This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz
by James Robertson.
Original Post: Editing the web, one page at a time
Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants
Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml
Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general.
Gordon Mohr wants a more open approach to things like DMOZ, and suggests the Wiki model - as used by Wikia - a new web index from the Wikipedia folks:
Is there any information domain where the open, world-writable wiki model can't be beneficially applied?
We're sure to find out, as wikis and wiki-variants appear everywhere.
When frustrated with DMOZ, I've often wished for a more radically open web directory, with submissions and categorizations from anyone, at any time, like a wiki.
Community moderation would curb the worst abuses. Those wishes have been answered: the latest from the folks behind Wikipedia is Wikia, which applies the wiki philosophy to a search index of web sites.
I'm not sure that moderation is enough. Have a look at the Recent Changes page on the VW Wiki at UIUC - see all the "changes" over the last few weeks? There's been a flood of daily spam attacks, with the corresponding promotion of good versions of the pages back up. Gordon notes this:
Why not let any contributor instantly add sites -- even individual pages within sites -- and reorder the results of any search based on users' perception of sites' appropriateness to the query? Well, spammers and system-abusers and ranking-wars, I guess. But could open feedback systems be devised that keep those problems suitably in check? It's worth a try!
I don't know what the Wikipedia site does to prevent spam; maybe they have something like Spam Assassin hooked up on the back end. Relying on user moderation is an endless, thankless task though - and I rather suspect that the maintainers will run out of steam before the spammers do. It really, really sucks how the a******* have ruined the entire neighborhood this way.
Previous Topic
