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#71
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Leaf chasing 'blad - 50 Mpix MF DSLR announced
Rebecca Ore wrote:
I'll take you back to the point: knowledge is not a "most votes count" thing. You're not describing Wikipedia, so what are you describing? You're not asking me a question, so who are you asking a question? |
#72
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Leaf chasing 'blad - 50 Mpix MF DSLR announced
Alan Browne
I think you do not understand: "votes" are what drives Wikipedias. There is no 'voting' on Wikipedia. [...] [Sigh...] You know Wikipedias? Then you know what the basic idea behind them is. Knowledge is not a matter of having anyone a go at it, and see what comes out. This is the peer review process of Wikipedia. And those peers are you, me, and every next idiot who feels like it. Except it is never ending What isn't? and always sharpening. That's one of the basic flaws behind the idea: the expectation that it will be. All we are left with is opinion. Unqualified opinion. Ironic. Your whole argument is nothing but opinion, whereas in Wikipedia most articles (esp. scientific and engineering) are backed by references and links to supporting material, papers, books, etc. That's only ironic if you would understand that as meaning that Wikipedia is not unqualified opinion. Despite references, it is. The other side of this coin of course, is that YOU can add to Wikipedia and increase its value. YOU can correct what you find is not sufficiently clear or correct. YOU can add opposing points of view (for both subjective (and where applicable), non-subjective matter. Now you're getting near the point. YOU can be everyone. YOU *is* everyone. That is the point. But you don't understand it because at its roots it takes away something from you. I suspect you fear the same thing that E. Brit fears: lack of exclusivity. There we a knowledge is what we all decide it is. A democratic matter... You may feel empowered by having someone say to you that your opinion counts when it comes down to deciding (!) how the world works. Close all the research institutes. An end to too great research budgets! Everyone a scientist. The world meanwhile... You really don't understand, do you? |
#73
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Leaf chasing 'blad - 50 Mpix MF DSLR announced
In article macogoense-EC1F4C.06330218092008@x-134-84-202-
74.pres.umn.edu, says... In article , "Q.G. de Bakker" wrote: Rebecca Ore wrote: I'll take you back to the point: knowledge is not a "most votes count" thing. You're not describing Wikipedia, so what are you describing? You're not asking me a question, so who are you asking a question? Since you don't know how Wikipedia operates, I think we can discount your opinions on it. there is soo much that excapes him... |
#74
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Leaf chasing 'blad - 50 Mpix MF DSLR announced
In rec.photo.digital.slr-systems Q.G. de Bakker wrote:
That wasn't necessary. You said on 16th Sep "If only you knew how well i know how knowledge, science, and Wikis work. But you don't because it can't be found on a Wiki." It did occur to me that you might have meant that I couldn't see inside your mind because what was inside your mind hadn't been put into a Wiki. But the reason I can't possibly know your thoughts isn't because they haven't been written in a Wiki, or indeed written anywhere. It's one of the most well known and long discussed properties of minds. So that would have been a rather silly sneer to throw into the argument. I decided on the more intelligent interpretation, that you were suggesting that I couldn't match your knowledge of how knowledge, science, and Wikis work, because that kind of information could not be found on a Wiki, and you were mocking me by supposing that I relied on Wikis for my education. Was I mistaken? But i see where your confused idea stems from: you think that Wikipedia deciding whether Wikipedia is a trustworthy thingy ("mechanisms that Wikipedia uses to resolve disputes, which involve such things as developing rankings of trustworthiness.") is something of value. That's like accepting a politician's promise that he's all above board, 100% committed to the promises he made to his voters, "because", he says" he is". "Trust me, i'm a politician/Wikipedia". The naivety of it is, quite frankly, stunning! This is rather like the question of whether evolution favours the development of cheats or the development of honesty. If that's a new topic to you I suggest you consult Wikipedia for further information. Wikipedia's simple updating mechanisms contain a bias which make it likely that good contributors will survive longer than bad. In the domain of technical and scientific information that seems to have worked well. See for example Chesney's examination of Wikipedia's credibility in technical areas: http://bccasx.com/asx.pl/000001A/htt...n/ojs/index.p\ hp/fm/article/view/1413/1331 It proved inadequate against the persistence of trolls and fundamentalists on controversial topics, so an extra form of editing protection was added for them. That has reduced the problem, but not enough. The reason I doubted that you had any research training is that during the entire history of human recorded knowledge the largest collection of dubious nonsense ever achieved is a title which has always belonged to whatever happened to be the biggest library at the time. Yet researchers nevertheless find libraries invaluable research tools. How come? Because the biggest library always contains lots of useful truth as well as lots of nonsense. The whole point and skill of library research is knowing how to find likely looking useful possible truths, and how to verify them. O dear... I'l keep it short (just let me know and i'll give you the long version): First, the obvious flaw in the logic of your argument: "the biggest library" and "libraries" which are "invaluable research tools" are of course not the same. The biggest libraries are the national copyright libraries. They are also invaluable research tools. I have yet to see a researcher who would start researching, say, how to make the best bricks by studying the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Only a very silly research scientist would. That's why a research library is nothing like Wikipedia or the Internet. It's easy to avoid irrelevant stuff in a research library because it's organised by topic and has searchable indexes. As have non-research libraries, such as the national copyright libraries. As has Wikipedia. As for the Internet, are you aware that it was originally designed as an academic research tool? Are you aware that most university research libraries will offer training courses for staff and students in the use of the Internet as a research tool? Are you aware that the Human Genome Project would have been very close to impossible without the enormous contribution of the Internet as a research tool? Next, even if a research library would contain last month's issue of the local tattler, or a PC allowing acces to a Wikipedia, he would still be crazy to even consider using Wikipedia, unless in complete secrecy. In your terms there's obviously a lot of crazy academic research scientists out there then. Small but increasing numbers of them have started using Wiki to hold introductory summaries to the up to date state of their research field. I suspect the reason for your blindness on this topic is that you are an expert who never needs to acquire an education in a new field, only using libraries etc. as backup and extension in the area in which you are already expert. That suggests to me that when you said you had research training you didn't mean scientific research, you meant training in how to look up relevant stuff in the domain of your expertise. Finaly, even if he did anyway, he would be laughed out of his research institution by claiming that a quick search of the Internet turned up a reference syaing it was o.k. to use a Wikipedia. Now imagine how load the laughter if if that reference was the Wikipedia itself. A number of respondents have now pointed out to you the difference between a citable authoritative source and a useful resource. You seem unable to grasp this. Let me try a very simple example. Telling someone who wants to learn something to go to a library is directing them to a useful resource, even though "I read it in a library book" is laughably remote from being an authoritative reference. I suspect the reason you don't get this important difference is that you're not aware that scientific research sometimes involves contributions from different disciplines. As a consequence a researcher sometimes has to acquire an education in a field of which they previously knew little if anything. That's why any good research library will always contain a Britannica and some of the more topic specialised ecyclopedias, even though anyone who cited a Britannica entry as an authoritative reference in a paper submitted to a peer-reviewed journal would excite as much mirth as someone who cited Wikipedia. The short reason still is that the basic concept behind Wikipedias is essentially and absolutely flawed. It has so little to do with what we call 'knowledge', 'science' even, that it is absolutely safe to say it has nothing to do with knowledge at all (trust me, i really am an expert). Do you also agree with the similar argument that nothing as simple and as irrelevant to knowledge and design to a practical purpose as random genetic mutation and survival of the fittest could possibly develop anything as sophisticated and effective as an eye or a wing? -- Chris Malcolm, IPAB, School of Informatics, Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB |
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