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If someone starts off saying "it ain't so" by listing half a dozen facts that have nothing to do with the question, he's either terribly stupid, or trying to pull a fast one on you. It's called misdirection and confusion. Yes, it's actually a named trick in the arsenal of con artists.
So much for that.
At Wikipedia, we are proud that we have more editors than readers
You kidding? That's the goal of most admins - if you have new editors, there's the possibility that "consensus" on the little fiefdoms they control might actually change.
Most Wikipedia administrators have the goal of driving off new editors as fast as possible.
It's definitely a joke. It is not possible to have more editors than readers unless people are editing without looking at what they are editing, in which case WP is thoroughly screwed.
It is not possible to have more editors than readers unless people are editing without looking at what they are editing
Given the tendency of some editors to edit without ever looking at any source material for what they are editing, it sounds about right.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
But a Wikipedia administrator with a bunch of tags and article locks isn't too far away from inventing a fourth type of lie.
But a Wikipedia administrator with a bunch of tags and article locks isn't too far away from inventing a fourth type of lie.
Orwell has prior art, methinks.
[citation needed]
What? We can't have original research on
You'll see an exodus of writers if this becomes common consensus!
A relevant Orwell reference... on the internet? Dear god, what is slashdot coming to!
A relevant Orwell reference... on the internet? Dear god, what is slashdot coming to!
Yeah, really. Let's all stop posting. And then we can see if Taco edits out references to the mass exodus on Slashdot's Wikipedia page, replacing it with "The number of people posting to Slashdot peaked about two and a half months ago, declined slightly for a brief period, and has remained stable since then. Every month, some people stop posting, and every month, they are replaced by new people."
If someone starts off saying "it ain't so" by listing half a dozen facts that have nothing to do with the question, he's either terribly stupid, or trying to pull a fast one on you. It's called misdirection and confusion. Yes, it's actually a named trick in the arsenal of con artists.
So much for that.
Did you actually read the fine blog? It's titled "Wikipedia's Volunteer Story" (emphasis mine). So it's not so much an answer to a question as a question about the relevance of the supposed question. It's like asking whether nuclear warheads or terrorism is the greater danger to world peace. (I'd answer both.)
The Wikipedia blog raises an interesting point about the seemingly irrelevant statistic about an increase in the number of readers or users as against the alleged decrease in the number of editor
It's like asking whether nuclear warheads or terrorism is the greater danger to world peace. (I'd answer both.)
I think you mean "neither". They can't both be greater.
And it can logically be argued that if anything nuclear warheads have encouraged world peace.
Mod this "-2 pedantic and offtopic", I just had to point it out.
As opposed to simply reeling off ad hominems, and attacking his writing strategy rather than his argument?
He didn't say "it ain't so". RTFA. In fact, it doesn't even dispute it even though that's presumably the intent, it simply talks of looking further into the figures.
The first two things listed may not be directly related to the number of editors - but that's the point! "Number of editors leaving" is a rather meaningless figure. You have to look at the whole picture, which is what he's doing. And the second one is related - they're still getting new articles, so there's yet to be any problem.
The third one is directly related.
He then goes in depth in discussing the alleged claims of the 49,000 figure.
Am I reading the same article as you?
I think it's a bit much to say you're replying to a post riddled with ad hominems, I see a single one in the subject line, the rest looks looks conditional.
I also think it's a natural response when we're used to seeing politically motivated people dance around a simple claim.
Yes, this is an argument pattern I call "ad logicam" (I don't care if that is terrible latin, it's been 17 years since I used the language).
What happens is that the arguer knows these terms like "ad hominem", "straw man", etc. and concentrates only on that aspect of an opposing argument. So, you could make the most well thought out reply that completely destroys their point, but end with "you idiot" and the argument is 'lost'. Not lost in the technical sense of having a better point, but lost to flame and b
What's the difference? Wikipedia is simply a means of promoting whatever is the accepted "common knowledge" about a subject at the time. Anything resembling original research is immediately stricken from the Wikipedia "Gospel according to the Experts." In this regard, Wikipedia resembles the kind of banal nonsense one reads in high school textbooks.
Still, when I was wondering the other day what Ochratoxin [wikipedia.org] (I was reading a dire warning to avoid certain foodstuff for my baby due to this), wikipedia gave a good answer right away, for free. I don't get the wikipedia hate; I find it an extremely useful source of knowledge, completely replacing the by-now obsolete and bulky encyclopedias.
Oh, and I am impressed with your highschool textbooks! If only they could bring the students up to this level
Sorry, but I have been working for a (dead tree) magazine for a while. It might be different for online media, but editors leaving is NOT a good sign for a paper. Even if you bring more new people on board than are leaving, you're usually losing out. It's like in every business, when your skilled, experienced workers leave and you have to replace them with new, inexperienced people, quality suffers. First, by the very law of tenure, it's not the "bad" people that stay for long. They won't be kept long, in a business they'll be fired, in a volunteer area like wikipedia they'll either be asked to leave or, if they're disruptive, banned. So you can assume that 100% of what is leaving is "good" people. Else they would not have stayed around for a year or longer. On the other hand, you don't know what you get in. It's like hiring a new guy. Can he do his job? Is he a slacker? Is he even sabotaging you (unlikely in a professional environment, but for wikipedia? How do you determine if some new guy is going to be a dedicated editor or just a troll)? You won't know for a while.
Out with the good, in with the new is not necessarily something good...
He didn't say "it ain't so". RTFA. In fact, it doesn't even dispute it even though that's presumably the intent, it simply talks of looking further into the figures.
Simply looking deeper into the numbers is one thing - spouting facts and figures in an attempt to impress and overwhelm the reader and thus distract him from actually thinking about the numbers is a different thing entirely. The latter is precisely what is happening here, and you fell for it hook line and sinker.
The first two things listed may not be directly related to the number of editors - but that's the point! "Number of editors leaving" is a rather meaningless figure. You have to look at the whole picture, which is what he's doing. And the second one is related - they're still getting new articles, so there's yet to be any problem.
Looking at the whole picture, and actually thinking about the numbers he presents rather than being impressed by their size, doesn't paint the rosy picture you and he want us to be dazzled by. If the number of editors is remaining stable, while the number of articles is going up - that means each editor is overseeing an increasing number of articles, which means the amount of attention he can pay to any given article goes inevitably down.
In actuality, since editors tend to cluster, that means that more and more articles are out on the fringes - under (at best) only loose or rote supervision, or not actually watched on a regular basis but only checked when someone happens to wander by. The first means that edits are often reverted without the editor actually spending much time looking at the new edit. The latter means the articles are (often) increasingly out of date. (I now routinely find articles weeks to months out of date, and found one a couple of weeks back that was three years out of date.) Articles out on the fringes are also especially vulnerable to vandalism.
Your last statement is particularly troubling to me. Just because there isn't a problem "yet", doesn't mean one can safely ignore trends. To use the traditional Slashdot automobile analogy: If your "check oil" light comes on, and your engine is still running normally, only a fool places a bit of tape over the light and pretends it doesn't exist.
As Slashdot is open source, Perl based, it won't be a problem.
Lets merge Slashdot code to Wikipedia so people, semi-randomly selected can moderate Wiki editor responses. It will have karma system too. If an editor does too much flamebait or "troll", his karma will go negative and by default, his editing powers will be reduced to normal levels and eventually taken off.
You have no clue how your type of editor responses makes users and the real deal (one off editors) feel right?
Like the Chewbacca Defense?
Yes, correct all you say.
So, we've now established that people in charge of Wikipedia consider themselves more important than their audience. Yes, I can confirm that from my own experiences and feelings. You know, it may be the problem.
Well I can't speak about him, but I can speak for myself and say the deletionists ran me off. I originally found the idea of Wikipedia fascinating-- Kinda like a bugzilla for knowledge. Anybody could supposedly help by finding the "bugs" or adding to the knowledge base, sounded cool to me.
So one day I found an error. It wasn't a big error, or one that would make a big difference to pretty much anyone (or so I thought) just a tiny error where a character in a TV show was supposedly A as far as sexual orientation and it was actually B. I knew this because I had just read an interview with the creator and head writer discussing this very thing. So I did what you were supposed to do when you found a bug- I fixed it and cited the page along with a second source with a video of the author discussing it at a convention.
Well within hours my change was deleted and I found myself banned from editing. Apparently the page was watched by a deletionist and he/she didn't like the thought that a character they liked may not be the sexual orientation they wanted them to be. So that was the end of that and now I mainly go to answers.com when I need a quick bit of info. After it happened to me I looked into the "behind the scenes" stuff floating around the net and Wikipedia seems to have its own version of trolls, sadly though the trolls have gained quite a bit of power there--the deletionists.
