[FFmpeg-cvslog] [ffmpeg.org]: r300 - trunk/src/contact

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 12:44:53AM +0100, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 11:01:28PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 08:13:26PM +0000, Robert Swain wrote:
> > > 2009/2/25 Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at>:
> > > > On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 08:56:57PM +0100, superdump wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Log:
> > > >
> > > >> The thread hijacking article on wikipedia was removed because it didn't contain
> > > >> any citations.
> > > >
> > > > ROTFL
> > > > next they remove the article on evolution because it doesnt contain a
> > > > citation of the bible
> > > 
> > > That was my thinking too, though worded differently. Why can't
> > > wikipedia be _the_ point of reference? Why does everything have to be
> > > cited? 
> > 
> > Thats because wiki isnt [...]
> 
> Your habit of referring to Wikipedia as "wiki" makes as much sense
> as referring to ffmpeg as "mpeg" or "software".

the habit of people refering to sodium chlorid as salt or to kilo gramm
as kilo also makes no "sense". Still as long as something is commonly
used and understood in the context used there is no problem.


> 
> > i mean if i want to know something about chemistry id ask a chemist or
> > read a book/paper writen by a chemist.
> 
> Unfortunately, in my experience, these books come with a set of errors
> of their own and the amount of errors they contain is no less than
> Wikipedia, on the contrary.
> 
> Note that I base my judgement on Wikipedia articles and books about math
> and computer science, but quality varies greatly among fields AFAICT.

There are certainly books that are far worse than wikipedia, a book is as
good as the author. But one does not (volunteerly) read books that are of
poor quality or by incompetent authors, 
as examples if you want to know about C there is that K&R book and there is
the ISO spec compare this to what wikipedia says about C.
Now you surely can pick up some "learn C in X days" book written by someone
who wrote similar books for 200 other things and no doubt that will be worse
but the key point is with books you have a choice, with wikipedia you do not.
you cant (easily) pick the wikipedia ariticle about C that has been written
3 years ago by someone who knew C you rather see what the much larger army
of java propoganda belivers made out of it ...


> 
> > iam not sure why people think this is going to work out in the long run,
> > already now if i out of boredom read a wiki article where i either am the
> > expert of the field or simply compare it just to the german wiki article
> > i often find very serious errors.
> 
> I'm under the impression that the quality of the German Wikipedia is
> rather good, but I have no hard facts...

That was what i was trying to say, but i did definitly didnt say it clearly
yes, the german wikipedia is generally of higher quality than the english one
i dont know why ...

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and
there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up
some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. -- Plato
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