Kafuuka

[quote name='Pipstickz' timestamp='1299462006' post='80302'] Oh my, I contradicted myself, must mean I'm a terrible liar and all my goals are for my own personal gain. To answer you honestly; do opinions not change? It has been almost a half-year since then, what makes you think that I won't have gained new information myself? If you are confused as to what I am suggesting with this thread, I suggest you read it over again, others seem to have it right. [/quote] Certainly opinions can change. Just because it can doesn't mean it will or already has. I suppose I could give you the benefit of doubt, however you are mostly reluctant to answer my questions. eg. Going on your 'new information' hypothesis I am met with the question why you haven't shared this new insight. Currently it looks to me you went from 'I don't think it is possible so I don't want to waste my time' to 'I have no idea whether it is possible and hope others do.' At least the other thread contained practical suggestions. Your analysis of why people don't want to share ideas is not exactly providing a solution. As for others reading it right, I can easily point out two renown people who got it wrong, according to you yourself. I can't say I am wording this nicely, but if you want a good discussion, it sure would help if everybody managed to understand your words without having to read them five times. The only suggestion I see is 'we all get together and share our ideas.' Ideas relating to what? Everything? When? Who will attend? Where? Who will organize it, moderate it? What format?

My point mainly is that there already was a thread on that subject, which you read and contributed to with a fatalistic statement. The idea that you, a few months later, wish to persuade others to pursue an objective you didn't deem attainable back then, is ironic at best. On top of that you don't think all knowledge should be shared and never bothered to explain where to draw the line. How are we supposed to know what it is you suggest then? How exactly do you suggest these partially unspecified changes could be pursued?

[quote name='Pipstickz' timestamp='1299372814' post='80183'] Chewett, Kyphis and Kafuuka: This isn't about finding "the one answer", or "the end of the game" (to me), it's about freedom of information. Sharing and enlightenment and all that. [/quote] There was a thread on that. I'll quote what you said [post='72638']there[/post]: [i]"While I am of the opinion that it would be good for [b]some[/b] information to come to light, those who have it will most likely not be willing to share. That's just how it is, I s'pose."[/i]

I'm under the impression that a lot of people think there is such a thing as a single answer. Any book that does not lead to a single answer for every question raised and that was written well enough for people to like it, will lead to a dozen books discussing what really happened. Those things are not 'canon', nor are they dispised, unless people sell them as the one and only truth, even if the author of the original book was buried centuries ago and we can't ask which version is true, if any. Tarquinus, you admit having little experience with quests. Since I monitor who participated in my quests, I know you never did. In particular you never tried 'The book of Time', which was explicitly advertised as an | Ark Mattarox quest. ie, a quest about a shade. If you claim kings, for whatever reasoning, know something about MD, then I think you should at least be interested in what a shade has to say? Not that I believe kings really know a lot. Two of them admitted the opposite already. As for myself, I have my answers to some of my questions. I've never had any long private conversations with Mur and I doubt I even want to know all of his questions and all of his answers. Some yes, perhaps even many, but all? I think not. I expect that is mutual, but we won't be certain unless he reads this.

