------------------------------

Date: Fri, 7 Jan 1994 14:06:54 -0500 (EST)
From: sdw@MEADDATA.COM(Stephen Williams)
Subject: File 6--Re: Ratings Servers and the Diversity of USENET (#2)

> In CuD #6.03, File 7, Stephen Williams (sdw@MEADDATA.COM) wrote:
>
> >One senario is that teachers or organizations worldwide could
> >'register' to each other and share the responsibility of endorsing
...
> Well done, sir!  You're on to something, I think.

Thanks.

> But the possibilities inherent in your second suggestion interest me
> more than the first.  I have a number of friends on the Net, and there
> are others on the Net whose opinions I trust.  It's currently
> possible, even easy, for me to read a particular newsgroup scanning
> for a particular name.  I could even put all the names of each person
> whose judgment I trusted in a sort of reverse killfile, if I so
> wished, I think.  (Knowing *how* to do this is another story!)
>
> But what of your endorsements?  If the people whose opinions I value
> aren't set up as these critical organizations--perhaps I'm a fan of
> DR. B1FF THA PSYNCE D00D, or I'm one of those SubGenius weirdos--and
> I'd like to see what dogma the Church's "members" are spewing today.
> What am I to do?

Ahh...  A misunderstanding.  The viewpoint I was rebutting did expect
that official 'servers' would be setup, but that is not my proposal.

My criteria for this type of system is that it be minimalist, usable
by anyone receiving netnews now, and implementable with few changes to
existing software.  The basis for endorsements in my scheme is just a
new type of message, which is just a properly formatted, but normal,
netnews message.  This means that it will be propagated by current
software, available in raw form to all readers, etc.  That solves the
problem of distribution, storage, flow, etc.  No one should have a
fundamental problem with endorsement messages since it is just a
formal (and machine readable) way of following up with a 'yay' or
'nay' (or '???').

The only essential software changes are at the news reader to handle
creation and awareness of endorsement messages.

I'm a little bit worried about increasing the number of messages with
overlapping endorsements from many people, so I've been thinking of
what types of changes to server software (ie. INN) would make sure the
method is scalable.

As a performance and storage enhancement, endorsements could be added
to indexes, added to messages, coalesced into bulk-endorsement
messages, etc.  My plan is to release a modified Tin reader and INN
server.

I do believe that authentication keys are needed as an Optional
feature and I do keep up on PGP/Cypherpunks somewhat, but that is
going to be a trailing feature.

> When you're designing your endorsement service, can you think of a way
> to do it that allows for:
>
> o finding articles endorsed by people on the Net
>   across the continent from me--and without them necessarily having
>   to register for an endorsement key (or some such)

Should be doable with news scanning software.
Easy within a particular group.

> o in some cases, more endorsement text (per message, user, etc.) than
>   message text

I've been thinking about simple typed endorsements, but having a whole
article with editorial content refering to or possibly replacing
(summaries?) articles is an interesting idea.  A 'moderator' might
choose to summarize a thread, but you could still 'drill down' into
the original text.

> o different classes or "alignments" of endorsements?
>   Readers of alt.fan.rush-limbaugh should have as much 'right' to tag
>   someone a pinko Feminazi as I do to tag someone as terminally
>   Pink--and to publish that assessment, that 'endorsement.'

Group membership of endorsement agents is also interesting, but I'm
not sure of the best method here.  Possibly a paired set of personal
and group id's.

> o conflicting and even competing endorsements of content
>   and character

Of course! Fundamental to my design.

>
> It may well be that having each message carry all that information
> will prove over-burdensome.  Perhaps an Internet server, something
> like Gopher or WWW, which *can* carry information specific to a
> particular message's content (pornographic, racist, ill-informed, or
> otherwise--I'm sure even our esteemed moderators on the CuD have
> their lapses when posting news), but which also have ratings for
> individuals, newsgroups, sites FTP and otherwise, and organizations.
> (And perhaps each of the regional service providers, or other backbone
> sites, may have copies of several ratings servers--as with netfind and
> some larger FTP sites, mirroring helps reduce the load in one place.)
>
...
> But how would we on the net structure a ratings service?  And who will
> rate the raters?  Some rating services aren't going to get listened
> to, some are.  If the EFF started a ratings server, for example, or
> CPSR, their ratings servers would be taken pretty seriously.  But is
> corporate good name the only coin these ratings servers would proffer
> as an earnest?

I'm still pondering the idea of a ratings server.  Big problems of
scalability just to have someone else 'hear' your opinion.  A feed of
endorsements is different however.  There could even be a commercial
feed of endorsements.  (I've considered starting one and Barry Shein
has expressed an interest in supporting one.)

I do think that the format of an endorsement should be general,
probably based on URL/URN's from the WWW people.  I'm on the url list
and I'll try to digest it later.

> I should point out that I think a non-monopoly ratings server or
> system would be a Good Thing, especially in that it would allow
...
> 1994?  True, the netnews formats have been revamped, but not as
> drastically, I think, as the changes between what Mr. Williams
> suggests and what I think such a system needs to allow for.

Hopefully we can come up with minimal changes with minimal impact on
bandwidth and maximal features.  I'm pushed to implement myself (any
help is appreciated :-)) mainly to make sure it is open and
anti-censorship, while still being useful.

As I mentioned before, the copyright license will disallow any blatant
censorship.  This is very clear where adults are concerned.


=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
+                               END THIS FILE                                +
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+===+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=