The student government is working on textbook initiatives for students at my school. They want a flea market and to force professors to allow students to use older editions of textbooks.
What's practically involved in converting the school to supporting the option of ebooks?
I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to get the student government behind it. But I need to know what to tell them first.
Ok, but the benefits of possibly lower price and a much less strained back should be helpful. The loss of selling books is minor, because it takes one "generation" of classes to switch. and you always have the option of the print edition.
The student govt is apparently in a disagreement with a certain club leader and their textbook initiative came up. No mention of technology... I need to bring it up.
A decade or so ago, there was a proposal floating around that urged the USPS to sell internet service - the argument being they already own property everywhere, and could effectively step in as some sort of combined AOL - Kinkos.
Pretty sure if they were ever seriously considering something like that, they missed the boat.
There was also a project to have them "sign" email, and charge a nominal fee for doing so
it was supposed to be a way to cut down on spam
if you had to pay ~1/2 cent to send email, the average person wouldn't notice the hit on their budget, but spammers would go bankrupt
The only problem is, email is a 1:1 connection between two servers, and all it takes to send email is to telnet to port 25 on an SMTP server and send a couple text commands
It doesn't get routed through a central body like postal mail does
@jcolebrand Delivering an e-mail to a readable e-mail address relies as much on a central authority as delivering a package to a street address does. True story.
1. I suppose it makes sense that the idea was floated around before, I just thought of it independently and decided to blog about it.
2. @GeorgeMarian Why are those ideas scary? Why is it any different than MTA NYC Transit selling ads in their pseudo public spaces?
3. I'm not talking about signing, I'm just talking about gmail like spam-filtering, large storage space, and (pre "new gmail") UI, like Google offers. It could be a for-pay service, to avoid the service from "opening" and reading your mail.
Heck, imagine if the postal service would open envelopes, read them, and sell targeted ads to advertisers.
4. Is other option that the postal service has to go all startup and advertise like crazy and get VC money? Make it cool/fun to send physical letters. Apple accomplishes this with the Cards app.
I usually use it as separate windows as well. Though, sometimes if I just want to check a value quickly I don't want to bother with a second window. (That's also the reason I want it to open up along the right-hand side.)
I wonder if it's because I had Chromium installed initially. Though, that stores it's config in a different directory, I may have copied some stuff over.
Re: Stack Overflow customers - of course it has customers. It's just a strange way to think about it, since the folks who actually ask and answer questions aren't even close to being a majority audience, and yet they're a critical minority.
So the idea that we're gonna bend over backwards to cater to someone on the site because they're a "customer"... is almost antithetical. If folks reading a question don't find the answers helpful because we were more concerned about not driving away answerers than about actually getting helpful answers, the site would be dead in no time.
At the same time, actively driving away answerers is an obviously bad idea.
@ShelbyMooreIII That was a response to @ProblematicTitleException, who noted (now removed) that you were apparently talking shit about me in the comments still while I was trying to talk to you in here. Let's move on
@ShelbyMooreIII They're all over the map. Which is one reason why paying folks to generate content is an immediate fail.
Look we are both not happy, but why did we get in this mess?
Do you think we would be doing this if we met under other circumstances? I don't think so.
So how do we stop this circumstance?
You claim it is some problem with me like I am some kind of social turtle. But I am very well liked in social interaction off the web. The web is different.
So why is the web different? What is causing this?
Lets apply science. Lets try to identify and fix the problem.
@ShelbyMooreIII - I have no idea what you're like as a person, and frankly I try not to even think about it. There are all sorts of folks on this site who I'd probably hate in person but enjoy their answers.
By the time you'd written your second answer, I think you'd gotten to the point where you were actually communicating effectively, however the waters were pretty bloody by then,.
@ShelbyMooreIII That's a discussion all on its own, but the long and short of it is: any answer that starts to collect a lot of comments probably needs editing - most readers won't read a dozen comments, they'll read the answer and make their decisions based on that. If you've written more than a couple of comments without editing, either you or the person you're talking to have their head in the sand - the trick is in making sure it's not you. When in doubt, don't reply - edit to clarify your answer.