I'd hoped that what is and what is not a spoiler would be left to common sense, because if you want a perfect definition, you're in for a very lengthy one. I'll list some simple properties of spoilers first: [list=1] [*]Spoilers are information/knowledge and as such most often (but not always) distributed by speech. Giving someone a (rare) creature allows that person to check its stats at first level. Those stats are information and are a byproduct of the gift, which involved no speech between spoiler and spoilee. [*]Spoilers are information that relates to the subject being spoiled, in our case Magic Duel. In particular spoilers are information about MD mechanics and perhaps MD lore. Telling someone that X is an alt of Y does relate to MD, but if considered an offense, it should be labeled breach of privacy instead of a spoiler. If such information is used 'in character' it should be called breaking the fourth wall aka piss poor roleplay. [*]Spoilers are information that was not known to the spoilee but was known to the spoiler before the spoiling occurred. [*]Spoilers are information that is not in places like the FAQ... [/list] ... and with that last property we'll get into trouble. A lot of things are excluded from being a spoiler by those who, rightfully, claim that things in the help pages are not spoilers. A lot of things are either not explicitly excluded or we have to infer what exactly belongs to 'etc' and what exactly is 'freely'. Is it a spoiler to tell people where the broken pattern puzzle is? Is it a spoiler to tell people what they'll get as reward, without listing the entire realm of options of what they can do with such a reward? That information is available in the announcements, hence free, but buried deeply in there. Is it a spoiler to give (the stats of) a level I creature from Loreroot as a reward for a task that is of broken pattern puzzle level? Is it a spoiler to tell that the paper dispensing is not in Golemus? And that it is also not in Necrovion? And also not to the right of the scene he's currently at, nor to the left of the one after that, but upwards and then some more and then to the left and you'll see ... and then you'll be there? Where do we draw the line? Personally I propose the following additional vague properties: [list=1] [*]Spoilers are large chunks or complete information which could not be gained by spending next to zero X by the spoilee. X can be money, effort, time, ... [*]Demanding reimbursement which is large compared to the amount of effort otherwise spent by spoilerfree inference should be considered theft. [/list] Examples: [list=1] [*]Suppose I give a new 1 AD player a remains just because I feel like it... I've now given that person the stats and possession of a level I nonstandard creature, which most often is gained after leveling other creatures a fair bit and then finding the right strategy in a rite of passage. When that person weeks afterward gains the ability to recruit remains, that victory will feel a bit less a triumph. [*]Suppose I instead give pictures of every place I visited in MD and of every creature on every level I ever had. It will take two weeks or heavy bartering/shop investing for a new person to find something that has not become redundant. I hope nobody will argue this is not worse than spoiler 1. [*]Suppose I rewarded a player with a remains after they spent two weeks trying to solve a quest of mine. (Yes I can make it so that people will need to spent that much time, the trouble is making it so that they don't give up before finding the answer.) This person could have used that amount of time to instead complete the tasks necessary to gain the ability to recruit them themselves, and more. Even if afterward they will not be as exited to get their first remains, they'll still be excited by all the other new stuff, and they have - hopefully - been very happy when getting that first remains, to have a total sense of achievement that is bigger than if they just ignored my quest. [*]Suppose I sell newbies 1 day old remains at the price of one gold coin... I'm ripping newbies off and am prone to get sued. I guess the only things worse would be selling them at two gold coins or to try and sell Aramors (regular ones). [*]Suppose, yes suppose, someone is impressed and inspired by my papers and wants to write their own. Is the task of finding the paper dispenser bigger than the task of dreaming a story and then telling it in as nice a way as possible? I have to think a long way back and sadly my memory is not all that.. but I do suppose when I found the dispenser, I thought 'oh that's where they are, how nice'. So yes, giving detailed instructions is kinda spoilerish, but the real fun in papers is spending two weeks writing them and still not being really happy about the results but getting nice comments from everyone anyway. And finally getting more, I was quite excited when I got more paper (twice) and I would be if I managed to get more again. I think that is very [b]personal and circumstantial[/b] though, a bit like getting a present on your birthday. It's nice, but if it wasn't for all the other things you like about your friends/family, you wouldn't care or even be insulted by it. Whereas if they don't give you a present or if it is one of those uninspired gift vouchers but you have a good time with them every other day, you're not going to become unhappy about the present.[/list] Is it a spoiler? I suspect opinions will differ on the nature of 3, 4 and 5. Do we care? I suspect opinions will differ on 1 and 5 and possibly also on 3.

[quote name='cutler121' timestamp='1297284139' post='78703'] What they were describing is a prediction of multi-dimensional theories which would be detectable once collision energies reached high enough levels. That is why string theory is actually good science, it makes predictions which can be shown to be incorrect. [/quote] Are you referring to the Higgs boson which they predicted? That is not what I was talking about. I'm not an expert on that field, but I thought the Higgs boson does not violate the law of conservation of energy. I seem to remember one string theorist proposed that law could be violated and not just for undetactable small time periods. @Fyrd: why not 'the principles'? I think in a way it makes more sense even. Inside MD, if we were our characters instead of being players, then the principles could be regarded as the absolute truth. The thing that science is trying to discover in real life. Of course you could consider science versus religion, exact science versus applied science, chemistry versus philosophy... All of these are related and they are all valid questions. What exactly is a principle anyway? (And don't give me a dictionary definition for this one.)

[quote name='CrazyMike' timestamp='1297211532' post='78659'] Correct me if I am wrong but the most tedious part of the MDNP is arranging and editing right? [/quote] The most tedious thing is to keep hammering people into a 'I will submit something of high quality on time" shape. High quality means little editing is needed. If you are going for a short but frequent journal, arranging isn't that annoying either. Below five pages you can even try it in word, although from the microsoft list, publisher is a lot less trouble. I think Gargant learned that the hard way.

[quote name='cutler121' timestamp='1297267381' post='78691'] The whole point is that scientists (without which there would be no science) are working to understand the world around them. Unfortunately many people view some fields as scientific for example medicine or anthropology when they really are not at all. [/quote] That is a semantic issue imo. Medicine does not have as its main goal the purpose of understanding life; the pure science behind that is biology. Medicine is to biology as engineering is to physics. That does mean that people who practise medicine have to know a lot about biology and the line between applied and theoretical research can be quite thin, especially with people majoring in biomedicine. Pharmaceutical research uses, at least we hope it does, the same approach as 'pure' science: you generate a theory and then you test it with an experiment -> you make a new drug and then you test it on a subject (usually not immediately on humans though). Maybe I'm too young for it, but I have never had high hopes for string theory to be validated by an experiment in this century. The one small conference I listened to as a physics student, a lot of theoretical string theorists were talking about their revolutionary new insights. One of them mentioned that at very high energies, energy would "leak to another dimension" and at that point I really failed to see how you could ever honestly try measure that. Apparently nuclear fusion reactions are not high enough energy for such a phenomenon or otherwise we would have tested it already. If only a small percentage of energy is leaked, you need either very very accurate detectors, very large energies or a very large quantity of data. A sustained fusion reaction seems a lot better to provide large quantities of large energy data than a single beam, at least to me. As for gravity: All theories are indeed theories that might prove to be imperfect or even completely wrong. Given our current understanding of it though, the chances of gravity being completely wrong are negligible in my opinion. In this statement I am also rejecting Berkley and the matrix and similar theories, being a pragmatist: you just can't do anything interesting after accepting Berkley imo.

I kinda oppose those suggestions. 1. I think that although theoretically it is not important who does what in MDA, in practice the issue will at some point be raised and if you do not have an answer at all, people will start to fight and set you back several weeks. It is better to 'waste' some time on it now than to waste a lot of time on it later. Plus clearly stating your goals is an important part of PR too. (And I reiterate that the archivists' rules really need a change imo.) 2. Do not start with the MDNP. Start small, work towards something bigger when you get more recruits and have more experience managing them. A newspaper, however small, is a horribly big undertaking in which you ideally have to disappoint 75% of your writers by not accepting their reports because although they are good, they are not supergood. If your reporter base is not large enough to allow you this at the start, you will most likely end up having to accept filler.

@Pig: this is the offtopic part so it doesn't relate that much too MD. However I'll try to guess what happened to you in the game: you went through the tutorial and had to pick some principles several times. Once you choose three different principles, you will be unable to choose a 4th until you 'level up'. As for science in MD, that is actually an interesting question. Inside MD, I don't believe much in science as we know it. I'm not even certain if the scientific method is all that easily established inside the realm of MD, but that might be because meta knowledge about MD and knowledge of established real life science conflict. MD is officially a fantasy game after all.

As with any minority that was once oppressed, there's two sides to this debate. One: using words like 'gay' in an attempt to insult people is either a sign of homophobia or of careless use of words. Both are bad things, however I'm personally more against the former than the latter. Two: interpreting every use of the word 'gay' as a sign of homophobia, is a typical case of protected minorities being completely paranoid. If you have to, at every opportunity, reiterate the entire history and fight for gay rights, then you are assuming your fight will never ever be over. That's quite pessimistic and if you are homosexual, then it is equally unethical to believe all straight people are shortsighted, as it is for a straight person to think homosexuals are sinners. There's a fine line between an oppressed minority and an oppressing minority; a line that might be further away depending on where you live and who you talk to. Here in Belgium, I personally never noticed any oppressing. Gay people are equally likely to be pointed at as teenagers who are: fat, freckled, pimpled, smart, wearing glasses, having a bad hair day... mainly because you don't recognize them unless they're being super-stereotypical gays dressed in all pink wearing a leather handbag or if they forgot to get a room. Not saying people should hide their sexuality, but wearing a big 'I am supergay' shirt is just slightly less stupid as wearing a big shirt that says 'I have twice the chance at carrying a venerable disease' and going to a rally that protests gay people not being allowed to donate blood, because of a historically increased prevalence... All that last thing proves to me is that they have gone from an oppressed minority to a lobby group that failed to notice they met their goal and should disband until the problem pops up again (which we hope will never happen). And should I be wrong about the Belgium anti-discrimination rights, at the very least I think their lobby group should get their priorities straight. Also in Belgium, I don't think I've ever heard any homosexuals complain about the abuse of the word gay, even though it is used in jest and diminutive form from time to time here too. Maybe we are lucky Belgians, both heterosexuals and the homosexuals. [quote name='Master' timestamp='1297107428' post='78583'] But don't get me wrong. I also think society has brought upon us some rules that reached even the line of ridiculous. Monogamy and many other things which I don't have time to explain ( indy might remember more about another conversation with me about this subject ). [/quote] Nitpicking: humans are not the only species that are (partially) monogamous. From a darwinistic perspective it is not ridiculous, although cheating is also "logical" to similar extent. From the same darwinistic viewpoint, gay people are "illogical". Considering that there is almost seven billion people and the earths resources are limited, it might make sense to encourage gayness though; It is my personal philosophy to encourage men to be gay, so that I have less competition when hitting on women. Lesbians on the other hand are evil incarnated.

