Everything2 Hits One Million Nodes 160
Stavr0 noted that Everything 2 has now hit its 1 Millionth Node: [list collector] by [stepnwolf]. Long long long time readers of Slashdot remember Everything as The Mystery Project thought up and developed years ago by Nate & I, which has since taken on a life of its own. Congrats to Nate, Bones, Darrick, Tim, Ron, and the thousands of people who have contributed a million nodes, both priceless and worthless to this bizarre experiment in distributed collection and maintanence of information. Nostalgia rises up in me whenever I read the original nodes that Nate and I wrote when Everything was just a wierd drunken idea. If only we figured out a way for it to break even ;)
[e2]'s [one millionth node!]! (Score:1)
Re:stran9er things in life (Score:1)
Everything made me make Anything (Score:2)
Anything on PerlMonks [perlmonks.org]
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WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
Re:Wikipedia hits 2000 articles (Score:2)
Re:Wikipedia hits 2000 articles (Score:3)
An interesting chapter in E2's history. (Score:2)
Presuming the author of the above comment is who I think he is, you can read about this whole sorry affair at http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=DMan [everything2.com]
As you will probably detect from his comment, DMan was not the most conciliatory of writers. Many people felt that his incendiary writings were poisoning the atmosphere on E2. I'll leave you to judge this for yourself by reading the above comment, and his E2 writeups [everything2.com], 930 of which remain.
All I will say is that I've never before seen such consistent use of the "You started it" defence!
Re:Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:2)
"It's pretty easy to pump out the same generic humor BS that will get upvoted- what's hard is writing something in disagreement with most E2 noders' beliefs. Such as something pro-Christianity, pro-life, anti-drugs, pro-Bush, etc."
I don't think this is an E2-specific problem. Weak, bland humour certainly does get upvoted, but this is because in general, it's non-controversial. Personally, I despise lame writeups of this type, but I feel I'm in the minority. Political nodes, on the other hand, are almost certain to draw downvotes from people who disagree with your stance. This does not only apply to the political stance you describe. I have had many nodes expressing my "liberal" European views downvoted into oblivion. Try writing a node which advocates gun control [everything2.com] and, although there are many users who will agree with you, you will swiftly attract the downvotes of those who don't.
In the time I've been with E2, the political wind has blown in various different directions. Users have stormed out because they feel their Conservative views are unpopular, and other users have done the same because they felt Conservatives won't give them a hearing, but I don't feel there has been a consistent bias overall.
In any case, the trick is to remain above all this, and just contribute.
Re:Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:2)
"That vicious assault of yours, when you laced into a satiric piece on the IRA *was* quite the classic. When I downvoted it and saw how low the rep was, a more-than-mild feeling of pity arose."
Um, I can only conclude that you've got mixed up somewhere along the line, for the following reasons:
I'm not sure if you're trying to say that I wrote a satiric piece on the IRA, or that I "assaulted" such a piece. Either way, I have no idea what you're talking about. Anything I've written about the IRA on E2 is still available [everything2.com], so I would be obliged if you could point out the one you're talking about.
If you like, /msg ryano on E2 and we can discuss this further.
Re:Moderation FAILURE of E2 (Score:1)
XP only matters if you want it to, and if you write nodes JUST to get Reputations, well ladee, you're there for the wrong reason.
And while we're all whining about Reputation, let me say again that EVERY [noder] gets ONE vote. One Vote, One Noder. Did you know that these '[Elite]' E2'ers you talk about comprises less than one percent of all noders in the system?
There are a few things you need to remember: One, we like depth. Two, we like humour and three, we respect honesty. If you follow those tenents, you'll do fine, [I guarantee it].
People on E2 take everything so personally. You need to have a thich skin if you're going to play the game. They write fine nodes, and when they don't get [C!]'ed in the first 5 minutes they start complaining about the conspiracy. THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY.
....okay, there is the [Dai-un] conspiracy, but that's on hold until he trims the fur between his toes.
Re:XP stoicism (Score:2)
I still vote on your nodes, D, and there is a pattern there that you don't seem to want to admit:
You'll notice that any writeups you made that simply stated your opinion are + rep, while the ones you made that were simply attacks (on other noders, usually) are in the - rep dolldrums. Weird, no? Funny how people don't like flames.
Another funny thing is that EVERYONE in E2 tried to accomodate you, to the point where you were given and EDITORSHIP. You have no right to say that you are 'picked on'. '[Dem bones|bones] bent over backwards to help you -- you know it and I know it.
I followed your entire career D... I still think you have fantansic ability, but, well, you take everything too personally.
THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY.
Re:Buttholes (Score:1)
Stop whining
Re:Buttholes (Score:1)
I bet I do know. What's your e2 name, troll-boy?
Re:Which node? (Score:2)
The *original* node was in fact Brian Eno, as far as I know. (It was in the distributed versions of the source at least through the 0.3 series.)
However, node_id 1 is reserved for the nodetype node, at least since release 0.9. I just verified this with the source on my dev box.
nate sure had no idea way back when.... and there's so much more that can be done with the Engine [everydevel.com]
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Cheap Plug (Score:2)
Half-empty [half-empty.org] just passed it's 1000th Idea post. It's kind of a hybrid between slashdot and everything2..
Node bloat? (Score:2)
Strictly speaking... (Score:1)
And now that there's a story about E2 here, we can expect our beloved but slow Everything to be even slower. Damn you, Taco!
-j
Re:Unfair nukings (Score:1)
DMan is referring to me nuking many of his writeups that were cut-and-pasted from other sources without credit when I was an editor.
If it makes you feel better, D, I lost my editor privileges shortly thereafter for going nuts killing nodes. So there.
