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Comment Re:weird (Score 1) 712

Gun ownership in the US for most conservatives is not about "freedom", quite the opposite, it is about removing other people's freedoms, such as preventing voting rights and more often delaying remedy and equality, with the force of arms and threat of violence, ruling by tyranny, balanced by artificial social graces to distract people with "form over substance" discussions about Southern hospitality. For the history of the US South, most populations with strongest gun ownership see themselves as part of ruling class, superior by birthright to people in their community they hate based on ignorant prejudice, even if gun owners won't admit how tyrannical feudal class structure they perpetuate has always been.

An example of who conservatives hate? The US Military. Texas, where Defense Distributed is based, was the last US state to decriminalize members US Military voting in elections, around 1942, but Texas still disenfranchised US Military members based on race, for being black, until 1965. At the other extreme, New York State provided absentee voting rights to all New York State citizens in the US Civil War, serving in New York State units, such as the election 1864, 80 to 100 years earlier.

In the US South, conservative gun owners voting patterns in Federal elections continues a history of using government to remove and prevent non-violent equal rights, and only accepting rights equality steps under profound duress of a coalition of many of "We the People", many of "the many states" (the liberal states), and Federal government, formed to actively oppose southern prejudiced laws backed with vigilante violence to enforce rights removal, and after violence and typically many high profile unjust homicides by southern gun totting vigilantes, as gun ownership in the US South comes from a history of ethnically cleansing American Indians from land to build farms, preventing slaves gaining their freedom, putting down slave revolts to gain freedom, raising insurrection against non-violent coalitions (of the people, many states of many US States, and Federal government opposed to oppression by Southern vigilantes), preventing black people and poor people using voting rights as well as accessing education, and so forth. Most conservative state gun owners do not elect leaders nor support candidates who support such broad and non-violent key freedoms, but rather conservative candidates almost always oppose and delay rights equality.

Notice how your reply quotes where from James Madison, a slave owner who very likely understood exactly what state militias in slave states were for, established almost 100 years earlier, a militia designed to kill slaves running away for freedom, or killing slaves organizing revolts for freedom against slave owners, but your quotes are from a politician typically directed and spun toward "the Citizens of New York", a state which did not have much slavery and passed laws to progressively ban slavery in 1799, and had already provided free black people owning land with the same voting rights in the New York State Constitution before that, in 1777.

If US conservatives (often gun "rights" activists) supported "freedom" and "fair and speedy" non-violent dispute resolution for all people based on high quality equality in the eyes of the law, instead of arbitrary violent dispute resolution, then they would support full voting rights solutions for all Americans, and similar rights equality, instead of actively preventing and delaying restoration of equality. This means conservatives would support ending Federal and State level disparities, such as:
* Restoring statehood and full voting rights for Washington, DC. (600,000+ fully taxed US Citizens, more than Wyoming.)
* Statehood for Puerto Rico (3.6 million people, would become the 28th largest US State.)
* Full voting rights for all smaller population territories, such as merging Guam, American Samoa, and Northern Marianas, with Hawaii.
* To assure high quality and efficient labor markets with fairer wages, US conservatives would restore wide scale immigration. Historically immigration was roughly 1% of the US population per year, but banned completely by Southern style US conservatives around World War I, only to recover slowly to 0.33% of US population per year in recent decades. Low labor price immigrants strongly encourage US women's rights, by providing key services such as affordable childcare, home improvement and maintenance, US agriculture, and US restaurants, key priorities for having well educated women in the US be most effective in the workforce while building the family life they also seek. The US manufacturing base largely died within two generations after the borders were closed to inexpensive immigrants, and may have only lasted that long due to internal migration of the deliberately impoverished from poor conservative states to liberal cities. Conservatives would also support drastic simplification for people coming to the US for education to stay here and improve our economy. Conservatives would also support effortless path to citizenship of kids brought here, and educated here, and attached to our communities and nation be become US citizens, and not confuse the misdemeanor of undocumented immigration with serious crime.
* Pro-Choice on family planning and abortion rights for US women, because it drastically improves the education level and quality of life of American women and their children. Higher education attainment creates higher life time incomes, and smaller more stable families is correlated with drastically less crime.
* Same Sex Marriage. For some reason conservatives typically create laws to punishing rights and finances of gay people, much like conservatives have other groups. This is flagrant prejudice of old in the current era.
* Penalizing new arrivals in some states, such as people born there, via property tax subsidy for long standing land owners by over taxing young families, and drastic market interference by preventing people from moving, because they want to retain subsidy, artificially driving up house prices even higher, is modern preclusive conservative policy, doing profound damage in states such as California. If conservatives supported freedom, opportunity, and effective markets, they would be leading the charge to remove laws such as California Prop 13.

