Professional Soldiers ® - View Single Post

05-17-2007, 19:18

The first wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Familial_Insomnia is just about as well-documented as wikis get. The 'external link' to http://www.afiff.org/index.php?newlang=english appears to be legitimate, it is an Italian foundation devoted to prion diseases. The 'References' section contains a 'Case Study' with references to journal articles, as well as a link to a peer-reviewed journal article and a cited, but not linked journal article. This article does not appear to be sufferring from the problems that are often associated with wikipedia.

In my opinion, the second wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep is a good introduction to a subject which is at best "fringe", and at worst, some combination of painful, dangerous, and stupid. It mostly links to blogs by people who claim to follow the schedule, and is low on real, well-researched, peer-reviewed science. It does suffer from the problems with accurracy common to wikipedia, but does not appear to suffer from vandalism, or deliberate distortion on the part of the writers.

To its' credit, because there is very little in the way of peer-reviewed research into the subject, it does contain the header "This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.", as well as links to both sides of the (amatuerish) debate. I also stated that I have no experience with it and offerred the article as a jumping off point for discussion. I guessed that if anyone would be interested in ways of reducing sleep requirements in the long term to roughly 3 hours a day, it would be the people here.

As stated, the rigidity of the schedule, the difficulty in acclimation, and issues with adequate tissue repair time probably keep this from being seen as anything more than a curiousity. I expect that drugs such as caffeine, modafinil, and various amphetamenes will remain the 'stay awake and alert' methods of choice for a long time to come.

I assert that these two wikipedia articles serve the intended purpose of all encyclopedia-type articles--sourced, informative, unbiased introductions for people with little to no familiarity with the subject matter.

Back to reading.

Edit: grammar

05-17-2007, 19:18	#96
Distorted Guest Posts: n/a	The first wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Familial_Insomnia is just about as well-documented as wikis get. The 'external link' to http://www.afiff.org/index.php?newlang=english appears to be legitimate, it is an Italian foundation devoted to prion diseases. The 'References' section contains a 'Case Study' with references to journal articles, as well as a link to a peer-reviewed journal article and a cited, but not linked journal article. This article does not appear to be sufferring from the problems that are often associated with wikipedia. In my opinion, the second wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep is a good introduction to a subject which is at best "fringe", and at worst, some combination of painful, dangerous, and stupid. It mostly links to blogs by people who claim to follow the schedule, and is low on real, well-researched, peer-reviewed science. It does suffer from the problems with accurracy common to wikipedia, but does not appear to suffer from vandalism, or deliberate distortion on the part of the writers. To its' credit, because there is very little in the way of peer-reviewed research into the subject, it does contain the header "This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.", as well as links to both sides of the (amatuerish) debate. I also stated that I have no experience with it and offerred the article as a jumping off point for discussion. I guessed that if anyone would be interested in ways of reducing sleep requirements in the long term to roughly 3 hours a day, it would be the people here. As stated, the rigidity of the schedule, the difficulty in acclimation, and issues with adequate tissue repair time probably keep this from being seen as anything more than a curiousity. I expect that drugs such as caffeine, modafinil, and various amphetamenes will remain the 'stay awake and alert' methods of choice for a long time to come. I assert that these two wikipedia articles serve the intended purpose of all encyclopedia-type articles--sourced, informative, unbiased introductions for people with little to no familiarity with the subject matter. Back to reading. Edit: grammar Last edited by Distorted; 05-17-2007 at 19:59.