarded, I can't take them with me when I am going to be offline. Plus, keeping the files on your computer is far more secure than the letting Google have yet another part of my life to tabulate, catalog, market, and database for their own profit.
Do you have any clue what you are talking about?
Wiretaps are only given with permission of a court to a specific person (or specific people). Being permitted by a judge to wiretap a suspected bomb plotter and then accidentily tapping the wrong line and overhearing someone doing a drug deal is not a "good faith" effort. You were not making an effort to tap the WRONG phone (how can it be a "good faith" effort to admit into evidence of a phone line you didn't mean to tap?). You were not given permission to tap that phone so the evidence is not admissable in any court. Anything less would mean that the police would have carte blanche to use the order to wiretap one person's phone lines as an excuse to tap EVERYONE's phone lines and then finding whatever illegal information they can and using that to arrest totally unrelated people.
See the exclusionary rule.
Yes, they are. However, the fact you're not required to honor the list does not mean I am all of the sudden interested in a particular type of unsolicited marketing.
What you just mentioned about loopholes in the system just confirms that people like us who don't want to be called are being purposefully being harassed by means of these loopholes.
I do have a family and they could need to call me for any reason, including an emergency. I have no idea if its one of them or not when the caller ID says "UNKNOWN".
I should not have to be harassed by the phone ringing from people whom I am not interested in the first place.
What did I say about government teaching anything?
I've worked on a number of local grassroots campaigns where telephone campaigning has been necessary to get the message out and recruit people to volunteer.
Good for you. Please respect my wishes when I declare I do not want to be called and understand that those of us who don't want to be called are not going to mend to your ways.
Sure, some people don't want to hear anything. But some people do. Don't generalize and assume that all groups that call people are not honestly interested in educating the public. Yes, they may have an agenda, but points of view you haven't already heard should be welcome.
Good for them. Call them, not me. I signed up for the DNC so please respect that. I do not wish to impose anything on anyone, except those who wish to impose their views on me, I wish to tell them to fuck off and leave me alone forever.
I am saying that it is not out of the question. Outreach to citizens is very important, politically, and can contribute to quality of life in myriad ways. The economy also contributes to quality of life.
Thats some twisted thinking. Do people exist outside of their homes and telephones?
Most businesses do not use telemarketing to gain sales.
Don't like it? Don't pick up the phone. Nothing is stopping you, nothing at all.
Who gave you the right to keep calling and harassing me at all odd hours of day and night even after I said stop calling me and putting myself on a DNC?
What I don't agree with, is not allowing communication about an issue just because the method annoys you.
Television ads bother the crap out of me -- but I'm not saying they should be banned.
Um, its my phone. If I don't want to be called, I think you should respect my wish. Way to alienate people you want to sway to your side. I have no problem with you calling people who have not made their wish clear that they don't want to be called. I have a problem when you think you are entitled to bother my free time or my family's time for your own selfish interests.
I don't like TV ads either but the TV does not go RING RING RING and then require me to either listen to it ring for several minutes or turn it on and be forced to hear some spiel from idotic politican. (I don't own a TV anyway, thankfully).
Agreed. How is having self-serving politicans who want to impress their agenda onto the population via the means of forced telemarketing tantamount to healthy democratic involvement? Turning apathetic citizens into misinformed but "politically active" citizens is hardly an achievement.
I've been on the receving end of political calls.. from spokesmen for various candidates to people from special interest groups. Their tactics are borderline harassment and the frequency of their calls makes it very harassing as well.
No one is demanding that everyone be forced not to give a shit. Do you know how a do not call registry works? We ask not to be called. Everyone else who doesn't sign up (i.e. they do not do anything at all) will receive all the BS telemarketing calls they please (though, I belive, political groups are exempt from the DNC list and do not have to honor requests when asked to stop calling)
I'm being forced to get up and figure out who is calling me. Thats pretty much being forced to me. If people don't want to listen, whats the point?
Your apathy is disturbing. You can indeed make a difference, whether locally or on a state or national level.
Your faith in the democratic process is disturbing. I fundamentally disagree with the concept of a populist government and no matter how I try to campaign for reform, there will always be groups more powerful than me who are in control and masses of people who are willing to cede the government to them becuase they believe its the right thing to do, even after years of education and propaganda from political groups.
Whether you agree with my view or not, I am not going to be swayed by political propaganda and special interest groups calling. So why not make it easier for both of us and just not waste each other's time?
My point is that some people do want to hear the message, and may choose to get involved in something based upon a telephone call they receive.
SO CALL THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE CALLED!
Give me a break!
When I say I don't want to be called, I DO NOT WANT TO BE CALLED. Do you get it yet?
You don't want to be bothered? Then don't pick uo the phone. There are plenty of autoscreening solutions out there, so you wouldn't have to lift a finger. Is it so hard to get off the couch?
Why can't they just honor a do not call list? What difference is it if I pay $100 for some stupid system to keep these idiots off my phone or if they just agree not to call me in the first place?
How are they benefiting by calling me when I make it clear I don't want to be called? How do they benefit when I continue to not purchase their products or services when they call? This seems like rocket science to the telemarkters but they don't get it.
Who are you to say I or anyone else who refuses to listen to political groups (who are almost always the very special interest groups you sit here and decry) phone calls do not care about politics? Many of us are very active politically and are well educated on the issues.
The uneducated masses do not need special interest group propaganda, whether it is a solitication for votes or an attempt to "educate" (again, LOL) them. This also shuts out minor political parties that cannot afford telemarketing either. The whole idea is retarded anyway. This is what schools are supposed to teach, not special interest groups.
Are you really seriously telling me that telemarketing is nessecary to ensure the "best quality of life"? Are you really telling me that those of us who desire to not hear from telemarketers (its not as if they do not have a MULTITUDE OF OTHER WAYS to advertise their presence) cannot figure out how to spend our money, how to be politically involved (or choose to shut out politics because we think the system is fundamentally broken and cannot be solved within the means of the system), etc?
There are plenty of businesses that cannot afford to telemarket, yet they are sucessful.
Give me a break man.
I can't make it better. It would take a revolution to do that, something I'm not really capable of doing.
How is being forced to hear from them going to 'make it better'? Oh please tell!
Why should I have to waste my time screening or answering calls from people I don't want to hear from in the first place? What good is "educating" (LOL) people via the telephone if they do not want to listen to the message?
Umm.. I don't want to be called by anyone. This includes political parties, charities (thanks, I already donate hundreds of dollars yearly to local community groups, the Red Cross, and others I deem fit), and I am prefectly capable of finding the best goods/services to fit my needs on my own.
I already know enough about our political system to know that our form of democracy is badly broken. I don't need their "information".
Is it really too much to ask to be left alone?
There are plenty of people who wanted to leave but they simply didn't have the resources to do so.
Remember, much of the population in New Orleans is poor to very poor. Most of these people have no cars of their own to use.
Why does the rest of the world need to help us? We're the ones who pour billions of aid and resources into the rest of the world yearly - we can handle our own affairs just fine.
In fact, I think it would be an embarassment to our status as a wealthy and resourceful nation if we can't take care of something like this.
Our society has some of the best military, engineering, and public safety resources of the world. We don't need to beg less capable countries for help they can't give.