-j
Re:Wow!!! (Score:1)
Re:Everything2:Community yes, source of knowledge, (Score:3)
I will say quite openly that everything [everything2.com] in general does not have what you could call an *emphasis* on factual/informative writings [everything2.com], and i would say that that e2's psychological tendencies [everything2.com] to reward the poorly constructed sex jokes [everything2.com] written by 14-year-olds and vaguely neglect factual writings [everything2.com] *have* probably driven off some people who would have been beneficial to the site (although i would say there have been MINIMAL effects from this). However, i must say i completely completely disagree with what you are saying. What i suspect you are neglecting to realize is that whether e2 is deeply informative or not depends on the *kind* of information you are looking for. If you are looking for scientific [everything2.com] or mathematical [everything2.com] concepts, then e2 damn near achieves its ultimate goal of providing decent coverage for every single thing you could possibly think of to look for. If you are looking for information on technical things (i.e. computing [everything2.com], programming [everything2.com], UNIX [everything2.com]) then e2 is only about halfway there. If you look for serious historical material [everything2.com], you're going to find damn near nothing (a shame, because i think the web-of-definition-links [everything2.com] format of e2 would be perfect for history writeups.. but i digress.) E2 has certain places where it is strong and certain places where it is weak, and i for one see the weak places less as a deficiency than i see them as a CHALLENGE, to help e2 grow to encompass those things it neglects now.
I will say this-- if you compare e2 to the more facts-only wiki [everything2.com]-like endeavors such as h2g2 [everything2.com], you will find that while those site [everything2.com]'s writings are in general more *in-depth* than the corresponding e2 nodes, e2 has a *much* larger coverage of disparate [everything2.com] things. E2 contains general summaries for almost everything there is, but exhaustive coverage of few things. Whether this is a good or a bad thing i cannot say, although i DO know that there are a good number of pockets of extremely esoteric material [everything2.com] where e2 just SHINES. E2 may never be as consistent as the moderated [everything2.com] h2g2, but i think it's safe to say that you won't see people feeling quite as free to just ramble about pagan holidays [everything2.com] and canadian politics [everything2.com] and other quirky such things with as little abandon as they do on e2.
The thing you have to keep in mind is that not everyone on Everything has the same goals for the site [everything2.com]. The site has no one single use. If everything2 is good at anything, it is leaving people free to slowly mold the site to their own purposes; talk [everything2.com] to a bunch of e2 users and you'll find that each one probably has a different vision for where everything2 should go, and it is possible-- given time-- for every single one of those visions to be fulfilled, without interfering with any of the others. You [everything2.com] care about the informative aspects; some people on e2 ignore those aspects, and care only about searching for people's life stories [everything2.com]. There are people who really just want a community [everything2.com]. There are people [everything2.com] who just sit around and post collections of elizabethan poetry [everything2.com]. The strength of e2, in the end, really lies not in how much content is there *now* but in its flexibility.. because that flexibility in the end gives it the potential [everything2.com] to be more than its competitors [everything2.com] will ever be.
And one thing you have to give e2: The s/n [everything2.com] levels are EXPONENTIALLY higher than they are on slashdot [everything2.com]; i would perhaps say, although this varies from part of the site from part of the site, they are even higher than on kuro5hin [everything2.com]. And unlike slash [everything2.com] or really even kuro [everything2.com], the nature of the site means that you rarely have to wade through crap [everything2.com] to get to the good stuff [everything2.com]. If you get the hang of looking for things [everything2.com] the right way, you can just spend hours clicking through what seems like an endless supply of fascinating material, and learn the entire time, without having to look at a single sex joke.
Taco: fix the god-damn wandermeister [everything2.com]!
Thank you.
Check out the system BEHIND everything2.. (Score:4)
http://everydevel.com/ [everydevel.com]
The system is truly impressive as an abstract and astoundingly flexible architecture to let you VERY easily create collaboratively managed websites (assuming you are a relatively experienced perl programmer), and i would just like to suggest that those in the general Slashdot population to whom the system might be useful go take look at it and maybe play with it some. The chances of it being useful to you someday are not bad..
Re:Buttholes (Score:1)
Re:Wikipedia hits 2000 articles (Score:1)
In the news, Rob Malda copyrights Everything... (Score:1)
Rob crowed before the press, "We now have control over Everything, so anything out there *must* be a copyright infrigment. We figure each person alive owes us $2.95 for their use of a small part of Everything. Those who have more will be charged on a sliding scale, of course."
Blather news, out.
Re:Editors go on nuke spree, E2 back to 999,997 no (Score:2)
Come on, admit it: who else here celebrated the "millennium" for both 2000 and 2001? Any excuse to get drunk is a good excuse to get drunk.
Re:Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:2)
The overwhelming bias on e2 is toward "community" in the form of daylogs, which I despise. I rarely write there now, because any writeup I spend hours researching and writing will quickly be drowned out by the ceaseless writeups added to the latest gossip/sex node.
(Actually, that doesn't bother me any more - I turned off the new writeups nodelet and browse at a much more leisurely pace.)
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Moderation FAILURE of E2 (Score:2)
Meanwhile excellently written informative (as opposed to whiney or ranting) nodes sit in the single digits, too boring for the E2 elite to bother with. I'd come up with some examples, but E2 is so slow at the moment I don't have the patience (every page is taking at least a half-minute to load).
There are a lot of awesome things about E2, and I've read some amazing stuff there, but peoples' voting tendencies are one of the things that keeps me from noding more often. It sucks to put a lot of time into a node only to see it completely unappreciated.
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Re:Moderation FAILURE of E2 (Score:2)
I understand that, I've been around for almost a year, you know. However, I still stand by my original statment for two reasons.
1. Yes, everybody gets one vote--however the long-timers have enormous influence over the shaping of everything (this is acknowledged in the FAQ). So you're a newbie, first day on everything, and being the contientious netizen you are, you decide to lurk for a few days and see what flies and what doesn't. You come across crap like "REMOVE," written by a god no less, and see it voted through the roof and therefore take it as a model of supposedly good noding.
2. The E2 elite are comprised of every E2 noder. Yes, E2 has high literary standards, but it also has high standards of what is cool enough to warrant upvotes. Stuff that isn't cool enough will be immediately softlinked to "your radical ideas..." nodes, or "did you hear about the man who told his ass how to talk?" Who's going to upvote them now?
