Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net> wrote in article <58q40v$k22@life.ai.mit.edu>...
Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
If Firefly is an example of what PICS is or could become, the hell with PICS. Firefly encourages and rewards group behavior and suppresses individuality. Firefly would reward the discussion of the latest album by a Columbia or Capitol artist, and discourage discussion of material from independent (real independent) labels. I know because I've been there and spent quite a bit of time trying to get a rating.
I think there are two issues here, Firefly and PICS. Confusing one with the other is a bad thing. PICS is simply one way of applying labels to content. Its sole reason for being was to head off the CDA. Now that the judicial route has been taken I see little likelyhood that PICS can succeed since either the supreme court will uphold the CDA and we have the Singapore scenario or the CDA gets booted out and the matter is over. If the US congress had wanted to do any good instead of making itself look good then the voluntary approach of PICS with the multiple rating schemes was the one most likely to work. I don't think that it would stop 16 year olds from seeing pornography but since children of that age are in most jurdisdictions permitted by law to engage in sex on their own account it seems a bit bizare to prohibit them from seeing pictures of sexual acts. The problem with Firefly is that its a good(ish) idea baddly implemented. The much vaunted "agent" technology uses only a very primitive nearest neighbour type match. There is no attempt to draw structural inferences from the material, such as abstractions. For example if I enjoy Dire Straights and Peter Gabriel then a shop assistant would peg me as a late 70s rock fan and point me towards the Fleetwood Mac and such. Firefly has 50% of the structure needed to produce interesting matches but lacks the ability to make inferences. At least if it is the same technology as Ringo, the previous generation. This shortcomming of Ringo means that it is very slow work training it. To get a useful measure it needs hundreds of data points. When I visited I was faced with page after page of US 90s chart bands which I've not heard of and have no interest in. Phill