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Comment Re:But the real question is.. (Score 1) 315

According to this article, there are roughly twice as many gay men than there are lesbians. Regardless, the argument of homosexuals skewing the results is nearly baseless. The number of homosexuals in the US is about 3.4% so that for every 100 people, less than four would be homosexual. Granted San Francisco has a higher homosexual population per capita, but I am not sure that there are more homosexuals applying for jobs with Amazon.

Comment Re:Hmmm... (Score 1) 138

So anecdotal then. Neither Google or a peer reviewed publication shows that Google News presents a purely unbiased look that ignores my preference for articles. The articles that are presented to me again focus on topics that Google believes I am interested in. The closest you get to unbiased selection is from the spotlight and editor's picks -- and those are necessarily biased, particularly the editor's picks.

Comment Re:Hmmm... (Score 2) 138

Search engines are already implicitly biased based on their search and display algorithms. Google provides results on your past search history attempting to identify those items that you're more likely to read. If you're liberal, you are more likely to get results that include MSN, CNN, etc. Conservatives are more likely to get Fox, etc. These results are already helping to polarize us politically because more inclined to read things we agree with.

Comment Re:Paid editing is fine for Wikipedia (Score 1) 55

Not at all. This is a legitimate line of traffic between Wikipedia and me. I probably should have deleted the ad link, but it didn't cross my mind at the time. Unfortunately, I can not edit my entry so there it is... Out of curiosity, how could this be used to get someone to do my end-of-semester paper? For grins, I teach at a college; I am not a student there.

Comment Paid editing is fine for Wikipedia (Score 2) 55

Wikipedia is not completely opposed to paid edited. Here's a conversation I had with someone from Wikipedia:

From: Me
To: Wikipedia

I just saw this ad for a freelancer pop up (http://www.freelancer.com/projects/Articles-wikipedia/Create-wikipedia-entries.html) and thought that you might be interested in blocking the requested entries.

---

From: Wikipedia
To: Me

Paid editing is not prohibited but it is certainly not encouraged. At the moment the best I can do is to post a message on the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard alerting the regulars there to the request so that they can check whether those articles have been created and review them closely if and when they are. We do not usually block the creation of articles. However if an article that does not comply with policy and guidelines is repeatedly created, we do prevent further creation.

Thanks for contacting us. I hope this helps.

Yours sincerely,
Robert Laculus

---

From: Me
To: Wikipedia

Thank you for your response. I hadn't realized that paid article creation/editing was authorized.

---

From: Wikipedia
To: Me

I would say "permitted" rather than "authorized", although it is distinctly frowned upon. Such articles will be heavily scrutinised, and deleted if too promotional in tone. Users will be blocked from editing if it is clear that they are only editing Wikipedia for promotional purposes. In fact, unless we actually catch postings such as the one you found, or see other evidence of it, it is very hard to prove that someone has been paid to edit or create an article.

That said, his signature specifically states, "Disclaimer: all mail to this address is answered by volunteers, and responses are not to be considered an official statement of the Wikimedia Foundation. For official correspondence, please contact the Wikimedia Foundation by certified mail at the address listed on https://www.wikimediafoundatio...."

Comment Re:Alternatives (Score 1) 242

Are you sure that your provider will offer static IP addressing? This is one way to distinguish residential from business users. Comcast has already stated that they will support both dynamic and static (for a fee, I'm sure) IPv6 addresses.

Comment Re:You cancel service? (Score 2) 242

yeah but at 25 bucks / year you might just as well get something real...

What is something real? A permanent IP address, i.e. business class service, costs far more than $25. I just checked with Comcast recently and it started around $60 per month. And if you want cable TV, you cannot have DVR with business class service.

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