Factual noding doesn't get as many votes, but they're still loved and cherished and, gradually, voted up by people who find them interesting and/or can verify that they're accurate. Facts are what make e2 relevant, and they're what keep people coming back to the site time and time again.
I find this terribly hard to believe. Why? Nobody talks about them. Nobody upvotes them. Nobody
Of course, I wouldn't dare write anything like the above on E2 itself: at the very least, I'd get condescending softlinks like "your radical ideas about voting have already occured to others" and "quit your whining." Fine, I am quitting my whining, as well as any noding I might have done, and I don't just write drivel either. I guess I'm just not cool enough for E2.
(aside: it occured to me that this post as well as my previous one could be seen as hypocritical when compared with my sig. I don't have a problem discussing moderation, but statements like "Well, I know this is going to get moderated down, but here goes..." drive me nuts.)
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ACK!! Bad link! (Score:2)
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Re:Bruised egos do not a moderation failure make (Score:2)
You shouldn't expect to be a widely read and acknowledged writer after just fifty writeups.
But don't blame the E2 community just because you're not widely loved from the get-go.
I really wish people would stop accusing me of being egotistical or XP-centric. I don't give a fuck about my reputation on E2. I don't care about being well-known or widely read. I don't have aspirations of being the next P_I. Hell, I would probably post anonymously if I could.
However, I really cannot see a single reason why I would invest any amount of time into writing when so few people spend 3 seconds and 2 clicks to say "that's worth being part of this database." If no one gets anything out of my nodes, then why the hell am I writing them? If I were writing with the intention of my own self-gratification, I would write in a diary or a journal.
I was first inspired to node when I came across some writing on E2 that I thought was really outstanding, for whatever reason. Either I learned something, or I was introduced to a viewpoint, or I was let in on someone's remarkable stories. I got something out of these nodes, so I wanted other people to get something out of mine. If no one does, then I'm not accomplishing that goal, and I have no reason to contribute.
That's all a vote is to me. Not a notch on the belt or ego-boost, but a simple indication that I didn't waste the last hour or two of my life, because somebody took something away from something I wrote.
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Re:Check out the system BEHIND everything2.. (Score:3)
No, it's not. Here's the license:
http://everydevel.com/index.pl?node=Everything%
Here's the Open Source Definition:
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.html
E2's license violates points 1, 2, 3, and 6 - and, since it doesn't allow redistribution, many of the others don't make sense.
E2 is nothing like Open Source.
Re:It thinks, therefore... (Score:1)
Sure, there are going to be trolls and XP whores, same as any other online community. But with everybody getting a chance to decide on favorable/useful writeups, the ability to glean content from crap allows the site to maintain relatively high quality.
Assuming everybody plays by the rules set forth, that is...
Re:Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:1)
The only reason why one should vote down is if you just think the node is pure shit and has no place there.
If they have bad spelling, grammar, logic, or anything that they could edit you should
But as previous comments have mentioned, E2 has become insiders only kind of community. Eventually a newbee will learn not to just write nodes, but write nodes for E2. It's pretty easy to pump out the same generic humor BS that will get upvoted- what's hard is writing something in disagreement with most E2 noders' beliefs. Such as something pro-Christianity, pro-life, anti-drugs, pro-Bush, etc.
-AU
Re:Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:1)
It's not about the fucking XP!!! It's about principle of it. Downvoting is simply one step closer to being nuked. When I have a wu that's at -10 I'm not worried about my precious 5 XP points I lost, I'm worried that it'll get nuked by one of the moron editors.
-AU
Re:E2 has standards. Don't bitch. (Score:1)
-AU
Re:Ditto (Score:1)
I've seen myself how low "factual, well written, and logical" nodes can get when not in the majority leftist opinion. Write a semi-convincing bullshit liberal node filled with urban myths for a little experiment.
-AU
Re:Ditto (Score:1)
While I do believe that he did have alot flames and trolls (there are certainly a number left), I believe he has a side to his story. Any poster trying to write arguments against E2's majority leftist opinion knows that it's there. And though his reactions to it may not have been the right ones, I can definitly see how someone could be pushed to it.
-AU
Re:Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:1)
Re:Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:1)
Yeah, I am trying to cram as many lies into one post. Good one, clever pants.
A lot of talking about what editors do and do not do. When talking about E2 you would certainly have more a clue than, say, a tribal hunter from africa (well, the average tribal hunter from africa) but not much more. Editors have littered my posts with swear words so saying they "do not" doesn't hold any weight (ask Jessica Pierce about my home node, or any of my last nodes if she read them, for example). You may be an excellent editor (I recognise the name) but just as you have only edited "blatant mistakes" doesn't mean that other editors haven't meddled with puns, changed wording to what they think is best and corrected nothing, or worse - maliciously gone about making wording goofy and adding swear words (not that I didn't also provide my own! (as I said)). That's just rude and I'd like to hear you justify that. There's no excuse for what editors were doing. And, up until I left, they were still [doing what I consider was] abusing their powers.
I'm glad you /msg the author when editing a post but as it's optional many editors don't bother. Hence the paragraph about maintaining nodes. One node of mine had puns corrected three times! E2 just isn't worth the effort.
E2 does have many factual nodes, I agree, but still "in-jokes are what they value - those posts gain the highest rating or are placed on the front of the site". This was how I saw it before leaving. This is no bad thing - but it's more a community site than a reference site. Other posters in this story seem to agree.
You've been there for years and obviously love it - I'm honestly glad you enjoy it. I don't... at all, and since then I've found greener pastures. Have fun with E2, Mr Wesc.
Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:2)
If one wrote a node, months ago, one would have to maintain that node by regularly checking that some braindead editor (who often didn't know the topic) hadn't gone and rewritten parts of it. They rarely /msged the original authors (this certainly wasn't a requirement - but a bonus and a sign of a good editor - if they notified you!) and you never knew which editor was responsible. The post that you never wrote would have have your name on it, though.
