(The chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Jim
Connaughton, and Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global
Affairs Dr. Paula Dobriansky will discuss the policy and
implementation committee meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on
Clean Development and Climate.)
KARSNER: Yes, I'm Andy Karsner. I'm the assistant secretary for energy
efficiency and renewable energy at the Department of Energy.
And I just overheard the last bit of your question. And I wanted to
comment because I'm rather new inside the government, but I have
extensive experience in the private sector as an international project
developer.
[...]
So you have to bear in mind, if we want to adapt our role to
catalyzing market forces to steer the capital to the desired result,
government has to have a proper perspective, which is to be iterative
and catalytic with the private sector...
QUESTION: I'm sorry, what did you say?
KARSNER: I said government must hold the...
QUESTION: But be iterative? Is that what you said?
KARSNER: Iterative, correct.
QUESTION: What's that?
KARSNER: What is iterative?
QUESTION: Iterative, in this sense.
KARSNER: Happy to give you my definition on that. You might have to
check Wikipedia in case I go awry.
Iterative means having a relationship where one reacts off of the
other as opposed to, sort of, maintaining the delusion that government
can do this all by itself. $52 million, even in Washington, is a whole
lot of money and a very, very serious commitment to being catalytic.
I've added this to my process essay (which I should declare "done"
some time soon really). It's too long and too bitter. Your help is
most welcomed.
* Prescriptive when it should be a guideline
** A lot of people think making things hard policy means people
will actually follow them. This means editorial guidelines get phrased
as didactic policy. This results in stupidity such as WP:RS (a
guideline) being used by apparently insane robots as a reason to gut
articles of content.
** Policy is harsh stuff, and there's a limit to how much people
will hold in their heads. Everything that can be a guideline should
be, because clueless editors won't understand it and bad faith editors
won't care.
to expand:
There is no point being didactic on editorial guidance pages even if
you REALLY REALLY think people REALLY REALLY need to do this. Because
it doesn't work. It doesn't stop clueless editors, because they won't
understand it. It doesn't stop malicious editors, because they don't
care. It provides a new way for apparently insane robots to
inappropriately misapply process without understanding why it's there.
And it pisses off the good clueful editors who go "what, MORE policy?"
Now. The above bullet points are from the perspective of me, who hates
this stuff. What's a phrasing that would get through to someone who
thinks being didactic on editorial guideline pages is a necessary
idea? This is the school of thought that removes all blog or Usenet
references because they don't like them, then the apparently insane
robots move in.
- d.
Regarding all the discussion lately about whether Wikipedia ought to
have coverage of breaking events right as they happen, this sort of
thing is what brings out both the best and the worst of Wikipedia.
At its best, Wikipedia has up-to-date information on things of
current interest, placed in historical context, something that no
other medium can do in quite the same way: news media have info on
what just happened now without much context, while printed
encyclopedias have out-of-date information on what happened a long
time ago without recent updates. The easy updatability of Wikipedia,
combined with its ability to hyperlink things together, give it the
ability to have simultaneous depth, breadth, currency, and history.
You also see it at its worst during times of rapidly-changing events,
though; there's a dizzying succession of edits to any related
articles which include the posting of rumors, hearsay, and
speculation as if it were fact; lots of jumping to conclusions about
what has happened, what effect it will have, and what it all means;
and plenty of cases of outright vandalism. The high edit volume
makes it an exercise in frustration to make any sort of update, due
to edit conflicts. Thus, one can see why some would desire that
current events be left out until they have a chance to settle down a
bit.
On the other hand, such breaking events *also* show the best and the
worst of the mainstream media. Look at tapes of the live TV or radio
coverage of a major past event (the Kennedy assassination, the Reagan
attempted assassination, the 2000 U.S. presidential election, the
9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina) and you'll see the same sorts of
missteps and pratfalls you see on Wikipedia (though generally minus
the outright vandalism). Announcers report rumors and then retract
them. Things are reported as fact that turn out to be false. James
Brady is dead... no he isn't! Bush is projected as the winner... no,
Gore is projected as the winner... no, Bush... no, it's too close to
call. The Pope is dead... no he isn't... OK, *now* he is.
