Sometimes you just have to reread your own stuff. Sometimes you have to be self-critical, and think like a different reader.

In my last posting, I was pretty harsh on Dana Blankenhorn's article Is Wikipedia a threat or a menace?. Here are my comments on my own work.

Missing words
Yes, he doesn't use the words 'threat' or 'menace' in his article. But this doesn't mean he didn't try to answer the question posed by his title. I would just have preferred a direct answer.

Verbal arrogance nee ignorance
(Note: 'nee' should really have an accent on the first 'e', like this: n�e. It means 'born' or 'formerly known as' and is properly used to indicate a woman's 'maiden' name. I was using it metaphorically to imply that his arrogance was born of ignorance.)

It isn't fair to say that Mr. Blankenhorn is verbally ignorant or arrogant just because he used synonyms and implied they were differentiated. But, it implies he was careless, and didn't critically reread his work. It happens, and we all make goofy mistakes.

Pseudo-journalist
This was an awful thing to say. It was wrong, mean, and rude, and Mr. Blankenhorn, I apologize. You've been writing on tech issues for a quarter century. I might argue the merits of a particular article, and perhaps your research in general, but I shouldn't have demeaned your professional credentials.

I have since read other articles you've written. I often agree with your views, but not your presentation. That's okay. The fact is, you're a real journalist and a real writer.

Bickering
This sounded good at the time, but it's not quite right. My point was that a Wikipedia article may have debatable material, and anyone is free to change it. This can lead to tit-for-tat updates, another version of flame wars from community forums.

Debate of information is good, but it's not what an encyclopedia is, or is for. Let's not change the definition of encyclopedia to meet the desires of a single product.

I think I got the rest of my posting right. My dissection of his two paragraphs may be discomfiting, but I think my criticisms are valid. In this article, Mr. Blankehorn steps back and forth between opinions and informed, reasoned opinions.

One more:
fall into a ditch
This is a reference to a quote from Mel Brooks. I got it a little wrong. Here's the correct quote as nearly as I can determine it.

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." --Mel Brooks

I just couldn't bring myself to register and comment on Dana Blankenhorn's posting, Is Wikipedia a threat or a menace?

So, I'll comment on it here and see if it shows up as a trackback. But first, my disclaimer. I don't know Dana Blankenhorn, I have no reason to dislike him, this posting may be an aberration, and I might agree with (tongue in cheek) 99.44% of his other thoughts. Now, on with the dressing down.

I did due dilligence and read the entire article looking for the words "threat" and "menace". I also searched Charles Cooper's article for those same words. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zero.

So, first strike, the article doesn't directly address its own question. And what a question!

"Is Wikipedia a threat or a menace?"

Are those my only choices? Well, no, because they aren't choices! Check the dictionary. A threat is a menace, and vice versa. It's exactly this kind of carelessness, perhaps even verbal arrogance nee ignorance, that undermines his argument. If he can't get his vocabulary right, as a pseudo-journalist, then how will the masses arrive at an accurate encyclopedia? When I open Britannica, I have confidence that the compilers went to the most authoritative sources. The information may later turn out to be flawed, but it is as correct as it could be based on expert consensus.

Wikipedia is based on mainstream, ever-changing bickering. Even those who post fairly accurate information are unlikely to be experts in the subject, and are subject to having someone less informed scribble through their good effort. The experts are, in my opinion, probably busy being paid for their expertise. Do I use it? Occasionally. Do I trust it? No.

As far as Mr. Blankenhorn's comments, he's basically praising Wikipedia for its accuracy and self-correcting nature. He makes this claim:

But know this. Most of what is in Wikipedia - 99.44% of it (actually a good deal more) is 100% accurate and fair. The vast majority of people who contribute to Wikipedia are honest, they tell the truth.

And that's true for the Internet as a whole, by the way. That's why it works. That it does work should tell you something very, very positive and very, very important as you enter the weekend.

How many things are wrong with these paragraphs?

1. What's his source for claiming this percentage of accuracy?

2. If he has no source, has he personally verified a statistically significant number of articles?

3. Has the claim been verified?

4. No statement is 100% accurate and fair--probably neither. "It is sunny." Grab a beer and argue over whether that statement is 100% accurate and fair.

5. Is .56% a "good deal more"? What a silly remark.

6. "that's true for the Internet as a whole. . . ." Really? The vast majority of internet site data is contributed by honest people who tell the truth? Well, maybe if you eliminate pornography (violates many international laws, therefore conditionally dishonest), and political sites (because, if two sites contradict each other, one is surely not telling the truth).

We could debate the idea that people who are honest therefore tell the truth--but, no, I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. To get you started: an honest person can tell an unintentional falsehood. He's not lying (an intentional falsehood), but he's not telling the truth. He's also being honest.

