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Tuesday, September 07, 2004 |
Wikipedia heals in 5 minutes.
IBM History Flow visualization of the "Islam" article on Wikipedia.
I think the gaps are where the page has been erased and restored. See the IBM History Flow page for more details and examples.
I think this has been mentioned in the press already, but I confirmed with Jimmy Wales that a study done by IBM (The group that did the history flow work) tried to measure how quickly vandalism on Wikipedia was identified and corrected. They searched for pages where suddenly all of the content disappeared or a huge amount was deleted. They found that the median time for such a page to be restored was 5 minutes. This did not take into the account the process that where Wikipedians often refactor or move pages and redirect them which would show a similar behavior. So the median time is probably less than 5 minutes. In the context of our discussion about Wikipedia authority, I think this is quite an interesting and impressive statistic.
[unmediated]
8:17:40 PM 
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Coming up in this week's Journal. Stories we're working on for this week's issue include the nighttime closure of parking lots to students and faculty, the record size of the freshman class and what it means for the campus housing crunch, and a Webster connection to a tragic car accident which claimed the life of a Webster Groves family. [The Journal]
8:07:25 PM
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A
Person Paper on Purity in Language
William Satire (alias Douglas R. Hofstadter)
One of the more hilarious suggestions made by the squawkers
for this point of view is to abandon the natural distinction along racial
lines, and to replace it with a highly unnatural one along sexual lines.
One such suggestion-emanating, no doubt, from the mind of a madwhite-would
have us say "he" for male whites (and blacks) and "she" for female whites
(and blacks). Can you imagine the outrage with which sensible folk of
either sex would greet this "modest proposal"?
Another suggestion is that the plural pronoun "they" be used in place of
the inclusive "whe." This would turn the charming proverb "Whe who laughs
last, laughs best" into the bizarre concoction "They who laughs last,
laughs best." As if anyone in whis right mind could have thought that the
original proverb applied only to the white race! No, we don't need a new
pronoun to "liberate" our minds. That's the lazy white's way of solving
the pseudoproblem of racism. In any case, it's ungrammatical. The pronoun
"they" is a plural pronoun, and it grates on the civilized ear to hear it
used to denote only one person. Such a usage, if adopted, would merely
promote illiteracy and accelerate the already scandalously rapid nosedive
of the average intelligence level in our society.
Niss Moses would have us totally revamp the English language to suit bler
purposes. If, for instance, we are to substitute "person" for "white,"
where are we to stop? If we were to follow Niss Moses' ideas to their
logical conclusion, we would have to conclude that ble would like to see
small blackeys and whiteys playing the game of "Hangperson" and reading
the story of "Snow Person and the Seven Dwarfs." And would ble have us
rewrite history to say, "Don't shoot until you see the persons of their
eyes"? Will pundits and politicians henceforth issue person papers? Will
we now have egg yolks and egg persons? And pledge allegiance to the good
old Red, Person, and Blue? Will we sing, "I'm dreaming of a person
Christmas"? Say of a frightened white, "Whe's person as a sheet!"? Lament
the increase of person-collar crime? Thrill to the chirping of bobpersons
in our gardens? Ask a friend to person the table while we go visit the
persons'room? Come off it, Niss Moses-don't personwash our language!
What conceivable harm is there in such beloved phrases as "No white is an
island," "Dog is white's best friend," or "White's inhumanity to white"?
Who would revise such classic book titles as Bronob Jacowski's The Ascent
of White or Eric Steeple Bell's Whites of Mathematics? Did the poet who
wrote "The best-laid plans of mice and whites gang aft agley" believe that
blacks' plans gang ne'er agley? Surely not! Such phrases are simply
metaphors: everyone can see beyond that. Whe who interprets them as
reinforcing racism must have a perverse desire to feel oppressed.
And, in the
Post Scriptum
Perhaps this piece shocks you. It is meant to. The entire point of it is
to use something that we find shocking as leverage to illustrate the fact
that something that we usually close our eyes to is also very shocking.
The most effective way I know to do so is to develop an extended analogy
with something known as shocking and reprehensible. Racism is that thing,
in this case. I am happy with this piece, despite-but also because of-its
shock value. I think it makes its point better than any factual article
could. As a friend of mine said, "It makes you so uncomfortable that you
can't ignore it." I admit that rereading it makes even me, the author,
uncomfortable! Numerous friends have warned me that in publishing this
piece I am taking a serious risk of earning myself a reputation as a
terrible racist. I guess I cannot truly believe that anyone would see this
piece that way. To misperceive it this way would be like calling someone a
vicious racist for telling other people "The word 'nigger' is extremely
offensive." If allusions to racism, especially for the purpose of
satirizing racism and its cousins, are confused with racism itself, then I
think it is time to stop writing.
. . .
My feeling about nonsexist English is that it is like a foreign language
that I am learning. I find that even after years of practice, I still have
to translate sometimes from my native language, which is sexist English. I
know of no human being who speaks Nonsexist as their native tongue. It
will be very interesting to see if such people come to exist. If so, it
will have taken a lot of work by a lot of people to reach that point.
4:46:48 PM
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September 06, 2004.
My Latest Article
Software in the 1980s, when usability was "invented," was all about computer-human interaction. A lot of software still is. But the Internet brings us a new kind of software: software that's about human-human interaction. When you're writing software that mediates between people, after you get the usability right, you have to get the social interface right. And the social interface is more important. The best UI in the world won't save software with an awkward social interface. It's Not Just Usability
Workspace Quality
Someone posted a nice summary of links to information about the quality of workspace provided to software developers. “Perhaps it can be useful to other software developers in a position to influence managers or may someday be in a position to make decisions about workspace design themselves.” [Joel on Software]
6:58:40 AM
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No, It's Not Our Own Damn Fault.
In response to my rant about integrated library system vendors, Peter Rukavina says that it's our own damn fault.
"When you outsource the administration of your data to someone else (whether it's an OPAC vendor or a university computing department or some guy down the street), you're also outsourcing any chance you have at retaining ultimate control over that data.
When you buy a 'one size fits all' technology solution -- an OPAC that's designed for, say, 'any public library' -- you're buying a commodity, not a solution.
And you should expect to be treated as an insignificant cog by your vendor: that's what you are. By absolving yourself of personal responsibility over your data management in the first place, you've already said 'we don't care enough about this to do it ourselves, so you take care of it for us.' Is it any wonder they treat you like they do?"
While I understand the spirit of his response and I wish that we did have some of our best and brightest programmers devoted to creating the one true catalog (rather than working on it as time permits at their real job or doing it at home on their own time), nonprofit libraries just don't have the option for which Peter advocates.
I bought a new car this year because I was unhappy with some of the things about my old car. Using Peter's logic, I shouldn't have outsourced my new vehicle to a car manufacturer, but I did. I just didn't have the time, money, or other resources to build one myself.
Yeah, it's over the top, but you get my point. Ambulance drivers don't make the ambulances, doctors don't make the defibrillators, lawyers don't make the Lexis-Nexis database, and programmers use operating systems developed by someone else (even if it's Linux).
You can't outsource everything, and libraries have to prioritize what to expend their limited amounts of resources on. Can they build their own cars? No, but they can certainly switch to one made by another manufacturer. [The Shifted Librarian]
6:51:53 AM
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