I am very confident about facts, so I am not shy about commenting, but I imagine that many others are more shy and also less thick skinned
I don't answer where I am not confident. Most questions I could not answer
My knowledge is not broad, it is narrow and very focused.
okay I understand now the implied contract that collecting comments requires an edit of answer. But this process is not well explained nor well defined on SO.
The thing is, it's not enough to know what you're talking about. You have to be able to communicate it to the folks who're reading the question. And those folks tend to be considerably less informed than you (else why would they have the question)?
@ShelbyMooreIII It is possible to create a chat room with a user if they are willing, should you so wish to engage a user. But beware, they may not want to engage with you at all - that's their choice.
I see no difference between a private comment and chat, except the ease-of-use. It has to be very easy and one-click. I am saying to require a reason on each downvote, but still anonymous.
The author of the answer could turn off the feature.
it should be optional whether the author requires reason on downvotes. This makes the author feel more in control. But still the reader is really in control.
I don't think Joel Spolsky will be against giving the author a reason on downvote. He was against general PM. And the author can turn it off if he doesn't need it.
@ShelbyMooreIII because it causes more problems than it solves. If I had to reply to the concerns of the users of every post I downvoted, I'd never get to doing any answering... you also run into difficulties with revenge downvotes, etc etc
No reply needed. Just a one shot msg to give you additional info. You can turn if off if you don't need it. Then at least you can give something to authors who want feedback.
@ShelbyMooreIII Because there are 4,000 new questions coming in every single day. And because the vast majority of them is crap. Trash that needs to be burned straight away. Stuff that does not deserve a comment.
@ShelbyMooreIII As @Moshe says, comments serve that purpose in a limited way. The thing to understand here is that SO is not about extended discussions at all. Chat serves for that purpose where users are willing, but SO proper is really optimised against discussion.
@ShelbyMooreIII that's an interesting idea, but I don't think it would work: People who are too lazy to give a reason, will simply select one at random, or the one that is pre-selected. I don't think this is the way to go... It is also very, very rare that things get downvoted badly without comment.
@Ninefingers Dare I say that I've "beaten" that system, having emailed several users, skyped with several others, and even met one. But yes, generally optimized against it. If it's important you know where to find people.
I don't know if people don't explain why they up or down vote because they don't care or because they don't want the person to know they voted on an answer (or question)... But, it might be nice to be able to leave a comment anonymously as to why it was voted. It could give us more insight as to...
@Moshe I'm not that much into German music (at least not of the contemporary kind) so I'm not sure whether I'm a good guide :) What was the requirement again?
@ShelbyMooreIII I mean if you had a pre-defined list of reasons. People would just choose one. And if it's not pre-defined but free text, they will just enter "öasdksdasdlfjdas"
@ShelbyMooreIII again, the disconnect between voting and commenting is entirely by design: the voting is intended to represent the collective opinion of readers as to how "useful" an answer is, while the comments are intended for errata and constructive criticism.
@yoda A friend just showed me a skateboarding video with Rammstein in it. The video was so bad, I don't know if I'll ever be able to ¬listen to that again.
@ThePGRepMiningCo Lyrics. I'm not taking German. I was kinda talked into knocking off my cores. A good friend is taking German in NYU this past semester and I have his materials to learn from. Alas, no time...
Emphasis on "constructive" there - if someone can't leave a comment that outlines a clear path for improvement, we'd much rather they didn't comment at all.
@ShelbyMooreIII That would completely overburden the mod system. As said, it is exceedingly rare that there is extreme downvoting with no comments. I think you are trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist save for some freak incidents like yours, but suggesting major changes to how the system works. That doesn't have much of a chance of success.
Having addressed this one before as a moderator elsewhere - it is also important to stress an extended discussion in comments can become a problem. If it takes an essay to correct an answer and you're prepared to go to chat constructively, great. Otherwise, that's when you downvote.
