From: IN%"vznuri@netcom.com" "Vladimir Z. Nuri" 11-MAY-1996 04:32:46.80
From: TCMay
If a system gets built into the WWW, as with proposals for PICS, it _will_ be used by those who want to control content. We should think twice before helping in any way.
I agree with your hesitation totally. I can easily see how the system would be twisted in unspeakable ways. but I can see a lot of very powerful positive uses too. as long as the best attempts are made to discourage the former and encourage the latter... again, there is a question that the future might turn out to be more orwellian if no action is taken by internet designers whatsoever. I tend to believe that view.
It currently appears that both groups doing PICS ratings are doing it in a way that very much promotes unethical usage (by those wishing to control content). This does not bode well for future uses of it.
(No, I'm not _against_ private ratings services...but this has little to do with _me_, and I won't participate. More importantly, I won't have my content have any kind of tag attached!
notice that what you demand is wholly irrelevant. if you put something out in the public, in a world of free speech, anyone is free to rate your posting, or your opinions, etc.-- they just set a system that refers to the message-id of your posts or something.
if what you are instead saying is that you will never insert your own tags into your content, well that is something you have control over. but you have absolutely no control over what people "attach" to your posts in a "virtual" sense. anyone could set up the TCMay Rating Service and register ratings on everything you post in public.
However, one can do things to disrupt the rating system. Until we've got true AI, a web spider will be able to find and classify a newly-re-URLed page a lot faster than the rating people are able to find it - especially if one goes ahead and submits the web page to all the search engines every time you reclassify it. A search engine could turn over all new pages to be rated - but that would slow them down a lot, and other search engines would be used more because they'd be more up to date. If you have some ratings services that you like - market-determined ones, for instance - you can let them know the new URL also. The above is a bit harder for ratings of USENET posts and mailing list messages, but there are so many of those that they'll be hard for a rating service to keep up with. -Allen