If US conservatives were honest about freedom that they claim gun ownership signifies, they would acknowledge the historical purpose their political factions saw and likely still see in gun ownership, primarily useful for precluding "We the People" from "fair and speedy" non-violent dispute resolution, and concede that taking such basic rights from others is counterproductive and not what modern gun owners support, but this is not how their elected leaders vote, nor act. If we lived in a society that actually protected all peoples rights as equally, the Defense Distributed interesting innovations would not be so politically dubious.

Comment Youtube.com, News Media, and Federal Contracts? (Score 1) 205

VC like proven cash flows, and with them, you can get much better terms from VC, if you have already demonstrated sales, and self funded expansion.

NEWS MEDIA
Your quickest cash is from TV programs which use amateur video, and would be willing to spend significant sums to upgrade video for better broadcast quality. Comedy Central's "Tosh.0" and Warner Bros. syndicated show "TMZ", use immense amounts low quality video. Sell turn key systems to them to generate your quickest cash flow hit. National broadcast news, such as ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, MS-NBC, Bloomberg, PBS, and similar, use low quality video on occasion. You want to serve the national head quarters of each, and new media in biggest cities, starting with New York City. There are 52 (cities) US Census Metropolitan Statistical Areas, with more than 1 million people in the US, that would be logical targets for such media organizations sales, which would be logical destinations for turn key solutions if the software and hardware are reliable, and straightforward to use. These same news organizations have offices around the world, such as London, Tokyo, Middle East, and so many other places.

TECH SUPPORT
Sales requires technical support. A web service may be the best emergency back up in the event of problems with turnkey hardware. Online documentation and email tech support during business hours is easiest to do. Tech support that is more complete, such as with call centers is extremely expensive, and would require maintenance contracts, and considerable sales of both software and service contracts.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Federal Government processes large amounts of data, and care about speed and quality. Success with the news market would be helpful evidence that the Federal Government should pay attention. Uncle Sam, like news media, might be willing to pay sharp premiums over what mom and dad consumers would pay. This procurement process is a slow process, and you likely need an expert in Federal procurement, to get GSA vendor number, etc, but if your software is adapted by these organization, you could see major revenue from large numbers of sales at a premium. I would focus on national security market (DoD, CIA, NSA, FBI, and similar) as well as law enforcement, (FBI, DHS, DEA, US Marshals, ATF, US Coast Guard, US state level investigation organizations, and similar). These markets have hundreds of offices, that could use a high quality tool chain to see amateur video, such as of the Boston Marathon 2013 bombing, and similar. The problem is that the software would likely need review for more classified uses, on computers you would not be able to sell to the Federal Government, requiring you to partner with an authorized vendor of hardware, so you can have standardized and tested hardware and software as a "turnkey" solution. Domestic US law enforcement, reviewing police car dash board cameras and similar, would have lower security requirements than most classified US Federal service. Learning what Orange book computers are, and getting security clearances for personnel are extremely expensive, slow, and intrusive, but if the sales are large enough, classified sales could be well worth it. Typically small companies are asked to join forces with very large Federal contractors, to pursue larger and more serious sales, which all takes time, money, and legal fees. The last and most complex hurdle is the US Federal budget cycle, currently under "Sequester", making Federal Sales extremely difficult to achieve.

