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

[Joseph Eisenschmidt]

Raters and ranters,

personally, (((i))) like the delete button for finely 
individualized ratings.

But seriously, having filters that the receiving computer could 
pick up on might be a compromise. 

That way, Mr. read-it-all could get every rant and rave. 

Ms. like-the-eds, god bless her, would not ever see anything the 
indy 'censors' said was bad.(My mummy always said "If someone says 
it's for your own good - run like hell". 

At the very same time, Dr. trust-the-people could get the same 
front page without any posts that were voted down and comments 
would be rated as well-with the settings determined by the good 
doctor. He sets the article filter at five down votes = no article 
visible, but if he loves the comments less censored, he could set 
the vote-based filters for '10 no-confidence votes gets the dust 
bin'.

As an independent media guy, I would only be comfortable with all 
three, and more. I've hidden a post once or twice, and am 
uncomfortable making the close calls. I really think that Eds. 
should not be deleting comments to my own articles.

'independent' media. Hmm-this could catch on!.


All power to the people!

Peace, 

Joseph

  Quoting Ben Seattle <bensai at pix.org>:

> 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)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


Joseph