my objectives are 1. to have fun 2. to perhaps learn something 3. to shout at people for voting the wrong option 4. to have fun while shouting at people for making me realize they prefer to vote for the wrong answer 5. dazzle people by saying there is no right answer 6. make you realize that by the above premises, YOUR ANSWER IS WRONG BY DEFINITION In all seriousness, I actually fail to see how my initial post is confusing... I could have asked what do you rely on/believe in/prefer/like ... they're all quite related even though the nuances might be different. Even if your interpretation of the question is "different" and this might influence your result, my guess is that such differences will probably be structural depending on the answer you would have given without "different" opinion in such a way to reinforce your choice. (As opposed to eg people voting for the majority because they believe that is the 'right' answer.) The only thing that might need clarification is who 'you' is, and I refer to you the forum reading human, not the 2d character which is enacted by you.

Combining bits and pieces from Gödel, Heisenberg and various philosophers like Berkley and Plato... we're quite certain that science will never hold all the answers. On the other hand, the principles are able to negate eachother and themselves and thus aren't quite an answer either. Plus the current list isn't exhaustive either... Personally I don't believe in democracy, but here's a poll anyway.

Sooo many things to say, so tough to phrase it being neutral... The good: Curiosa Shroom is a very direct person who I believe wishes good for the realm/game/whatever. She is a teeny tiny bit overtly direct, whereas most people are accustomed to hidden motives and all that crap. The bad: It wasn't all that utopic before, no matter how Curiose depicts it. The crafters were never very visible (if any of you lot wish to object now, i explicitly used the word visible instead of active so that I can rightfully claim I never saw you guys being very busy; maybe others did). The advertisers and artisans have a function that is primarily meta game and as such don't make the land more active. I've never heard of the Dimensional Shifters doing anything except for being founded and being disbanded... The ugly: MDA had two leaders and they both left soon after being appointed. Reasons aside, that is bad PR. The 'old lore' confusion makes the legend speakers role quite difficult to understand for new and old people and makes them collide with the archivists and other research guilds. It is a well known paradigm that if things are going well, they will attract people to jump on the wagon. If things are going bad, people will leave the sinking ship asap. MDA utopy as I see it: [i]MDNP[/i] - the most ambitious project to undertake, it only makes sense if you have like a dozen of regular staff and publish a short journal of about two A4 pages every two weeks. Don't effing save up to get ten pages every two months because the quality will be low and nobody will read it all in one go. The concept of a paper is to write about stuff happening the very moment, so this also requires the entire realm to be more active and nobody should ever be forced to read the papers of two years ago to figure out important events. [i]The Archives[/i]- ideally it should be easy to find all ingame (and not meta game) facts that are important easily and the lesser important facts only if you want to. What is currently in there is things like 'the inhibitor theory' - which is a horrible 4th wall breaking thing that I personally consider more damaging to roleplay than the dreaded old lore and the silver-denying werewolves who transform more often than the moon appears - and literal transcripts of the adventure log and chat logs. At one point we were also denied to write funny yet real stories and store them under 'amusing lore'. Currently the time since the last entry is half a year and several categories have 'no associated content'. Certainly denying people adding minor true readable stories was the right move. (Yes I realize this is post hoc and very mean... sue me.) [i]The Legend Speakers[/i] suffer greatly from the ancient lore thing. I think the easiest thing to do is to allow people to tell the stories that their character believes in, as long as you make the explicit distinction that is just that. If you post creation theories in the archives, you're claiming them to be fact. If you have a creation mythos and tell that you and say everybody underground, especially next to the nightshade patch, believe it, but nobody else - blasted heathens - then nothing should be wrong with it. Except for trying to explain all that every single time again, with some people inevitably having a different opinion on what is fact and what is fiction. The workload: 1. A structured debate on what should be in and out of the archives. imo the current 'rules' and structure are outdated, abandoned and proven to be dysfunctional. 2. Sanitizing the archives. Some stuff should be burned; no regrets. 3. Refilling the archives. A fresh start should attract attention of creative people. You can have people dedicated to writing things, others to recruiting, still others to editing the stuff from 'noob' writers. Don't be like me and say X and Y suck, but try to give constructive criticism and guide people to a structured but pleasant writing experience. But mostly: tackle one task at a time and don't try to do it with just a few people over a loooong time period. People want results, people want to have coworkers. The lone hermit who completes his life work all alone in the mountains does not have internet access and hence does not play MD. Once people see there is something good going on and that people are recognized for it, they'll be easier to persuade to partake. You already broke some eggs and got people's attention, now make an omelet or a cake. Depending on how the debate n°1 turns out, I might write something for the archives even.