WEB SERVICE
If your tools are ready to be sold as a web accessible service, you could directly sell to much larger audiences. The web service business model gives you the most control of hardware and software, but you can only sell to customers with appropriate band width. The web service would be credit card, and premium pricing, such as a third to a half the price for a single session as the entire shirk wrapped software package, provided the testing many outputs from the one uploaded video, This would logically be a fall back service for news media, who have a faster turn key machine you sold them, and the back up web service. If the software is really good, the web service would also be a gateway to create cash flow, and advertize the quality of the turnkey solution, expanding all sales.

DOWNLOADABLE SOFTWARE
The easiest way to generate sales is to sell directly with downloads, with PDF manuals. If you have to have a paper manual to sell people, use a digital press such as Lulu.com. This sales route will have the least risk, fastest growth if your software is marketed properly.

SHRINK WRAPPED SOFTWARE
This is what I would do last.

Comment Crowd sourcing does not work in Slashdot either! (Score 1) 270

If you don't post quickly on slashdot thread, one's comment is ignored, no mater what new links and central examples for the thread you post. Slashdot always skews to brief humor, and away from modding up the "informative", especially if it is only 1 hour tardy from most comments.

I recall the first time I noticed this, slashdot talked about a meta article about "red light traffic cameras" in Washington DC, and a friend of mine and I, both from DC, both posted links to where cameras were. I posted a link to the official Metro Police Department page listing where the Red Light Cameras in DC actually were at that time, and he posted to the freedom of speech chilling and potentially terrorist capturing secret cameras around the National Mall, where many of the most important gatherings of people in the US happen, for people to publicly seek redress of grievances from the US Congress. The links we posted were the basis of many future Slashdot seed/top discussions, yet viewed as utterly irrelevant my forum modders that day. Neither of these squarely on topic post with links was modded up above 2. The same thing happened when I was the first person on shashdot to mention the knoppix distro. I feel that happen today with this crowd source topic, as the forum brushed by, not identifying key material and links.

Crowd sourcing on slashdot requiring many people to agree can be very useful for finding brief humor but dreadful at evaluating informative links.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/02/05/05/1231231/traffic-cameras-in-dc

Comment Reddit Crowd Sourcing Successes and Failures (Score 1) 270

Crowd sourcing is only good at some very important tasks, but was truly terrible and libelous in an information vacuum. Reddit deserves some credit for Thursday night successes of the forum, but ultimately old fashioned police work was key in this specific case.

The "witch hunt" summary is accurate for the Monday to Thursday 5PM time, when so much was said that was unprovable, and much more difficult to disprove, like the NY Post photos of innocent people accused of being the terrorists, taking too many days to be seen as extremely wrong.

FBI OFFICIAL PHOTOS
After the FBI released Official Suspect photos at about 5PM Thursday, April 18, 2013, Reddit (or rather Subreddit "findbostonbombers") had some commenters who were actually very useful, and had contributions which were well substantial and well ahead of the media.

DAVID GREEN PHOTO
The David Green photo from the corner of Fairfield Street and Boylston Street just after the bombing was there, less than 2 hours after the FBI official suspect photo release, and more than 3 hours before it was on NY Times 11:14 PM published website article, and apparently also the CNN Piers Morgan interview of David Green the same late night. The Monday photo showed Suspect #2, with the white hat, with the smoke from both bombs visible, walking around the corner of Fairfield Street directly toward MIT campus, foreshadowing events late Thursday night, including the murder of the MIT police officer.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/new-higher-resolution-image-of-boston-marathon-suspect-emerges/

SUSPECT HAT IDENTIFICATION
The crowd sourcing found the official web catalog photos of both hats make/model/catalog-photos used by the terrorists. This is a quickly verifiable task, that the subreddit did very well. I suspect that all such commodity product identifications can be done fastest with most accuracy, by a large crowd that cares, such as was the case on Reddit that night. Reddit found links to the official web catalog photos of these hats, under ideal circumstances.

This is not the first time either, a prior case was solved by a sharped eyed reddit user identified a Cadillac 1990 head light from a crime scene photo, helping resolve that case.

