Google Throws /. Under Bus To Snag Patent
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theodp writes "Before Danny Hillis and Bran Ferren invented Google's newly-patented system for 'Delegating Authority to Evaluate Content', Google says users looking for content evaluation websites were condemned to the likes of Amazon.com and Slashdot. From the patent: 'Many sites found on the World Wide Web allow users to evaluate content found within the site. The Slashdot Web site (www.slashdot.org) allows users to "mod" comments recently posted by other users. Based on this information obtained from the users, the system determines a numerical score for each comment ranging from 1 to 5.' The problem with sites like Slashdot, Google told the USPTO, is that 'because there is no restriction on the users that may participate, the reliability of the ratings is correspondingly diminished.' Commissioning a small number of trusted evaluators or editors would increase the reliability of the evaluations, Google notes, but wouldn't allow nearly as much content to be evaluated. Google's solution? Allow trusted evaluators to transfer a 'quantity of authority' to like-minded 'contributing authorities', who in turn designate and delegate authority to additional like-minded contributing authorities. Think Microsoft Outlook 97 Delegate Access meets Slashdot Karma Points, and you've got the general idea!"
Re:Someone here actually suggested it before (Score:4, Informative)
Uh... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Someone here actually suggested it before (Score:5, Informative)
I don't believe, that downvotes are such a big problem. There are really just three downvote options: Troll, Flamebait and Offtopic.
Using them on posts that you simply disagree with is obviously against the intention. That does not mean no one does it, but in the end the total numbers matter.
(You could argue that negative points about Linux are flamebait though... what is the difference between Troll and Flamebait anyway? ^^).
The bigger problem is, that if you come late to a discussion (and "late" is a short time with this huge userbase) there is no way your comment will recieve any views.
So even if you have something very insightful to say, unless you are one of the first posters, it will just not get read by any moderators, because it is burried below the threshold. Meanwhile posts that already are on +3 usually get votet to +5 during the day, for no other reason than their visiblity.
Re:How is this throwing /. under the bus? (Score:5, Informative)
In case you hadn't noticed, this place has been invaded by a succession of increasingly dumber editors, which are probably rejects from Boingboing.
Google didn't throw anything under the bus, they just pointed out what we /.ers have known for 15 years. They're not patenting Slashcode, they're patenting "weighted moderation" or something along those lines, where each user has a certain numeric authority assigned to them, which affects how strongly their opinion is weighted in the scoring process. Still, boo urns on Google for patenting such a trivial algorithm, but I'm pretty sure they repealed "Do no evil" a long-ass motherfucking time ago.
Re:Umm, prior art in closed systems? (Score:4, Informative)
No, not if it is publicly known. Prior art is prior art. It may get overlooked, misrepresented or just flat out ignored. Assuming your knowledge of pirate-networks comes from some public source, it is prior art.
But note my caveats: "publicly known" and "public source." If the method (illicit or not) is kept private and not available to the public, it is a trade secret. Not prior art.
Here's a quick test: to learn of a method, do you have to go through a security check first? If you can't learn of it anywhere on earth without passing through security (electronic or physical), it's probably not public.
Re:GO GOOGLE! (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. And LOOK! It was FILED in 2002. Back before anyone even KNEW what Google was.
Re:Someone here actually suggested it before (Score:5, Informative)
Let's face it, the slashdot moderation system has been broken for a long time.
Can you point to a site with a better system? Google is flat out incorrect (from TFS, didn't read TFA). It assumes that anybody and their brother can moderate, but that just isn't the case.
Now, metamoderation is a different story entirely. The old metamods worked. You moderated moderations as "fair" or "unfair", and if you got too many "unfairs" you got fewer or no mod points. I'm not sure how (or even if) the new system works.
If you post a comment, even a really insightful and interesting one that the general user base doesn't like, it will be modded down.
Links needed. Downmodding a comment you disagree with is an abuse of mod points. I don't know how many times I've undone moderations to respond to some facist corporate whore.
Comments that rank up? Promote free speech, removing copyrights, getting rids of patents, point out how "suits" just don't get us geeks and so on.
Anyone against free speech is a troll. There are a lot of comments wanting to do away with copyright, but I can't remember any that were highly modded. How the suits don't get it? Well DUH, I'd mod that one redundant, unless there was additional commentary that needed to be seen (IMO).
Tell informative, but bad points about the current state of Linux, dislike Google, try to be reasonable about copyrights and DRM or say that Microsoft's Visual Studio still kicks ass any other IDE out there.
OK, now that's just rank bullshit. I've posted comments pointing out things I don't like about Linux (I'm a fan, but nothing's perfect), and these comments are generally modded up. Now, "Linux SuXOrs" is going to be modded lamebait or troll, and rightly so. I've responded to "get rid of copyright" posts with a response that doing away with it is not the thing to do, but that copyright does need reform, and these comments have never been modded down and many times are highly modded. And, be reasonable about DRM? DRM is a rights stripping abomination that cannot accomplish what it intends to and harms the paying customer. You're damned right pro-DRM is downmodded, pro-DRM is simply a shill or a troll or an incredibly ignorant, non-tech savvy remark.