E2 kinda postures to be an encyclopedia of knowledge, but it's mostly in-jokes (at least, in-jokes are what they value - those posts gain the highest rating or are placed on the front of the site), which is fine.
Re:Buttholes (Score:1)
(thing) by edgarde ? Sat Nov 13 1999 at 10:07 utc
An informal but relatively inoffensive word for anus. You can more or less say "butthole" on american television if hardly anyone is watching. If the Butthole Surfers were named the Asshole Surfers they never would have gotten produced by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones. Incidentally, tho I don't wanna dwell on this rock music too much, the Butthole Surfers were originally named The Inaliable Right To Eat Fred Astaire's Asshole. Not very commercial.
Hope that helps, Bob. *grin*
Re:E2 has standards. Don't bitch. (Score:1)
- I don't remember when, but the first thing seemed to be that editors were getting a little bit "trigger-happy", and writeups and nodes were beind deleted quite a bit, usually without notice to the author, and often without any obvious reason other than the editor seeming to not want the node around. I had quite a few deleted myself, ones that I had written quite a while ago, ones that had been added to by others, ones that had no reason that I, or anyone else I talked to, could see for the nuke.
When a couple of us mentioned it in the chatterbox, we were immediately yelled at by a number of editors and some gods, and told to drop it. Regardless of the fact that we were not doing it for our level/XP or anything like that, but for the good of E2. I, and those others, were borged AFTER we stopped talking about it even.
- There was one god that had an obvious, and thinly-veiled, dislike of me, and had for a while, before he was a god. When he became one, he began to get nasty with me - including a number of downright mean
- I had nodes nuked by dem bones also, after he accused me of just trying to get attention...
- I was an editor at one point, and had that taken away from me without being told it was being done, or why.
- When I tried to help clean up things (after noticing my nodes being nuked) by listing some of my poorer writeups that I didn't think were worth keeping around, I got bitched at for submitting lists of node names.
Here I am, unable to delete them myself because of no more editor powers, and doing it for the good of E2 (hunting down the crap they'd delete anyway) and making it easier for everyone, and I was being bitched at.
- I did everything I could to try to bring to peoples' attention that there were things bothering me (and plenty of other people), trying to make the place better, and I was being mistreated for that too. There were a few times I was desperately trying to get someone to LISTEN to me, sitting there in tears hoping someone might realize that I LIKED the place, that I WANTED to stay, but that I couldn't deal with how things were.
And almost none of the gods or admin staff even cared. The few that did were powerless to change things.
I could have stuck it out, stayed around despite the treatment, since I wasn't truly forced out by having my account deleted or anything. But I was on E2 because I wanted to be. Because I enjoyed it. But it became too painful, and I didn't want to remember it that way. Unfortunately, I guess it was too late, cause I guess I still perceive the place the way I left it, otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it like this now.
Yes, I am still quite bitter. But I guess that's because it really did mean something to me, quite a lot in fact... and the hurt of being treated badly by people I once thought were my friends.
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Feelings of Ambivalence... (Score:2)
I spent a long time as an E2 user, over a year and a half - with, at one point, over 2100 writeups on there. But things like that count for nothing when it comes to the gods and the administration. Somewhere along the line I must have done something to piss off a number of people, and nobody even bothered to let me know what I did so that I'd have a chance to try and repair things.
I found myself taking verbal abuse from at least one god (in the form of nasty
So, even though I was regularly contributing useful and popular nodes, and was under the impression I was a good user, I was still essentially forced off by the administration.
I miss the place, I really do. I loved writing on there, about just about anything. My writing got a lot better because of it, and I think it even helped me open up a bit more. I met a lot of great friends through the site (that I still regularly talk to on #everything). But I can't put up with the crap, the mistreatment, and the like, that I was subject to there.
So I encourage everyone to check out the site, and become users and noders if they want. But just be warned that if you upset the gods and administrators, for any reason whatsoever, they'll make it hell for you.
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Re:Buttholes (Score:2)
Ummm... the "moderation", the voting, isn't done by any gods or anyone special... just users that have been noding on there for at least a little while. If you're voted down, then you need to look harder at what you're writing.
For the most part, only bad stuff gets downvoted and stays that way.
Now, writeups getting DELETED, on the other hand, was totally out of control last I knew, getting deleted for any reason whatsoever (or even no reason, just the whim of a god/editor). I had plenty of nodes with good reputation and good content get nuked.
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Re:E2 has standards. Don't bitch. (Score:2)
Don't forget that if the gods and admin dislike you, your writeups will be deleted.
Please don't go saying you only get them deleted for writing bullshit and not reading the FAQ. I'm not the only long-time user that left because of the higher-ups deciding I wasn't welcome anymore.
I still wish I knew what it was that pissed those people off so badly as to be downright mean to me.
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Re:everything2 (Score:1)
So you see - we're not
Re:Ditto (Score:2)
However, as for his factual nodes being voted down, that's bull. DMan had the highest XP/writeup ratio of anyone; he flew up Best Users faster than anyone else ever has. It's only his opinionated nodes that were voted down--unfairly to some extent, but, as I said, they were written in a very inflammatory way.
Re:Buttholes is a bit strong, isn't it? (Score:2)
Editors only edit writeups to correct blatant mistakes, and they do not litter posts with swear words. The only time I, personally, have edited another person's writeup is to remove ampersands that were added during importation, and I always message the noder about it.
E2, for me, should be more factual than it is, but it certainly isn't primarily "in jokes." When searching for something factual, I search E2 first and on the rare occasion that there isn't a good factual writeup about it I then go to Google. E2 has many factual nodes.
A lot of it is crap, but you paint a very bleak--and false--image of it.
Re:Everything2:Community yes, source of knowledge, (Score:1)
Similarly, the males on slashdot are, by and large, sexist pieces of shit. Men who post to online communities are usually rather strange creatures, with 7 eyes and venomous tentacles.
Oh wait, maybe that's just you. Sorry, didn't mean to make a broad, uninformed, sweeping generalization about a bunch of people i don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. Only a complete idiot would do something like that in a public forum.
My apologies.
