This needs to be split out to another thread, but...



Simply defining "taxable income" in a way that doesn't contain any unintended consequences and doesn't contain any loopholes is, well, impossible. Granted, you could simplify some little things, but for the most part the IRC isn't even the complicated part - it's the treasury regulations, the revenue rulings, and the court cases which interpret the IRC where things get most complicated. The IRC could simply say "There is hereby imposed on the income of every individual a tax of 25%" and you'd still have the vast majority of the complications deriving from the interpretation of that rule.

As an aside, the so called "Fair Tax" suffers from the same problems as the income tax, because it doesn't tax items purchased for use in business.

Wikipedia's current structure forces editors to get into disputes with people who believe Obama was born on Mars. Wikipedia policy holds that complete nutcases have exactly as much right and standing to assert truth as the most rational and knowledgeable experts on a topic. At least with a multiple-article approach, the nutcases can write their version of "truth" on their own article branches, where they will presumably receive low trust rankings relative to those written by more rational people, and thus attract only the attention of people who enjoy looking at crazy nonsense. Such a system would require trust metrics (and probably also meta-trust metrics) to be effective, but such systems already exist and could be adapted to this purpose.

It'd be better than the current system. But why not just ban the nutcases (without subjecting hundreds of rational people to a 6-month arb com proceeding)?

Or just ban their content? What's the merit in hosting such articles?

Because they're already running the asylum?

Nutcases actually have more standing than experts, since experts are liable to WP:COI.

Which brings us back to my initial answer. Wales can't give me complete charge, because Wales doesn't have complete charge.

Addendum: He could probably get away with banning nutcases, though.

If you ban their content, they'll work endlessly to insert it into other people's content. If you let them have their little page (which, because of trust metrics, only them and their buds will see), you may actually have less conflict then you would have otherwise.

sorry, however........

Lots of people offered the same basic ideas, so they must have some validity:
remove or protect BLPs, flagged revs, clear out admin deadwood, and implement
a trusted-user system.

However, the original post said:


And no one offered the most obvious first "fix" for Wikipedia's problems:
get rid of Wales.

First reform: Purge the servers, sell the IT equipment.

Second reform: Sell the domain name "Wikipedia".

Third reform: Take the monies realized from the first two "reforms" and give it to some inner city library in need of real books.

Thanks for dropping something worth reading into the thread.








No, I'm not being serious.

Pity. It's not a bad idea, actually.

Block anon ip addresses. Make editors have to pass some test before being an official member article writer and start paying talented writers and profesisonals to write articles about core subjects which are extremely lacking at present (by this I mean an article on a major river in France or something rather than promotiing a company or biography in self interest). If Mr. Wales is serious about quality which I see little evidence that he does, then he would offer incentives to editors to improve articles and stubs on core traditional subjects which are at present lacking and overshadowed by articles about popular culture and sport. I say raise more money and pay more back into the community to give people more of an incentive to get off of their arses and help the project by compensating them even if in the form of low value vouchers for Amazon or something to buy books etc.

Definately the first thing would be to remove "the free encyclopedia that anybody can edit". That in my view is the most damaging thing to the name of wikipedia to anybody finding out about it. If people want a proper encyclopedia reference material that is trustworthy than allowing anybody from small babies to wrinkly old centenarians and Martians to edit it is not going to make it even remotely credible. It will never become credible as long as this concept remains. If quality and accuracy is ultimately what we are striving for then editors need more of an incentive to do so. If somebody paid me $50 right now to go and develop an article to FA I'd do it.

[Moderator's Note: as amusing as the discussion on Harry Potter's Grandfather 'Steve' -- oh, and all that "Excluded Middle stuff -- it was off-topic, and has been moved here. Enjoy.]

How about $30 for about one-tenth the effort?

1) Enforce one account per editor. Possibly using magical gnomes or some such.
2) Liberally ban people as soon as they start behaving like kooks or children.
3) Admin rights are given liberally to any reasonable person to wants them, without some week-long discussion. If they start causing problems with them, THEN discussion would occur on whether to remove them or not.

Thekohser. I'll see what I can do. Offhand doesn't seme like too many online reliable sources about "Sentimental Lady" but I see what I can do.....

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=301384670. I've begun working on it maybe I can expand it further into a DYK. This is what I mean about incentives. I work much better when there is actually some benefit of working at something.... This is why I think if Jimbo is serious about quality he should try to encourage people to do so by rewarding them....

