Berners-Lee Wants Truth Ratings For Websites 535
holy_calamity writes "While introducing the new World Wide Web Foundation Tim Berners-Lee made also asked for a system of ratings to help people distinguish truth and untruth online. 'On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly,' he said, saying that 'there needed to be new systems that would give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources.'"
Meta (Score:1, Informative)
And then, we can rate the accuracy of the rating, and the accuracy of the accuracy rating, and so on.
Re:Fancy way of saying PageRank doesn't work... (Score:4, Informative)
PageRank is a popularity contest, not a truth gauge.
Otherwise how do you explain The Onion as the first result for "onion"
Original article on BBC. (Score:3, Informative)
The original article was on the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7613201.stm [bbc.co.uk]
It should be emphasised that he isn't suggesting a "truth commission" that would tag all web pages.
He specifically said that he'd be interested to see how different organisations would label websites, depending on their intended use.
In many ways this is just a specific use of the semantic web concept that Berners-Lee and others have been trying to bring about for the last few years.
Re:Just what we need... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A rating system can't overcome stupidity (Score:2, Informative)
Website Metadiscussion Layer (Score:4, Informative)
Right before the Web Bubble popped in 1999, there was a company called ThirdVoice that was rising to the surface. It was a browser plugin that made a layer of "post-it notes" that were attached to specific pages shown in the browser, even tagging specific items on the page. Anyone with the plugin was letting their browser hit the ThirdVoice server, which contained a list of notes indexed to the page, with pointers to which item was notated. So viewers could switch on and off the layer, and see how anyone else had marked up the page. That let people give ratings to pages, and people could look at them, make up their minds, and post their own take on things. There was also a feature to add or remove specific users or user groups to what was displayed, to cut out spam.
That kind of independent rating and commentary, right there on the page, is what should satisfy Berners-Lee. He should just dig up the old ThirdVoice app, or this Slashdot post, and pay a few dozen thousand bucks at a team to dust it off. If he wanted to do it right, he'd sponsor the startup of two or three independent teams which would then compete with each other, for true independence. We don't need some "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval To Rule Them All" imposing a front layer from a single powerful org that controls the whole Web with its opinion of what lies beneath.
Re:And Then What? (Score:1, Informative)
citing youtube is also helpful here. I wish I hadn't already commented on this thread I would mod you up. spot on.
It's not an intrinsic failure of web 2.0 - just the simplicity with which ratings and rankings are done.
Re:Facts vs truth vs belief (Score:3, Informative)
Sadly, science and mathematics, the pillars of modern western philosophy, rely upon irreducible axioms. These axioms, if rejected, would make the entire system nonsense.
Sadly, people who don't understand science, seek to undermine science by trying to inject the framework of religion in a discussion of science.
Science is not a belief system and there are no "irreducible axioms." The whole of science is built upon layers of proof and verifiability. There is no axiom that is "self evident" to "believe." Science has facts that can be proved to ridiculous degrees.
The term "axiom" also has a canonical meaning as an established principle. In science and math, the term axiom is sometimes used in this manner and the theologians like to seize upon this ambiguity in the language to create an argument that takes a bit to untangle to show its nonsense.
It is a mathematical axiom that 1+1=2. Assuming we are using common base ten numbering systems and integers, this is a fact, it is provable. It is not something one needs to believe.
Re:This article is not true. (Score:2, Informative)
As Napoleon once said: "History is a set of lies agreed upon"
My grandmother was born in 1903 (and lived a hundred years so I was able to converse with her as an adult), so she was a young adult during the twenties. I think Napoleon was only slightly incorrect. My grandmother disagreed with historians in quite a few respects, and she was there, an eyewitness.
History says that the 1920s were a boom time and everyone was prosperous. My grandmother said that was nonsense printed by ignorant intellectuals; the rich people were doing fantastic, but the vast majority of people, those who worked for a living, did poorly. They mostly spent their paychecks on the mortgage and ate whet they grew in their own gardens. They worked their asses off for a pittance.
Historians say that the end of prohibition caused the numbers of drinking people to double (usually as an argument against legalizing other drugs). My grandmother says this is backwards, and explains it. Prohibition itself doubled the number of drinkers! According to Grandma (who didn't drink), and I've never seen this in any history book, before prohibition few women drank. The few who did drink drank in secret - society frowned greatly on a woman who drank. The only women in salloons were whores, dancers, and other entertainers.
After prohibition closed the salloons down there were the "speakeasies", which masqueraded as soda shops, coffee houses, etc. Both sexes went to speakeasies, and women's drinking was no more frowned upon than men's. The doubling of the number of drinkers was women either starting to drink, or admitting to drinking.
I think Tim should stick to engineering. He sucks as a sociologist.
Re:Just what we need... (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, but I'm waiting for that website to get a -1 Troll for adding words I don't use to its dictionary, thus legitimizing people who aren't just like me to make the world a place where I am not perceived as superior to them.
I often use language as a means to reaffirm my biases, and I am too good for people who express the concept of "salutations" in a different way than me. Should "wassup" find itself in the dictionary, how will we know who to look down for superficial reasons? I won't even touch upon the reasons for making the distinction in one's personal life, because if you don't share my personal bias you are an ignorant slob, and I'm better than you.
Note: Try reading the introduction to a dictionary, where they explain their methods and purpose. You'll find that they are not written to address the purpose you are trying to burden them with. So you are using the wrong tool for the job. If you need help, you can start here [merriam-webster.com]. Read especially the last section. (Their procedure is typical of a dictionary).
Re:This article is not true. (Score:3, Informative)
If you want a good source on this, try this book:
http://www.fieldsbooks.com/cgi-bin/fields/A469.html [fieldsbooks.com]
Despite the lurid title, its a fairly scholarly work written by a respectable scholar with ample footnotes and examples.
Witches were hung in England, but burnt in much of Europe and Scotland. There were not as many so killed as people think, but in places like Germany it was still pretty frightening. From what I recall, most of the trials and executions for Witchcraft took place in the 1500-1700s mostlly, well after the Dark Ages (in fact in the supposed Age of Enlightenment).
I would like a source on your claim that it was not done by the Church, as I believe in Europe that that was the case. In England not so much no, done by the so-called Witch-finders who were not officially sanctioned I think, but then we are talking Protestants as well so no organized church hierarchy.
Mind you the church mostly burnt heretics, ie the Cathars and Albegensians etc.
Re:This article is not true. (Score:3, Informative)
Except of course that in the Dark Ages they did not burn Witches (most were hung) and they were not as many as people think (only a few thousand over 150 years) and many where not old and not women, and the Church were against the practice ...
Indeed... They were so against the practice that two catholic inquisitors published a guide [slashdot.org] to help magistrates find them and convict them, ie. put them to death.
Ironically enough, the spread of this odious work was even enhanced by "modern" technology, in the form of Mr Guttenberg's little invention.
Common estimates for deaths are from 40,000 to 100,000, and mostly women.
Oh, I'm sorry, did I disrupt your little piece of historical revisionism there? My bad.