Everything hates me... (Score:1)
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So charge or something... (Score:4)
Give me a way to support it. I cannot tell you how many times I have needed to look up tech jargon at work and found an instant answer of E2. That site is a lifesaver.
Re:Buttholes (Score:3)
Wikipedia hits 2000 articles (Score:5)
Since opening in January, we already have over 2000 articles, many of very good quality.
Everything2 is awesome. But many of the entries are more humor than anything else. An encyclopedia is a different beast.
http://www.wikipedia.com/
Which node? (Score:2)
It thinks, therefore... (Score:5)
It exists on a purely conceptual level. It soon outgrew a limitation on existing ideas and began to create new ideas, such as "backwards compatibility of the toaster." Instead of describing what people thought, it made them think anew.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's cool. :)
Re:Which node? (Score:2)
(I'm only here at the moment, 'cause you guys is all flooding e2 - damn slashdot :)
OK, Here's the thing, Please don't Fucking Do This (Score:2)
This discussion seems to have brought out the absolute worst in everyone (except you, OOG, you have no bad parts to my knowledge). And it might bring out the worst in me, which isn't hard - I try to show my worst side to the collective Every Single Day. That's one of my functions. Don't Sweat It, K? But the back and forth bickerings about who's right and who's wrong are just stupid and pointless. As I've said before and will say again (in the next hundred words or so), E2 is not *your* playground or house or website. It's a privately owned site and the private owners are looking for a certain level of fun mixed with a certain level of CONTENT.
Are there problems with posts simply being deleted? Um, yes and no. Some people here would have you believe that there is some conspiracy among editors and gods to dictate what is and is not on the system. Wow. Holy poop. You mean they get to dictate what goes on their own damn website? Wow, what a concept and such.
The simple fact is that everything is not primarily a site for discussion, but for dissemination. And I will be the first to admit that there is no factual information in "I will REMOVE the fucking toilet seat if you don't shut up," just as there is no information in the (now deceased, I believe) node "cat vomit." That's life. Why does one live while the other dies?
The toilet node is funny. Period. It deserves every single upvote is has gotten. I can't remember how I voted on it, but probably down (sorry moJoe). How can I say it's funny and still downvote it? Well, because sometimes I feel like being that way. It's my style and, just like e2, you haven't got any reason to believe that you can change it.I have refrained (as much as possible, and it isn't much) from ever getting into the politics of what is and isn't good content for the site. Personally, I think that everything, even cat vomit, belongs there (if only for a time, more about that later). But, I am not a god or an editor. I have never asked for, nor have I ever been approached with, those powers. It isn't my house, and I try to be respectful and not break nate's and bones' stuff. Just like you don't want someone coming over to your place and smuding up your CDs (er, renaming your mp3s?) they don't want The Usual Gang of Idiots from mucking up the database.
And it is a database. You go there, and enter something in the search bar. Not only is there information (hopefully) in a writeup, but also links to related stuff below those writeups (softlinks). People bitch about the softlinks, too - and that's almost a whole new thread. But for the most part the stuff worth seeing will not be linked to the toilet node, nor to the node linked to all others, nor to "My fascinatingly detailed teen angst bullshit daylog."
And I think that the trolls and the bad writers and the rest should be allowed to come in and write. Let them clutter things up. Let their writeups get voted into oblivion and then removed. Let them bitch and moan and write nasty things about it on the usenet.Looking back on this, I think I ought to post this as AC. But I don't think it would matter one way or another. Most people already know how I feel about all this. Just user search me and find out. I've got 900+ of them million nodes. And while I still feel that I've gotten away with too much crap, and some days I even question my existence as a user on the site, I'll return tomorrow and add a little sunshine to someone's life. And in the end, that's what matters. If you are having fun and it's not at anyone's expense, then you should be there. If you are a troll, at least be entertaining. Hell, you might even decide it's not worth trolling and post something halfway useful...it's been known to happen.
I'll be the first to admit that I have been suckered by a troll here and there before. But I like to think that I have learned from my mistakes and that I am a better "noder" and a better "person" for the experience.
Fartknockers, I am terribly off topic here. But, it is 2 am in my neck of the woods and work is fast approaching. I've lost all notion of what the hell I was even posting this for. I suppose I might be guilty of just trying to get my two cents in (sideways, at that :) but hell, slashdot is optimized for rambling idiots, right?
Oh yes. The summary I mentioned up there. Everything is not for everybody, but then, what is? Maybe the best part about it (remember this from the early days of HTML and the Internet?) is the fact that if you don't like it, you can go out and make your own damn website. So there.
Re:Everything2:Community yes, source of knowledge, (Score:1)
I disagree. I have used E2 as a reference on several occasions when I don't feel like paging through a FAQ, an RFC or a search engine for exactly the chunk of info I'm looking for.
The good thing about E2 is that I can usually find exactly what I'm looking for very rapidly. Sure, the Internet Movie Database will tell me everything I might ever want to know about John Travolta but E2 will just give the highlights that I need to reference him or one of his films correctly.
It's all a matter of browsing around it until you have a rough estimate of it's depth on various topics you're likely to look up.
Your Ex-wife (Score:1)
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
Then stop trolling them, asshole (Score:1)
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
BREAK EVEN?!? (Score:2)
Just kidding, congrats. E2 is kinda neat, I like it.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
Re:A newbie's experience with E2. (Score:1)
Until you came along, that was the best info on chess. Now that there is an expert paying attention, E2 can be better.
Information wants to be free
A summary, on behalf of my fellow noders. (Score:1)
It's not perfect, but hey, it's home.
Thank-you for your time.
Re:A summary, on behalf of my fellow noders. (Score:1)
Wow!!! (Score:2)
Moderation Success of E2 (Score:4)
When Everything started, I always assumed that it would meet the same fate as all internet discussion boards seem to - no meaningful signal-to-noise ratio. Slashdot and K5 do fairly well, but you have to read at a pretty high rating level to eliminate all of the crap that you normally find.