From what I saw it pretty much doesn't matter if the info there is correct or not, just as long as the page stays the way the deletionist likes it. Which is kinda sad as it distorts the whole thing, just look at the CoS follower that watched the page on Scientology like a hawk and changed anything bad about LRH or the church no matter how much documentation there was about their activities. So there is my little anecdote to add to the pile. I just wonder how much of this exodus is being caused by the deletionists running off or frustrating those that don't fit their mindset. I have found that Wiki is fine for more obscure info that the deletionists don't care about, say info about some minerals properties, but anything that has to do with current events or pop culture is pretty much off limits if there is a deletion troll lurking it. That is my take on it anyway.
Well, perhaps. But it seems to me that what you describe also happens when people have different *conceptions* of a problem.
Looked at dispassionately, the idea that as editorial standards are imposed, the number of contributors would be reduced seems *obvious*. If one imposed the requirement that firefighter recruits were able to bench press 80% of their body weight, you'd expect the number of applicants who enter the training stage to drop. It is quite possible for that to happen, while the number of *co
They also note that it's impossible to tell whether someone has left and will never return, as their account still remains there.
I stopped editing Wikipedia in 2004, IIRC. There were plenty of cases who people left and you could tell they weren't likely to return, as their User or Talk page had some spectacular meltdown where they cursed the entire project and -- in the cases of the more qualified editors -- they vowed never to write anything about their field outside of academic rounds ever again.
The funny thing is, elsewhere on this artice will be people bitching about "Well I left Wikipedia, I got fed up of people coming in an making changes to articles, without discussing with people or following basic guidelines". I'm not saying you're in the wrong, I'm just saying there's no right answer here, and the fault is not with "Wikipedia" as an entity.
The fallacy is referring to "Wikipedia" as if it was some single entity. The problem is between the editors - and when you edit, that includes you. There's no you-and-them, as the them may well be other people who are complaining about "Wikipedia", when by "Wikipedia" they actually mean their experience with you.
The only plausible time when a them-and-us argument is valid is when discussing Wikipedia admins (who are granted special privileges). But this doesn't apply to editors. You were an editor, and are just as much a target of Wikipedia criticism as any other editor.
The bottom line is that when you have a massive collaboration between people online who don't even know each other, there are going to be disagreements. Unfortunately, rather than debate it with each other, sometimes both sides of an argument will take it out on "Wikipedia", each of them referring to the other side's view as wrong, and an example of how doomed Wikipedia is.
Thankfully, criticisms on Slashdot comments or in the tabloids don't change the fact that out of this collabaration, we nonetheless actually have a resultant free encyclopedia that's pretty damn good.
I actually agree with what you're saying for the most part. But part of the general criticism of Wikipedia comes because people on the outside see it as a single entity. Which is unsurprising. So whenever they see something bad/wrong/unlikeable, they are going to blame "the Wikipedia" as a whole. It's to be expected, really, most readers have never edited Wikipedia. According to TFA, the amount of active editors peaked at over 54k while last month the amount of unique visitors was 344m. Granted, more people than those 54k have ever made edits, but how many? 200k? A million? Even in that case it would be a very low percentage of readers, what I'm saying here is, to non-editors Wikipedia will be a single entity.
I see one big difference between Wikipedia and some other great collaborative projects like the Linux kernel, X11, Wine, Haiku, etc. For open-source programming projects, there's a fairly significant entry barrier. You have to know programming, you have to be able to figure out how the project works in general before you can contribute code. Essentially, by the time you can submit a code patch, you'll have learned a few things about the internal working, whether you like it or not. To edit Wikipedia, though, the entry barrier is much lower. If you're already reading Wikipedia, all you need to edit is the ability to write in whatever language you may want to edit in. That's it. So you can easily start editing without even knowing there are Wikipedia admins, without having any clue about the (by now fairly complex) internal organization of Wikipedia and its editors. And, of course, not knowing anything about the various "camps" of editors (deletionists vs inclusionists, anyone?).
As such, a fairly new editor to Wikipedia can go edit a few things and then be very surprised when they discover all the internal stuff, scaring them away.
And as a disclaimer, yes, I do overall think that Wikipedia is one of the greatest achievements of the Internet. It does seem rather US-centric, it does suffer from partisanship on articles regarding certain topics, etc., but on many, many subjects it's the best place for quick, all-in-one-place information.
The fallacy is referring to "Wikipedia" as if it was some single entity. The problem is between the editors - and when you edit, that includes you. There's no you-and-them, as the them may well be other people who are complaining about "Wikipedia", when by "Wikipedia" they actually mean their experience with you.
The problem is not between two individuals... The problem is a system which has an extremely cumbersome bureaucratic process for (eventually) addressing conflicts between editors.
Wikipedia is not m
the problem with other editors that won't accept your edits as valid unless you can show them a citation they understand
Aggravated further still by the fact that the "other editor" is, in real life, a self-absorbed Starbuck's barista whose only claim to precedence arises from the fact that he got involved in editing Wikipedia when it was the cool thing to do for sociopathic high school geeks who didn't have the motor coordination to play online shooters. He was navigating manufactured bureaucracy while you were navigating jungles leading that archaeological expedition; now you want to correct something on the article about the very same cache you unearthed, but "Would You Like Extra Foam On That?" Boy is throwing up speed bumps, mainly because he he lacks any basic understanding of your field of expertise, but also because he just had a fight with his mom and he's in a real foul mood.
A large part of the internal Wikipedia war is Inclusionists and Exclusionists. Inclusionists believe by and large that a page should never be deleted - simply moved, merged, or filled out until it is eventually up to par. Exclusionists believe pages should be held to a certain standard, and pages that can't reach that standard within a few days after their creation should be deleted.
I myself am an Inclusionist. In the days of cheap storage and bandwidth, there is not really a good reason not to have a page on there because it doesn't have references or citations yet. The key word there is "yet". Higher-ups are too quick with the delete button and so if you cannot write a large article with proper citation within a few days you might as well not bother at all.
That's why I (and many others) just don't bother at all anymore. I was fortunate enough to be able to write for a little while when Wikipedia was still fairly new. I loved watching the articles I created get built up by other people and grow, but this takes time. Nowadays, the current policy is basically unwilling to provide the time to let the weekend and occasional contributors pitch in to build an article slowly, so instead the people writing the articles are the people who have a vested interest in getting them written. That is a good and bad thing.
Requiring citations is great, but if I'm making edits related to a fairly small European language only spoken in one country, what can I show? I can cite books or online resources written in that very language
No, you never cite online resources -- you cite books that you know other editors will never be able to read, then you can make whatever claims you want about the citation. That's my experience of how content disputes work.
Next step -- wiki admins with mod points are going to mod this as "troll"!
The point being, there's no automated way to do this, in order come up with statistics about the site.
An anecdote of "Well I stopped editing in 2004, and so did some people I know" may make for interesting discussion, but doesn't tell us anything useful about trends in Wikipedia editing as a whole, and certainly doesn't support the recent story.
Unfortunately, Wikipedia is one of Slashdot's blindspots - where the usual thought out points go out of the window in the groupthink, and mod points are dished out purely on who can criticise Wikipedia, for whatever reason, be it a personal bad experience of editing there, or some axe to grind against its policies.
It nevertheless should tell you something that criticism of Wikipedia is now so widespread, and particularly by ex-editors/admins (one could argue that is nothing surprising - but the sheer numbers of such "exs" surely is extraordinary).
Anyway, it is interesting, sometimes useful in a sort of "ask a friend" way, and sort of a real-life H2G2, but basically, it's a bit of fanciful nonsense to think it's anything particularly special or proper (the same goes for the web in general, and "web 2.0" in particular). People are the same as always, and the information online is neither necessarily persistent, and is mostly noise (and any influence on offline "hard copy" information may be overall detrimental due to the noise/inaccuracy added).
Also too many people still haven't realised that the Internet is not some special mystical place but is in fact just part of the real world, and ultimately has to be subject to real world social, political and judicial norms, despite the difficulties in applying some of those.
A lot of the idealists who want to belief the fluff about a free magical Internet are people who in the real world would try to push their idealistic nonsense and simply allow the strongest elements in society to abuse any "freedom" to impose horrible restrictions of freedom. It's the same kind of mindset that believed the nonsense accompanying certain failed political ideologies of the 20th century, which we now have ample evidence that they are fanciful ideas that in reality just bring misery.
People need to stick to boring old tradition and the lessons we have learnt over and over again over centuries.
It nevertheless should tell you something that criticism of Wikipedia is now so widespread
By that argument, the fact that there are all those anti-vaxxers and creationists tells us something...
But, of course, it doesn't. What it tells us is that there's a loud group of people who like to criticize Wikipedia, many of which are disgrunted ex-editors and ex-admins, and a bunch of bandwagon jumpers.
Reading your lengthy post shows anectodal evidence of why people doesn't like Wikipedia editing.
Trust me, people likes Feynman, Einstein, Hawking like scientists not just because their amazing breakthroughs... They like them because they were friendly to average people.
"Editing an article, dealing with editors feels something like snail mailing a typed letter to Britannica HQ in 1980s. At least, Britannica guys were polite people."
