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In the new version, only edits made by a separate class of "trusted" users will be instantly implemented. To earn this trusted status, users will have to show some commitment to Wikipedia, by making 30 edits in 30 days, say. Other users will have to wait until a trusted editor has given the article a brief look, enough to confirm that the edit is not vandalism, before their changes can be viewed by readers.

It allows select groups of editors, probably associated with specific subject areas, to vote on whether an article should be flagged as high quality. Readers would still see the latest version of an article by default, but a link to a high-quality version, if it exists, would also be available.

Contributors whose edits tend to remain in place are awarded high trust ratings; those whose changes are quickly altered get a low score. The rationale is that if a change is useful and accurate, it is likely to remain intact during subsequent edits, but if it is inaccurate or malicious, it is likely to be changed. Therefore, users who make long-lasting edits are likely to be trustworthy. New users automatically start with a low rating.

Abstract  Most versions of secularization theory expect advanced modernity to weaken religion. In contrast, this chapter argues that two different dimensions of contemporary society affect religion in opposite ways. Rising levels of human security and well-being are assurned to drive towards religious decline, while growing cultural diversity is assumed to push towards religious growth. These two hypotheses are simultaneously investigated, using world wide data for 50 000 respondents from 37 countries with a predominantly Christian heritage. As dependent variables, two dimensions of religious involvement which relate to two core aspects of secularization theory are analyzed: church-oriented religious involvement and preferences for a religious impact on politics. The findings from three different analytical strategies demonstrate that each of the two religious orientations is positively related to the cultural diversity, and also that each of them is negatively related to human security and well-being. Furthermore, the results also indicate that the religious changes which took place between 1981 and 1999/2000 are negatively related to human well-being and security, and positively to cultural diversity. Thus, a set of comprehensive analyses of one and the same set of world wide data indicate that human security and cultural diversity affect religious involvement in opposite ways. It seems too simplistic, therefore, to view modernization as a universal cause of religious decline.

"The anonymity of the Netflix Prize dataset has been broken by a pair of computer scientists from the University of Texas, according to a report from the physics arXivblog. It turns out that an individual's set of ratings and the dates on which they were made are pretty unique, particularly if the ratings involve films outside the most popular 100 movies. So it's straightforward to find a match by comparing the anonymized data against publicly available ratings on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) (abstract on the physics arxiv). The researchers used this method to find how individuals on the IMDb privately rated films on Netflix, in the process possibly working out their political affiliation, sexual preferences and a number of other personal details"

More Women Online APRIL 9, 2007 Women outnumber men online, and it's likely to stay that way.

"Jimbo" — was a finance major at Auburn University when the Mises Institute's Mark Thornton suggested he read "The Use of Knowledge in Society," a now-famous essay written by Austro-libertarian economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich von Hayek. The essay argues that prices in the market represent a spontaneous order that results from the interaction of individuals with diverse wants, allowing them to cooperate to achieve complex goals. According to a June 2007 Reason magazine interview, this insight of Hayek's is what led Wales to found Wikipedia. The rather lofty vision that inspired Wales? "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

Consider the evidence uncovered by Paul Oyer, a Stanford Business School economist, in his recent paper, "The Making of an Investment Banker: Macroeconomic Shocks, Career Choice and Lifetime Income" (National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 12059, February 2006). Dr. Oyer tracked the careers of Stanford Business School graduates in the classes of 1960 to 1997.He found that the performance of the stock market in the two years the students were in business school played a major role in whether they took an investment banking job upon graduating and, because such jobs pay extremely well, upon the average salary of the class. That is no surprise. The startling thing about the data was his finding that the relative income differences among classes remained, even as much as 20 years later.

By Anja Boenicke—Conceptual artist Hasan Elahi documents his every move online with hundreds of pictures. He photographs the toilets he uses, the food he eats, the places he sees. He even posts copies of his banking statements. Why has Hasan Elahi become his own Big Brother?