Everything, on the other hand, outright gets rid of the stupidest posts. The format also isn't conducive to stupid posts, as they'll never be referenced to.
A weblog site, like /., K5, or any of the many others, could be designed around the same rather decentralized hierarchy, allowing any user at all to post articles, similarly to K5's design (I'm going to get moderated down for criticizing /., I'm sure), but without even a real main page - users would just search for what they're interested in.
For example, one might search for most recent articles that're rated above x and have at least x responses, or something along those lines.
Just an idea, and one that I don't have time to implement. I just thought I'd throw it out there as a thought.
node_ids are serially assigned (Score:2)
E2 has 848762 nodes, writeups 465248, and 29384 users.
"Node" is any object in an Everything system. In context, it is also used to refer to an "e2node", a page on E2 containing zero or more writeups with the same title. "Writeup" is an individual comment posted by a user. e2nodes with 0 writeups are called nodeshells. As for users, I'd say at least a good quarter of E2's users created a new username [everything2.com] and fled without adding any writeups.
apparently the node_id numbering system does not start on zero, since there are 848726 nodes and the node-id reaches 1000000.
Everything node_ids are assigned serially. Deleted nodes are kept in the Node Crypt (but hidden to everybody except the admins or "gods") and are available to users through Node Heaven [everything2.com].
Yes, I am a cross-site kwhore [everything2.com].E2 has standards. Don't bitch. (Score:3)
If you write bullshit [everything2.com], your writeups will be deleted. If you don't node for the ages [everything2.com]; otherwise, your writeups will be deleted. The majority of former noders who bitch on /. about E2 never read the Everything FAQ [everything2.com] and Everything University [everything2.com]. For examples of what the E2 community likes, browse the Cool Archive [everything2.com].
Re:It thinks, therefore... (Score:2)
Nope, doesn't work that way. I've watched my share of internet communities collapse upon themselves, and usually it's either from the current userbase being too obstinate from their own views in the face of new folk (which turns it into a constant, neverending state of collapse where the old fogies are on a steady stream out as quickly as the new come in.. Which sounds good, but it's not: One long soap opera of headaches, which causes the new to generally not know what's going on and slowly stop trickling in as overall quality degrades), or a complete lack of any new blood. (The Internet tends to do a number on communities in 'net time. Go figure.)
Everything seems to be heading in the way of the former. Particularly after I sat down and looked in at the high ranked / 'cool' stuff: It all fit the stereotype, quality be damned. I think OOG down below summed everything up quite nicely about it.
Besides .. if your premise were true, it would _already_ be true as it isn't exactly small potatoes: There's already a fairly large userbase and people coming/going quite a lot. (Not to mention, it's not like slashdot's moderation has greatly improved things with the larger user base over time, now has it?)
Adding more editors does not fix things if they just stick to what they already perceive as good -- which is how more editors are added. You end up with a self-perpetuating cycle of fulfilling the status quo in order to change it, which means if you're not of it you won't get it, which doesn't change the status quo. Hmm, effective at updating, isn't it?
It's all a matter of perspective, of course: What is 'low quality'? What is 'high quality'? You'll never please everyone, and a system like E2s tries to reorganize itself to the people that use it. Unfortunately, it looks to me like it's a little too intolerant to change.
Oh well. I fully expect to be flamed to death over this one...
What a community (Score:3)
Re:Buttholes (Score:1)
Shut up.
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Re:Which node? (Score:1)
It's a very complex system, but basically everything on the system is a node, including node itself.
It's obvious that they came up with the thing while under some sort of cerimonial chemicals.
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Re:It thinks, therefore... (Score:1)
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Re:As an E2 editor... (Score:1)
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Re:Revenge! (Score:1)
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Re:Which node? (Score:1)
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Is it truely disributed? (Score:2)
Re:Everything2:Community yes, source of knowledge, (Score:1)
Sexist asshole! You have neglected the fact that males who post to online communities are ALSO "usually rather strange creatures, desperate for some sort of attention". Why do you like the E2 girls so much, eh? Eh? Give them all the fun? Up with strange males, I say! Vive la difference! - Elaurian
Re:It thinks, therefore... (Score:1)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's cool. :)
Damn. I thought you were trying to say it was useless. As cool as it might be, if it's completely disconnected from the outside world then it's useless to anyone who isn't willing to use it only for the sake of itself.
Do they even have a million hits for a million nodes? You'd think that if they had a million neat, interesting, informative, readworthy articles then they'd be be getting hundreds of millions, no, billions, of hits. What? They don't? Draw your own conclusion from that.
Someone needs to launch Everything3, where you get one article. Maybe people would make it a good article worth reading, then, instead of trying to homestead like mad.
Re:It thinks, therefore... (Score:2)
Ok, if anyone still reads back threads: tell me why an outsider should visit Everything2.
Re:Everything2:Community yes, source of knowledge, (Score:1)
oh *fuck you*. i'm an e2 female and resent that very much. (oh. wait. you wouldn't know that, i have a gender neutral nick. i wonder why that is. perhaps to AVOID assholes judging me only on my gender?) and i'm *not* the only one. (only one can be taken as 'e2 female who resents this comment', 'e2 female who DOES none of the above things listed' or 'e2 female with neutral nick to avoid idiots', as all of those are correct statements)
all nodes about sex? if i look back i can find maybe *one* of my entries related to sex. that's because i *don't* want to be known for my breasts, but the work i contribute.
if by 'affirm real life relationships' you mean i was SHOWN the site by my fiancé, (and have since established more of my own identity there than he has), then you'd be right. any other context and you're wrong.
don't form new relationships? then tell me why i flew halfway across the country to meet four noders, and if my exam schedule and other plans allow, intend to attend the *wedding* of two others shortly?
go back to talking about things you actually have a fucking clue about, alright, and leave us in peace? i can't think the gods enough you don't find E2 "useful". then maybe you'll stay away from the bloody thing and let those of us who appreciate it sigh in relief.