The hat ID was potentially extremely useful for several reasons; More witnesses could be asked about the clear photos of the hats, helping the FBI. Also, somewhat technical, but the FBI could use computational clarifying techniques, using these identified and purchasable hats, to calculate a clearer image from fuzzy source photos of the faces of the Subjects in the photos. Admittedly these computer image refinement techniques are more familiar to astronomers than crime fighting, more like the CSI type TV shows than real life law enforcement, but it would be possible.

OTHER PHOTOS ON REDDIT AFTER 5PM THURSDAY
At least two other photos of the official FBI Suspects, not then available, were found and shared on Reddit. I have not seen either of these photos in the press.

Photo link: before the bombing possibly Suspect #1 black hat from behind, headed east on Boylston from about the Starbucks, (next to her ring). Less likely but possibly Suspect #2 far left (under her elbow).
http://imgur.com/a/34wtj

Photos link: Potentially a very damning photo, possibly Suspect #2, with the backwards white cap on, a back pack on ground, and possible 8 year old victim still alive. (the younger Tsarnaev brother is accused of being Suspect #2), a back pack on the ground, behind possibly the 8 year old bombing victim who was killed by a bomb blast.
http://imgur.com/a/fEZhX

DETAIL FROM IMAGES
Although guessing who the terrorists were was something that Reddit utterly failed at, libeling many people Monday to Thursday 5PM, once the FBI released official Suspect photos, a sharp eyed commenter spotted countless details such as the woman in the far right of the David Green photo of Fairfield, in a Tufts Lacrosse sweat shirt, appears to the be the same woman standing next to (possibly) the 8 year old victim in the unexploded backpack on the ground photo I just mentioned. Possibly the same woman in both photos. The millions of eyeballs looking at these photos found that visual connection very rapidly, something that even an art major (for while) with perfect eyesight like me would have easily missed. Although she might not have seen anything recorded better in either picture, she would be one of the best uninjured witnesses law enforcement could find.

A sharped eyed Reddit reader noticed the Starbucks photo also has a backwards white capped person on the far left of the image, under her elbow, suggested to be Suspect #2/white cap/younger Tsarnaev, but I find very hard to determine if it is him, because it requires much better tools and knowledge than I have, to confirm that theory.

LEAKED PHOTOS
Reddit commenter posted links to a very graphic (probably inflammatory) photo described as the dead older Tsarnaev brother in hospital or morgue. Reddit suggested that a Boston PD member twitter leaked it, and then shut down the account. Weather that link should be there is profoundly complex free speech question. I think it should be there, but could create serious blow back for someone.

LESSON LEARNED?
Reddit is crowd sourcing website. Any crowd sourcing website needs more moderators to remove libelous non-sense, because angry mobs spew too much fear and jump to too many false conclusions. Crowd sourcing moderators must play to its crowds strengths, such as collecting photos and videos, and links to same, from many people to collect as many different photos as possible. Crowd sourcing websites that have real information, such as law enforcement official photos of commodity items without detail id (make/model), belonging to criminals/terrorists, such as the baseball caps, need to quickly identify what these commodity items are, because someone in the crowd will know the actual make/model/weblink/officialwebcatalogphoto of these items. Crowd sourcing is going to be much faster and more accurate than asking too few media or law enforcement to do the same. Once identified, such as backpacks and hats, law enforcement can find production and sales information much more quickly, but only if they have id of the gear.

HOW WAS THIS CASE REALLY SOLVED? (ACCORDING TO ONLY INITIAL PARTIAL REPORTS)
Jeff Bauman who lost both legs, woke up from double amputation, and wrote down who he saw, communicating to the FBI who the bomber was. FBI did the hunt for basic video and photos, using security tapes from fixed cameras nearby, and released the photos. FBI crowd sourcing the entire news watching world worked. Some people who knew the brothers answered the FBI request and told the FBI the brothers names as the possible terrorists, along with thousands of people sending in thousands of other names. The publication of the photos triggered strong reaction or panic in the accused terrorist. They went shopping, paying for their food, at the Kendall Square 7-11, and were spotted, and someone contacted the police. Police responded, and the press was told the police were responding to a robbery. Then all hell broke loose. The brothers killed an MIT police officer. They may have attempted to steal a police car to escape Boston more easily, or perhaps even been stopped by the cop, I have not heard which theory is preferred by law enforcement, perhaps neither theory.