Quantum mechanic quacks is mainly a pet peeve of mine. Probably because I have a degree in physics, I notice all the people who do it wrong. My theory is that people like to use "quantum mechanics" because it allows [b]some[/b] things that are classically not possible and they like to forget that the word "[b]some[/b]" is actually quite limited. If you cannot prove your thesis classically, then try to prove it with quantum or with special relativity. Even if you fail, less people will notice. I suppose that other fields have similar problems. I can imagine that a lot of pseudo psychiatrists like to quote Freud. People like to use big names, and to compare themselves with revolutionary scientists like Wegener, Galileo, Darwin... This works very well on people who know little about the field, but as Xrieg mentioned, it pervades even the peer review process. If you have to review a paper by someone who has so far made excellent work and that person can list a number of equally renown people who posed similar theses, then you're going to be a lot less skeptical. Ironically with the huge specialization we have now, I'm a complete novice in several fields that my coworkers work in and if they present me with a paper a certain conversation often happens: coworker "Have you read this paper?" me "Yeah, it is not that good, don't you think so?" coworker "Oh? I thought it would be good, <prof phd X> is a very famous author in our field." me "Well, s/he must have been pressed for time or something."

I'm currently officially working as a scientist. Before being hired as such, I've always wanted to pursue a scientific career and for as long as I can remember I have claimed to be a scientist at heart. [quote name='Fyrd Argentus' timestamp='1296514287' post='78309'] Perhaps rather than saying scientific ethos is dead, we should say veneration of scientists is dead. [/quote] The downsides of industrialization and other yield increasing methods, of which science is a presupposition, are becoming more clear. As such science is losing its status as a miracle creation tool. However at the same time I think more and more people are believing in the scientific method. After all, the idea that industry without regulations will lead to negative results, has been investigated using the scientific method as well. (Albeit at some occassions the route from observation to theory was very very short and easy.) As Apophys says too, social studies are now called social sciences and if you say you dislike that, people will get angry and state that they are indeed sciences. Why do we even have the word 'social studies' then? [quote name='Kamisha' timestamp='1296525128' post='78313'] I cant help but think that the first post is an attack against me personally but since I cant confirm that I wont dwell on it. [/quote] This topic was split so that my rants would be less linked to you and your thread... oh irony. Also, if you don't believe me, look at the explicit crackpot signs I listed. Do you fit any of those criteria? [quote name='apophys' timestamp='1296569137' post='78322'] Oh, by the way, quantum mechanics isn't all that complicated to understand, in principle, when you get a good explaining text, and are beyond a high school level (I don't mean the average high school graduate; I mean actually knowing the material). [/quote] The only university level courses in quantum mechanics that I know about, are being taught to physicist, mathematicians, engineers, chemists and studies involving a lot of chemistry such as biotechnology. I think it is safe to say that is less than 50% of university students, which is a lot less than 50% of the general population. Which is sadly less than the number of people who claim to understand quantum mechanics. Sure it is not that hard if you actually have a decent textbook and followed basic calculus. If only we could get people to study calculus some more... [quote name='xrieg' timestamp='1296545073' post='78316'] 3. Publications in peer reviewed journals is the best known method to evaluate scientists' performance - but 'the best' is not 'perfect'. Most researchers nowadays does not bring anything new to human knowledge during their lifetimes and yet (depending on a field) between a few and several papers annually is required to secure their positions and grants money. Consequently the paper flow is overwhelming, everybody publishes - and quality vary [/quote] That is true and one of the reasons I dislike the capitalist approach to science as I'd call it. However from an ethical viewpoint this is a bit vague. There is a huge difference between a not all that novel technique leading to the same old conclusions, and forged data leading to exciting and new (but false) insights. If the first gets published it is a nuisance. If the latter gets published it is an abomination. The first person will get some money to continue their unexciting research. The latter will get money to hire additional scientists to expand on their success. Those scientists will be met with the question how they can reproduce the results and eventually with the question of joining the dark side or to become whistle-blowers. Even the unexciting result can come at the expense of an 'innocent' scientist, who did not bother to publish their unexciting results and whose funds were cut. But then again, if you are a store clerk and you manage to sell more than the clerk in the rival branch, you might inadvertently make them fire that guy. I do not think there has ever been any social system which was immune to corruption. It is not news that peer review is susceptible to corruption. The need to publish is a good motivator for corruption. The low number of peers in a field is a great facilitator. It does mean only a handful of people will actually care about those articles though.

