81–90 of 332 posts
So it's not only that most people aren't creators, most creators aren't even creating much.
The probability that you read an article of someone is inversly related to "the author being regular".
Maybe that's also the reason why only a fraction of people are rich?
Exactly - within 30 minutes 20 people have upvoted but no one has commented.
Hah, as a long-time lurker when I saw that title I thought it was interesting and made a mental note to come back when there were comments. It didn't even cross my mind to comment on it - I wonder what causes the different perspective of those who do.
Am here for over 2 years now, rarely upvote something, haven't submitted anything and this is just my 2nd comment... Pretty sure this rule holds for close to all kind of forums.
I don't know if you're willing to make a 3rd comment, but I'm trying to understand the lurker mindset from the perspective of someone who posts quite actively. Is is just that you don't care enough to reply, feel like your opinions are unpopular, don't feel like you have anything to say, or something else?
For me personally, I just don't care and don't get any reward in the idea of conversing with some random person on the internet. The chances are, I'll never see you again on here or irl, remember your online name (I remember faces, not names), or you will have any real impact in my day to day life. This is how I feel about every commenter online. I don't talk to random people on the street, so why would I talk to random people on the internet? To me, there is little difference.
I value face to face communication much higher than text chat. I really enjoy reading peoples faces and expressions when chatting, to the point where I find talking to others online is the equivalent of having a conversation where everyone has a paper bag on their head when.
If I think someone is wrong on the internet, I just don't care. I read their comment, think to myself "They are wrong/an idiot" and get on with my day. I see no value in correcting a stranger on the internet.
I much rather have conversations irl, and I do, so I have no time/energy left for an online conversation. I'd much rather spend my time with my girlfriend, programming or anything else.
Everything feels so permanent online. I know I'm going to regret things I've said in this post in the future, my mind will change, maybe I won't lurk anymore after writing this!? The permanent nature of online communication goes the against how I should be as person, my opinions shifting and changing as I experience more of life, not held back by some random thing I said on a forum 5 years ago.
When I post, I open myself up to being attacked by people online. I can avoid this simply by never saying anything online.
To illustrate a point, I finally got round to creating an account on stackoverflow about half a year ago, and I still have only one point. I just wanted to vote on questions, but I can only do that if I have at least 15 points on my account, and that requires writing comments/questions (I think). For me, that means contriving 15 comments that succeed at playing some social game, that I simply don't have the time or energy for, so I've given up on ever voting on stackoverflow.
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I still think it's surprising that there are so many lurkers who literally never engage in the discussion, considering the barriers to do so are so low.
The barriers only seem low to those people who've already passed them. But I remember teenage me, over 20 years ago, being very reserved about writing online because I considered my grammar too bad and I didn't want to embarrass myself. And back then there wasn't even anything social media, where blunders like that could lead straight back to "real" me, the whole idea still made me anxious. Can't even begin to imagin…
Maybe out of fear of saying something wrong and getting debated on it - though it's quite civilized here. They might have seen too much of other websites where things turn less civil :)
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The file format you tried to write about isn't notable enough to have its own article in Wikipedia. The notability guidelines are there to prevent people from writing about things that can't be verified by reliable sources, and it's a mechanism to help ensure that articles are accurate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability While not every topic belon…
It is a very notable file format used by many devices and lots of software can read it. The only reason its hard to reference is because the company that develops it basically just publishes a C file with how to use it and everyone uses that to write their own implementations.
The test is called the "general notability guideline". In short, any topic needs to have at least 2 citations to different sources that meet all of the following requirements:
1. The source provides significant coverage (at least 1-2 sizable paragraphs) of the topic
2. The source is reliable
3. The source is a secondary source that is editorially and financially independent of the subject (and of the other source)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#General_n...
A manual for the file format would not meet requirement #3, since it's a primary source that was published by the company who developed it.
This rule is in place to prevent companies from publishing information about their own products, and then promoting them on Wikipedia in a biased way.
