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How many of you use Wikipedia?
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Maul, the Bashing Shamie
"If you want to change the world, be that change."
--Gandhi
![[Image: maull2.gif]](http://bengtel.com/maull2.gif)
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I want to do the opposite of donate. I want to shut it down so that real encyclopedia's like Encarta, Britanica, etc don't need to go out of business.
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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Dustie Wrote:I want to do the opposite of donate. I want to shut it down so that real encyclopedia's like Encarta, Britanica, etc don't need to go out of business.
whoa, when did you become a socialist?
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Breand Wrote:whoa, when did you become a socialist?
I just snorted coffee out my nose.
Maul, the Bashing Shamie
"If you want to change the world, be that change."
--Gandhi
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The only thing that makes sense is Dustie must be dating some new hot socialist lately.
Vllad
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Socialist? I would call it something else. What do you call somone who's afraid of a pure democracy? mob rule? anarchy?
Whatever that is, I changed to that when I saw all the good encyclopedias go out of business. We once had a system where 99.99% of the info in the encylopedia was accurate, source checked, and was written by subject matter experts. I'd be totally guessing if I said wiki was only 70%, 80%, 90%, of that level, but I can gauruntee you that its something less then 99.99%. What we have now is somthing that's "ok", often abused, and free. The key is that its free so we all ignore the other issues -- like the fact that the content can be total garbage at any given time for any given subject. We've all decided that since its free, its ok that its mostly right most of the time. I hope we don't start designing space ships and hospital equiptment that way.
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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... and another thing -- when did it go from being cool to make fun of wiki for having lots of garbage content to being socialist to make fun of it? Where was I when the tectonic shift occured and we as a people all decided that Wiki was great info? Did I miss that Oprah where that was decided?
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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Ha. That is funny -- 3 years ago, even mentioning wikipedia was enough to get your entire opinion discredited. You'd use it, but you wouldn't ever dare quote it.
Now it's a household name.
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But Dustie, why do you blame Wikipedea for the failure of Encarta, Britanica, Comptons Grolier etc etc etc?
Wiki is at its best a quick referance to start from. It is however, better then the "Open Google search" on a topic where you get linked into complete la la land.
I view it as a mini internet, where you still need to question the content, but at least you get hits on the actual info you want. And it usally provides referance to the content.
But why blame wikipedia?
Maul, the Bashing Shamie
"If you want to change the world, be that change."
--Gandhi
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Here's the rub for me. Wiki came along and destroyed the real encyclopedias. They did so not through competition but through time and money donated to "the cause." Now that their "competition" is vanquished, they're saying: "hey, this stuff isn't free, we need money to make this work" -- to which I reply "if we're paying money I'd rather have a real frakin encyclopedia you son of a bitch!"
I don't mind real competition, but I hate the bait and switch ala Comcast -- "here, have all the OnDemand movies you want for 2.99 -- oh, what, blockbuster is out of business now , ok, we'll go up to 4.99 per movie now."
In other words, I like when products compete and win based on the merits, not when lesser products compete and win because someone with deep pockets was willing to bank roll a few years of losses to make the losing horse win a battle of attrition.
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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Also just to add to this, I think Wikipedia should go the advertising route. They would be as big as Facebook in revenue. And if they wanted to keep thier mission, they could just donate all the profits to universities that could research wikipedias content. It would be perfect.
Maul, the Bashing Shamie
"If you want to change the world, be that change."
--Gandhi
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But price is the very foundation of compitition. Also your mislead to think wikipedia had a large amount of money or was the cause of the giant encyclopedia companies from going out of business. I mean seriously, Encarta was Microsoft for god sake and they had billions. They jumped into the business because Grolier and Compton’s were making money online. Blame Encarta for the destruction of the hard copy encyclopedia companies that didn’t react, not Wiki who came much later.
The bottom line is these companies didn’t fail because of wiki, they failed because they were giant fat media companies that never learned to compete. All they really needed to do was go to the advertisement model and make billions.
I remember when my kids were little and encyclopedia Britannica was like 2 grand. “2 grand†I told the door to door asshole who was tryng to guilt my wife into “providing for our kids intellectual future†(ie your stupid if you don’t give me 2 grand. FYI in the 80’s 2 grand was more then it is now. They were fat and caught sleeping by Encarta. They didn’t react, they said, Encarta is thin content. They lost.
I have no pity for a dinosaur company that doesn’t react to the market and then dies. There is zero reason these companies could not have competed with wiki on integrity of content alone.