None of these events involved open web crowd sourcing. Perhaps next time, if the terrorists were more organized, requiring a longer man hunt, would the crowd sourcing been more helpful.

CONCLUSION
Hopefully sites like Reddit will play to their strengths from now on.

Comment Veto broke Wikipedia's Editing Political Model (Score 1) 533

If you research and post a modification of an existing article, particularly if one is biased or flawed, it can be vetoed with UNDO in a blink of an eye. Bad faith edits such as graffiti need UNDO. Users must declare if an edit is graffiti or not. Good faith edits need to be reviewed publicly, and not undone so fast. The easiest way to detect conflict is creating transparency for comparing editor and article version is with concordances of words deleted and added by author in an article, and over the life span of an article. It would help find who is misusing the UNDO, and create the basis of limiting power of editors who are not helping.

Comment Lunar Oxygen to move ISS to lunar orbit (Score 2) 572

Liquefied Lunar Oxygen (LOX) could be collected by machine. Most of the theory, and many details, were worked out the during Apollo era. This would allow cheaper per tonne of fuel to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), than from the earth's surface. The International Space Station could be even moved to lunar orbit, at great expense, but less expensive and sooner than building a lunar orbital station any other way. It could act as a filling station for lunar fuel in orbit for future command capsules, like that of Apollo, and a place to meet with vehicles stationed on the moon to ascend to/descend from orbit, like the Lunar Module of Apollo, both of which reduce the size and price of rockets to the moon. Mounting a radio telescope array on the ISS Lunar orbiter could give us the best radio telescope yet, and the ability relay that information back to earth on a predictable schedule. Landing much of the ISS piece by piece onto the moon would create considerable value in building a habitable ground station, faster and cheaper than any other route to the moon.

Comment Prior knowledge of the problem? (Score 1) 166

Transistors and processing power help with all problems. Algorithms fall into two categories, generalized and specific. Generalized Algorithms help all problems that relate, but rely heavily on processing power. If you can identify a specialized problem, then a specific algorithm(s) can slash time to compute drastically. To achieve these 43,000 times improvements, one needs to know the data before computation. A better image compression algorithm, e.g. jpeg2000, is only useful if you have raster image data with large deployed color depth. If all images were compressed by competition between specific algorithms, such as gif, png, jp2000, then the server has to compute the compression of each, so that all users can enjoy the speed increase (network speed, drive storage space, ram storage, decompress time) that comes from smaller files. The server still has to compress the one file many times to select best outcome, which is not a speed increase at all for the server, even if all users of a website such as google would benefit from less bandwidth and processor speed. Specific algorithms need to be flawlessly implemented on all systems, taking considerable development time and money. Generalized algorithms combined with faster processors is how most net data will likely be transferred. The specific algorithms will likely live on servers where all data can be stored as highest quality data, e.g. jp2000, and then converted when needed to .jpg for end users, to maximize the number of users that can benefit from the service.

Comment Re:FTFY (Score 1) 191

Wikipedia's software is not designed to create consensus in the Article Editing Political Model. Any Good Faith Edit can be VETOed by any single grumpy/biased user, a form of tyranny. Wikipedia does not distinguish between UNDOing bad faith graffiti, and VETOing/Deleting good faith edits with the UNDO button. The more biased an article, the harder it is to create balance. Hours of work to balance a biased article, vs one click muzzling by a biased VETOer. Biased VETOers can keep an article biased forever. Wikipedia is designed to fail, because all users have to completely follow Assume Good Faith, or the VETO via UNDO becomes a weapon for the first unhappy user, not a shield against graffiti. See my longer comment below.

Comment Re:Not "self-correcting" (Score 1) 191

You obviously don't know about VETOing good faith edits with the UNDO button. Wikipedia is politics.