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It's a problem for Wikipedia which says a central principle is that it's the enclyclopedia anyone can edit. That's clearly not true with Wikipedia's hostile to new users policies (even with the existance of "don't bite the newbies"). Even creating a username means you have to navigate the username policy, and the two admin boards (one RFC, one noticeboard) for usernames. There are two templates for usernames (and tem…
The username policy is quite simple. A username: 1. Must represent a single person, not a company, organization, website, band, partnership, or other group of people 2. Must not be deceptive or impersonate someone else 3. Must not be unreasonably long 4. Must not be inflammatory or imply that you intend to troll If you create an account that doesn't meet this policy, an administrator will prevent you from editing unt…
No, an admin may instantly block you permanently, or may temporarily block you until you change your name, or may temporarily block you while they discuss it with you, or may not block you but apply one of two templates, or add your name to a username for discussion board where you'll have to try to justify your name.
EDIT: Reads some stuff about his company. He knows that information is factually incorrect. It's not harmful to his company, but it is misleading to people reading Wikipedia. He signs up for an account.
If he signs up a "xargleblarg" he's fine, he can edit the article.
If he choses to be open and honest and he signs up as "Bob from BobCo" he faces instant blocks across multiple policies (COI, Spam, spam username), even if those policies are being incorrectly applied.
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The username policy is quite simple. A username: 1. Must represent a single person, not a company, organization, website, band, partnership, or other group of people 2. Must not be deceptive or impersonate someone else 3. Must not be unreasonably long 4. Must not be inflammatory or imply that you intend to troll If you create an account that doesn't meet this policy, an administrator will prevent you from editing unt…
So simple it's presented on a page with dozens of subsections. It should present a simple version like your 5 points and link to the longer version for the few outlier cases or rejections. It's repeated for every single policy page - they are enormously long and complex for every single topic. There is nothing remotely like a friendly beginners guide to helping - be that fixing some poor language, or correcting a mis…
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The username policy is quite simple. A username: 1. Must represent a single person, not a company, organization, website, band, partnership, or other group of people 2. Must not be deceptive or impersonate someone else 3. Must not be unreasonably long 4. Must not be inflammatory or imply that you intend to troll If you create an account that doesn't meet this policy, an administrator will prevent you from editing unt…
So simple it's presented on a page with dozens of subsections. It should present a simple version like your 5 points and link to the longer version for the few outlier cases or rejections. It's repeated for every single policy page - they are enormously long and complex for every single topic. There is nothing remotely like a friendly beginners guide to helping - be that fixing some poor language, or correcting a mis…
> This page in a nutshell: When choosing an account name, do not choose names which may be offensive, misleading, disruptive, or promotional. In general, one username should represent one person.
Seems fine to have the sussinct description at the top followed by details on the same page. If there really are lots of people that have issues picking a username (these policies seem petty typical so I’d expect most users to be fine) then a link from the create account page would be a good idea.
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I still think it's surprising that there are so many lurkers who literally never engage in the discussion, considering the barriers to do so are so low.
Anecdata, but I'm a typical lurker. If I don't have something to contribute to a discussion, I stay silent. I think that goes for a lot of people. There's also the commitment angle - if you engage in a discussion, you're typically committed to follow up on the responses you get. That can be more of a time/attention commitment than people are interested in, and with the growing toxicity of online discourse a lot of pe…
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It's a problem for Wikipedia which says a central principle is that it's the enclyclopedia anyone can edit. That's clearly not true with Wikipedia's hostile to new users policies (even with the existance of "don't bite the newbies"). Even creating a username means you have to navigate the username policy, and the two admin boards (one RFC, one noticeboard) for usernames. There are two templates for usernames (and tem…
Really? Is that one of the main problems with wikipedia? Even in the top 20?!
And it's really inconsistant: depending who's looking at the name the new user may get instantly blocked permanently; may have to go through RFC/usernames, may have to discuss with admins on usernames for admin attention or on ANI, may have to discuss with admins on their userpage, may have to discuss with non-admins on their userpage.