This post exists to address an issue I was recently made aware of. It may seem trivial to some but to me SU represent a leap in technology as important to the internet as search engines.
SU is a human driven information sorting tool, a system of distributed processing designed to arrive at what I like.
This has implications across the human spectrum if one takes a moment to think about it in relation to the fact that humans learn about them selves largely from exterior reactions since self knowledge is subjective and therefor valueless in the scientific sense.
As a result Stumbleupon is extremely important for a huge number of reasons as varied as why search engines or the telephone are important.
Thanks gumbypiz, I appreciate it :)
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Innomen 10:06am http://gumbypiz.stumbleupon.com/review/14821327/
Bravo. There are a great many subjects where people need to get over the past, and have a nice tall glass of perspective.
But you're dead wrong about wiki pages (and Dark Knight) :)
Stumble is about discovery in general. I regularly get wiki pages in stumble that are fascinating.
Example: Lets say I find a crappy geocities page about a mine fire, or a massive sink hole or some other real world anomaly that interests me, but the page I find is garbage, it just a link and short subjective text, so I go get the wiki page instead and its far more detailed and complete, and I share this with a friend instead of the crappy original. Have I seriously harmed stumble upon? Clearly not.
Or maybe I hear about some bullshit new act being pushed through congress and the most detailed single page I can find on it is a wiki.
To make such a sweeping condemnation is just asking for trouble. It seems you misunderstand. Stumble is about discovery of information of interest, the form it takes is irrelevant. Wiki pages may disinterest you (all of them!?), but you obviously do not speak for stumblers generally.
The only thing that really hurts stumble upon are the spammers, and the neglect of the admins, imo.
gumbypiz 10:54pm
Thanks for the response, but I'm pretty fixed on my position.
No offense, each is entitled to their own opinion. I'm VERY adamant about Wiki pages not being SU worthy.
Specifically, I don't see how one person looking up a subject they like on Wiki is worth my time. ANYONE can go to and type in a movie or subject they like and stumble it, but that doesn't make it worth submitting on SU. Its lazy, its not imaginative, its not SU quality.
Again, can you imagine if every 12 year old went online to Wiki pages and looked up every video game, movie title and boy band they liked and submitted it on SU? I've seen the quality of stumbles on SU drop dramatically, and I truly believe we have to be more discerning of what gets placed here on SU or we ALL suffer. As long as Wiki pages have input from whoever the heck wants to put unsupported or unresearched "information" on there its not worth looking at in my SU queue. I can read the Star or the Enquirer and get just as useful or truthful reading...
And as you said, SU is about discovery, what is so special or "discovered" by someone typing in their favorite band or movie in the wiki search bar? Just because you searched for it through a database doesn't make it a discovery. Its "there" already to find. Thats not a discovery as much as someone submitting a listing of search hits through Google (although people do that annoying thing too). How about the next time I look through Websters and find a word I haven't seen before and list it as "discovered". Thats just as much what you do when you submit a wiki or IMDb page. Lets follow Columbus's idea of discovery like when he "discovered" the new world (as if it wasn't already there). Getting my point?
As far as sweeping statements, I've been making this one about both people stumbling Wiki and IMDb pages for some time, a couple years now on SU...and I'm most certainly NOT the only one with this strong dislike of stumbling them. Go back through my blog on SU that are Wiki pages and you will see by reading the reviews of them, without question I'm not the only one disliking Wiki pages as stumble material. Actually, among those who dislike these type of stumbles, I have to say I'm much more subtle in making my dislike clear. Some are a lot more unfriendly about it.
As far as Batman, well, really, unless you are a comic freak (as I once was) each release of a new comic based movie just gets me down. And you have to admit, Batman has not had a great run. How many of these films have to be made, doesn't the sheer # of these films kinda reveal that there is an inherent problem with translating the comic hero or Dark Knight to the screen? (And I'm NOT impressed by Fantastic Four, X-Men, Hulk, or the other lame attempts Hollywood has bombed at either).
Well, like I said, stick to your guns, and I'll keep thumbing down and expressing my dislike of bad and unworthy SU stuff like Wiki and IMDb.
Nice talking to you though.
Innomen 11:39pm Eh, that's cool.