But having said that, it is sad that many people think wiki is the gospel of knowledge.
Maul, the Bashing Shamie
"If you want to change the world, be that change."
--Gandhi
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Vanraw Wrote:I have no pity for a dinosaur company that doesn’t react to the market and then dies. There is zero reason these companies could not have competed with wiki on integrity of content alone.
I am going to keep this quote until the end of time and show you every time our goverment starts bailing companies out!
Sorry couldn't resist. Back to the topic at hand.
Vllad
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Dustie Wrote:... and another thing -- when did it go from being cool to make fun of wiki for having lots of garbage content to being socialist to make fun of it? Where was I when the tectonic shift occured and we as a people all decided that Wiki was great info? Did I miss that Oprah where that was decided?
heh, I was mostly joking, but your statement was just kind of weird for a free market supporter. Technology makes many business models obsolete and die if they can't adjust to the changes. Yes, the content may not be as legitimate (altho I would argue at this stage there are many checks and balances put in to make the information pretty damn accurate) but it's easy access and it's free. And Encylopedia Brittanica still exists if you want more legitimate content (and has a lot of free online material with ads). One could argue wikipedia made them offer a better service for less money...capitalism!!
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Evolve or Die.
I like Wikipedia because it brings us closer to a Star Trek like existence. Now tablet computers need to drop to about $50 bucks like mp3 players and phase1 will be complete
[should not have shot the dolphin]
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Dustie Wrote:Now that their "competition" is vanquished, they're saying: "hey, this stuff isn't free, we need money to make this work" -
They've been asking for donations since it started.
Encyclopedias offered more accurate info but as an overview and starting point wiki is far better, plus wiki isnt limited to academic topics - I couldnt go to Encarta and get episode guides for tv shows or look up the backgruond of the Sith Empire.
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I bet another reason encyclopedias stopped making it was due to internet search engines. They never got on board. Whenever people want an answer, what do they do? Google it. They don't look it up in the encyclopedia anymore. They should have come up with a catchy phrase and gone hard core internet, free with ads. In my entire history of internet searching I don't think I have ever had an answer pop up from a traditional encyclopedia.
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The world may end today because I'm going to have to completely agree with Dustie on this.
Rizxen - Master of Clones
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Riz Wrote:The world may end today because I'm going to have to completely agree with Dustie on this.
No no, you have it backwards. The space time continuum will end as we know it when Dusty agrees with you. OH THE POWER!!!
Maul, the Bashing Shamie
"If you want to change the world, be that change."
--Gandhi
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Just to be clear, I am for competition. I am against fake competition i.e. bate and switch. Remember that our competitive system has certain rules against unfair practices like dumping for example. Bate and switch is just another example.
This will probably be the last thing I say since the space time continuim is probably breaking down as we speak.
In case the space time continuin does not break down, I would say that Jake has a good point. You can't find the latest listing of TV show episodes on a real encyclopedia. Wiki allows people to pool and centralize info on a lot of topics that don't end up in the encyclopedia, like version of visual studio, or versions of Windows etc. I guess I would have less of a beef with wiki if they changed the name from -pedia (implying encyclopedia) to shared information system or WikiSharedInformationSystem.com.
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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Dustie Wrote:I guess I would have less of a beef with wiki if they changed the name from -pedia (implying encyclopedia) to shared information system or WikiSharedInformationSystem.com. I seem to remember "pedia" translates to something along the lines of "knowledge" or "education" (Greek?), so you can't really blame them for using it. "Knowledge wiki" is pretty accurate.
Even without wikipedia, I can't imagine buying a real encylopedia set (info changes too fast), or paying for one online. Googling for something would be slower without wikipedia, but it would still be free...
Ex SWG, L2, CoH, Wow, and War
Currently PvPing in the stock market
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Grieve Wrote:Dustie Wrote:I guess I would have less of a beef with wiki if they changed the name from -pedia (implying encyclopedia) to shared information system or WikiSharedInformationSystem.com. I seem to remember "pedia" translates to something along the lines of "knowledge" or "education" (Greek?), so you can't really blame them for using it. "Knowledge wiki" is pretty accurate.
Even without wikipedia, I can't imagine buying a real encylopedia set (info changes too fast), or paying for one online. Googling for something would be slower without wikipedia, but it would still be free...
They're pretty clearly implying encyclopedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Quote:Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
... ok, they're outright declaring it.
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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