I'm taking the liberty of splitting this from that thread which I'll quote a single post from below: [quote name='xrieg' timestamp='1296204478' post='78131'] Actually it seems to be a sound research practice - scientific ethos is dead and high time to realize that :-P Scientific results to be valid should by possible to verify and reproduce. Otherwise the temptation (especially for students, but many researchers as well) could be too strong - and raw data home production would follow. For any serious paper with non-trivial results first thing one should carefully read are assumptions - and data collection methodology. [/quote] Neitzsche said God is dead and that we killed him, Xrieg is saying scientific ethos is dead... if so I'm adding that it is an unborn child aborted by capitalism with the coathanger named bureacracy. One of the things that bother me about language is that nowadays every field is a science. It used to be you had science and arts, now you have linguistic science and stuff like that. Don't get me wrong, I do not mean to say that it is impossible or unlikely to take a structured approach, the scientific method, and apply it to language or whatever kind of subject you want. I just think it is easier to be able to say that maths and physics and chemistry are more alike to eachother than to language or history... If anyone dares to say that a field should not be called a science, I bet they'll be met with fierce resistance from that fields practitioners, because if you aren't doing science then you are a crackpot. - That seems to be the general consensus in any case. - And an artist cannot just make pretty art, but it has to be art that at the same time makes you think about how the world is going to hell and stuff. Things have to be functional, and we just happen to have a lot of reasons to believe the scientific method is very very functional. Here is one downside of this: crackpots, politicians and the like, will invariably try to pose as scientists and thus make it hard to discern between them and real scientists. There are currently more people alive than ever before. A higher percentage of them have the time and means to become either a crackpot or a scientist. So currently we have a vast amount of scientific and crackpot output per year, to the point where no single person is able to review it all. That's bad news for metaphysical solipsists, but most of us rejected that philosophy in favor of something more practical I believe. The distinction between good scientists and bad people is, to me, in the intent. A researcher will pose a question which we want to be answered, regardless of what the truth is. Other people will limit themselves to certain answers. If the truth is otherwise they will hide their findings or alter them until it matches what they want. How do we protect ourselves from a lack of ethics? Simply put, we do not trust one person. If one researcher makes a claim, that claim will be analyzed by a dozen other independent researchers, before it gets published in a peer reviewed journal. Therein is written a recipe on how to reproduce the research in your own backyard if you'd want to. - Except that sometimes I doubt the government would like you to install all those dangerous machines in your backyard without a permit. - Even if you don't feel obliged, some other people will carry out the experiment and if it failed they'll report it too and try to figure out what went wrong etc. If some thesis stands unchallenged for long enough, more and more people will accept that it is true and build upon it further. Apparently scientists haven't ever believed in other scientists being ethical. However they relied on peer review to discern real science from wishful publishing. As such I don't think scientific ethos ever really was 'alive' and if it is 'dying' now, then it must be because peer review is becoming more and more an economical and corruptible process. Another scientific ethics question is if some questions should be answered at all? Every year I spot at least one article in which it is claimed that women are better in X but not in Y - yes that is a pun. - Is that really relevant? Suppose that gender Z really is 'better' on whatever grand scale you designed. What will you do? Kill all the humans which are not gender Z? Last I checked we still need both to procreate. Crackpot signs: 1. If a 'researcher' does not want to tell you how something they demonstrated works, they either don't know or it actually does not. 2. If anyone refers to Continental drift and skepticism and that person is not a geologist, then they're crackpots. Seriously, it's about as convincing an argument as the good old ad Hitlerum. 3. If anybody without qualifications in physics or chemistry is referring to quantum mechanics, then they're quacks. Quantum is not the modern 'Open Sesame' or 'Abracadabra'.

