If all Facebook's users thought like you (and many others here apparently) then Facebook would have no reason whatsoever to safeguard anyone's privacy. That is the reality. Users expect the level of privacy that is described to them, as per the settings that they chose. (We're not talking about advertisers here, we're talking about other users.) And Facebook generally upholds its side of the contract. Why? Because it is afraid of user outcry, of PR disasters, and in the end of regulation. Your attitude gives Facebook a free pass. I just don't understand it. If you don't trust Facebook, don't use it. But this idea that Facebook can and will get away with anything is utterly cynical and gets us nowhere. Please stop.

Exactly. THIS is the real issue. We humans will survive, we're too clever not to. But the damage is going to be awful, and permanent. I find it terribly sad.

You think that article X is [wrong] [incomprehensible] [incomplete]? So fix it yourself.

There's too much on X and not enough on Y? Go on then, write the Y article.

The editors are [self-serving] [elitist] [evil]? Come back and complain after you've done a thankless stint reverting vandalism.

Wikipedia is crazy not to take ads? Would you work for free in order for someone else to get paid?

The Wikipedia criticism industry is a pure product of the me-me-me consumer age. The marvel of Wikipedia is precisely that it is not a consumer product. It is about the producers and their astounding feat of working together, unremunerated, while sorting out their differences, to create an incredible body of written knowledge that didn't exist before.

The Economist's esteemed style guide doesn't agree.

There can be no real ambiguity here. It's a question of style. I say: why be complicated when you can be simple?