User:Jacius

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

[edit] Note to self

[edit] About Me

My name is John Croisant. I am a student in Illinois, currently not majoring in anything. For those few who care, I have a blog on which I post essays, thoughts, etc.

I am most interested in computer programming, especially video game/computer game programming. My current favorite programming language is Ruby, although I previously used Python. I work, play, and live on Linux, and advocate free/open source software on a small scale. I also have an iBook, which I can get absolutely no developing work done on, but it's fun.

Regarding games, my goal is to create games which are both fun and have significant artistic or social value. Very few games even come close to good Romantic fiction (let alone contemporary literature) in terms of literary sophistication and technique, so there is lots of room for improvement.

I hope to make my games open source, but would certainly like to make money off of them (they are a luxury item, and thus I feel it is more appropriate to charge a small fee for them). I have some secret plans for reconciling the two in a way that is agreeable to everybody, which I will not discuss here ;)

Besides programming, I am an artist, particularly using visual dry media such as graphite (pencil) or charcoal. I dabble in digitized art, and occasionally create some graphics for open source games.

I am generally quite curious, and therefore am very fond of the Special:Randompage feature on Wikipedia. I am currently very involved in expanding the article On the Nature of Things which I found by Random. I have seen quite a few evenings disappear as I perused, learned, and contributed on Wikipedia.

[edit] Wikinews

I voted for Wikinews because I think it is definitely worth a shot. I had some initial concerns, but thinking about them, they get sorted out:

  • Concern: If Wikinews articles take as long to write and polish as Wikipedia articles, they won't be news by the time they get done, they'll be "olds".
  • Answer:
  • First, I imagine Wikinews articles will be written more quickly, because they are "in the spotlight" while the event is happening. It doesn't take a whole lot of research (besides fact checking), just reporting what has happened.
  • Second, articles don't have to be complete to be useful (this is even more true for news than for encyclopedias). If you hear that a hurricane will probably be hitting your locale within the next week, you can start preparing, even if you don't know exactly where it will hit, or the scientific reasons the hurricane formed (although a good link to Wikipedia could clear up the second bit).
  • Third, news archives are very useful! Just look at Lexis Nexis or any of the other services. News doesn't stop being valuable the day after it happened! It's incorrect to think that the effort put forth on the news article will be wasted because the article will "expire" soon.
  • Concern: News might not be accurate. Or, specific points of view will be suppressed, especially on controversial news items.
  • Answer: These concerns apply to Wikipedia too, but they have generally not be realized. The peer-editing process involved in a Wiki means that errors in an article will be corrected with time. All points of view will be preserved in the article history, even if someone maliciously tries to delete a particular report. And who says that traditional news companies are accurate? Traditional reporters sometimes have to trim coverage, and cut out important details. Wikinews has the potential to be the most comprehensive news source ever!

Right now, I'm just curious about how this will work. Particularly:

  • Will important news items be translated for other domains? I don't read Chinese, but I'd like to know what's going on in China. I imagine this will be worked out on its own by helpful, multi-lingual Wikinewsians. Wikinews policy might encourage this.
  • I'm not sure about the idea of accredited reporters, but it's important that Wikinews maintain some professionalism, or it might potentially become a gossip board. We'll have to wait and see.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../j/a/c/User%7EJacius_09b8.html"