Here is another "anecdotal" evidence, a quote told to me by a very very impor
Unfortunately, Wikipedia is one of Slashdot's blindspots - where the usual thought out points go out of the window in the groupthink, and mod points are dished out purely on who can criticise Wikipedia, for whatever reason, be it a personal bad experience of editing there, or some axe to grind against its policies.
Which should tell you something... because in years past, the situation was precisely the opposite. In any article about the Wikipedia posts praising it and explaining how it was the most wonder
In October, we had 344 million unique visitors from around the world, according to comScore Media Metrix, up 6% from September.
That's a lot of eyeballs.
If nothing else they deserve an award for not plastering advertisements on their site. I know some major newspapers that would love to see their sites get that kind of traffic.
If nothing else they deserve an award for not plastering advertisements on their site.
They do plaster advertisements 'all over' the site. Right now, there is a huge banner ad begging for donations right at the top of every page.
The online encyclopedia, knowledge base, social networking site, essay repository, blog, search engine, news aggregator, dessert wax and floor topping Wikipedia has reached its three millionth article and ceased all editing [today.com] as everyone gives up this "free" foolishness and goes home, to read newspapers and watch network television for the rest of their lives.
Dr Felipe Ortega reported that only 1% of edits by random users were kept. "They were all unspeakable shit," said burnt-out administrator WikiFiddler451. "All of them. No, I'm not exaggerating. Go to Special:Newpages and read a day's entries some time. You'll start by deleting the whole database, before you get onto plotting the doom of humanity. Christ, why go on?"
Recent media coverage has highlighted the "inclusionist/deletionist" wars of 2005, including enquiries from Endemol looking for a "passionate deletionist" to join Big Brother 11, "preferably one with big tits." It is thought that Wikipedia could have had ten million articles by now had they not viciously abused their editorial powers by deleting your valuable contributions about you, your teacher at school, your garage band or your dog or the many cameraphone pictures you uploaded of your penis.
"Everything's already been written," said WikiFiddler451, burning the last of his Star Wars figurines before leaving for his rehabilitation course in social interaction skills and basics of hygiene. "Do you have any idea how big THREE MILLION articles is? A BILLION GODDAMN WORDS! Are you going to read more than a droplet of that in your life? No you aren't. You're following your goddamn Twitter.
"But hey, only two million articles are The Simpsons in popular culture or Doctor Who in popular culture. No-one actually reads this stuff, they just write it. We have LiveJournal for stuff people write that no-one wants to read. 'Oh, I wandered lonely as a cheeseburger/ My passionate angst filling my Coke with darkness.' Or Knol. KNOL! I'll just Bing that one."
Shell-shocked veterans of Wikipedia are at a loss now that it's all over — wandering the alleyways of the Internet, mumbling to themselves about "ANI" and "we had to delete the village in order to save it," threatening the policemen moving them on with "arbitration" and bursting into tears when the policeman answers "citation needed." Mere children, sent into the culture wars to save knowledge from horrors they barely understood, and coming home as crippled wrecks. No victory parades for these brave men and women. There is only so much Citizendium, Uncyclopedia and 4chan can do for these child heroes. With your help, we can build Potemkin wikis for these honorable veterans, where they can safely ban and unban, revert and edit-war, and correct the naming of Danzig^WGdansk^WDanzig^WGdansk without the possibility of damage to actual human readers. Please donate so that they may never bug you again.
My god man, you should write for The Onion. Bravo!
The number of Wikipedia editors is not declining. In fact, their population has tripled in the last six months.
Elsewhere on this page: "Wikipedia is crap! I tried to make an edit on the Elephant page, about a sudden increase in numbers, and it got reverted! Everytime! Well, that ends my experience of editing with Wikipedia, I don't know why I bother! And obviously therefore no one else will, and Wikipedia is doomed."
Well I looked for and article about this and couldn't find it on Wikipedia, so it must not be true.
And this damn well better be modded as funny if at all.
I think the original article was talking about English Wikipedia, but Eric quotes statistics from all Wikipedias combined.
I joined recently to update the page of a candidate running for Ted Kennedy's seat (election will be done and over with by January). I wasn't updating much, adding the candidate's birth date, linking to a book he had written, and adding the part copied from other candidate's wiki pages that links him to the Senate race. After a full day of back in forth with an editor deleting whatever I had just added, the only think that made it through was the link to the book he had written. And I think that just slipped through. Not worth the effort at all trying to update a page with new info. That ends my time working with Wikipedia.
I've had similar experiences.
I think the editors probably do a lot of good overall, but they tend to be heavy handed, deleting whole articles without warning rather than striking parts they find objectionable (which I think is more the intended role of the editor).
Further, I've seen cases where one editor will request better sources, and a second will just delete it (rather than nominate it for 7-day deletion). Kind of annoying.
But you were an editor too, along with everyone else giving their experiences here.
Editors can't delete articles, so that is factually wrong. Admins can, but that is not "without warning", it's after a debate when comments are invited from editors (including you), so again that is factually wrong.
There's also Speedy Delete which can be more contentious, but that's still not without warning, and again only Admins can do that. And it's a balance, without it, Wikipedia would be bogged down with thousands of no
*sigh* Now we have a mod abusing "overrated" on a post that was never uprated, and thus escaping metamod.
I'll say it again: editors can't delete articles, and articles aren't deleted without warning. Those are facts. The OP was mistaken, I'm afraid.
(Rather than complaining about Wikipedia editors (who can be anyone), perhaps we should complain about the poor state of moderation on Slashdot, especially as mod points now seem to be given out to a subset of people, also making it far easier to abuse...)
*sigh* Now we have a mod abusing "overrated" on a post that was never uprated,
There's no logical problem with that. A comment doesn't have to be modded up to be overrated. A stupid post might be highly overrated at slashdot's default score of 1 or 2, yet still not fall into a category like 'troll' or 'flamebait.'
Of course they can't just delete articles. But they sure as shit can get on IRC and get their other editor friends to stack the vote an article for deletion.
But you were an editor too, along with everyone else giving their experiences here.
Editors can't delete articles, so that is factually wrong. Admins can, but that is not "without warning", it's after a debate when comments are invited from editors (including you), so again that is factually wrong.
There's also Speedy Delete which can be more contentious, but that's still not without warning, and again only Admins can do that. And it's a balance, without it, Wikipedia would be bogged down with thousands of nonsense articles that editors create, as this can be done at a faster rate than they could be deleted through the AfD debate. And if anything, this is another reason why more editors is not necessarily a good thing, as it also means more work generated - the number of editors is meaningless, without telling us what those editors are doing. And indeed, perhaps the editors leaving are the ones you dislike, in which case, you should be glad
Actually, admins can delete new articles as spam without any warnings. I have only seen this misused on the Danish wikipedia, which quite frankly has terrible editors. The article was one about the "controversial" subject if "lower bound", which one admin hadn't heard about in whatever schooling he had had --- and therefore deleted immediately as spam. Some protesting got me a string of warnings, demands, threats and whatnot... but I note the article was resurrected and is essentially unchanged. Not much o
Actually, mdwd2, you are wrong.
This did happen, without warning. Was it admins instead of editors? I can't say.
Do I believe the same rush you felt, telling me my experiences were invalid, is behind many of the bad experiences people have with Wikipedia?
You betcha'.
So wait, one editor is rude to another editor, and you blame "Wikipedia"?
Perhaps if a troll upsets me here, I should blame "Slashdot".
Wikipedia, a heap of self-serving corporate propaganda and free advertising pretending to be an Encyclopedia
Now we're getting silly - believe it if you like, but your anecdote of a bad experience from another editor does not support this view! I can't see how these two issues are even remotely related? That editor was likely just a random other person (who for all we know, is
Anecdotes are not evidence, and tell us nothing about trends in contributions.
But yes, basically some people have a bad experience about working with other people online anonymously. But it is a mistake to think that this means Wikipedia is flawed - for all we know, the other person is also here complaining about people who kept adding "rubbish" to an article... I'm sure you think your change was valid, and maybe it was, but that's not always the case [slashdot.org]. There's no right answer, yet people will always come aw
PS - what was the article (or name of the candidate)? If you're in the right, maybe other people such as myself can have a look, and put the changes back.
I have seen hundreds of posts on Slashdot about incompetence and abuse of power by Wikipedia editors. NONE of these posts contained reference to the events described. Citation needed, indeed.
The popularity of Wikipedia is one of the clearest symptoms of the human condition on the Internet: a state where truth is not authority or accessibility, but authority and accessibility are truth. Put in practical terms: people refer to the top Google hit for anything they search for, and informed researchers / educators are finding it increasingly hard to reach out to the layman via the Internet.
Yes, by quantity alone, Wikipedia wins - but only after my stack of 500GB drives, filled with random bits. Yes, any printed Encyclopedia Generica also contains errors. So what? What are you doing using either, beyond Middle School / Junior High? Every subject has well-known compendia of knowledge and well-used text books for an introductory exposition, so why aren't you reading there? The problem is not that people aren't using traditional generic encyclopedias any more; the problem is that people are using Wikipedia where previously they would never have gone to the first random person they meet in the street and asked them for information about a subject.
