[Seattle-editorial] we need to allow readers to help rate and filter newswire spam (reply to Joseph and iamforher)

[Ben Seattle]

Hi everyone,

My comments follow the excerpts from iamforher and Joseph below:

iamforher -- March 18:
------------------------
> the problem of mean spirited comments
> in response to news posts [...]
>
> I have an idea about how to democratically deal
> with this sort of thing.
>
> If every person who read an article had the
> chance to vote to delete a comment, then a
> comment could be automatically deleted if it
> received 5 delete votes from different computers,
> then it might be resolved in a way that respected
> all parties and made for no more additional work
> for editors.

Joseph E (from the Seattle Indymedia editorial group) replies:
--------------------------------------------------------------
> This has been discussed by SEAIMC Editorial.
> Thanks for your thoughtful analysis.

> Our new software, Mir, allows this type of 'voting'
> to occur for the ranking of articles by the general
> readership. To make the software do what you
> suggest would be relatively easy.

> Not to nay-say, but there are considerations:

> SEAIMC has an unofficial policy of not harvesting I.P.
> addresses from readers or Publishers. We do this for
> legal reasons, and in recognition of the tradition
> of anonomous publishing by individuals
> and groups who wish to so publish.

> In a nutshell, we [...]
> don't have enough time to keep up with the trolls,
> infiltrators, insane, and misguided.

Ben Seattle replies:
-------------------
It is not difficult to allow readers to help rate and filter
posts and comments _without_ harvesting their IP addresses.
One technical solution is that instead of capturing the IP
address itself--we can capture a "checksum" of the IP address
(ie: more or less a reduced, semi-encrypted fragment of the IP
address that would be of minimal use to Ashcroft's snoops).

>From a political perspective--I consider it necessary that we
allow readers to help us rate and filter the newswire--so that 
readers have a democratic voice in the site content and a
higher signal-to-noise ratio is available for busy people who 
don't have time to read spam.

And yes, if we let readers rate posts and comments--then we can
also (just like at http://slashdot.org) let readers choose the
minimal rating level of what they have time to see.

If we fail to take this step--then we are telling readers that
our site is a good place for people who have lots of time to
waste--and that if they don't like it--they can get their news
from the mainstream, bourgeois media.

Sincerely,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 18.Mar.2004
http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure)