Monday, December 05, 2005

We need help with icons for wordPress.root. 

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a piece about the Wikipedia controversy, but their piece has at least one statement that, imho, can't be sourced, illustrating that the issue isn't just with Wikipedia. I posted a question as a comment on the piece.  

Interesting thread developing at Business Week. 

I don't know about you, but I think there's something wrong when, after getting many years of free service, people complain about the quality of that service. I see people who I know are really good-hearted people doing this, people who I know mean well, and think I must be missing something, or they're missing something. To me it seems like the ultimate chutzpah, you get something for free, an act of generosity. Why don't they offer to help, and if they can afford it, offer a few bucks. I find this so disturbing. (I'm not going to point, I don't want to embarass anyone, or make it personal.) 

Speaking of which, here's the other side of the podcast hijacking controversy from last week. It's complicated, and not entirely clear what's going on, still, but there is another side to it. I've been watching the debate about this on the podcast mail list over the last few days, and I was asked to get in the middle, but I declined. I already have a complicated life and plenty of people who hate me.  

Had lunch today with Craig Newmark, Sylvia Paull, Scott Rosenberg and people from Opinity. They told us about their reputation services, and paid for the lunch, in downtown Berkeley. A lively conversation, a timely topic, and (it seemed) a good time was had by all.  

I've signed up for an Opinity reputation (not sure if that's the right description). Here's the signature they gave me. Click on the link. I think the picture makes me look fat.  

Another observation. If they added the ability to send me a mail message or an IM, or some other kind of message, it could serve as the link-to page in the ownerId element proposed for OPML. 

Red Herring: RSS Fund Makes 1st Investment. 

Betsy Devine is a Wikipedia editor, and exactly the kind of person who should be in that role. Now if you could quantify what makes Betsy so ideal, and then find ten thousand volunteers with the same qualifications, then you'd really have something. The current Wikipedia system, as I've observed for a long time, gives anonymous trolls way too much power, although recent incidents should help to mitigate that. And Wales has been far too dismissive of the problem in the past. It may be time to find a new leader for that community, he's been more of a hypester and a flamer than a maven for information and a realistic community leader. To be clear, the previous situation, where Wikipedia was considered authoritative, yet at the same time had such low quality, was unacceptable. Either it loses the authority, or something is done to improve the quality.  

Michael Gartenberg: "The real story of the Wikipedia is why would anyone presume anything written in there is accurate?" 

The Accordion Guy learns not to sound like Wendy's mom and ends up sleeping in the virtual doghouse. 

Old joke: "A Jewish boy comes home from school and tells his mother he's been given a part in the school play. 'Wonderful. What part is it?' The boy says, 'I play the part of the Jewish husband.' The mother scowls and says, 'Go back and tell the teacher you want a speaking part.'" 

Apple: iPod 101. 

Last night's West Wing wasn't so kickass, but I think we found out that Santos is going to be elected, or at least that he's ready for it. 

Les Blogs begins today in Paris. Watching for hits on Meme-R and for pics on Flick-O. 

Inexplicably, the category glue script for WordPress just started working. Notes in the comments on this post. Now we can move forward on connecting categories in the OPML Editor and the equivalent feature in WP.  

News.com: "After two scandals in one week, Wikipedia's founder decides to make a change to the anyone-can-contribute encyclopedia."