So much for Wikipedia's effect on everyone else. What is most damaging, I think, is that Wikipedia itself has grown as a cult. My girlfriend is from a JW family, and I've seen what a mild cult is like: people who criticise it are met with jargon, misdirection (TFA is a fine example!), denial, and finally anger. Ritual is more important than enlightenment, because ritual which was initially aimed (if you're feeling generous) to fulfil the cult's vision instead becomes a method of maintaining existing power structure. A cult convinces you that you are educating yourself in the best way by propagandizing successes while ignoring endemic inefficiencies. You will learn some things from getting involved in Wikipedia, just as you will gain philosophical insight from many cult study groups - indeed, some cult / Wikipedia articles are technically brilliant - but you're unlikely to improve your condition. You're not there to promote scholarship, or pedagogy: you're there to support the rules.
I thrive in an academic environment. I am thoroughly scrutinised by peers. I interact with experienced educators and students so my ability to impart information is improved. I feel I've made advances to my discipline, and that those tutored by me have benefitted from my efforts in preparing myself to help them. But I've not got past first base trying to teach cult members, whether the more fundamentalist JWs I've known or through contributions to Wikipedia. The challenges are always the same:
- "But [authority] imparting [belief], which means [policy];"
- "But [inability to understand source], which means [conspiracy];"
- "But [disagreement], which means [call on authority to suppress dissent]."
This isn't how scholarship works. The worthiness of scholarship is measured by the question: "Have I exposed some truths?" The worthiness of cult contribution is measured by: "Have I provided an argument which pleases my masters?" The majority of non-trivial Wikipedia articles are neutrally titled subjects presenting the result of a dominant viewpoint being transformed into a supporting argument, just as a cult article on "X" will end up being "why X is right/wrong"; the majority of scholarly articles are works written to support a transparent abstract.
The Internet was a lot easier to find introductory information from before Wikipedia: search engines returned, at the top, accessible subject-specific sites contributed to by researchers, professionals or keen amateurs (N.B. an "amateur" in the sense of an expert doing something on his own dime, often with a level of qualification, such as a radio ham). Now it's Wikipedia, Wikipedia scrapes, answers.com style aggregators, random stores with products related to words, and - if you're really lucky - a subject-specific site. The latter remain popular because they're introduced to you by experts, whether on forums, at college, or among colleagues - but to find these among search results always takes more effort than just hitting "en.wikipedia.org" right at the top.
And that's the only reason's Wikipedia's popular: she's easy and you're lazy.
And that's the only reason's Wikipedia's popular: she's easy and you're lazy.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Did you try registering for an account and making a few edits to unrelated pages to establish yourself as a serious editor [wikipedia.org]? If so, what was the your Wikipedia username?
If the page was fully protected, did you try blanketing the talk page with {{editprotected}} requests? Did you try checking the page's deletion log (View history > View logs for this page), seeing why the page was protected, and then seeing if the problem had blown over? If it has, request unprotection at Wikipedia:Requests for page pro [wikipedia.org]
Look at all the bullshit you have to go through just to fix some spelling mistakes. That's why people leave Wikipedia and why it sucks.
Look at all the bullshit you have to go through just to fix some spelling mistakes. That's why people leave Wikipedia and why it sucks.
And why the level of spelling errors will increase geometrically as less-experienced editors and contributors fill the empty seats.
Did you try registering for an account and making a few edits to unrelated pages to establish yourself as a serious editor [wikipedia.org]? If so, what was the your Wikipedia username?
What happened to "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"?
You know the tiny fastmail.fm Aussie company who just does mail business and stays afloat with their fast, simple, modern UI and advanced/up to date tech/software usage?
Someone dared to write the unique features of Fastmail, when I referenced it to a server admin (in mail business) friend, he joked back at me for using a "spammer mail company"... I asked "how?", some idiot "citation needed" type went to article and marked it as spam. Imagine you claim your local pharmacy to sell drugs, it is the same thing
It gets into the field of bizarre when you see editors revert cleanups.
My personal story: I read a (probably little read) article to find it being vandalized (something like "$whateverperson is gay" sprinkled into the article) so I went and edited it. I admit, I didn't bother to register just for that. It was neither a locked article nor was it in any way controversal, so anonymous editing was possible. I removed the "xxx is gay" parts and checked it in with a remark noting that it was a vandalism removal.
I never really could understand the title "deputy director". Isn't that just an Assistant? Does s/he get paid more if s/he is a deputy as opposed to an assistant. Or is it just another pretentious affectation? Please explain.
Fancy titles and self esteem. Why do you think janitors are now facility managers?
The number of people reading Wikipedia continues to grow. In October, we had 344 million unique visitors from around the world, according to comScore Media Metrix, up 6% from September.
I don't think the number of readers was actually a point of contention. How long those readers actually stay on Wikipedia and how useful they find it now that everything is getting culled by overzealous moderators citing "lack of sources" etc. is possibly more the point.
Wikipedia is the fifth most popular web property in the world. The number of articles in Wikipedia keeps growing. There are about 14.4 million articles in Wikipedia, with thousands of new ones added every day.
Wikipedia's own article on Wikipedia has a nice graph of article count. Since Jul 2007 it seems they've typically been adding about 2000 articles a day
The number of people writing Wikipedia peaked about two and a half years ago, declined slightly for a brief period, and has remained stable since then. Every month, some people stop writing, and every month, they are replaced by new people.
Interesting this is exactly the point at which the increase in articles per day flatlined, meanign that the number of editors they ave maintained since means a linear addition to the total volume of articles, and not the "projected doubling that they expected" on the graph.
They also note that it's impossible to tell whether someone has left and will never return, as their account still remains there.
So they don't maintain a timestamp of "last activity by author" ??? Fucking nonsense, pardon my language.
The report touched a nerve, and their response with half-assed, half-complete figures does nothing to convince me the report was incorrect.
And they have the gall to ask for 7.5 million US in donations for a diminshing product. Jimbo's days of champagne, caviar and jet planes are numbered methinks.
So they don't maintain a timestamp of "last activity by author" ??? Fucking nonsense, pardon my language.
There is a most recent contribution for each username, and this contribution has a timestamp. But the blog post discounts inferring things based on this date as it "doesn't predict whether the same person will make an edit in the future". I'd make a comparison between this view and the concept of a lapsed Catholic [wikipedia.org].
The expertise I have in a subject or two will never make it to wikipedia. I won't even bother to get started.
Why don't you write it for everything2? Writeups are rarely edited there, only superseded.
Ha! I thought about contributing to some articles relevant to my engineering work, but when I read some of the discussions that went on forever about obscure grammatical points or trying to decide between two perfectly (and probably equally) valid words, I ran (clicked) away very quickly.
I love Wiki, but it's the land of the obsessive compulsive. I'm terrified to even read the discussion for the article on the TV show Monk.
How did they dispute it? Did they just edit the wiki article about editors leaving?
But seriously wikipedia started dying the second they handed out enhanced powers for being a no lifer trolling Wikipedia all day. Later on top management showed no interest in reigning in abusive admins, and even rewarded several who were shown to be taking part in out right fraud and lying.
... I would suggest using privilege escalation to grant users more power and control based on how long they've been members and require that when people create accounts, they specify a number of areas that they possess knowledge of.....
I think that this is the right track for an enduring and effective Wikipedia. The ethos of "anyone can edit" (including anonymous IP addresses never before used) and pretending that all are equal seems to be the source of most of WIkipedia's problems.
For example, I read that anonymous IP address edits are the source of most vandalism, and have very low quality over all, and that anonymous edits are usually reverted, and that dealing with all of this is a substantial work load for the active editors and Adm
Wikipedia was a very interesting concept. A free online encyclopedia that everyone could contribute to. Everyone could fill his knowledge and information in, contribute to the common knowledge and, eventually, this should lead to possibly the best, most complete collection of human knowledge ever assembled. A quite noble goal, and for a while it worked out well.
Then came the trolls, the spammers, the corporate shills, and we noticed that human is appearantly not able to cooperate without rules and boundaries. Sad. But we're humans. Driven by base interests, instincts and egoism. So the idea of editors and supervisers was born, people who should take it into their hands to make sure these shills, spammers and trolls are kept out and tossed out. A noble goal, and for a while it worked out well.
But editors are just as much human as the spammers, trolls and shills are. When you are given the power to shape and regulate the knowledge of humankind, it becomes quite tempting to not only shape and regulate it, the big temptation is to dictate it. You are the keeper of knowledge, the overseer of truth.
No nobel goal this time and behold, it doesn't work out well.