Re:Node bloat? (Score:3)
These opinions are my own and not necessarily
Re:E2 has standards. Don't bitch. (Score:1)
Re:PI's porn (Score:1)
With a title like 'everything' (Score:3)
I'm impressed, but I don't see my ex-wife listed in the site.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
OOG LIKE BEING INCLUDED IN SIG!!! (Score:2)
OOG AMUSED AT GETTING DOUBLE DIGIT REPUTATIONS FOR EACH NODE OOG WRITE ON E2 IN USUAL CAVEMAN STYLE!!! [slashdot.org] OOG READ GOOD STUFF ON E2, BUT SO MUCH OF IT OVERSHADOWED BY CRAP LIKE "HOW I ALMOST KILLED MYSELF MASTURBATING" AND "I WILL REMOVE THE FUCKING TOILET SEAT IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP!!!" [slashdot.org]
OOG ALSO LAMENT THAT GOOD FACTUAL NODES OVERSHADOWED BY IDIOTS WHO LIKE TO CUT AND PASTE LARGE DOCUMENTS PAGE BY PAGE OR POST ENDLESS MINUTIAE!!! [slashdot.org]
FINALLY OOG ANNOYED AT XP WHORING (BY WRITING EXCESSIVELY SEXUAL, PERSONAL, INANE, OR POLITICAL NODES) AND NODING FOR NUMBERS WHICH TAKE PLACE EN MASSE!!! [slashdot.org] OOG FIND IT FUNNY THAT SOME PEOPLE MANAGE TO MAKE EDITOR IN COUPLE OF WEEKS SIMPLY BY MASS NODING OR WRITING ENDLESS DRIVEL WHICH APPEAL TO MOB VOTING MENTALITY (WHICH ALSO XP PACK RAPE ANYTHING QUESTIONING E2 OR E2 DRONE MENTALITY)!!! [slashdot.org] OOG SAD THAT SOME OF MOST FLAWED, OBNOXIOUS, AND TRIGGER-HAPPY PEOPLE ON E2 HAPPEN TO BE HIGH RANKING EDITORS OR GODS WHO GO MORE ON PERSONAL OR POPULAR CRUSADES RATHER THAN TRYING TO KEEP ORDER AND BALANCE!!! [slashdot.org]
OOG, IN CONCLUSION, THINK EVEN SLASHDOT AND KURO5HIN (BUT NOT PLASTIC.COM, WHICH SUCK OOG'S CAVE-NUTS) KICK CRAP OUT OF E2!!! [slashdot.org]
90% of Everthing is junk (Score:2)
Collect together a million nodes supplied by a bunch of young adolescent boys. Compare this collection to a similar collection by the wizened moderators of Usenet (not the alt hierarchy). While each will have deficiencies, which will probably be more useful? For fun, repeat the experiment comparing different areas of the planet.
The old saw is that 90% of everything is junk. While it might not be a self fullfilling prophecy, it is interesting to speculate just how true it is, in this case.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [clik.to] comic strip
A newbie's experience with E2. (Score:2)
I'll second that.
I had come across references to E2 from time to time before, but never actually visited. So when I saw this article on /. I decided to check it out.
I decided to look up "chess," a topic near and dear to my heart. Skimming the article, I noted a glaring error: the 50-move rule was wrong. The author of the article stated that either player could claim a draw if 50 moves had passed without any captures. In fact, the rule is that 50 moves must pass with neither a capture nor a pawn move taking place. Also missing is the caveat that "50 moves" in fact means 50 moves by each player, something that is not intuitively obvious to someone just learning about the game.
Yes, a survey with sample size n=1 is hardly scientific, and I can't draw any formal conclusions just from that about the overall accuracy of E2. I'm also not saying that traditional information sources are 100% accurate--as a librarian, I'm certainly aware that even sources such as the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica contains errors, albeit rarely. But my n=1 survey is enough to convince me not to treat E2 as a reliable information source, and I won't be going back.
Re:A newbie's experience with E2. (Score:2)
When I'm evaluating a new information source--particularly one with very broad subject coverage, such as E2--I'll look for information on subjects I know a lot about, so I can evaluate whether they're accurate or not. I can hardly evaluate the accuracy of a source by looking up things I know little about!
If I find that the source is accurate on areas I'm knowledgeable in, I can trust it to be pretty accurate in other areas as well. If it has errors that I can find, it probably has errors in other areas as well, and I won't trust its information in those areas I know little about.
Finding that E2 does have errors on subjects I'm knowledgeable about, I conclude that it probably has errors in other areas as well. Fixing the errors I have found would not make E2 any more trustworthy in those areas where I cannot recognize errors.
To look at it another way, if I'm interested in learning more about object-oriented programming (a subject I know very little about), I want a source that is error-free, or very nearly so, now. That its errors will be corrected next week when an expert comes along and recognizes the errors does me little good.
Re:A newbie's experience with E2. (Score:2)
Then perhaps you could explain the point to me, as I'm completely missing it here.
The point of E2 is that it's collaborative. It's not supposed to be a definitive reference work.
OK, if it's not a definitive reference work, then what the hell is it supposed to be? "It's collaborative" is hardly good enough (to my mind). Why a collaborative work that looks like an encyclopedia, then, rather than a collaborative novel or a collaborative symphony? Or is the nature of the work irrelevant? Perhaps "it's collaborative, it's a community, it doesn't have to be accurate" is sufficient for you, but that sort of thinking is completely alien to me.
Still not good enough? You can always try "the internet" I guess.
Please tell me this is a troll and you're not really that naive. If I thought the internet were the only source of information, or that "everything is on the internet" I would be out of a job in about two minutes.
Re:A newbie's experience with E2. (Score:2)
Fair enough. I suppose I was initially misled by a) the fact that it does look much like an encyclopedia, and b) all the posts to this story (some of them upmoderated!) talking about what a wonderful place E2 is for finding information.
Now, should I be concerned that other people may make the same mistake I initially did, in assuming that E2 is at least intended to be an accurate source of information?
