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I've been using Google Reader recently, following the lamented death of Planet Fleck, and I suppose I have to admit its better. Here are some "shared items" if, for some reason, you want to read what I read.

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Wikipedia: get off your arse

Category: wikipedia
Posted on: September 1, 2008 5:01 PM, by William M. Connolley

Atmoz complains about this version of the WAIS article. As he says, it was full of cr*p.

So why didn't he just fix it? I have now.

Sadly, that article comes into the not-very-prominent article class, which means few people watch it, and no-one competent was writing it. It even features Rappers "slumbering giant" sound bite.

Comments

You may have made it more scientifically accurate, but I still like the imagery that you eliminated:

"Under the massive forces of their own weight, the ice sheets deform and drag themselves outward."

Kinda like Hulk Hogan getting out of bed in the morning, I would imagine.

[Sometimes I hate people removing evocative language in the name of accuracy, but I draw the line at ice sheets dragging themselves -W]

Posted by: Bob C | September 2, 2008 9:45 AM

I wish there were a "last known good" flag on Wikipedia articles, at least climate-related ones.
Or am I missing a feature somewhere?

[There was a proposal for this, oh, several years ago. But who to trust to put it on? The problem is that amounts to someone getting to select their favourite version, ie having extra priv -W

Do any of the real scientists or competent editors keep a list of climate-related threads there that are currently considered reliable? Or that they look at and would stomp into if they were badly mucked up?

[Not that I know of. I don't bother, because all the major climate related pages have been sane for a long time now, apart from one or two that obviously aren't (global warming controversy, for example) -W]

Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Holocene_climatic_optimum
I can see familiar names from the CA crowd in the edit sequence.
I'd have to page back a long way to find one of yours.

[Because I thought it was fairly OK. Most people are just going to look a the graph anyway. I've just started off another fun war by revising the text lightly; do join in -W]

I'm sure posting stuff there done just to waste scientists' time --- whack-a-red-herring is certainly not a productive use.

Posted by: Hank Roberts | September 2, 2008 7:43 PM

> [There was a proposal for this... But who to
> trust to put it on? ...-W

Well, maybe something like Killfile -- user option.

But I guess the whole notion of a reliable source falls apart somewhere in this line of thought.

> do join in

Oh, dear lordy lord lord ...

Posted by: Hank Roberts | September 3, 2008 5:06 PM

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