Unplugged life supports and padlocked manhoods abound

Rival wiki smackdown slated on World of Warcraft

Wikipedia is full of hippies, metrosexuals and atheists. To counteract its obvious liberal bias, conscientious yanks of a conservative bent have set up their own wiki: Conservapedia. Outraged limp-wristed hippies took their book-learnin' and created yet another 'pedia site: RationalWiki. We predicted a climactic battle that would shake the seas and the skies (of the internet), before the eventual victor was decided.

Decided? Surly it will be decided, then edited, then decided, then edited......

Matt

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That is actually quite chilling.

My first destination was to the evolution page (obviously!)... Have you seen the number of references to creationism (I refuse to call it a science). Just check out those links at the bottom...!

Amusingly enough, the Flying Spaghetti Monster does actually have an entry!

Steve Evans

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Quote: "While Wikipedia was "written and edited by self-appointed experts worldwide" and "riddled with liberal bias"".

So, in an effort to set things straight, they will make a site 'written and edited by self-appointed experts worldwide*' (one must assume) and riddled with conservative/creationist bias?

Assuming Wikipedia is biased, and knowing that Conservapedia will be biased (self evident), does that mean that two wrongs DO make a right?

(I hope it's not a FAR right).

Rob

*) "worldwide" here being; 'all over the the US', I trust

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I guess you could pull up the same article on all three sites, run them through a diff tool, and only read the sentences that match. Maybe dump the matching sentences in a fourth site called wikidiff. I guess that could give us an unbiased wiki.

Eric

Nah, that's far too moderate. This must be decided in fire and steel and pizza stains!

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On the subject of pizza stains, the ethics of hacking have been under discussion this week. Speaking at the USENIX conference in Santa Clara, Gary McGraw, co-author of Exploiting Online Games: Cheating Massively Distributed Systems, argued that there was value in hacking online games. Cue the outraged responses:

I realise that this may seem trivial to someone who doesn't play these games, but the very fact that they are spawning a 'realistic' economy means that many people who choose to play the game without cheating are having their experience significatly affected by those who use teleportation hacks and bot camping to get rare and expensive items, whose value is then greatly decreased on the market, reducing the income of those who play legitimately.

Surely the enjoyment of the game is a valid reason to argue against hacking, even if it may not exactly stand up in court.

Tim

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This is similar to big game 'hunters' who get their trophy by shooting a penned beast, or buying the stuffed head on eBay. Is the value in the trinket or the experience?

Anon

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Tell any hacker that they are doing something that is wrong ... and you will always get a list of pathetic excuses and pathetic claims that the rules don't apply to them. Now you can reward a hacker by paying for a book full of this kind of misleading BS! Yay!

The Warden is not spyware ... to be spyware, you have to be unaware that it is there, or unaware of what it is doing ... if you read the EULA, as is your responsibility, then you are aware ... if you don't read it, too bad, you made the choice to be uninformed when you clicked the Accept button.

Whether or not the EULA is enforcable in court is irrelevant, everyone, especially hackers, are aware that by clicking on the accept button, you are agreeing to follow the rules. You can't claim ignorance ... especially if you fully intend to break the rules. Here in Canada, 'intent' matters more than the law itself. If you can be shown to have had no intent to commit a criminal act, then you did not commit a criminal act except by an act of negligence. Hackers are nothing but pure criminal intent incarnate. Only a fool would try and debate this fact.

Blizzard has never hesitated to ban cheaters, in the hundreds of thousands. They don't need a reason, they can do it on a whim and regardless i'm sure that's very clearly stated in the EULA in an undisputable way. You don't own their servers or any virtual property, they do and can do as they please with it.

The article is very misleading too. If it is possible to alter your game coordinates by a simple hack then WoW was programmed by idiot monkeys. In other games the client does not send the server coordinates, it sends the server actions (move in this direction at this speed modified by this buff) ... which makes it very easy to detect if your character is moving faster than is allowable or if you are using a buff / spell / item effect that should not be available to you. I believe it was Everquest several years ago where this method of location hacking was fixed and led to many instant bans one day when the hacker scum tried their tricks after a patch.

Ken Lord

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But several people spoke up in favour of the hackers, too:

Hackers provide a proper service to the online community, searching out and detailing vulnerabilites within systems in order to improve or build upon current security technologies and practices to ensure evolution of the system itself.

When massively distributed systems become more and more widely used, (and for more than what is in essence 'just a game') I would prefer them to have been more effectively secured by doing just this kind of work, than let them come into existence and fall down at the first hurdle due to insecurities.

Gavin Morgan

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