Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!elroy!cit-vax!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU!mt From: mt@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael Travers) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Filtering A Global Hypermedia Network Message-ID: <8711190519.AA15884@media-lab.MIT.EDU> Date: Thu, 19-Nov-87 00:19:50 EST Article-I.D.: media-la.8711190519.AA15884 Posted: Thu Nov 19 00:19:50 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 22-Nov-87 08:17:00 EST References: Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 26 Intelligent filtering is an idea that's been around for a while. I'm sure it will be useful and probably necessary, but as a concept it seems to bypass the fundamental idea of hypertext. Filtering implies a single undifferentiated stream of messages, with a person or a process picking out the interesting ones using some set of criteria. This is how e-mail works now--all messages are collected into a serial ordering in your mailbox, and you provide the filtering (some mail readers provide some help in this). But there is no good reason to collapse a hypertext into a stream in the first place! A hypertext is a network, and if it is densly connected, you should rarely have a need to do global searches on it. Instead, you use your favorite index to find an entry point to the area your are interested in, and chase references from there. Browsing, or spreading activation, is a better metaphor than filtering here. Local filtering on references might be useful (ie, if you are doing some form of cognitive science and believe that neuroscience has little to offer, you might have a rule that says "be less interested in any articles if the journal name contains the string 'neuro'.") But global filtering will be mostly unnecessary if the hypertext is any good. It's a method for dealing with non-hypertext-ness of current media, and not the thing to be have foremost in mind when thinking about hypertext systems.