It's the same "who watches the watchers" problem we see a lot today. If there's nobody overseeing your use of power, the temptation to abuse that power becomes strong. It seems we are unable or unwilling to self regulate ourselves when we are not held accountable for what we do. As we see here (as well as in politics or business) if you are only held accountable by your peers, it's unlikely that anything but the most gross transgressions will ever be punished. And with "gross", of course I mean "whatever goes against the interests of your peers". Not what goes against the interests of your "inferiors", your users or even the project or duty itself that you agreed to oversee and manage.
So what could be done? Another superstructure above the editors? I think it's already been done, and it doesn't change jack. A broader base has to be founded, not a smaller top. Power in the hands of more people, not less. The meta-moderation system of
Wikipedia allegedly has millions of users. Ok, so use them. Again, certain people may have a dislike of a certain editor and will vote his edits negative no matter how much they might remove vandalism because they feel slighted by them. The majority won't. And IF the majority feels slighted by a certain editor, it might be a good idea to remove that editor. Quite obviously he's not doing a good job.
What is this? Wall Street? That's the only place I know of where when something stops growing, because infinite growth of any human enterprise is not possible in reality, it's a signal to mark the time of death and run screaming into the hills. Oh noes! Company XYZ's growth is not going to be 50% a year forever! They're projecting 49.9%! Sell! Sell! Oh woes is we! Buy more bad loan products! Those are safer!
I would have thought hitting a level of stability in something like Wikipedia would be a good thing.
"The following is not for the weak of heart or Fundamentalists." -- Dave Barry


text: Imagine Needham firefighters' surprise when, while responding to a fire on Thanksgiving Day, they encountered actor/comedian Will Ferrell. "He was standing on the front lawn along with the rest of the family until we had the situation under control. And then he went back in the house," Needham firefighter Rick Laborne told Channel 7 Friday, admitting he was a bit starstruck. "He's one of my favorite actors." The fire, which apparently started in a garage, was extinguished within 30 minutes. "Afterwards we were telling [Ferrell's] wife, I believe, there are a lot of big fans and everything. So she goes, 'I'll bring him out to take pictures,' and it was a little too dark outside, so he invited us in to the family kitchen," Lieutenant Peter Cosgrove told the TV station. Said Laborne: "It was definitely a highlight for me. It was probably one of the coolest calls I've ever gotten."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Your current filters are…
by Andy Hewitt
In this session, Andy Hewitt will discuss the power of understanding human behaviour placing it at the heart of a marketing strategy. By identifying how and what influences individuals in different situations, marketers can accordingly adjust their propositions to provide relevant experiences and offers to consumers, which will trigger purchases when desired. Successfully understanding human behaviour additionally allows marketers to use technology to heuristically adapt in real-time to influence consumer behaviour, resulting in reduced costs and an improved lifetime value of consumers. Questions answered : What are the most important aspects of human behaviour for marketers to understand? How can digital services, tools and products tap into the themes of ease, social and habit? How can businesses utilise this knowledge to encourage a deeper engagement that actually triggers purchases, by adopting behaviour-changing techniques? What technology exists to track user preference and trigger behavioural change?
What if the days of "integrated" advertising were over? People have shown they can get together to share news and data about what they love. Lok at LOST and Lostpedia, World of Warcraft, AI... Movie and video game industries has worked for long in that direction to support their products over the years. What if advertising could evolve to a non-linear narrative that your communities can empower on their own? Questions answered : How to use digital in your brand communications in a relevant and effective way?
ROI from social media that locates social media in an existing paradigm of marketing communication metrics, and not in the realms of otherness. We feel this work is of the utmost important to create credibility for the channel within the marketing industries about the nature of social media work in marketing, communications and PR. The talk is the result of an ongoing knowledge transfer partnership between Birmingham City University and Big Cat which combines the latest global research with leading edge empirical research on real campaigns and techniques.
Questions answered :
How can you evaluate social media using existing frameworks? Examples of generating sales uplifts in low-engagement brands.
by Hassan Mirza
2012 has ushered in a new era of visualised social media. Social platforms Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram connect users with shared visual identities, illustrating that people are always seeking creative, hand-on ways to express themselves in the present. Join us for a seminar and panel discussion that explores why and how brands are embracing these platforms, not only to promote their products, but also to engage new audiences, crowdsource awesome content and drive social commerce. A panel of social media professionals will be sharing case studies of brands using these platforms creatively and effectively. Presented by Hassan Mirza, freelance social media consultant, who has worked on campaigns for Skype, NSPCC, Museum of London, the Law Society and a range of small businesses.
Questions answered :
How can brands leverage the power of these platforms while generating business? What is the difference between content creation and curation? How can brands drive engagement and crowdsource content through competitions? How can visual social platforms enhance SEO? How do brands engage communities and drive qualified traffic?
by Paul Mallet
A session for senior marketers who are responsible for planning & managing multiplatform digital communications. Following from our sell-out session at Digital Shoreditch in 2011, we'll be revisiting our TOTAL DIGITAL approach, and outlining the last years' developments in the digital marketing arena. Based on our experience with leading FMCG brands including Ribena, Seven Seas, Corsodyl, & Panadol Brass Managing Partner and Strategic Director, Paul Mallett will outline our approach to managing multichannel digital activity for our clients and how to project and measure ROI across multiple online channels. Paul's viewpoint is that social media, search, platforms and media operate as intrinsically connected nodes of a brand's online eco-system. Treating online not as separate disciplines, but as a continuum from search to media to content to engagement leads to a more holistic (and realistic) Return on Investment model.
Questions answered :
How do I work out the Return on investment of digital marketing activity? How do I manage multichannel digital activity for my brand?
Looking at branding from a startup/small business perspective: most startups 'tack on' their branding in the form of a visual identity & logo at the end of the process, where they need to put that at the heart of their business. Also (interactive Q&A) looking at practical ways businesses can benefit from branding, and how to choose and work with an agency.
Questions answered :
Why is 'pretty' is NOT good branding? How can you save money by good planning and strategy? Why does (social) technology changes the game for business' brand strategy? What are the top questions to ask when appointing an agency?
Why 'pretty' is NOT good branding. How to save money by good planning and strategy. Why (social) technology changes the game for business' brand strategy. Top questions to ask when appointing an agency.
It's given that youth are hugely engaged in digital media and are the most adept at making the most of platforms and how to the systems - ranging from maximising benefits from mobile to how to get free everything. The question is: How far can they go? The negative effect of Google on short term memory has been established, as has the effect of fast moving content and culture on the ability to concentrate.
Questions answered :
What's the right balance in terms of intensity and frequency of digital engagement, and consider the interests of brands and youth?
Brands have learnt to engage with consumers online and have now built audiences in social media. But most current social media research doesn't allow brands to understand precisely who they are talking to, what's important to them or how that online audience connects to their traditional segments as mapped by audience studies. The Brand Graph study used innovative techniques to map the interest graph and the social graph of the social media audience of O2 UK and then looked at how to use real-time social media data to refresh traditional audience studies in order to build a dynamic model of the audience. The talk will share the full results of the study, details of the tools used to mine the data as well as plenty of interactive data visualisations.
Questions answered :
- Why really real-time social media mining is hard - Why simply "monitoring" social media is not good enough - How to mine context and behaviour, not just content - What new research models for mining social media can be used - What is the Brand Graph - How to build a Brand Graph and what to do with it.
- why really real-time social media mining is hard - why simply "monitoring" social media is not good enough - how to mine context and behaviour, not just content - what new research models for mining social media can be used - what is the Brand Graph - how to build a Brand Graph and what to do with it
by Alex Barclay
A discussion of how we can use design and serious play principles to innovate on our business processes and customer engagement models
Questions answered :
How can design process help us think about and overcome business challenges? What does it mean to innovate inside a company? What does it mean to build innovation capacities for clients? What might new engagement models look like?
21st May to 1st June 2012


text:
Cable TV show to feature Newton auction company
If you tune into tonight's season premier of "Dukes of Haggling" at 10 p.m. on the Discovery Channel, you may see some familiar sites and faces.
This season of the show is expected to feature Neal Auction Company in Newton, as well as its staff, regular auction attendees and many other locations and people from the area, according owner Kevin Neal and others who talked with the Observer News Enterprise on Monday.
To read more of this story, pick up the Tuesday edition of Catawba County's community newspaper, The Observer News Enterprise, at newsstands throughout the county.


text: Over the last few months I've slowly been chipping away at building a 54"by 84" utility trailer. Finally the job is done just as the weather is changing and we'll soon be able to work outside. Here is a link to the pictures I took as I was building it. Harolds trailer The trailer has a 5200lb axle with electric brakes. I initially built a ramp gate with expanded metal and the last picture in the album shows a frame for a short tailgate that I can use when hauling sand and gravel.


text:
From NBC's John Boxley
Derry, N.H. -- Speaking at an "Ask Mitt Anything" town hall meeting here, Romney continued to hammer home the theme of "Washington is broken and that change can only come from an outsider, not an insider like McCain or Clinton.
"Washington is fundamentally broken and incapable of dealing with the challenges we have," Romney said. "We have an extraorinary list of problems; it's almost like a broken down automobile clunker, pushing it into station and saying can you fix it? The problem is we have been pushing it into the same garage year after year after year...."
