The person he was responding to was claiming that "literally everyone creating media" is permitted to be used as a source on Wikipedia, which isn't true. There are some issues that are niche enough that the only articles written by 'reliable sources' on them are articles written with ulterior motives. Even if the line between reliable and unreliable is defined in a way we can all agree on, the problem still remains that Wikipedia is only as trustworthy/unbiased as the secondary sources it derives its content from (the claim in the OP).
> The person he was responding to was claiming that "literally everyone creating media" is permitted to be used as a source on Wikipedia, which isn't true.
"A source is where the material comes from. For example, a source could be a book or a webpage. A source can be reliable or unreliable for the material it is meant to support. Some sources, such as unpublished texts and an editor's own personal experience, are prohibited."
> There are some issues that are niche enough that the only articles written by 'reliable sources' on them are articles written with ulterior motives.
Says you. But if you encounter such an article, you are free to improve it by making it NPOV ... and people do that all the time at WP. And if you can't find such material then you have no basis for your contrary beliefs.
You folks act like there's some cabal of editors with a unified ideological outlook, but this is the furthest thing from the truth. Whatever your ideological outlook, there's a large cadre of active WP editors who share it and are constantly trying to push articles in that direction ... but they have to be able to make their case, and even the most ardently biased editors learn that bad faith must at least be disguised.
> the problem still remains that Wikipedia is only as trustworthy/unbiased as the secondary sources it derives its content from
It's not a problem because there's a vast range of such sources (people talking here about "news media" as if that's all that's allowed as a source are clueless), and as a whole they are vastly more reliable than WP's critics, who basically whine that they aren't allowed insert blatant lies into WP just because they happen to believe those lies.
Alternatively you could use 'most people', or any one of several equivalent expressions, and preserve the meaning of everyone as every one. There is an aroma of manipulation around using language that gives the impression of absolute consensus even if all parties involved understand its vernacular meaning. It's embellishment in service of influencing people and rightly denounced in any context where accurate communication is important.
But we are not writing a scientific paper here; we are having a discussion. I guess if it matters in the scientific sense, one would be more careful; so if the discussion would be about a new type of medicine then 'cures all people' would be a stupid thing to say. Here however, it doesn't matter. But point taken: I guess I commented as HN has especially has this nasty about of commenting on
things where it indeed doesn't matter, stuff like 'citation needed' or 'but it cannot be most people, because I know blah blah blah'. Pointless let's say for this phone discussion; might be relevant for a medicine/vaccine or so.
I think it could be better in that you get a more rounded perspective of what people think, and develop greater empathy for the hang-ups that people have and understand the patterns they develop along. It's certainly more comfortable to insulate yourself from those negative ideas, and everyone has to determine for themselves how much of it they can take, but ultimately I think it's positive for personal growth.
And these 'clinically retarded' people, as you call them, have all of the same rights you do, including the right to vote. It's antithetical to democratic and egalitarian values to imply that a value is lesser somehow because many of the people who hold it have intellectual disabilities. If anything you could just as easily say the reason people with disabilities hold these fringe ideas are because they aren't included in the public discourse, and we have failed to learn to communicate with them effectively enough to instill them with our values.
I called exactly one person clinically retarded. I also didn't suggest or imply disabled people should have no right to speech or vote. You made all that up.
Pretty sure you can commit crimes in your bedroom, and pretty sure a crime is easier to get away with when you have a private space to do it/hide stuff in.
Regarding point 2, it seems strange to ask 'what changes?' when the point of the article you're commenting on is showing how and why you spend more when presented with 9-ending items. If it was found to make consumers spend 8% more, quite a lot changes - and in a time of unprecedented household debt in the US, it seems like tactics contrived to get people to spend more are very much worthy of discussion.
Either way, it's a bit disingenuous to frame it as 'just a penny' (the actual quantity of money being spent isn't the point, it's the effect on people's spending habits) and bringing up some other problem to nullify concerns around this one is just bald-faced whataboutism. You can say you don't really care, and that may be true about addressing the problem, but making arguments for why this isn't actually a problem suggests you care about the topic in a way that compels you to dismiss it, at the very least.