Get the Rachel Marsden article to FA and featured on the main page and I'll give you £500

I've finished Sentimental Lady now check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentimental_Lady, It is due to appear in a DYK now. This is what I mean about propelling people to do things. If they are serious about building a high quality encyclopedia they need to offer editors incentives to improve quality. Most people edit articles they are interested in or because of personal pleasure writing it. This is why the coverage on wikipedia is so uneven and inherently biased. If they gave editors more encouragement to develop specific articles and have their efforts given a small reward it would make things happen. While wikipedia obviously does not have the money to reward many people on this sort of level if they raised enough money elsewhere they would put money back into the project in the areas they see as most important for expansion. The thing is one mention of money on wikipedia and the community go all objective. I do believe we are all volunteers but similarly I think the key to quality lies on giving more editors a reason to write that article in the first place. That in my view is one of the biggest flaws is that editors are not compensated for being willing to spend weeks on an article to develop it to FA. Therefore given the restricted time most editors have they are oftne not willing to spend that much time on a given article. If Jimbo and co are serious about improving quality they need to be more assertive i think rather than expecting people to do it all.

PS are you serious about that £500 offer? If you are I'll think about it!!

Do the same for Carolyn Doran and I'll eat my shorts.

Not At Much Risk Milton

Oh yes, as long as it is the featured article on the main page and the blurb mentions Rachel and Jimbo's relationship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnotized_%2...ood_Mac_song%29

There ya go that's two articles quickly started. I hope you'll keep your promise and pay the reward!!

Hahaa. I just realised who Rachel Marsden is. LOL now that would be hilarious to see a FA on the main page dsicussing Jimbo's affair. Hehehe.

Now THAT is the funniest thing I've read all week!

The first part's doable, with work, the FA reviewers are by and large fairly reasonable.

The second part... you already know how doable that is.


Er, no. You didn't add the part about what the blurb has to say into your original offer. You can add a kicker for that, but if it's on the main page, that suffices, in my view.

Your money's safe as houses just the same, but no fair changing things round that way.

You may wish to add your shorts-eating offer here.

This is the only way to reform the "Pit of Despair" (Wikipedia)...

First reform: Purge the servers, sell the IT equipment.

Second reform: Sell the domain name "Wikipedia".

Third reform: Take the monies realized from the first two "reforms" and give it to some inner city library in need of real books, not terminals pointing to lie and slander farms, like Wikipedia.

Dear victim of censorship / Orangejumpsuit,

Please fill in the blanks.

The definition of _____ is doing the _____ _____ _____ and expecting a ________ ______.

Sincerely,
Tarcles

To return to the subject for a moment, a few small points:

*Named arb.com members; I think this is something that is inevitable. As I have said before: with the latest revelations about past activities of arb.commers like Sam Blacketeers, I don´t think anyone who does not reveal his/her full name at an arb.com election in the future will not have any chance of becoming elected.

*Compulsory registration for editing in contentious areas? I am very unsure about this. And am unsure if it will help, when in contentious areas where there is recruiting off-line for editors of one special view-point. As there is.

I think in these cases you rather have to have one, or a few, named individual experts to do the final reviewing. Until this is the case, you will always have contentious subjects wide open to manipulation.

File under 'Fundamental reform' or viable alternative to the Pee-dia.

• Forget the shittily written content ... and all the pointless and wasteful drama it causes ... delete all the topics and just list all the references and citations.

Encourage and allow folks to go and work it out for themselves from the sources. You can never have too many sources.

I have suggested this before. I think this was in the mind of Mr. Wales all along, although I think he had trouble focusing. Wikia Search was the result of that poor focus.

Tossing out the articles and keeping the sources would leave something what would amount to a hand crafted search engine. This requires thankless work on the level of one of those mass mobilization Maoist projects. Like picking out all the infected snails by hand in some ten thousand mile river basin. A Way For All Pests. But in Wikipedia's case you need the Tom Sawyer fence white washing rouse of "we are writing an encyclopedia" to fool people into doing the work for free.

Interesting ... and thank you. I accept that.

So the cultic hook, the magician's wand, is really in the power and deception of the word "Encyclopedia", the megalomaniac appeal of collectively owning "the sum of all the world's knowledge" ... and the chemical dependancy on all the war and drama it provides.

Weird really.

I suppose Google Scholar provides some of this but it would be useful to have a wider sweep in sources and longer related quotes.

Still, it may be the route to a viable alternative that could be scrubbed from Wikipedia automatically with a little coding.