[quote name='Kamisha' timestamp='1296499370' post='78300']Also since there may be more bias I would like to stress that bias isn't necessarily a well used word. Bias is often mistakenly used to explain experience. [/quote] To speed up the dictionary part of the debate a bit, bias is a term used in statistics - something that everybody who wants to use quantitative methods needs - to refer to any kind of data gathering or processing methods that will more likely lead to false conclusions. Bias is inherently bad in this setting. Experience helps a researcher to identify possible sources of bias and use methods that are safer. Bias might also mean a preference of a person, and in that regard, preferences are often driven by 'common sense', which is gathered by experience, at least we hope. Considering you are gathering data, I think xrieg's question is referring to statistical practice, in which it certainly is a valid one. You are not, as far as I can tell, precautionary against 'self selection', a very common form of selection bias. Alas I have only a vague idea about ethnography, which doesn't tell me what kind of tools you will use and how 'strong' the conclusions you expect/hope/fear are. If your objective does not necessitate blinding (which is unlikely imo), perhaps it would help a bit for this dispute to know what exactly you aim at? @Xreig: students are usually not given crucial tasks and senior researchers should be able to protect against bias. The problem lies mostly in deadlines and capitalism. "Interesting" results give you a better chance at getting a research grant and that shiny new computing cluster you need. Add a splash of bureaucracy to the formula and you get the situation where questionable things happen often. There are a lot of skeptical minds left though and if one of your papers is exposed a fraud, that's it for your career. In the long run integrity pays off, and I do believe most researchers are smart enough to understand that.

[quote name='Yrthilian' timestamp='1295618144' post='77806'] I like this idea to be honest. But it does have a few issues. More so because you also have NML and the UG each land does not have king or a body really to be granted the same. [/quote] So? Right now not everybody is equal when it comes to WP codes. In Firs' proposal there will be, in the worst case, the same maximal 'distance' between people. That is not exactly an argument against the proposal imo. It could be argued that since less non-Loreroot people will bother Firsanthalas, he will be able to provide a better service to those that still need it.

I second the 24h thing, except for guaranteeing I will remember it even then... make it 90% As for 'doing it on purpose', you can never be certain, but it is always fair to give people the benefit of doubt. And to undermine that statement: SN is not every week afaik, so it is not taking up the only popular timeslot in existance.

[i]What is good?[/i] Something which exists outside of our cave. [i]What is your best physical attribute?[/i] Being mostly in good health. [i] What is your best non-physical attribute?[/i] Being smart. [i] What do you value most?[/i] Self-consciousness and consistency. [i]What is 2 + 2?[/i] 4, with a standard deviation of ~2, skewed to the right when talking to tax collectors. [i]What do you know?[/i] The laws of thermoquestionarics. 1. Only a trivial question can be answered without giving rise to new questions. 2. At least one new question produced when answering a non-trivial question, will be non-trivial. 3. A self-conscious entity will develop at least one non-trivial question in its life.

[quote name='Asterdai' timestamp='1295163917' post='77494'] It's really long, I read a lot by skimming through and it said a lot about nothing it seems, kept on saying it was going to tell you stuff and never did! [/quote] I got that problem too, but I managed to pick up some parts where real issue were illustrated: governments decide we must go to war for whatever reason and we believe them -> that's crazy we try most of our lives to gain money and power -> we are slaves to money -> we're crazy So I take it the message is a mix of anarchy, communism and neo-spiritualism. In se I don't mind any of these messages - I'm not exactly a conformist and I tend to vote for the most left party that actually has a shot at doing something - however, this message is one which aims to persuade in a less conventional way. It claims we use insane logic and thus logic and hence arguments are impossible. All that is left is persuasion... and it largely fails at that. Either you are not truly lost to this insanity, or you have stopped reading long before. Hell, even if you are not as insane as the author claims, you're not prone to read the entire thing imo. I suppose the author fails mostly because you need to be at least a little bit crazy to understand how to convince/persuade crazy people. As a final note: I have never claimed to be completely sane in any sense or definition.