Any single user can click one button and remove any good faith addition from public discourse. The more biased the article, the harder it is to create a balanced article, because one biased VETOer can undo hours of work (writing, editing, linking, citation finding, and proof reading) with a single UNDO click. Wikipedia does not distinguish between UNDOing bad faith graffiti and VETOing good faith edits. A single bad faith VETOer can trip up the entire world from reading a better or more balanced article on Wikipedia. Wikipedia helps a minority shoot down progress in the development of articles. Wikipedia software developers simply punted with the "Assume Good Faith Policy", so no one can notice who is controlling the articles. We need both the policy and the software to limit and track VETOing with UNDO of good faith contributions.

See my longer comment below.

Comment One man Veto with UNDO permits article hijacking (Score 1) 191

Only one grumpy person is needed to VETO any good faith changes to an article. Its called monopoly. It deliberately defeats Wikipedia's stated aim, by muzzling valuable good faith contributions. It is the most important flaw in the Wikipedia article editing political model. Assuming good faith is completely inadequate, because only one person who doesn't assume good faith can control the message. Because any unhappy user can VETO any good faith contribution, using the UNDO button, wikipedia articles can become hopelessly biased. Bad faith graffiti needs to be VETOed by UNDO. Good faith edits need public discourse. Malicious UNDO removes/deletes good faith effort from public discussion. UNDO denies the network effect to improve good faith content. The VETOer is not required to point to specific words that need improvement, before deleting the good faith effort with a single click. Any effort to correct a biased article can be simply removed by a biased VETOer with one click. It is an unstable equilibrium. The more biased the article, the harder it is to update and correct it. Cascading equilibrium is actually the basis of Chaos Theory! Wikipedia needs to reorganize its tools to create stable a equalibrium between perspectives in each article.

When I suggested to the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee that bad faith VETO of good faith edits was biggest flaw in Wikipedia, guess what, my view was deleted. See July 14 to July 24, 2010..


An Example: The "District of Columbia Voting Rights" article is where I personally noticed this bias in the cherry picking of the frame of reference in this article, and found no ability to circumvent the wikipedia VETO (bad faith use of UNDO).

With 600,000 disenfranchised full US Citizens, Washington, D.C. is the largest on-going case of disenfranchisement of lawful full US Citizens in the United States. Since Washington DC was carved out of Maryland, all voting rights and elected offices were removed from DC citizens by the US Congress. The US Congress 'alienates' rights of these full US citizens, by using Article one, Section 8, clause 17, of the US Constitution, to act as an "Exclusive legislature", controlling the States Rights of this place. Since Washington DC land and people was removed from US Rep. Craik's District, US Senator Hindman's and US Senator Howard's State, no one can be elected from this place to full voting membership of the US House Congress, because the US Congress cancels the elections and elected offices of these citizens from Washington, DC. Using the States Rights of this place, the US Congress 'alienates' the Citizens of Washington DC of their voting rights, elections, and laws, such as the US Constitution, Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Maryland Constitution of 1776, all of which had applied in this portion of Maryland was converted into Washington, DC. Washington, DC, citizens are asking for further RESTORATION (full or partial) of their elections and elected offices. The US Congress in debates recorded in the Annals of Congress decided to disenfranchise this portion of Maryland by simply not writing laws to replace the Maryland laws that Congress abolished. Opposition to disenfranchisement was led by Rep. Smilie of Pennsylvania. During debate, Rep. Smilie questioned the disenfranchisement and the tactic the US Congress used to take control, the use of deliberate omission of law. Cleverly, no one can cite the law that stripped these (currently 600,000) citizens of their rights, just debates that discuss the use of omission of law to disenfranchise the full US Citizens forever in the Annals of Congress. Smilie criticized the omission of law that would disenfranchise, saying,
"Not a man in the District would be represented in the Government, whereas everyman who contributed to the support of a Government ought to be represented in it, otherwise his natural rights were subverted, and he left, not a citizen, but a subject. This was one right the bill deprived these people of, and he had always been taught to believe it was a very serious and important one. It was a right which this country, when under subjection to Great Britain, thought worth making a resolute struggle for, and evinced a determination to perish rather than not enjoy."
The US Congress's omission of law was powerful and intentional act of disenfranchisement.