"Its finally time to have somebody go to Washington who is not a lifelong politician worrying about his career, worrying if his party is going to get edge, worrying whether he can settle a score with other politicians, but rather worrying about one thing, solving the problems and challenges that face America."


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although if the neighbor's dog keeps getting out of his electric fence I might have no choice...
Buy a brick of velveeta cheese and a bottle of castor oil. Sprinkle some of the castor oil on the brick and feed it to the dog every time it gets out of the fence.
Trust me, the problem will solve itself one way or the other.
How does one feed the same brick of Velveeta cheese to a dog repeatedly? Are you "recycling" the cheese? Is that what the castor oil is for?
Buy a brick of velveeta cheese and a bottle of castor oil. Sprinkle some of the castor oil on the brick and feed it to the dog every time it gets out of the fence.
How appropriate, that sounds more like a Jack O'Neil solution than a MacGyver solution. MacGyver would have increased the voltage to the dog using a paper clip, a roll of newspaper, and two tube socks. A Samantha Carter solution of course would be to trap the dog and the neighbor in a black hole paralell universe using the power of science. A Daniel Jackson solution would be to interpret the ancient runes on the dog's collar, call the neighbor, and whine until the neighbor agreed to promise to not let the dog get over into the yard again. Teal'c would just stare the neighbor down, clenching and unclenching his jaw, until the neighbor shit his pants and moved away.
I would like to bid on the working ZPM please, time for me to sell power to the power company! heh!
A working ZPM that has the power of a few tons of Naquadah and the evilest thing you can think to do with it is sell power back to the power company? I for one would take over Earth with it.
Yeah all you pathetic humans.. be afraid of my sometimes glowing (depending on how lazy the f/x guys were that week) lump of plastic.
He will take over the world with it, he'll start by selling the power to the power companies. That will help him raise funds to start expanding his power and influence
Two chicks at the same time.
Ohh, this is slashdot.
A chick!
Then what is a Naquadah generator? [wikia.com] Naquadria [wikia.com] is a far less stable, more powerful isotope of Naquadah that SGC used to produce the first hyperspace capable Goa'uld/Tau'ri hybrid fighter aircraft.
I for one would take over Earth with it.
I for one would hook it up to an Asgard replicator and ensure every single person on the planet had their food, clothing, material, and shelter needs met. Then I'd create a replicator for each home, hook the whole thing into replicated fusion plants, and allow the entire world to throw off the shackles of money and greed, living lives of leisure, learning, mutual co-operation, and self discovery.
ZeePMs are at maximum entropy upon creation. ZedPMs can dial more than 6 chevrons, and make wraith become vegan.
With proper pronunciation comes much zero point energy. Use it wisely!
Also known as Stargate's Emergency Plot Device. Ever notice how every one of them they find is almost dead or will be dead very very shortly, but is always just enough to save the plot? So it goes to follow that any ZPM would have exactly enough power to work at the auction and then be useless.
So? If it has exactly enough power to save my ass once, I still want one!
Except for the one that powered atlantis for a season or two.
Wasn't that one introduced as a "save their ass" device? And wasn't it being maxed out just to keep the city running, it couldn't actually provide any defenses for the city?
I didn't really watch the show too much
It ran for the next two seasons, allowing them to raise and lower shields, engage and disengage the cloak, fire drones, and have plenty of power to spare for everyday goings-on. I believe it was the episode with Rodney and his sister experimenting with parallel universes in season 3 which drained the ZPM.
For starters, I believe they claimed to be using some mini Naquada generators to keep the general city running. It was mentioned a few times in season 1 such as when there was an energy draining monster, and later they needed to make one give off an EMP.
As for the shield, I don't recall them using the left-over ZPM for that... they did use it to make a cloak but even they said that used very little power. Unless you mean the shield around the gate itself, at which point I don't recall if that was the ZPM
For starters, I believe they claimed to be using some mini Naquada generators to keep the general city running. It was mentioned a few times in season 1 such as when there was an energy draining monster, and later they needed to make one give off an EMP.
Yes... for season 1. The energy-draining monster was in episode 2 or 3 (I think it was called Hide and Seek). The ZPM found in the SG1 episode Mobius was sent to Atlantis for the season 2 premiere and used until the energy bridge incident. The one they got a few episodes later lasted to the end of the series, I believe.
As for the shield, I don't recall them using the left-over ZPM for that...
The shield was used in The Siege, Echos, First Strike/Adrift/Lifeline, The Last Man (not shown), First Contact, Enemy at the Gate... did I miss any? I forget which ZPM was used in Echos, but
They actually did a fairly good job of slowly integrating technology. At first, each alien tech was extremely rare and hard to find, then they would either find more or find a way to duplicate one.
The ZPMs worked exactly this way. At first they would get one, it would go away and they might get another. They were old and rarely had a charge. Towards the end there were actually a handful in use.
Same with ships and most other tech.
I like that technology wasn't arbitrary like on Star Trek, where they might get their hands on a technology or idea that was world changing to solve a single intractable problem, but then that idea would just vanish instead of getting integrated into the rest of the system. (Being able to travel backwards in time would have solved a LOT of problems, and they had that technology for a LONG time without anything preventing them from using it--eventually they figured out that it was a problem and invented a time-police, but that was much later)
Plus, a ZPM technically doesn't have much juice. Remember that episode where they phased the entire planet in a parallel reality? No ZPM available, so they had to use the US power grid.
I've never seen a ZPM do anything close to that.
P.S. I hate that TV trope. [tvtropes.org]
time for me to sell power to the power company!
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it. Power from nothin', and your subspace's for free.
That one doesn't flush properly.
I think someone crossed the streams or routed the wormhole past a black hole or something.
Um, I think if you're gonna use that gate you're going to find you want to buy a DHD!
Surely they could sell licenses for the software they use in place of a DHD. Didn't they even develop a DHD-in-a-laptop for emergencies (everything you'd need to dial a 'gate except power).
Seriously though, I would really like to have a copy of the software they use to create all those SGC computer screens and laptop interfaces, or at least the assets used in the software they use and some digital video of their use. Or even just the digital video of their use and I could reverse-engineer that. Something mo
No way dude, that's a fake.... the REAL one is downtown Detroit right across the street from the Joe Lewis fist & a block or so from the Windsor tunnel.
http://tiny.cc/8mI9l [tiny.cc]
I mean, NOBODY'S gonna look for the Stargate in downtown Detroit. And if the aliens come through, they'll see Detroit & leave post haste.
Perfect plan.
Two full stargate props were originally built for the SG-1 pilot "Children of the Gods", the second of which was reconstructed from the prop used in the film. They are made of steel and fiberglass, and are 22 feet (6.7 m) in diameter. The second prop is less detailed, and is used for exterior scenes; in the pilot it was used solely on the planet Chulak. The primary one, however, is quite sophisticated. It is fully automated, and capable of rotating and emitting light. This is achieved by the use of a specially-designed 22-foot (6.7 m) circular gear, which turns the inner ring on a precise pinion drive wheel, using an eight horsepower electric motor. The top seven chevrons emit laser pulses which are read by a sensor fed into a computer responsible for the gate's movement, which is consequently able to start and stop the rotation very quickly. This main prop is kept almost immovably at the permanent set of the SGC, at Bridge Studios, Vancouver.
BTW This Stargate is the one that was used in both - the movie and the tv show.
In my universe I imagine Steve Jobs buying the stargate.
Him and the Stargate would be a perfect fit.
But I'm worried he might rename it the iGate.
(just imagine the new line of products, like macbooks that would never break)
If I won the lottery and could buy that thing I'd so install it as my garage door or something.
No kidding. If I end up with lottery money, I'm getting one built.
I thought of something else I could do in the meantime, though, to scratch that itch--Goa'uld transport rings. You know how the base station is embedded in the ground? I am pretty sure that I have seen on the show a circle made of seemingly weathered stone-like wedges, embedded into the forest floor.
They also simply paint the pattern onto the decks of the ships. It's occasionally shown clearly enough to get a clean image to build from.
Stargate Universe is still being produced, and they can always make new props if they need to.
Can I get a two-fer and get Amanda Tapping?
I want a puddle jumper. Slap that puppy over a Pontiac transport and have the coolest geek mobile evAR!
. .
It's a little unclear from the site if *everything* from SG1 and SGA are being sold off, or just select props that the writers don't envision ever using again? I wonder what this means for Stargate: Universe? I mean, in theory, they are still in contact with Star Gate Command, and at some point, they may get the Destiny Gate working again to travel back to Earth, so seems like you'd still need the SGC sets available. In any case, there's the Comm Stones, which give us glimpses of Earth again.
