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

Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 19:52:04 -0500
From: Bryce Eustace Wilcox <wilcoxb@NAG.CS.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject: File 6--More on "The Rating Game" (Re:CuD 6.03, 6.04)

THE RATING GAME (In re CuD 6.03, 6.04)

Stephen Williams (sdw@meaddata.com) has proposed one of THOSE ideas.  An
idea that is simple in design but stunning in potential function.  I
heartily congratulate him and add my own two bits:

>Basically, I suggested that special messages be standardized that
>would endorse messages for certain distributions.  Old (existing...)
>news software would just pass the messages like others, but news
>systems that wanted to rate or hide improper messages could pay
>attention to them.  My software would probably take the form of
>patches to INN and tin, etc.  There would be positive and negative
>endorsements, of course with the possibility of signature keys, etc.

This last possibility intrigues me the most.  A "majority vote" to
indicate "value" or "content" of a message wwould simply emulate the
current media paradigm: "lowest common denominator".  If instead of
simply tallying yay and nay votes, I can tailor my own software to
recognize specific signatures and give them added weight (<giggle>  I
just realized that if this were to happen there might be people whose
names I would include with a negative weight factor...) then we would
have a really nice system going.  I see several problems right off the
bat, some practical and some hypothetical.

  Prob 1: authentification.  We must prevent forgery of signatures.
Apparently (according to Phil Zimmerman's PGP doc file), public key

   Prob 1a: Public key encryption.  Are we ever going to have
widely-used public key encryption available?  Insert the whole patent
controversy here.

   Prob 1b: bandwidth (numerous apologies and requests for correction
if I misuse any technical term in my enthusiastic ignorance).  PGP
keys are 32, 64, or 128 bytes long.  Multiply that by the number of
endorsements tacked onto any given message and multiply *that* by the
number of messages and notice a major technical problem.

  Prob 2: the end results.  will this kind of consensual
discrimination lead to a polarizing/tribalizing effect on society?
Whatever the mass media's faults (and I think they are legion), it
*has* served to give people a common culture.  But with the technology
and the society changing the way that it is I really can't imagine a
return to the mass media paradigm nor the "messy Internet" paradigm.
I think Stephen William's anarchic, organic paradigm is definitely the
way to go.

[Though this message is getting a bit long, I think I should pause to
defend/ explain my use of the word "anarchy".  I am using the simple
definition "absence of control or regulation".  (Of course I do *not*
mean absence of self-control or self-regulation!)  The "anarchy" that
I envision in the informational realm is a state in which it is
impossible or at least socially unacceptable for any entity to delete
or substantially alter information without the permission of the
author.  Of course some other mechanism will be needed to sort, sift
and organize information and that is why I am so excited about Stephen
William's idea.]


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