The wikipedia article excluded (and still excludes) how the voting rights were abolished from this former portion of Maryland to create the nation seat of government, which national laws and elections are currently canceled by Congress, and any words indicating a historical frame of reference, such "restoration" of rights, that suggests that the people and land of District of Columbia were ever protected by the voting rights and elections, So I added the missing history and frame of reference. Any effort to put frame of reference words such as "restore" are always removed by critics of voting rights. Look for edit comments between April 7, 2010 and April 10, 2010. I would cherish the opportunity to find one person that would help me polish the facts I added, instead of a few people selfishly deleting with UNDO, to protect their own slanted/biased version. I am aware that my efforts to remove the political bias and faux neutrality of the article, as I found it, are not the final or best version that will address my concerns about this article, but I do know, that every time someone deletes my good faith factual updates in their entirety, it is because they have a stronger selfish bias than I do. My energy level to keep writing text that simply gets deleted is minimal so I have not gone back and published many refinements, typo corrections, and additions that describe the breath taking hubris of the US Congress.

Proposed Wikipedia Solution: Wikipedia needs precise limits on the UNDO, and ability to detect abusive VETO of good faith contributions. Using drop down boxes to crisply identify weather a user believes they are undoing good or bad faith edits is very important. Mislabeling good faith VETO as bad faith UNDO should be recognized and penalized. Good Faith VETO is privilege that should require marking up the text first in detail, not some silly opt-in label in the article history where vagueness or misrepresentation is frequently used. Only after marking up concerns in the text should a VETOer of good faith be permitted to undo. This way, other users can clearly and precisely see what the VETOer thinks needs improvement, and address it in the next version. Wikipedia also needs tools such as a concordance for each user, article, each user edits in one article, to track which words and links are deleted and added over time, and by whom, so anyone can detect a bias or conflict. Because wikipedia's article editing political model is so fiercely biased, Wikipedia is unlikely to change it, because wikipedia has acquired an air of respectability, yet is fundamentally controllable by the tiniest of minority opinion. DC Voting rights are as important in the balance of the US Senate and US House as one can get, so I don't see their ever being an article version that explains the differing perspectives of pro-disenfranchisement users and pro-votingrights users.

Moral of the Story: Shooting the messenger creates power through unfairness instead of healthy competition. Using unfairness to create forms of tyranny is why Wikipedia and the US Congress (when ruling over Washington, DC), will not change, and correct their own ways. I doubt that anyone on slashdot will mod this article up, because explaining absence of good policy is long, boring, and hard to explain. I doubt anyone would even contact their elected US Senators and US Congressmen to help restore DC voting rights. Could you even imagine Wikipedia fixing its article editing political model flaws!?! Wikipedia user policy of "assume good faith" does NOT substitute for Wikipedia actually writing software tools to assure that good faith is required and track-able. Can you imagine the US Congress restoring DC voting rights and elections so these citizens could be like state capital citizens or NATO and OECD national capital citizens and have a vote in national legislature? I can't because the people Federally elected to rule over Washington DC are that greedy and jealous. I would be shocked if DC voting rights progress ever made the front page of the New York Times (above the fold), because ending disenfranchisement of voting rights was only of interest to New Yorkers back in the 1960s, (or 1770s, 1820s, 1860s, 1920s, 1970s or 1980s), NOT where NY State's Federally Elected leaders are (and were) already "Exclusive"ly responsible, inside Washington, DC. My father chose to use his Harvard graduate degree as a world class professional in Federal public service, (So he took a paycut, passed numerous back round checks and acquired many security clearances to make certain he was an trust worthy and quiet American.), and moved himself and family to Washington, DC, where I was born. If I live near my family in DC, which I do, I am disenfranchised, ironic, because the bulk of family tree has lived in the United States as full citizens since before the US Revolution. Do you think they fought in every major war since then so I could be disenfranchised?

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