[quote name='Shadowseeker' timestamp='1294164278' post='76766'] Funny how little asked more questions about the general quest idea and such... [/quote] I think there is some merit in looking at this quote again. One part of the quest description refers to another quest, which makes it easy to assume the same approach is valid here as it was there. However, not only is the judge different, the concept is also subtly changed. Whereas I remember the original contest to be questions that cannot be answered (by Manu), now it is questions that cannot (easily) be answered by the player who poses them. This is a much larger set of questions, with all questions being by definition good questions. After all, we know which questions we cannot answer ourselves, while guessing which someone else cannot answer is nothing but 'educated' guessing. As such, we guess at what criteria make a set of questions really good. We make up our own rules and act accordingly. When reading Voldon's submission, it was clear to me that the approach was very different, and yet also quite similar. We have both a tried to provide a broad variety of questions, a single format for them and some justification for why the questions are selected. [quote name='Shadowseeker' timestamp='1295127699' post='77467'] Mighty Pirate, unless your intention was from the beginning to pass the WP on, then your construct was incredibly lame. It resulted in a 2 vote person to get the necessary 5 votes, without any convincing or whatever needed additionally. <...> Another question for the questers: If you truly value your own questions this LOW, by not even voting for YOURSELF, why should YOU expect to get a WP anyways? Think about it. That's why I was VERY unhappy. And whoever was not happy that I said so about Makain...well, I dare you, explain to me why I should be happy. <...> As for the 1st group, this was done well. The conversation between Voldon and Kafuuka was on a simple basis, and Voldon did try properly, and suceeded in persuading Kafuuka. Simple words, which probably would not work with many other people, but well enough. Congrats. [/quote] Obviously, what worked for group 2 would never have worked for group one and vice versa. Voting (and plotting and backstabbing) makes a lot of sense in a group larger than two people. It also makes sense to me that if everybody votes for themselves, you don't get anywhere. Thus it is logical to demand nobody votes for himself. A question remains whether this was explicitly demanded, or most people assumed it to be the case? Did anyone vote for himself regardless or vote blanc? With little information, we make up rules for ourselves. In the past Manu has rewarded selfless behaviour some times (that I am aware of). All of these ideas could have contributed to people not voting for themselves... I'd hope that it was agreed upon instead of Makain winning by accident, but then again winning a WP by pure luck has happened before and there was a higher prerequisite for this quest. And I'm personally very much against bribing for WPs anyways. That would go against my rules.

I can't speak for Shadowseeker, but in general it is unlikely for quest creators to comment in public before the end. A date which is partially up to me, but fear not there is some progress.

[quote name='No one' timestamp='1294530188' post='77144'] And this is one of the sources of the problem: [b]training scheme[/b]. [/quote] I agree with that, but ask you: how does Burns' proposal change this? [quote] Sorry, my ignore button failed fot this. I will not even try to answer you directly. Instead try not to post the answer to this : If a ... child, for which you are 3-6 times his age (lets not bring infants here), tries to tell you that he is correct and you are wrong ... what do you do ? how do you do it ? how do you tell him ? for how long ? [/quote] So you defend your patronizing attitude with more patronizing? Next time you choose an allegory, how about you choose one that does not intrinsically insult people? There is no evidence that all new mp3s are the mental equivalent of a teenager. There is even nothing that states a toddler cannot be right and an adult cannot be wrong. It happens less often, like if you take a hundred statements by teenagers and a hundred statements by adults, one would hope that more of the adults' statements are correct. I wouldn't go as far as saying I'd expect it to though. As a child I loathed people who thought they were right just because they were older. As an adult I still won't stand for such retarded behavior, but to humor you, I have decided not to answer your how questions. [quote] There are ppl in MP3/4 that will be impacted by this measures but they enjoy how they are now. So, this fight on this topic is actually for their position there. [/quote] Very smart. Of the people who will be impacted, you refuse half the right to talk, and the others you claim have things to loose, which is of course a tautology. You forget however that it is not the last group who is the reason that there is a problem. And that you yourself implicitly admitted that Burns' proposal will not work. And that some mp5s have admitted liking this proposal for selfish reasons. That probably wasn't the best move ever, but at least it was honest. Neither kxttie's stats nor creatures are outside of any of the limits proposed in this thread. That includes the 300 stats limit you proposed, No One. Even if you ban trading, mp3 can still use shop creatures, they can still win quests and get wish points, they can still walk into loreroot without a training scheme, if they make use of a certain feature that was available a few weeks back. What do you suggest? No Loreroot at all, no shop, no wish shop, no trading, no birds... how about no mp3?