Re:Moderation FAILURE of E2 (Score:2)
Silly boy, the E2 "elite" have nothing to do with that. Every E2 denizen, no matter how long they've been there, has exactly one vote per writeup. "REMOVE" has that many votes because it's a prominent title, it's well-written, it's attention-getting, it's relevant to many people's experience, and it's funny. People enjoy that sort of thing. Just ask Dave Barry.
Factual noding doesn't get as many votes, but they're still loved and cherished and, gradually, voted up by people who find them interesting and/or can verify that they're accurate. Facts are what make e2 relevant, and they're what keep people coming back to the site time and time again. For those who have issues with this sort of thing, we encourage XP stoicism.
Bruised egos do not a moderation failure make (Score:2)
Definition: elite -- A choice or select body. i.e., not everybody. :-)
Stuff that isn't cool enough will be immediately softlinked to "your radical ideas..." nodes, or "did you hear about the man who told his ass how to talk?"
Anybody can make a softlink, just as anybody can cast a vote, but editors can now delete softlinks if they're blatantly inappropriate.
Re factual nodes: Nobody talks about them. Nobody upvotes them. Nobody /msg's you to say they liked them.
I do. Not every time, but I do. Look, you can't expect to be patted on the back and handed a Cuban every time you provide relevant information on your college, an old video game, or advanced mathematics. All writers have to deal with the fact that some things just aren't interesting to other people.
But that doesn't mean the moderation system is a failure. So what if people vote up cool, funny, and entertaining writeups, and not boring, factual ones? E2 is made up of a hugs body of facts and opinions, amusements and data. It covers both ends of the spectrum and whatever's in between. It's about everything.
I checked out the writeup for American Boychoir, and I imagine it's not been highly upvoted for three reasons: almost nobody's heard of it, there's very few softlinks to it, and it's less than comprehensive. If this upsets you, you're invited (if not expected) to revisit your writeup, update it, edit it, improve it, enhance it, append an amusing anecdote, whatever the heck does the trick, and then let people know it's been done. Actively softlink it to new related nodes so that people will find it again. The Votes Will Come, if the writeup is worthy.
You don't have to be "cool enough for E2". There is no such thing. You just have to write, relentlessly and continuously and effectively. After fifty writeups, the average E2 noder will learn a lot. After two hundred, he's learned even more. After five hundred, he's either noding for numbers or he's pretty damned good at what he does. An artist doesn't expect to be displayed in the Washington Gallery after just fifty works. You shouldn't expect to be a widely read and acknowledged writer after just fifty writeups.
I use and love E2 for several reasons -- the esoterica, the pop culture, the way something completely new and different is always just a click away from whatever page I'm on. But I'm also indebted to it for helping me learn how to be a better writer, how to compose facts and dull, raw information into a few compact paragraphs that can inform others. I'm not going to be presenting a column to the syndicates anytime soon with this material, but I'm a better writer for it. And the votes, the C!s, the /msgs, the responses and examples and counterexamples, are all teaching me a little more every day.
But don't blame the E2 community just because you're not widely loved from the get-go. Like anything else in this wide world, you have to work at it.
Re:Ditto (Score:2)
DMen [slashdot.org], DMan627 [slashdot.org], or whatever you're going by today: if you were really "out of Everything2", I think you wouldn't still be trolling it on /. this heavily. For some reason, you're still carrying your vitriol about with you. My sympathies to the poor soul who next encounters the receiving end of it.
Editors go on nuke spree, E2 back to 999,997 nodes (Score:3)
Re:Everything2:Community yes, source of knowledge, (Score:3)
I resent that remark. E2 has been immensely valuable to me since it's creation. Whenever I need to look up a pop culture reference, or need some advanced physics explained in layman's terms, or just want a definition of some thing beyond "Just the facts, ma'am", I head to the E2 search box. It's got its good people and bad people, just like any other community, but that's no reason to dis it.
And the moderation system is way better than Slashdot's. I can even have a say in what appears on the front page if I like, instead of just occasionally moderating people's comments.
Re:Get your facts straight (Score:3)
Speaking only for myself, I upvoted DMan's well-written factual nodes whenever I found them. It was the prejudicial trolls which he may or may not be confusing with "factual nodes" that usually sank like rocks.
stran9er things in life (Score:3)
Anything said in life must be taken with one grain of salt no matter where its coming from, and judging an entire community whether its an online one or physical one based upon bad experience is not good judgement. Thats like saying that 3 black people who robbed you account for all blacks being robbers, or 3 caucasian embezzlers make all whites embezzlers. You have a stran9e view on things for a sociology major.
Life is filled with Karma whores... Take your brown nosing co worker or classmate...
Maybe its pessimistic morons who make them dread asking things in public, maybe they want an opinion coming from someone in an entirely social status than they're accustomed to.
Yes sire for you know everything in this world.
I would go on but you bore me.
Everything2:Community yes, source of knowledge, no (Score:5)
Everything2 has its own fair share of trolls and freaks, intent on spreading disinformation and chaos. This means that anything said there must be taken with a pinch of salt.
Furthermore, it has its own 'Karma Whore' equivalents, people who are trying to gain 'experience' and status as a result. It is full of ultimately banal information.
Secondly, the females there are pretty awful - the average female uses the internet to affirm real life relationships, not to make new relationships. Females who post to online communities are usually rather strange creatures, desperate for some sort of attention.
This is why the e2 females cluster around the sex topics.
Having said all that, e2 definately is interesting. It is just not reputable or useful.
It has fun, but no utility.
Re:It thinks, therefore... (Score:2)
I tried going on to Everything and Everything2 and giving it a try. The idea is great: to set up a system of knowledge which self organized.
Unfortunately, the content was crap. The level of expertise on any post was about that of a junior high-schooler. I suspect that is the demographic of most of the contributors.
I'm not knocking junior high. I was young and shallow and self-absorbed once too, but E2 seems more like an interesting sociology experiment than a source of knowledge about the broader world.
The only thing E2 is about is itself.
Someone please prove me I am wrong, but I suspect that the ratio of crap:moderately-interesting material is about 100:1.
Excelsior,
ME
Congrats and stuff (Score:2)