We have no idea what Wikipedias impact is or will be over any kind of significant time frame. PG writes that there is still room to do to Wikipedia what Wikipedia did to Encyclopedia Britannica without stirring controversy. I'm also not so sure about the amount of work involved. The monuments I listed consumed staggering amounts of work, and then we haven't even compared casualties yet.
You'll be downvoted for a bad attitude, not what you're saying. Also, the "I'll be downvoted" meme is rather obnoxious, and I make a point to downvote it every single time I see it. Leave it on reddit. Let your words stand alone, don't rely on manipulating the voters.
However, you do have a good point. It should not matter that it was pg saying it. It should only matter what the actual possibility of Wikipedia being overtaken is. Personally, I don't think that's likely to happen. There's just been too much put into Wikipedia for it to be disrupted, for better or worse.
We're both long time members, with almost exactly the same karma. We know the ground rules about as well as each other. sometimes making the point is worth the attitude.
I lost 8 points for that comment. That comment cost me 4, so that means pg fanboys have gone looking for other comments and submissions of mine to downvote. Which adds some quantitative evidence to support your assertion that my point was good.
Last I checked, fanboyism is also discouraged. Which was my point.
[Edit since I can't reply to comment below]: last I dug through the arc code, there was no points multiplier for downvotes. Sure, it could have been done better. Meh.
Fanboyism is discouraged, but so is being a dick. Frankly, I'd say being a dick is a much worse blight on the community than "fanboyism". You're acting like there's no possible way you could have made that point and not get downvoted for it, which is obviously incorrect. I agreed with the main point of "it doesn't matter if pg said it", and I'm at 11 for that comment right now.
You don't need the attitude to get your message across. In fact, I'd say attitude generally harms whatever point you were trying to make, because people will react with similar hostility/rudeness. Being blunt is acceptable. Saying "Why does it matter that pg said it? I think people put too much weight to his words. We're hackers, shouldn't we be against 'fanboyism'?" would have probably got you upvoted, and started a decent discussion. Being rude about it generally just starts flame wars.
As for the point value, I wouldn't be surprised if downvotes take off more karma than upvotes, especially after a certain point. The paranoid "fanboys are downvoting me!" mentality is ridiculous.
It just visually caps at -4 even though the subsequent downvotes are still applied to your total score. This was an effort to limit d/vs a long time ago I believe. It's obviously not been lifted even now comment scores are hidden. It's been like that for as long as I've been a user.
No-one is hunting down your other comments and d/ving them. It really is just that your comment is at -8, even though it says -4.
I understand the sentiment you're expressing, but you went too far. Yes PG is not always right and shouldn't be quoted as if anything he says is fact. On the other hand there are ways of pointing out unbridled fanboyism politely.
Well PG is not really an important figure or even a public figure outside of the 'tech startup' scene. To argue that something isn't world heritage material simply based on the fact that he could 'get away' with criticizing it would be wrong.