@ShelbyMooreIII I've seen this implemented - it works that way for low votes on CodeProject articles, AFAIK. However, that's a bit of a different situation - an article might easily involve weeks of effort on the part of the author, so demanding an in-depth critical analysis on the part of the voter is substantially easier to justify.
I did not say extended discussion. I said one comment only per downvote.
It isn't perfect, but at least it is some hint to the author. And it is anonymous and prvt, so he can't turn it into a war. His only recourse is to go edit his answer :) I really like that!
@ShelbyMooreIII Let's say someone downvotes and leaves a comment. You disagree with it. Then you would complain about not being able to reply to the comment. More drama ensues.
And if they reply in the answer and get even more downvotes for being a jerk, then they can edit again and get more downvotes until they fly off into outer negative rep space :)
@ShelbyMooreIII An idea I've been toying with for a while is a system that allows down-voters to leave a reminder for themselves that would prompt them to review the post if / when it is edited. The author would see only, "n users may re-examine their votes if this post is edited to address criticisms"
@ShelbyMooreIII That's kinda where I got stuck on it - even though it's opt-in, it still makes more work for the voters. So chances are, it either wouldn't be used, or folks would trigger it thinking they might want to re-review a post, but then wouldn't.
@Moshe I'm sorry, I did some thinking but I know so little about German musicians really, all the ones I know and love are really, really weird and usually have little or English vocals. If anything comes to mind I'll post it here.
@ShelbyMooreIII Exactly. Truth is, folks are exceedingly reluctant to put any effort into voting. We've come out and begged for more folks to vote in the past, because the system works better the more folks vote... Anything that introduces additional resistance will almost certainly work against us.
@Shog9 Well, and you'd have a hard time guessing which posters were likely to come back and edit in a way that would be substantial enough for you to change your mind.
@Moshe as said, the ARD and ZDF Mediatheken are really cool resources with lots of free TV. There is Tatort, the most popular German crime show, that runs every sunday and can be pretty cool (there are six different cities with different authors, cast, and producers). AFAIK they also have subtitles. I've never tried to access the Mediathek from outside Germany but I'm told it works.
@TimStone Right. Remember, there used to be this page where you could review past down-votes and revisit them, and they removed it 'cause folks didn't use it...
@ProblematicTitleException Rights issues I think! Remember, ARD and ZDF are our socialist, taxpayer-sponsored fiefdoms that own everything they produce :)
@ShelbyMooreIII - the easy solution to the rep problem was to delete your heavily-downvoted question and recalculate your meta-rep. So that's what I did. Give it a couple minutes, and you should be able to chat.
meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/6521/… are three reasons not to leave a downvote: shame/fear of reprisal, laziness, obviousness. We can't fix laziness, we don't need to fix obviousness, and if people are ashamed of their comments, then they probably shouldn't be commenting at all. – devinb Jul 17 '09 at 13:23
It wasn't obvious to me that people couldn't understand why the Scala example was relevant to the C# question. Because I am multilingual and I eat languages for lunch.
@ShelbyMooreIII Yeah... Devin was a huge proponent of non-anonymous voting. We disagreed pretty frequently on it, but he was always willing to spend the time justifying his arguments.
@Moshe Another name to watch out for is *Polizeiruf 110*, another big crime show. They vary in quality as they have such a diverse team of languages and authors, but they're usually at least decent entertainment.
I know it's a bit difficult to actually find the actual episode in the player (instead of the dozens of extras and previews that nobody's interested in), but usually it helps to check clip length. If it's > 30 minutes, you're probably okay.
@ShelbyMooreIII I remember someone - can't recall who at the moment, but he is/was one of the top users on SO at one point - talking about how writing answers on SO had completely changed his style. There's a huge amount of discipline involved in being able to write an effective answer, especially on some of the more deceptively simple answers.