My argument is different. The article is studying the macro situation, my comment focuses on the micro. You can argue an exploitative strategy on the macro, but the individual themselves is still getting a product they are assumedly fine paying for (and there's a big assumption that "people wouldn't buy it otherwise" if priced a cent above) .
The harm on the micro level is negligible, and you can even argue the macro level doesn't fundentally harm society like so many other modern tactics. Environments aren't impacted, liberties are not breached. Children are not exploited. There's no slippery slope towards some gambling addiction. It's not opening a door for hate.
>You can say you don't really care, and that may be true about addressing the problem, but making arguments for why this isn't actually a problem suggests you care about the topic in a way that compels you to dismiss it, at the very least.
It's a discussion, I care about seeing others viewpoints. But I don't feel very challenged here. The questions above are all the things I'd hope to have more viewpoints revealed on when I made my comment up chain. So far it's simply been 2 instances of "why are you defending this?" a question on me instead of a glimpse into you and the GGP.
It's a conversation, not a debate (invoking privation fallacy doesn't exactly change my mindset here. Even if I'd "lose" a formal debate). So I answered that question. I'm "defending this" because it feels trivial but so many are riled up about this. Claiming they won't even participate in purchasing such products. Which is baffling to me.
I More than free to clarify if that's unclear, but I hope I can hear others' viewpoints as well. Because I don't get the big deal outside of in a moral vaccuum. In reality, it's comparatively trivial even if we only focus on how pricing works (e.g. The US sales tax problem).
Fair enough, perhaps I'm bringing some biases into this since I think online discussion has a tendency to be very dismissive of less sensational or impactful topics. I really don't think you're defending the pricing strategy, trivialization of criticism isn't necessarily a defense of the object of criticism, although for how often the two are conflated I could see why you would think that is how your opinions are being seen.
I don't think households need to be spending 8% more of money they don't have (if we're considering rising household debt) when they go out shopping. The issue is probably more evocative than it logically should be for some people because of the aroma of deception around it. Making superficial changes to price to take advantage of human distortions in quantity to get them to spend more has at least a shade of deception to it (I don't say that as a valid argument, just hoping to lend some context for why people would get worked up over it).
If you don't think that's adequate to make it a 'problem'... well, fair enough, I'm not entirely convinced either. But I'm not seeing a very strong case being made for the contrary, besides 'other things are more important' and the interesting claim that consumers must not be impacted because they're still buying these products ("Of course they love their job, wouldn't they quit otherwise?")
That's easy to say, but when it comes to shopping at the store, picking up several items and not actively thinking about it, are you really sure you aren't unconsciously interpreting that 9.99 differently from 10? Personally, I like to think that doesn't work on me, but at the same time I've caught myself saying something was '9 dollars' when I've been distracted and it was in fact 9.99.
And even if 9.99 really is 10 for you, it could mean that you're different than most people, rather than the methodology being faulty.
I found it odd that my girlfriend would say out the cents, because personally I have always been rounding up, and never considered the cents, for example.
I try to keep two things in my head when filling a grocery cart, an accurate tally of dollars and a numberless sense of "where in the dollar the cents remainder is presently", like the position of a progress bar on a screen. I find a remembered visual progress bar does not distract me from the arithmetic, and when I spot one of those silly prices ending in .95 or .99 the bar resets to a tiny bit and I add a dollar. My mental progress bar generally jumps in approximate ~1/4 steps and when the total is accurate to within $2 with many items that is a win.
> Is that realistic? Intuition is telling me that's very idealistic but I'm prepared to be surprised
There are many markets where this is the case. Which trucking company has significantly more than 15% market share? Which law firm? Which car insurance company? Which university? Which construction company?
Nearly all of the consolidated industries got there through some combination of mergers, vertical integration and regulatory barriers to entry. Even some of the "natural monopolies" like last mile telecommunications are only so because of regulatory choices -- the natural monopoly is actually the roads, which the government owns, and if they provided easy and affordable access to roadside cable trenches there would be much more competition for data service.
> In other words do we have a framework for deciding on additional punishment for repeat offense?
Yes, and you should be able to find how it's handled in your state fairly easily. The fact that you don't know that, and that you're generally focusing on the rhetoric rather than ideas, makes me wonder if you're interested in the subject or just arguing...