Announcers sometimes interrupt one another to bring in new bulletins.
So, everybody has some problems dealing with events that flood in too
rapidly to keep track of. But at least Wikipedia's coverage
eventually settles down to a reasonable article.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added
> to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these
> articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project,
> rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing
> on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to
> flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
As an expert who has left Wikipedia more or less, I can give you an answer:
1. I would write there for Citizendium, not for Wikipedia.
2. Content from there included in Wikipedia will deteriorate at
Wikipedia over time, there is will remain sound.
3. Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue
to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert
the newest version, of basically fall behind.
Your response is based on the premise that Wikipedia will keep the lead,
and that forks are just to feed stuff to Wikipedia. Maybe, but my
prediction will be that some smarter hybrid between general community
involvement and experts guarding quality will in the end replace
Wikipedia. It is just a matter of time. Whether Citizendium will be that
alternative, I do not yet know. What I do know is that experts have in
general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that
is not going to change.
Kim
dmehkeri(a)swi.com wrote:
>>>digging, it does seem to be disallowed. For rationale, I get pointed
>>>back to either Jimbo's posts on disallowing non-commercial-use media
>>>licenses, fair use, or discussion of downstream use.
>>>
>>>None of these reasons seem to apply here. For the free encyclopedia,
>>>a CC-BY-ND media license, for example, is perfectly redistributable,
>>>allows for possible commercial use, and poses no issues for forks or
>>>other downstream use, right?
>>>
>>>
>>When we talk about Wikipedia being free, we refer to the 4 freedoms of
>>free software, as defined by Richard Stallman many years ago:
>>
>>0. The freedom to copy
>>1. The freedom to redistribute
>>2. The freedom to modify
>>3. The freedom to redistribute modified versions
>>
>>CC-BY-NC violates at least the last of these.
>>
>>
>This is just an unfortunate typo, and you mean CC-BY-ND. Right?
>
>
Probably he did, although for use in a commercial context (and that can
mean many things), it's also true for CC-BY-NC.
--Michael Snow
David Alexander Russell wrote:
>Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>
>
>>Yeah, reading from CCs webpage, I guess not, it says "identical
>>license". A shame, really.
>>
>>Why couldn't Lessig have invented his damn licenses before we came along?!?!?
>>
>>
>Creative Commons was launched in 2001, as was Wikipedia.
>
>
The Creative Commons licenses, however, were not released until 2002.
December 2002 at that, so effectively two years after Wikipedia started.
--Michael Snow
As an aside to all the discussion that's been going on about articles
regarding news events, why do we have [[Portal:Current events]] then? Fair
enough, some might argue it serves a purpose to consolidate all major info
in major current events. But I think it's ridiculous when things like
[[Richard Hammond]]'s progress in hospital is being reported at Portal:CE
daily.
--NSLE/Chacor
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Start with a cage containing five apes.
In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before
long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the
banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with
cold water.
After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result, all
the apes are sprayed with cold water. This continues through several
more attempts. Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs,
the other apes all try to prevent it.
Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one ape from the cage and replace
it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the
stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another
attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he
will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new
one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous
newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a
third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs
and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea
why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are
participating in the beating of the newest ape.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes that
were sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape
ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?
Because that's the way they've always done it and that's the way it's
always been around here.
- --
Sean Barrett | Q: Magic 8-Ball, which e-mail
sean(a)epoptic.com | client should I use?
| A: Outlook not so good.
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"NSLE (Wikipedia)" wrote
> But I think it's ridiculous when things like
> [[Richard Hammond]]'s progress in hospital is being reported at Portal:CE
> daily.
Media stories about media people are typically incestuous, and, yes, can be ridiculous. And non-events in terms of their real consequences, though not always.
Charles
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