If you look at how folks like Jon Skeet write... If he was a doctor, you'd call it bedside manner: the ability to create the impression that he's completely focused on you and your problem, even though you know he's answered 20 questions already that morning and still has a full day of work in front of him.
@ShelbyMooreIII Naw. Listen - that sort of ability, that's born of experience - not just in the topic, in the technical aspects, but in... writing. The goal is to create an environment that fosters that sort of experience.
Jon showed up with it full-developed: he's been a USENET / forum guy for years, and a published author.
@ShelbyMooreIII Exactly, if everyone on SO decides that it's not important, then the site becomes a mess of everyone's "not important". What happens then?
So what do you want? You don't want my type of contribution from busy people? You don't think you can provide the anonymous comment to help them to refine?
actually my answers are critical. Go look at the answers for declarative vs. imperative. They are all wrong.
@ShelbyMooreIII Here's the thing - I have... probably half as many deleted answers on my account as I have visible, outstanding ones. I learned by trial and error - the cost of posting a bad answer is more than offset by the reward for posting a good one, and so over time, you learn what folks want.
Do you work with end-users at your job, @Shelby? How many of them can actually tell you what they want? They express dissatisfaction or delight, but it's up to you to figure out what that means in terms of what gets implemented.
@ShelbyMooreIII Ok, to be fair, I'm arguing with your attitude, not the answer. Mind linking it? (Not gonna lie, I should've asked for clarification earlier.)
If you rely on users - readers - to give you specific guidance, you end up with "looks like facebook with a dash of excel and some Call of Duty thrown in".
@Shog9 To paraphrase Steve Jobs. "Apple doesn't do market research because customers don't want what they want until we show them what they want." Same idea.
simple example: years ago, relied on internal testing and external reports to fix crashing bugs in an app. Implemented automated crash-logging, a system to aggregate the results, and focused on my own judgement and experience to suss out what caused them - many, many more crashes reduced. Users - and even QA - are terrible at writing crash reports.
Voting can be inaccurate, but chances are it'll lie to you far less often than the folks who leave comments. The only down-side is that you have to rely on your own judgement and experience to know what, specifically, is lacking when you get down-voted. And that takes time to develop. If I hadn't fixed hundreds of crashing bugs prior to seeing the automated system it would have been nearly useless to me.
But I was trying to share a little. And I thought the feedback on downvotes could help. I don't think I will the only case. Especially now you re branching into nontechnical areas.
No a book and blog are not interactive enough to form the knowledge.
Re: insufficient voters. They are not voting because they don't have a strong opinion. That is good.
Copute.com
That is my new language.
not yet completed.
I did that because before I had a link to Copute.com, but Andrew Barber was stalking me. So I changed that to avoid the people going to my site with ill intent. Then I mispelled the coputer on purpose.
cooperative computing is the concept of the language
so you can see we are heading in synergistic directions on business models.
@ShelbyMooreIII Well, absolutely. That's one of those areas where we gotta say, "SE was built to solve one problem, not all of them - it's not a swiss army knife." There's still a need for forums, for chat, for email, for good ol' one-on-one sit down with me and show me interaction.
i could easily see a SO like Q&A on my site when it goes to cooperative computing stage.
that is why I was testing SO.
I was doing research on your platform. I made myself a guinea pig.
Well I love many things about SO, but I think I would use those features in slightly different way. But I am not sure if it is core to what i am trying to accomplish with cooperative computing. We will see.
One of the things SO has shown itself to be pretty bad at are the scenarios where you need a lot of back-and-forth just to diagnose (not even fix) the problem. It can work, but the cost in terms of time for those answering is huge, and the chances of that answer ever being useful to someone else are small.
@ShelbyMooreIII There's where it gets interesting: there's a (very under-used, IMHO) use-case wherein you take a question, provide a comprehensive answer, and then just keep generalizing the question and expanding the answer until it's a full-fledged reference for anyone with a similar question.
It takes a tremendous amount of effort (and often some cooperation from others) to pull off, but when you see it happen the results tend to be extremely good.
