TresSugar

Wikipedia's Army of Volunteer Editors Are Quitting

TresSugar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:00:32 -0800

Volunteers who edit Wikipedia each day are quickly teaching the online encyclopedia that freedom and fun are crucial to the democratization of information. Burdened by complicated restrictions and uninterested in the more mundane topics (the most popular entries have already been written), volunteer editors are leaving Wikipedia faster than new ones are joining.

Wikipedia is under constant pressure to police the accuracy of its information, and that typically means leaving the moderation to millions of engaged users. That approach is fine with me, since I usually use Wikipedia to find out what everyone else knows about something; whether or not the info is true is a secondary consideration. But if less people engage in the content creation and moderation the quality of the information could go down. And that's a problem when these pages embody, and perhaps create, conventional wisdom. It's safer when there are more people who edit the entries, and thus more people who hold the power of truth (or truthiness) in their hands.

Luckily right now there are more than three million people who write, edit, and check the information, guaranteeing some level of oversight. Let's hope Wikipedia figures out how to keep them coming back. Have you ever contributed to Wikipedia?

"What Is His Deal?"

Tres Community — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0800

This post comes from Group Therapy in our TrèsSugar Community. Feel free to add your advice in the comments!

My friend (let’s call her Laura) recently introduced me to a good male friend of hers (let’s call him Mark) at a Halloween party. Mark and I had a good time talking to each other and he emailed my friend a day later to tell her that he thought I was really nice. He then found me on Facebook and asked me out for the following weekend, to which I said yes.

We texted a few times and flirted a little bit. However, when the weekend came he got sick (I was sick too so I didn’t mind that we weren’t going to meet, although I didn’t tell him that). But now it’s been a week and I haven’t heard anything from him, no texts, no nothing. I think this is a little strange since he was the one who initially pursued me. Plus he’s friends with my friend so I didn’t think he would just ditch our plans. There is such a thing as politeness and I’m a little surprised that he hasn’t called me to let me know that he’s still sick, or busy, or whatever. So, I don’t know what to do if and when he calls. Should I go out with him? He’s already demonstrated that he can’t keep me in the loop.

There's lots of fun stuff going on in our community - join it, check it out, share your posts or advice in the great groups and maybe we'll feature it here on TrèsSugar!

Has Technology Ruined Romance For Us?

TresSugar — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Conservative columnist David Brooks wrote an essay in the New York Times yesterday about how technology is ruining love and sex for the youngins.

Although Brooks reaches this conclusion based on the testimony of some horndogs who agreed to be "online sex diarists" for New York magazine (he admits it's a pretty unrepresentative demographic), Brooks nevertheless believes their stories tell us something fundamental about love in the age of technology: it's allowed people to treat potential sex partners (and it's significantly limited to this) as if they were products on eBay.

Once upon a time - in what we might think of as the "Happy Days era" - courtship was governed by a set of guardrails. Potential partners generally met within the context of larger social institutions: neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and families. There were certain accepted social scripts. The purpose of these scripts - dating, going steady, delaying sex - was to guide young people on the path from short-term desire to long-term commitment.

Now? People have lots of different kinds of sexual attachments with different people at the same time, and their cellphones help making and canceling plans as easy as rearranging Netflix queues. (I'll take the credit for that last analogy!)

Do you agree with Brooks? Is it true that, "In today’s world, the choice of a Prius can be a more sanctified act than the choice of an erotic partner"?

Forget Dinner: A Dating Website Just For Quickies

TresSugar — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:30:00 -0700

Forget Dinner is a website that caters to people in sexless marriages. The casual dating site is particularly popular in the UK and boasts the tag line: "Forget dinner and go straight to bed!" Subtle!

While many people use online dating (and dating in general) just to get laid, Forget Dinner removes any confusion. The site explains: "Forget Dinner allows people to be direct and honest about what they want without having to waste time, money, and effort sifting through the many thousands of singles who want a partner for life." Almost all the users are married, and the site has a 10-to-1 ratio of men to women. Some users say that they want to avoid long-term affairs that could get messy, so instead they look for no-strings-attached sex to make up for what they're evidently not getting at home.

