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We welcome criticism and debate.
We welcome your comments, and do regard them as helpful. We expect to improve the site gradually, and your ideas (and all the suggestions we receive) will be carefully considered.
Paul> One thing I would like to see here is an option to be notified when anyone posts a reply (following a posting etc). This would enable me, and others of course, to respond to people who reply without having to remember and go back and check each post.
Anonymous> It might also help to have a references or footnote section following each article. Not to sound snobbish, but this cannot become a Wiki style resource unless article writers are forced to cite their sources. For example, the excellent article on firewalls makes a claim about Zone Alarm Free's poor performance on leak tests, but it does not cite the source of the test. The leak tests I look at do not even include the free version, but I didn't look all that hard. Perhaps their could be an editor team that marks articles that need references so that others can help search and provide them, just like the Wikipedia site does. Wikipedia even removes articles if they take too long to make the necessary changes. The best online example of a near perfect free encyclopedia is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has good editors, great articles, and many scholarly sources and references. Or, there could be a split between opinion articles and research/regular articles, just like they do it in newspapers.
peter> SEP is an excellent publication. Their current fund raising goal is $1.125 million. Does that answer your question?
Anonymous> It probably does cost a lot to get the professors and grad. students to write all of those articles, and SEP has this message that they might not stay free without sufficient funding. But does Wikipedia cost that much? Wikipedia also requires references and citations. And students are required to provide references in papers that write in highschool and college: for FREE!
Bob> And this site's just started evolving from a one-man newsletter... By the way, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy looks like a useful resource, though still imperfectly balanced in its content -- Thanks. One direction I personally feel this site might usefully take would be to provide more pointers to the best available free online resources, ranging from reference (like SEP) to how-to-guides and tutorials on a broader range of subjects.
For instance, I've been wondering what free material is available online to help understand the principles of digital image editing (irrespective of any particular programme). I suspect some site users night have some interesting suggestions beyond what I've caught via Wikipedia etc.
As another example, I've also been wondering whether it could be appropriate for me to create a page with some suggestions on high-quality free streaming radio stations for classical music. But it would have to start as a personal selection with no pretence to completeness or citational rigour!
Anonymous> I don't know what you mean by imperfectly balanced. It is biased toward traditional/analytical philosophy, so they tend to avoid the crazier stuff.
I didn't mean to criticize. It is an excellent site already, but if the goal is to make it a Wiki of the computer software (and that is the stated goal), then it cannot succeed in that goal without some attention to sources. And it might also help the site avoid anything like instances of plagarism if editors require references for any facts or research or claims made in the articles.
Our goals evolve, they aren't fixed ....
We'll never demand that "editors require references for any facts or research or claims made in the articles."
We like to see it, but we're just not that demanding.
See here:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/writers-rules-ok.htm
Anonymous> If your goals aren't fixed, then it is contradictory to say "we'll never demand."
peter > Our goals are fluid, but we won't cross boundaries without acceptance and consensus.
We prefer to exchange information.
So our only demand to our editors, to our writers, is that they try to provide information.
You don't have to tell us about the problems of verifying that information.
It seems an inherent problem involved in Publication.
But we are untroubled by contradictions.
You can for example, search for "Digital Imaging" and be served a linked list of topics which all explore this theme. When you've opened one link, you can use "Related Topics" to find others.
RE "Plz tell me any publication that is NOT 'imperfectly balanced in its content'":
Sorry -- Just obliquely pointing even excellent stuff ain't all perfects ...
But this site rocks!
Anonymous> On the search engine, it would be helpful to be able to click to the text that you search for. Right now you can only go to the relevant article and you only know the person who wrote the article and not the text you searched for, so you have to hunt around for what you want by doing Find... on every page until you are lucky to find what you want. For example, search for "Comodo Memory Firewall" (with quotes) and you have difficulty locating the phrase in the relevant articles.
peter This isn't quite true But I can see that we need to provide some "User-Help" about using search.
You can for example, search for "Digital Imaging" and be served a linked list of topics which all explore this theme. When you've opened one link, you can use "Related Topics" to find others.
Tue, 07/22/2008 - 14:58 — Anonymous What? I meant if you search
What? I meant if you search for a piece of text and want to jump to that text within an article. I should have clarified. The articles are getting quite large and the comment section provides very interesting information, so if I want to jump to a specific comment that has the information I searched for I have to click around the comment section until I happen to find it, instead of just clicking to the thing that I searched for.
@Paul
I totally agree with you, an email notification (ie subscription) is very important on a forum. Actually there are big moves afoot here so it's being sorted.
@canadiac
Yes, that's a good point. We have that in the admin section so it would be a question of seeing if it could also be presented in the public area. It will definitely be looked at, but I have to say there are a lot of changes going on here right now so this may not be a priority.
I don't know if this suggestion has been previously mentioned, so here goes.... How about a search feature on the freeware list to sort by those that are newest and recently updated? I have been following Gizmo's site and advice for a long time and I use much of the software he and others recommend, so I think it would be great to sort the list by new improvements, concerns, and additions.
Thanks to one and all for a fantastic site and newsletter. It's very rare I pay money to become a premium member in anything, but this is a fabulous and worthwhile investment. I sell PCs and laptops for a living and I always recommend Gizmo as a must-have bookmark.
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As a humble member of the scientific and research community, have you ever considered adding a section with freeware for data intensive research and scientific work? Some examples:
Program R for statistics,
MS sql or My sql for those lucky enough to have large datasets,
The Zotero plug-in for Firefox with the MS word add-in for references,
etc?
This Debating Chamber topic is misplaced.
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