SGU hasn't been
It's a little unclear from the site if *everything* from SG1 and SGA are being sold off, or just select props that the writers don't envision ever using again? I wonder what this means for Stargate: Universe? I mean, in theory, they are still in contact with Star Gate Command, and at some point, they may get the Destiny Gate working again to travel back to Earth, so seems like you'd still need the SGC sets available. In any case, there's the Comm Stones, which give us glimpses of Earth again.
SGU hasn't been cancelled (yet) - I saw somewhere that SyFy renewed for a second season. So, I guess that must mean that they aren't selling *everything*?
Plus I believe there's at least one more Direct-To-DVD to be made.
Neat. There is one problem, though: How are the Ori props going to sell, when so many Stargate fans don't believe that they exist?
Actually, perhaps that could be a selling point. I can see more than one use for being invisible to the hardcore fans. For example, Amanda Tapping could certainly use a Prior's Staff, judging by some of the comments here.
if i had the money this is the only thing i would buy.
You're right SG merchandising for some reason was lacking to say the least compare other sci-fi series. The guns are cool items but my favorite was always the head dress especially the Anubis; i was surprise that they did not have the Anubis head dress up for sale.
Forget that, I want to buy a P90!
Hell, if I'd have known that buying props was all it took to get SG off the air, I'd have done it years ago.
Okay. I work as a set producer in vancouver. I don't work on stargate, but some of my friends do. Basically, their job is to turn stuff sold in junk and scrap stores into cool looking alien props. Their work on the last season of SGA was scaled back from normal. A couple months ago, Waring told them why. The next stargate spinoff will be an animated cartoon retelling of the first three seasons of SG-1. I'm guessing the props are being sold off as unnecessary. It sounds stupid, but you'd be amazed at the ins
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.


text:
I think they must've used a pile driver and not a traditional drill.
Molten rock pushed back up the borehole
If it was rotary drill, it would have occupied the volume of the borehole.
But knowing very little about geological drilling, I admit that I could be entirely wrong in my reasoning
I'm fairly certain you're wrong in your reasoning, but I also am not an expert on the subject so I could be wrong as well.
However, first thing is the material that has to be removed as they drill. They would probably need some kind of rotary drill for this. Also, I can tell you from experience drilling other types of things (such as wood and concrete) that a rotary drill will never entirely occupy the volume of the borehole - there's always some slop that happens as you drill, and some space beside the drill bit. The other thing you may not have considered is that the magma could have forced a rotary drill up the borehole.
I'm fairly certain you're wrong in your reasoning, but I also am not an expert on the subject so I could be wrong as well.
You're an old hand here at Slashdot, aren't you.
You're an old hand here at Slashdot, aren't you.
*points other direction*
Look, ponies!!
You're picturing a drill bit like you'd find on the end of your drill at home, with grooves running all the way up the bit that transport the cuttings to the surface. In rock drilling there's a bit at the bottom of the hole(either percussive or rotary), connected to the drill rig by a pipe of smaller diameter than the bit. Cuttings are forced up through the space between the drill pipe and the wall of the borehole by either high pressure air or water.
I have worked in economic geology as a summer student when I was at university, and I can vouch for the fact that hollow rotary drills are in common use. The drill core (the part of the rock that goes in the hollow centre) is the whole purpose of drilling the hole in the earth.
The drill is a gasoline or diesel engine, and the drill bit is a piecewise continuous long hollow tube. The drill bit is quite short, and the business end is a ring of industrial diamonds. The whole tube spins, and water is used to carry away the cuttings. To remove the core, the whole nine yards gets pulled up, and the drill core comes with it. The drill core is put in boxes, with depth markings on it.
The last (optional) step is for the drill operator to piss on the drill core. When the geologist opens the box of drill core, the first thing he does is lick the rock, because you can see the colour variations in wet rock a lot easier than in dry rock.
It seems to me that if you drilled into some magma with one of these diamond drills, you would run the risk of the whole earth collapsing like a balloon thththpththpthpthpthtpp.
The last (optional) step is for the drill operator to piss on the drill core. When the geologist opens the box of drill core, the first thing he does is lick the rock, because you can see the colour variations in wet rock a lot easier than in dry rock.
And then the geologist says, "Someone's been eating asparagus!"
The hole was 2.5km deep. Drill bits are rotational, so the friction with the rocks causes them to reach temperatures above 700 Fahrenheit. Thus they need to be kept cool using liquid coolant. From the article, the magma entered the drill hole, but cooled down after rising a good number of metres before solidifying.
National Driller [nationaldriller.com]
Well they found it. Seems to me this would be the best source of geothermal they could hope for. If they could just keep it from plugging up the bore hole.
well if they had some space age, heat resistant pipes to shove down there into the magma, then run some liquid through the pipes to transmit the heat to a steamer, we'd have delicious vegetables in no time. i mean geothermal power. large scale geothermal.
it'd be pricey to make the first one, but it could be a big player in renewable energy. and unlike solar panels and wind mills which are like socialized energy because everyone controls the production, this could be a major central project for a greedy corp
I believe those pipes would need to be made from an alloy known as 'unobtainium'.
I believe those pipes would need to be made from an alloy known as 'unobtainium'.
Isn't that an alloy of jumbonium and raritanium?
You mean like copper? Regeneratively cooled rocket engines use copper chambers quite commonly, in an environment far harsher. As long as the cold side has enough coolant flow, the whole chamber (or in this case pipe) stays cool. There's a boundary layer of cooler gas or rock between the copper and the hot stuff that is where most of the temperature difference lies.
For efficiency in a generator, though, you want the highest fluid temperature you can get. Copper would limit the temperature, so you'd proba
well if they had some space age, heat resistant pipes to shove down there into the magma, then run some liquid through the pipes to transmit the heat to a steamer
I believe those pipes would need to be made from an alloy known as 'unobtainium'.
Hold a lighter up to the bottom of a plastic water bottle. No, it won't melt. The water keeps it cool. As long as those pipes are always filled with water they won't melt.
Just about every method we use for creating steam uses this concept, from locomotive boilers, to hot water heaters, to the kettle on your stove. Just make sure they don't run dry, or bad things will happen. [wikipedia.org]
What a disappointment. If only there were some kind of material [scienceblog.com] that could withstand the 1200C of near-surface magma, or some means of rapidly extracting the heat [hoval.co.uk] so we could use it for generating electricity.
Unfortunately, there's no economic incentive [geo-energy.org] to develop these technologies.
then before you know it they drill to deep and there's a balrog running the streets.
I preferred Blanka. Or Sagat. Balrog was just an old, washed-up boxer who was easy to beat if you knew to keep your attacks below his belt.
You might not get as much heat conducted into that pipe as you'd hope. Magma has a finite thermal conductivity. More so after it's cooled to the point of solidification.
Again, absolutely zero knowledge of, well, anything involved here, but I assume it would be a bad idea to lay pipes anywhere with high levels of tectonic activity?
Every time I try to lay pipe near/inside volcanoes, she tells me "not tonight, I have a headache."
Geothermal doesn't scale. The total heat loss through the crust of the Earth over an area the size of America is only about equal to our current electriciy use. Given that solar enery per square yard is about 10,000 times geothermal energy per square yard, it doesn't make much sense to focus on geothermal (except in those rare spots where geothermal is just handy).
No shit, I'm wondering how exactly it was "inadvertent" to drill into liquid hot mag-ma when you're drilling toward the hottest thing you can find on a volcanic island.
Sort of like pissing off the roof and being surprised when it hits the ground don't you think?
Good point. Let us not forget that they plan to dig 'many' holes into the chamber. I can envision the whole area collapsing into the chamber for lack of support. A giant game of "tear on the dotted line", so to speak.
Not sure that would be an issue. Magma is pretty dense, so it's not like a huge chunk of rock would just displace into it in the same way as if it were water. Depending on the density of the rock above, it might even float on the magma.
It's also pretty close to the surface (obviously) so there isn't (apparently) enough weight on it to produce the pressure needed to remove some of that magma and create a void for the land to fall into.
It also appears to be self-sealing, which is also good for safety.
For a hellish molten holocaust waiting to happen, it seems pretty benign.
If it were truly under a dangerous amount of pressure, wouldn't this borehole have become another volcano? The fact that it traveled only a short distance before solidifying suggests the pressure isn't a concern.
Molten rock pushed back up the borehole several meters before solidifying, making it perfectly safe to study
I'm sure they're leaving out their initial observations which probably went something like: "OH FUCK!! RUN! ok.. i think it stopped.. let's change our underwear then we'll send the new guy over to check it out"
I'm sure they're leaving out their initial observations which probably went something like: "OH FUCK!! RUN! ok.. i think it stopped.. let's change our underwear then we'll send the new guy over to check it out"
"Oh yes, of course it's perfectly safe, Ensign Burke. Nothing to worry about. Now go on over there and examine the bore hole. Oh but first put on this official red shirt signifying your position on our team."
Hey, I'm no geologist, I'm just saying... how are they so sure?
Because they're geologists?
Which is funny - I also misread what you said, thinking "what's wrong with 'active magma chamber'?" So I re-read it... and then I re-read it again slowly... "Oh. Manga."
