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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site looking.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Keyword based news
Message-ID: <434@looking.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-Oct-85 18:14:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.434
Posted: Sat Oct  5 18:14:44 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 07:16:00 EDT
References: <16460@watmath.UUCP> <1419@utcsri.UUCP> <132@mck-csc.UUCP> <3189@nsc.UUCP> <265@ukecc.UUCP> <1787@hao.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 55
Summary: 

In article <1787@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes:
>  Nothing, of course. This is only ONE problem with keyword-based news:
>deliberate bad keywords. We see this type of thing with newsgroups, too,
>where articles get posted in inappropriate places (such as anti-gay flames
>in net.motss). I think it would be much worse when the number of "groups" 
>(i.e. keywords) increases virtually without bound. Let's put it this way:
>suppose I think a particular issue is VERY important, and I post my $0.02
>worth and label it "information". Someone else who disagrees with me might
>think it should be laballed "opinion", or even "flame". I could do this
>deliberately, to try and get more people to read my article (how many people
>would actually READ an article that admits right off to being a flame?).

To clear up.  My original suggestion was never anything like what Lauren
tirades against.  It's more like what Greg is tirading against here.

So to Lauren - I'm not talking about "dialogue" type keywords here, although
those could of course be put on top of any system if users wanted it because
it has little to do with the poster.

To Greg: The whole point of keywords is to allow greater user selectivity.
For optimal use, you need poster-pays news with "collect" features.

As I have explained before, in such a system the poster pays for news
transmission, but most users agree to accept articles they are interested
in "collect".  This means that the readers control the net rather than the
yellers.  And yellers must understand this too.  After all, who are they
yelling for but the readers?  If you see somebody abusing keyword choices,
with proper software you are only one command from putting a black mark
against them.  Software could be set up so that people are excluded from
reaching you collect after any given number of black marks, including one.

This is what it's all about.  If you mess up the net, you are slowly rejected
from it by attrition.

And this means that people will come to moderators for their services, not
revile them as censors.  You could have both selecting moderators who prepare
lists of articles to be sent to subscribers and moderators who simply choose
keywords for posters.  For those who like automated systems, these could
be implemented and activated.

Keywords and poster-pays make the net a net of individuals, and the "will
of the net" becomes the aggregate (NOT majority) of these individual opinions.

Limited numbers of newsgroups require "net authorities" and "net consensus"
which are utter garbage.  Who needs all this crap about "this group should
exist but that one shouldn't."  "This group is too high volume, that group is
too low volume."  Who are you to say?

>This could also occur accidentally; i.e. I could totally non-maliciously
>label my article as information when someone else perceives it as a flame.

That's why moderators who select keywords for you, automated or living, would
be useful.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473


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