NYTimes on the muslim protest thing. Wikipedia comes off really well -- "polite but firm".

Also: "The site considered but rejected a compromise that would allow visitors to choose whether to view the page with images." When was this?

About 80,000 people have petitioned Wikipedia to remove its images of Muhammad. These run the gamut from polite, respectful requests to (a very small minority) crazy threats of violence.

It's possible it could have been nipped in the bud if the top of the Muhammad article linked to a version without images (instead of to a page telling people to edit their custom server-side javascript file. sigh.).

Also, here's the on-wiki censorship request page.

If you're going out to vote tomorrow, please support Obama. Choose the future.

Quick list of reasons:

• Obama's detailed technology platform is pretty much perfect.
• He is much stronger than Clinton against any republican challenger.
• His policies are phrased so that they don't terrify republicans but still provide the same benefits as Clinton's.
• He is capable of convincing people of things, not just tacking effectively toward the polls.
• He is capable of disarming powerful interests (in all senses of the word), not just warring with them.
• He is endorsed by Lessig, XKCD, and danah boyd.

Boyd:

When I was [at the World Economic Forum] in Davos, I expected everyone to be pro-Hillary and anti-Barack because of the whole "experience" thing. I was shocked to find that this was not the case at all.

Most foreign diplomats and companies thought that Barack would be much better at negotiating with foreign powers than Hillary. They all knew that the candidates would have huge advisory teams that would help them understand what was going on. Even though Hillary knew more people already, they felt as though Barack would be more effective. (And most were extremely worried about how Bill would overshadow anything with Hillary... another sad reality.)

Before Bush II, the U.S. had only once -- in its entire history -- seen the son of a former president elected himself: John Quincy Adams, in 1824, and there were 3 intervening presidents between him and his father.

Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton would be without any precedent at all, and you can rest assured that the dynastic pattern is not a coincidence. Looking objectively at other countries, a dynastic government seems -- even when democratically elected -- to indicate weak institutions, unsophisticated voters, and a cloistered and ossifying inner circle.

The people who brought you the 10,000-year clock are excited about Wikipedia's potential as a canonical "Futurepedia".

Think about articles like 2020 -- "If expanded greatly the official future timeline might prove to be a useful document of what we expect."

I hate to be the one to break it to them, but there's no way that's going to happen within Wikipedia proper. It's not verifiable. It doesn't cite authoritative sources. It's not encyclopedic. Basically, it breaks all the rules, and it'll get slapped down before it gains any steam. Wikipedia's incredible realized potential lives side by side with a lot of squandered potential.

You're not going to win this one by fighting it out in the AfD trenches -- anyway, 1head-to-head combat isn't the wiki way. Wikipedia desperately needs to be nested inside some broader, more permissive architecture.

Florence: Wikipedia will have stable versions, wiki-to-print, and collaborative video editing.

F.D.: First of all, improvements to the software. This is something that's been under discussion for two and a half years: stable versions. The idea is to be able to identify which versions have been validated, and to enable users to see both the current version and the last version that was accepted as being more or less correct.

The second innovation, which I hope will become available in spring, is to give people the chance to put together a small personalised pdf file or paper version containing a selection of articles. Suppose, for example, that I want to know all about the Davos forum. I put things in a basket, just as on Amazon: the article on Davos, articles about the various personalities attending, global warming or the economic crisis. I compile my own little book which I can buy and have sent to me. That is Wiki to Print.

The third innovation, probably in autumn 2008 will be the possibility of adding videos to Wikipedia and editing them collaboratively, like a wiki text. That should be really, really good!

Wiki-to-print has been around for awhile as pediapress, but there were all sorts of problems with the implementation. Now that I check their site, it looks like they've "entered a long term partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation". Sweet. Here's the press release from a month ago; it looks like this slipped completely under the radar.

"Project Chanology" began as an Internet-based protest against the controversial Church of Scientology by "Anonymous", a group described as "a disparate collection of hackers and activists".

Picture of the year. (Damn, I liked the others better.)

The worst usability disaster you've ever heard about. (It involves mediawiki.)

It's the last day to vote for commons picture of the year.

Here are the finalists -- they all have that super-clear naturalistic wikipedian quality.

Shipping container architecture is an uncommon form of architecture that involves the use of steel shipping containers as the basis for housing and other functional buildings.

By the way, let me know if the new layout has problems or if the ads piss you off.

Hundreds and hundreds of coats of arms, vectorized.

Check this one out (SVG link). This too, actually. And this.

(Thanks, adam.)

The Great Hacker War was a 1990–1991 conflict between the Masters of Deception (MOD) and a faction of the older guard hacker group Legion of Doom (LOD).

Wikipedia on the iPhone

Wikipedia:ZEN

Eigengrau (German: "intrinsic gray"), also called eigenlicht ("intrinsic light"), dark light, or brain gray, is the color seen by the eye in perfect darkness. Even in the absence of light, some action potentials are still sent along the optic nerve, causing the sensation of a uniform dark gray color.

(If you can't see the poll above -- or even if you can, and you just want to look at spiffy results map -- then follow this link.)

Websites personified (Wikipedia is at 2:55, though the best one is Facebook, at 1:50)

Really funny. The actual title is "The Internet Party: What Happens When Google's Parents Leave Town for the Weekend?" see also

Geoff:

For many Wikipedians -- if not most -- contributing to it is probably the most important influence they will have on the greater world.

In my own case, while I am not some 15-year-old fanboy living in my parents' basement writing articles about videogames or anime characters, this is true. I could stop contributing today & devote my energy to something (so to speak) more socially acceptible -- catch up on my yardwork, tutor children in a local school, volunteer for a political campaign -- yet nothing else will have the same persuasive effect on so many people as contributing to Wikipedia.

Much the same thing happened after World War II in the United States: a lot of books were published about the war because there were a lot of veterans (& parents, sisters, & brothers of veterans) who wanted to read about what they had been part of.

Fortunately I defined my life long before Wikipedia came around, so while I know its importance, I can tear myself away from it & devote myself to other things, most of which are more important than whether an article on Charles Darwin should include the fact tha the was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln. (Or whoever those 2 people were that led to a silly edit war a few years back.) However, there are many people who have not done this, & their numbers can only increase. ("Wow, anyone can edit this? My words will be read by millions? This is way cooler than the drudgery of my daytime job.")

One could describe them as having encountered sunlight after dwelling underground for a long time; they are blinded by Wikipedia's importance, & have no way to put things into a healthy proportion. (And maybe the rest of the Platonic allegory applies in this case.) These members fight over every dispute viciously for an immediate solution because they cannot envision why allowing Wikipedia content to develop & mature could be a good thing.

Facepalm

Simo Häyhä (December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002), nicknamed "White Death" by the Soviet army, was a Finnish soldier, and is widely considered to be the most successful sniper in history.