7. The Internet isn't intended as a medium of honest communication. Merely communication. To say otherwise is to be ignorant of the origins and goals of ARPANET. (To be fair, "community" was also a goal.) Clearly, Mr. Blankenhorn has a personal view of what "it" is that is working. I praise his optimism, but not his less-than-99.44% accuracy.

8. Sue me, but I'm fascinated by that number. 99.44%. Here are some other references to it obtained by Googling around. Some are ridiculous, others fascinating. It's clear this number has become a stand in for real research, a cultural catch phrase in lieu of truthful studies and statistics.

99.44 percent of everything history-related on the Internet is garbage

You ignored my point that non-aggression, which we have completely violated, would make us about, oh, let me guess, 99.44/100ths% less susceptible to such an attack in the first place.

Friedman called the jitney chapter, "99 and 44/100ths percent built", by which he meant that the infrastructure already existed.

It's not like you went to K-Mart and tried to buy socks but bought eczema instead, out of ignorance. Eczema is not caused by stupidity in 99.44% of recorded cases.

The results confirmed that human and chimpanzee genes are highly conserved at the nucleotide level. As for amino acids, the average sequence identity was 99.44%.

The Skycasters satellite Internet service is a best-effort service with historic reliability in the range of 99.44%

This yearning makes sense if you remember that arbitrary lords and chiefs did rule us for 99.44 percent of human existence.

If you see a suspicious package leave it for the cleaners at Coney Island since there is a 99.44% chance it is garbage

And, in case you think I'm totally ignorant of the cultural origin of this number:

99-44/100% Pure: It Floats

Oh, let's not forget:

9. "as you enter the weekend." What's so special about the upcoming weekend? Or does Dana know something I don't?

"Your weekend is uncertain. Consider the Utopia of the Internet and you will be saved."

Well, if I fall into a ditch and die, he can laugh along with Mel Brooks.

Whew! I just finished my first pass through Agile Development with Rails, a fine book on developing dynamic (interactive) web sites using Ruby on Rails. My background is in Visual Basic (pre .NET). I've helped write some pretty complex object-oriented VB (I know, you naysayers say it isn't so, but you can take up your issues with Rockford Lhotka, whose VB business objects books show how it's done.)

I've done a little web programming in ASP and PHP, but nothing like the work done by my friends at Digital Intelligence Group, or the ever-excellent-and-busy Aaron Jones. I had this crazy(!) idea recently to develop a class-based framework using PHP, nothing incredible, just a way to make it easier to create web user interfaces. My inspiration came from the very good architecture of Microsoft Solomon. The original Solomon development team clearly wanted to make creating data screens easy. Though sometimes buggy and irritating, the focus on letting the framework take care of common tasks is the right one.

There I was, in the bookstore, and I picked up the Ruby on Rails book, leafed through it, thought "This looks good," then went on to the PHP books. I had done a little reading about Rails, but had tentatively decided to focus on PHP and Python. First things first. PHP.

Isn't it surprising how, when you have a specific task in mind, it brings focus to your choices? Surprising or not, I discovered that the PHP books had at most a small chapter on class-based development, when they had information at all. This was not what I wanted. I don't mind a little project that helps me learn, but I'm less entranced with development feeling like an Indiana Jones archeological expedition.

Besides, I really did have a business goal for my PHP project. I wanted to be able to build reasonably good web applications for clients. Build them fairly quickly. Have them somewhat easy to maintain.

Perhaps someone had done the heavy lifting for me? I found myself back at the Rails book. It struck me like a seven-year-old's rubber band. This book was part of the Pragmatic Programmers series. I had read and applied The Pragmatic Programmer a couple of years ago. I prefer "agile" development methods such as Extreme Programming and Scrum. (confession of a programmer: I like these methods, but I don't get to use them often enough, and I'm sometimes lazy when I do)

A match!

I decided to put my time into learning a development framework rather than creating one. I blithely presumed it would be fairly easy to install, and that the book would be a good guide. I wanted a rewarding challenge, and had time on my hands. It "felt" right.

It was.

Now, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. For my next trick, I'll create a Rails web application, and maybe even make it public. It will be a simple issue tracking system, since no one has ever created one of those before. . . .

If I succeed at that, I can justify telling potential clients that I'll create their web sites. There are pros and cons, of course, but I can always point to 37signals and their Basecamp application. One of its developers was David Heinemeier Hansson, who created Ruby on Rails in order to better develop Basecamp. Mr. Hansson is also one of the contributors to the Agile Web Development with Rails book.

Thus, the circle is complete.

More Rails news as events warrant.