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Is "redundant oxymoron" ipso facto oxymoronical, as well as recursive, then ?
If one asserts that adjective-X and object-Y is an oxymoron, does that imply object-Y can also exist in a state Z where adjective-X does not apply ? Or, must oxymoronicism involve an absolute assertion that object-x's adjective-y is always antinomical ?
Take the classic oxymoron attributed to Ronald Reagan, "peacekeeper missile;" does it not assert that it is an oxymoron only because the noun, "missile," can never have the attribute "peacekeeper" in ordinary usage ?
But, if one asserts "Fox News' lunacy" ... which I interpret as a noun-adjective ordering of "lunatic Fox News" ... is an oxymoron, does one then assert that "Fox News" in ordinary usage can never have the attribute "lunatic" ?
I opine that if the intent of the claimer-of-oxymoronical status is to equate said News service with lunacy as an immutably constant relationship, then the statement is not an oxymoron, but, merely, redundant.
However, if it is, indeed, an oxymoron, then is it an oxymoron of a special nature; a meta-oxymoron, or recursive oxymoron ?
More research is needed.
«What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning» Werner Heisenberg
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Does anyone with half a brain take ANY mainstream news media organization seriously?
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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PhilLenoir wrote: Birmingham is almost totally Muslim
It isn't but it just feels that way. Maybe he meant Luton or Bradford. Or Leicester. Or East Ham.
PhilLenoir wrote: There are parts of London where "Muslim Police" will beat you if you are not wearing Muslim attire (whatever that might be!)
That bit, allegedly, was supposedly true.
Sharia Patrols [^]
and
London, sharia patrols [^]
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Let's open another can of worms.
I my personal opinion I find the voting system for articles broken and pointless.
If you take a look at the 100 latest tips and articles very few of them has a rating of less than 4.5, usually you'll find none below 4 but today there's one single exception.
Effectively we have a rating scale between 4 and 5 where 4 is a downvote and five is an upvote.
You can also see this as a reality from some of the comments where some authors are getting pissed when someone votes lower than five. Some of you might even remember that there was one author a few years back that reported everyone voting lower than five for abuse.
As a refresher I urge you to take a look at articles from a decade earlier. The average rating is much more spread out while actually of a generally higher quality.
So the rating system hasn't always been broken.
This means that the only measurement of quality there is, is the number of votes on an article, and this measurement is also broken to some extent.
I'm often enough seeing articles that have gotten more than ten upvotes in a few hours of existence, which probably is because the author has told his friends or minions that he/she has written an article.
And no, I don't think sock puppets are that common at all.
So why is this?
Well the most obvious reason I believe is that you need to motivate a vote of three or lower which might trigger retaliations, which is a reason many people avoid to vote if an article has slipped through the approval system.
So my suggestion is that the need for motivations has to be scrapped.
Yes I know this might start new waves of univoting from disgruntled members per the "good ol times" but the other way would be to scrap the whole voting system since it's fairly pointless in any case.
I'll get my coat.
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Have my 4.
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So the options are:
1. Remove the need to provide a reason for downvotes? or
2. Have only Upvotes. No downvotes.
Discuss.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Only upvotes isn't a measure of quality, only popularity.
But maybe that's better. It will certainly create less fuss.
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Jörgen Andersson wrote: Only upvotes isn't a measure of quality, only popularity.
Which is mostly what 5-votes are now -- members simply high-fiving their countrymen regardless of the actual quality. (E.g. "Nice one!" -- that's not helpful.)
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Indeed, the lowering of the quality of the articles is my biggest issue here.
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Where is the third option?
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That requires Mitch Rapp.
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Adding a reason for all votes.
I don't know how big difference it would make though.
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I thought about that. I guess it would be at the same time fair and annoying.
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Chris Maunder wrote: Discuss You're channelling Barbara again!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Hey, how about third option - anonymous (down)voting?
It would be basically the same as it is now, the user needs to provide reason, just that the name would be hidden. So community still can purge rogue votes, but it will prevent retaliation for those who downvote.
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That's an interesting one!
(However I am cringing at the if-then logic I'd have to pollute the code with!)
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Much as I dislike the "like" system FB started, I think a simple "like" and "don't like" counters would be sufficient.
Marc
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That would offend my critical powers.
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I don't vote lower than 4. Too afraid some douche author (and they aren't all like that) will downvote everything I have destroying my life's work!
In fact I know an author here on CP who does just that, and I believe he is a platinum author himself... I can't remember his name, but some people may know whom I speak of (I believe he even got banned a few times). And my thoughts go a bit like this: if this was a nice guy he would've written a good article, but he hasn't so he's probably some jackass who can't take criticism and will downvote me for downvoting. I guess I have some issues too
Besides, if an article already has x votes of 4 and 5 then my vote of 1 will simply be ignored. People won't be alarmed about the quality of the article and I will look like an a**hole for voting 1 (and take the risk of being downvoted myself). That's just not worth it!
Some people obviously try their best. Sometimes I vote 3 and explain how it would be better. But that's rare.
Then I believe there are just too many bad programmers out there who can't really value an article for what it's worth. Take an article that shows an example of how to get data from the database. The author doesn't know about the pitfalls of not disposing and not parameterizing himself and shows only bad practices. Now here's the deal. Many people don't know about these issues and actually think it's a great article! After all, it get's the job done, they get data from the database. And there's your vote of 5!
I value CP as a source of information and there are many great articles on here. But you can't trust the voting system. You'll have to use your own judgement to see if an article is worth the read. For some authors, I hope including myself, the read is just always worth it. For others you have to take a bit more caution. It's just too bad you already have to know your way around code to know which is bad and which is good.
That said, if I could anonymously vote 1 I would certainly do so on a lot more articles I see! And if more would do that then maybe the 1's wouldn't be ignored because of all the uninformed 5's.
My blog[ ^]
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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I hate my inability to express myself properly, I'm simply not lingually gifted.
Thanks for expressing my views better than I could myself.
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I know the author of whom you speak He's even been known to create shill accounts to continue his revenge.
Saying that, I do downvote articles. If an article is poor quality then I owe it to other readers to explain why I think the article is poor. I generally try to offer advice on how to improve the article but, in some cases, I can see no redeeming features.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: I know the author of whom you speak He's even been known to create shill accounts to continue his revenge. I believe he's still around only because his articles are valuable to the community. Hard to think that someone who creates such value can be such an a**hole
Well, I guess we all have our flaws.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote: Saying that, I do downvote articles. If an article is poor quality then I owe it to other readers to explain why I think the article is poor. I generally try to offer advice on how to improve the article but, in some cases, I can see no redeeming features. I agree, I did that a few times, but the people after me still continued to vote 5's. Then I got downvoted a few times and now I'm cured of such beliefs
The only people on here that I'd dare to give my vote 1, people like you, don't deserve 1's
My blog[ ^]
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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There's a couple of articles by a fellow MVP that I have voted 1 on because they are dangerously wrong, yet others have still voted 5. Sadly, if they follow the advice they are given, they are going to have nothing but trouble later on.
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