From: "Ben Seattle" <left-transparency-AT-Leninism.org>
Subject: AUT: Re: Re: bozo filters, signal to noise ratio and collaborative filtering
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 22:42:43 -0800


Hi Richard,

Thanks for your comments.  I will look at your Collective Book on
Collective Process sometime soon.

> Regarding the rating systems that Ben describes,
> my main problem here is that people will be
> encouraged only to read posts that they just about
> completely agree with and to filter out anything
> that might upset them. Even in a group with a very
> specific political focus (which Indymedia is not),
> it is good for people to at least occasionally be
> exposed to, and surprised by, very different points
> of view.

In November 1998 I assembled a list of desirable infrastructure
projects under the title "Digital Infrastructure and the
Emergence of Communist Transparency--How web-accessible databases
will assist the self-organization of the anti-revisionist
communist movement".  In section 6 of the page I describe how
some of these filtering mechanisms would work although some of my
descriptions have never been completed.  The list of projects and
descriptions can be found at:
http://Leninism.org/infrastructure/intro.asp

I believe that you are mistaken in your opinion that
collaborative filtering would lead to people only reading posts
that they agree with.  I believe that the opposite would happen.
People would have more time and more opportunity to read opinions
which oppose their own because they would have an opportunity to
read the _better_ (ie: more calmly and scientifically formulated,
with greater interest and entertainment value--and hence more
highly rated) posts and channels that contain opinions which
challenge their own.

It is likely that activists would use different kinds of filters
for different occasions.  For example most of the time you might
use a filter that is highly selective.  But on occasions when you
are in less of a hurry you may use a less restrictive filter.
Activists will in many cases make their filters public.  So if
you respect the work of John Smith--you might try using one of
his filters for a day a two.  It will turn out, I believe, that
in this and other ways a steady percolation and diffusion of
information will take place (along with numerous serious and
interesting debates) that will give readers constant and
innumerable opportunities to become familiar with the strengths
and weaknesses of all trends of thought.  The tendency will be to
move in the direction of transparency: in which the ideas and
information that are of the greatest potential interest to an
individual--will find their way to his or her attention.

Many of the details about what kinds of rating and filtering
features will work best and be most practical--will only be
determined thru a lengthy process of trial and error and
experiment.  What I am certain of, however, is the principle of
leveraging the tremendous accumulated experience of others.  This
is how the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.  I
have studied, at times, how the numerous component parts of the
brain (neurons and so forth) combine to create
consciousness--create the mind.  Nature, thru a very lengthy
process, has stumbled upon principle of great power.  And
conscious human activists can and will do the same.

Sincerely and with revolutionary regards,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 13.Feb.2003
http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure)

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