There's a trend among dating sites to declare people's motives right from the start. We have the site 7 or Better for people looking for well-endowed men, and there's even a Sugar Daddies site. Basically, there's a dating destination for everyone. What do you think about a concept like Forget Dinner?

Tweet! I Just Got Laid!

TresSugar — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

A new survey reveals that 36 percent of people under 35 admit to updating their status on Twitter or Facebook right after they have sex. I guess it was just a matter of time before the postcoital tweet replaced cancer-causing cigarettes. Hot.

Tellingly, men were twice more likely than women to use social media after sex, and only 8 percent of people over 35 admitted to doing so.

While we don't know what exactly people are sharing with the world after they get laid, it's highly likely that they have sex on their mind and on their profiles. Last week most of you seemed grossed out by IJustMadeLove.com, a website that lets you pinpoint the exact location where you've had sex. But judging by this latest survey, the creators of that site are probably on to something - mixing intimacy with social networking really turns people on!

Website du Jour: I Just Made Love

TresSugar — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0700

In a convoluted world of oversharing, a new website is trying to streamline the process of revealing the details of your sex life to the world. Using Google Maps, IJustMadeLove.com lets users pinpoint the exact location where they've had sex. In addition to location, users can offer other details including positions used (although the list of possible positions is far from complete) and whether the love was made inside or outside. If you're more a voyeur than an exhibitionist, you can use the site to find out way too much about people's sexual habits. For example, the site reveals that more people than you would think have had sex in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! Happy snooping . . . or sharing!

Bostonians Would Give Up Sex Over Cell Phones

TresSugar — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:00:00 -0700

What does it say about the future of the human race when people would rather give up sex for a year than go without a cell phone for the same amount of time? I guess it means that technological communication is truly becoming more important than old-fashioned face-to-face interaction, even the type of face-to-face interaction that involves having sex. Come on, people! What good is a booty call without the booty? Is sexting really better than sex?

In a survey sponsored by none other than Samsung Mobile, 31 percent of adults in Boston said they would rather give up sex for a year than go without cell phones for a year. Apparently, relying on email, hard-to-find pay phones, and immobile landlines is much more burdensome than forgoing sex.

Considering that I know people who literally sleep with their BlackBerrys, I suppose I'm not really that shocked by these results.

Tweeting Your Miscarriage or Abortion: Good For Women?

TresSugar — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:00:00 -0700

When Penelope Trunk, a blogger who shares almost every detail of her life over the Internet, had a miscarriage, she decided to tweet about it. She wrote:

I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there's a f**ked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.

Writer KJ Dell'Antonia over at Double X thinks Trunk did women a favor with this TMI tweet. She reasons that Trunk should not give her miscarriage, or would-be abortion, different treatment than other events that happen to her. In fact, Dell'Antonia thinks all women should be more open to talking about these issues because pretending that they never happen reserves "a special layer or shame and condemnation for the bodily functions that happen only to women."

So Dell'Antonia says: "go ahead, tweet your abortion" because it's good for womankind. Do you agree?

Flashback: Spice Up Your Sex With . . . a Computer Game?

TresSugar — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Before there was online porn, there was the Interlude computer game. Apparently, people would shell out money for a manual and computer disk filled with someone else's sexual fantasies. Anything to keep your love life from being routine, predictable, or boring!

Source

Would You Use a "Sleaze Detector" iPhone App?

TresSugar — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:30:00 -0700

Created by some characters with a shady rep themselves, the DateCheck by Intelius is a new iPhone app whose "Sleaze Detector" feature helps you do a background check on your date. (Sounds like a promising start for a relationship, no?)

Using your date's name, email address, or phone number, you can see if he has a criminal record, what his net worth is, whether or not he's living with his parents, and the usual Facebook and Twitter info.

The app is free - but the services they connect you to aren't. A criminal background check is about $19.95, for example, and finding out your date's social networking info is $9.95. Wow. A girl can never be too careful, but is this going too far?