All that I can picture is the classic 19th century drill tower with glowing magma spraying from the top, and lava-coated workmen running around cheering "It's a gusher!!"
Actually, in my mind, the workmen look a lot like Homer Simpson
Actually, in my mind, the workmen look a lot like Homer Simpson
In my mind, they look a lot more like Freddy Krueger.
In my mind, there's one workwoman, she's played by Natalie Portman, and the lava is actually hot grits.
A man goes into a restaurant, sits down and starts reading the menu. The menu says:
Broiled Accountant $5.95 per plate
Fried Engineer $7.95 per plate
Toasted Teacher $7.95 per plate
Grilled Geologist $25.95 per plate
The man calls a waiter over and asks "Hey, why does the Grilled Geologist cost so much more?"
The waiter says, " Are you kidding? Do you know how hard it is to clean one of them?!?!"
What a lode of fuchsite.
Normal Person: Holy crap, we just created a vent for magma to escape!
Scientist: Ooh, we haven't studied this before!
I love it. Oh, and obligatory XKCD comic [xkcd.com].
Yeah, I dream of that all the time. Drilling deep
...excuse me for a moment.
When his gauges pegged at the upper limits and his torquemeter went to zero when he breached the wall of the chamber.
Interesting might be an understatement. More like "Oh Shit!" You know, those two words you never want to hear your bomb technician, drill operator, or gynecologist exclaim.
or gynecologist
Slashdot readers typically don't need to worry about that one...
To paraphrase the back of one of my favorite T-shirts:
"I'm a volcanologist. If you see me running, try to keep up."
I would love to know why it was kept quiet for so long.
"The breakthrough was made in 2005. Only now are researchers confident enough about their work to discuss the details publicly."
So what were they not confident about? Hot temperatures - check. No drill bit left - check. Rock fused to end of drill - check.
RE: So what were they not confident about?
Getting suppressed by W. and Co.
-It's science... check
-It threatens oil usage... check
Probably waiting to see that they didn't rip open the Earth's crust, causing a global disaster like an old Dr. Who episode (Jon Pertwee).
That sounds better when read in a William Conrad voice, like in Rocky and Bulwinkle.
So what were they not confident about?
In 1943 a farmer in Mexico was plowing his field, when smoke started coming from the soil. Today the nearby village is like this [wikipedia.org].
Even if the lava in the hole solidified almost instantly, they had to make sure there would be no unforeseen evolution.
This is unprecedented; this is the first time a magma has been found in its natural habitat
Is this professor also known as David Attenborough?
This is unprecedented; this is the first time a magma has been found in its natural habitat
Is this professor also known as David Attenborough?
Possibly, but that quote makes me wonder whether my local Zoo is home to a nest of magma?
Molten rock pushed back up the borehole several meters before solidifying, making it perfectly safe to study.
I don't think that phrase means what you think it means...
Dear Boss:
We had a tragic accident today. We were drilling for heat - well the good news is we found it. Lots of it. The bad news is that we destroyed a $50,000 drill bit and pipe.
Please don't fire me.
No pun intended.
Your faithful employee, and gracious servant, who hopes you will come to my home for Christmas dinner. Or any other dinner you desire...
John Doe
Drill, baby, dr--AAAAUGH! It burns!
"Magma specialist Bruce Marsh says it will allow scientists to observe directly how granites are made."
No, because the magma in Hawaii is mafic in composition, yielding basaltic [wikipedia.org] or gabbroic [wikipedia.org]) rocks, not felsic like granites [wikipedia.org]. Maybe they mean being able to observe intrusive processes like the ones that produce granite?
Read the article. This magma chamber is NOT apparently basaltic, and has much in common with magmas that produce granite. 67% silica content - which is very uncommon to see in anything on the surface here in Hawaii.
That said, the important thing isn't probably going to be understanding how volcanoes in other parts of the world work, but just in how this volcano works. That won't get as much funding as studying "how continents originally formed" or other highly derived hypotheses that this site might generate, so the geologists are focusing on what sounds good to people OTHER than Hawaiians (who are generally against messin' with da aina anyway).
Yeah, see, that's what is apparently interesting about this magma - it *is* felsic, in Hawaii, the middle of the bloody Pacific.
I know this is Slashdot, but perhaps you should read the full article. The magma encountered was unusually high in silica (ie felsic) - a dacite-type lava. They are excited about this because it is showing how granitic continental-style magma can differentiate from your normal basaltic lava.
So yes, it would potentially be granitic rather than gabbroic in nature. Isn't geology fun!
The same thing happens in Iceland too, there are dacite-type and rhyolitic-type lava flows, although a far lower percentage than the normal basaltic flows. Silica-rich lava is a much nastier stuff when it gets to the surface, explosive, but more viscous and less runny than your basaltic lava. That's why you didn't get a geyser of molten-hot lava coming up the tubes [slight simplification, but hey, this is slashdot].
Every place on earth is geologically active if you dig deep enough...
But the drillers were shocked - not only to hit magma but to also hit such a big heat source at the relatively shallow depth of 2.5km.
I'm sorry, call me naive. However, would any of you here be shocked if you drill into a frigging volcano and discover - gasp - magma?
I mean, isn't all of Hawaii just a bunch of volcanos? How can anyone be "shocked" to find magma close to the surface of a volcano? Especially geologists? Like, isn't geology their field? Doesn't it stand to reason that a volcano, you know, a mountain made of lava flows, lava which when underground is called magma, just might -- might -- have magma relatively close to the surface?
In the German city of Staufen, they drilled some 140m deep holes to get geothermal energy for heating the town hall and adjacent buildings.
Unfortunately, this drilling caused many cracks in houses around the city centre. Some of these cracks are said to be big enough that you can put your fingers in.
According to this article [spiegel.de] on the English Spiegel (a German news magazine) website, dated March 2008, the whole city is sinking. In a recent German article [spiegel.de] from November, they write that the city has risen several centimeters due to water mixing with gypsum deep down and therefore causing the gypsum to expand.
The volume slide of the audio player on the BBC site goes to 11! Powerpuff girls rule!
The volume slide of the audio player on the BBC site goes to 11! Powerpuff girls rule!
Uh, no. "Up to 11" originated in This is Spinal Tap [imdb.com].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven [wikipedia.org]
Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other.


text:
Prescription copayment increase delayed
A scheduled $1 increase in veterans' medical copayments will be delayed until June 30, VA has announced. Out-of-pocket payments were formerly set to raise to $9 for pharmaceuticals treating ailments not connected to military service, per 30-day supplies of medicine.
During this period, VA will also keep $960 as the maximum for annual out-of-pocket payments for pharmaceuticals for non-service-related conditions. The $960 cap will not apply to veterans in Priority Groups 7 and 8. The yearly maximum out-of-pocket payment was scheduled to increase to $1,080.
There are no copayments associated with the treatment of conditions related to military service.


text:
Fountain City Lock to Stay Open
- Written by Tony Hart
- Published in News
(5/18/13) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has decided to leave lock on the Mississippi River near Fountain City open after an accident last Thursday.
A towboat hit the lock gate, causing extensive damage to the upstream, right descending gate. Engineers with the corps decided the lock can stay open with some restrictions until that gate is replaced. They say the replacement should arrive next week. No one was injured by the accident and those barges weren't carrying any hazardous materials.
Source: Wheeler News


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text:
Heavy Phrygian Mode Collab, Video takes !!!!
... the opportunity of your lifetime to learn guitar? - It is, but only if you do one of the following:
* Send me a pm and I will show you where to start. I am online every day and I will help you out directly!
* Post a topic on this board, guitar related or not - doesn't matter! You will find that chatting with instructors boosts your motivation to practice.
* You haven't missed my latest video lessons, have you?
-- Sinisa
Heavy Phrygian Mode Collab, Video takes !!!!
Nov 30 2011, 04:02 PM
Post #1
Group: GMC Instructor
Posts: 4.649
Joined: 15-October 08
From: Belgrade,Serbia
Member No.: 6.085
Ok guys, my first video collab !
I would like to show me how you gonna play this one!
It's about Em, F chord progression. You have several options - you can play minor Phrygian mode or simply - C major scale! You can also play a dominant variant of Phrygian mode !
And one very interesting E byzantine scale
Conditions are :
Send me video of lead guitar. Listen to backing track with headphones !
For those who have already recorded video clips before = plus one audio take with a backing, and one solo take- just your guitar !!!
Deadline: 20.December.'11 !
thanks guys
Heavy_phrygian.mp3 ( 845.44K ) Number of downloads: 241
Dec 23 2011, 01:57 AM
Post #2
Learning Guitar Hero
Group: Members
Posts: 2.855
Joined: 10-September 11
From: Big Lake, Alaska
Member No.: 13.839
Hey Sin!
Can I trade ya this take for my first take on this collab? Edit: If I am not too late that is.
This post has been edited by AK Rich: Dec 23 2011, 02:11 AM
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