Lazy is a loaded bullshit term.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/563565/In-Praise-of-Lazy
“ANYONE can go to and type in a movie or subject they like and stumble it...”
That would be the point?
"Again, can you imagine if every 12 year old went online to Wiki pages and looked up every video game, movie title and boy band they liked and submitted it on SU?"
Eh, yea and I'd never see any of them that didn't interest me thanks to the interest and tagging system. Again that's the point of stumble. I'd happily have the entire internet dumped into SU. You have a strange picture of what SU is, its not dig, its not some autocratic list of some guys faves, its an information sorting tool.
"I truly believe we have to be more discerning of what gets placed here on SU or we ALL suffer"
hehe exactly wrong, that's why SU is cool because we don't have to know anything more than our own interests and yet it works. That's its genius.
"I can read the Star or the Enquirer and get just as useful or truthful reading..."
Wow you really are an authoritarian aren't you. I'll not debate the veracity of consensus and crowd sourcing with you, but allow me to link you to what generally would be my response to that entire idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes
"Just because you searched for it through a database doesn't make it a discovery. Its "there" already to find."
By that logic Google obviates SU. The whole point is so you don't have to go looking it finds you.
"How about the next time I look through Websters and find a word I haven't seen before and list it as "discovered". Thats just as much what you do when you submit a wiki or IMDb page."
I wouldn't have a problem with that, in fact I was subscribed to the dictionary.com word of the day for about two years. If you did it to every word eventually only the interesting ones would reach me unless you mistagged and mislabeled them which is not what we are talking about.
"...and I'm most certainly NOT the only one with this strong dislike of stumbling them."
That's extremely ironic coming from the guy that thinks authority trumps consensus. :P
"unless you are a comic freak"
That's like saying "unless you are a book freak". Comic books are book with pictures. Sure some are puerile and childish but others are serious works with real idea. Go read Sandman or Transmetropolitcan for example. (edit: or The Walking Dead)
"How many of these films have to be made"
As many as people like? Its not for you to censor the world of all things you dislike :) You seem to think of your opinion as objective, that's a big logical pit you're leaping into. And yes the batman movies by and large suck, but others disagree and if it makes them happy, without harm, well I don't see the harm. :)
Nice talking to you also. :) I stick to my guns so long as they shoot straight. :) I don't debate with a closed mind. *shrugs*
Mind if I post this conversation to my blog? If the wiki debate is common, (you're the first I've met and I've been here for two years), I'd like to make my position public.
SU is important to me.
Innomen 1:05am "Lazy, a bullshit term, but you did understand my meaning so it does have its impact."
Completely. Did you read my essay?
"And despite you faith in the system, despite the tagging and interest system, I STILL get this stuff in my SU queue."
That's a technical issue and will improve with time, but that's not the complaint you made. Otherwise you'd be attacking SU's administration, not the users choice of input.
"So I think I can have my say and voice my views on the people that submit the stuff I don't want to see after having used every method on SU to not have it brought my way."
Obviously you have the right to say anything, imo. But your argument for is somewhat like saying its ok to murder the guy you dislike because you've exhausted all legal recourse.
"So what is YOUR point here?"
I debate logical inconsistency for fun, ultimately I have no point, but then again ultimately life has no point :)
"you are going to make me feel uninformed or label me because you don't agree? (etc)"
My intention is not to cause you suffering. I can't make you feel anything. If I could make people feel things it would be a general non local love for all humans. If you;'re angry maybe its because I have a point? I "know" I'm right, so I'm not even remotely annoyed.
"Have you really looked at my blog of SU? If you did, or you've been on SU for as long as you say you have you'd see I'm not in anyway exaggerating about the number of others who do not appreciate Wiki pages on SU."
The burden of proof problem of demanding that I research your claim not withstanding, go look at my join date, I've been here two years. I'm sorry your pet peeve never crossed my path, but its a huge internet out there. *shrugs*
eBay bought SU a year ago. And again your logic has issues, because google doesn't buy rival search engines they buy new services to add diverse functions, so google clearly agree with me that google does not make SU pointless.
You're obviously getting angry. I'll just drop it.
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Having just learned that eBay owns stumble I feel nauseous. :(
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