Comment Re:WTF? Can someone summarize? (Score 1) 239
The high up elite (administrators) want to implement the consensus that the end users have reached. The higher up elite (WMF staff) are the ones boisting feta on readers.
No, it's more like "Buck Feta".
MediaWiki has a tool called "common.js" to let an admin edit the sitewide JavaScript. Wikimedia Foundation staff are trying to push unpopular user interface changes onto Wikipedia. The admins are using common.js to override the changes and restore the previous behavior for anonymous visitors. So WMF staff have superprotected the pages to keep even local admins from editing them.
it's just a personal call whether you think their version of the content is worth paying for
At $36 per article, which I've seen on several sites, I don't think a lot of people will bite.
you end up having no reliable sources
Communication is a basic human need and people like to communicate even if there's no monetary reward.
People also like to spread hoaxes, whether knowingly or unknowingly. That's why I specifically mentioned reliable sources, those "with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."
Plaintiff: We want to sue Monsanto before they sue us over cross pollination.
Judge: Can you prove they do that?
Plaintiff: Well, no
Should have said Monsanto v. Schmeiser.
Couchsurfing went from an ostensibly community-run (but really oligarchy-controlled) website to a private, Delware-registered and venture capitalist-funded corporation three years ago. To continue to call it Couchsurfing.org is disingenuous.
Yet you're posting this on Slashdot, which continues to operate from the
Which is why we use ad-blocker blocker blockers
Ad blockers that allow the ad to render and then cover it up exist, but they eliminate the bandwidth and CPU time savings of a normal ad blocker. Like normal ad display, a cover-up ad blocker slows down rendering, drains your device's battery (as its CPU has to come out of sleep mode more often), and runs up a higher data bill with your ISP compared to a normal ad blocker. And as I mentioned above, a cover-up ad blocker fails with interactive advertisements.
They can embed the whole site in a DRM-ed Flash or Silverlight wrapper
Which means your favorite general-purpose web search engine can't see it to index it. Of course, a site could provide just the title, author, and abstract without digital restrictions management and get those in the index, similarly to how Elsevier journals and WSJ.com present articles to anonymous visitors and to logged-in users whose subscription has lapsed.
In what universe is that my problem?
In the universe when you end up having no reliable sources to read about a particular topic because substantially all of them have either put up paywalls or gone out of business.
Why would i bother to buy my own device?
To run applications that have not been ported to BlackBerry.
home Internet is now normal, and the VPN use doesn't increase the cost
Then calculate the VPN use in GB per month and bill whatever Exede (a satellite ISP) charges per GB over the cheapest plan.
"No matter where you go, there you are..." -- Buckaroo Banzai