Every user are given some amount of moderation points
Incorrect.
If they are on your friend lists, their moderation carries more value.
Only if that's what you specify in your preferences. I don't.
If they have moderated similarly to you, their moderation weights more to you.
I don't think I understand that sentence.
Re:Google bashing thread! (Score:4, Informative)
Not according to Ted Sturgeon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law/ [wikipedia.org]
Gawker? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let the Group-Think Flow! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Someone here actually suggested it before (Score:4, Informative)
This [slashdot.org].
Re:Uh... (Score:4, Informative)
You don't actually need an invitation to metamod - just go directly to http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=metamod [slashdot.org] anytime you feel like it. The link is more of a reminder that this feature actually exists.
A reminder from the bottom of that page, however:
"You are welcome to do more than 10 metamods per day but note that those votes will weigh less."
Re:Google bashing thread! (Score:5, Informative)
And one more time, because it managed to post from the test account I created to see if things worked.
https://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm [slashdot.org] lets you change how various mods affect the final score you see. Then you can set the threshold to not see them. Set Funny to -6 and hide scores of -1, and you won't see funny posts anymore.
Re:GO GOOGLE! (Score:5, Informative)
Well no. The problem is Google flat out lied on the patent application. Mod points are not given to every user. Currently either 5 or 15 mod points are handed out to users based upon a range of selection values. Amongst those values, is validity of past modding history, comment mod scores, frequency of visits et al.
So Hillis; W. Daniel (Encino, CA), Ferren; Bran (Beverly Hills, CA) are big fat fucking liars. They obviously know of slashdot ie. "The Slashdot Web site (www.slashdot.org) allows users to "mod" comments" as taken from the patent itself and intentionally lied to order to gain the patent which in fact as described is exactly the slashdot modding system.
On Slashdot not all users get to mod comments and they must know this as they have obviously visited slashdot. Basically these two lying dickwads, so the slashdot modding system, checked if it was patented, found it was not, so these two using the new corporate shithead law of who patents first wins, patented it.
/. turns green, lifts bus over head: PATENT SMASH (Score:5, Informative)
I think I may want to contest this patent.
The patent cites Slashdot comment moderation as an example of how not to assign importance to user actions. Its authors were apparently unaware that the algorithm they described in November 2010 is virtually identical to the way Slashdot has actually assigned importance to user voting on Firehose stories since May 2008 (give or take). I know because I wrote it.
What this patent calls "authority," we call user "clout."
Multiple clouts, actually. Each Slashdot user has a number that describes how valuable the system believes their up/down votes in the firehose are, and it's separate from how valuable their descriptive tags applied to stories are. (Up/down votes are simply tags with special names, making vote-scoring and description-determination very similar under the hood.)
It's been a while since I looked at this code -- I work for sister company ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] now -- but scanning over our public repository here are some of the interesting parts:
plugs/Tags/tags_updateclouts.pl [sourceforge.net] - the tags_peerclout table is the way that each type of clout is built. It has fixed entries at gen=0, the zeroth generation, which would typically be the Slashdot editors or other users considered reliable and definitive. To build gen=1, the code looks at how many users tagged or voted on the same objects as the gen=0 users did, and assigns the gen=1 users scores based on similarity (or difference). Then from the gen=1 users, gen=2 users are assigned scores similarly, and so on.
The gen=0 entries in that table "designate one or more contributing authorities by delegating to each a specific quantity of authority." I don't think I could describe that better myself.
plugins/Tags/Clout/Vote.pm process_nextgen() [sourceforge.net] - here's where each new generation of user clout is successively determined, for firehose votes in particular. Line 194 invokes the algorithm and line 203 assigns that user their new voting clout. This iterative process is the automated method through which "each contributing authority may in turn designate and delegate authority to one or more additional contributing authorities."
plugins/Tags/Clout/Vote.pm init() [sourceforge.net] - sum_weight_vectors totals the change in clout for each generation, and possible weight decreases exponentially. If you're in gen=1 the maximum weight you can have is only 60% of the maximum from gen=0, etc. The fraction is smaller than 100%, which helps ensure "that the total quantity of authority delegated does not exceed the quantity of authority the contributing authority was itself delegated." When the clouts are used to determine firehose item ratings, "the ratings are combined in a manner that affords a higher priority to the ratings provided by contributing authorities to which a greater quantity of authority was delegated."
All this may have changed since it was written. I don't actually know what's running on Slashdot at this moment. I'm just going by the public repository that I knew was on sf.net, and I don't even know if there's a later version of the code available anywhere.
But I suspect that this system would constitute prior art.
Also, looking over my code from 2008, boy, I really wish I'd put in more comments.
Re:GO GOOGLE! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GO GOOGLE! (Score:5, Informative)
It was covered at Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]. A Slashdot editor was modding the post down in spite of positive user moderations, and anyone who replied to it was flagged (I don't remember the name of the flag in Slashcode). People started referring to it as "The Post." In all these years, I've never seen the moderation controls on Slashdot because I've never gotten mod points (not that I care to).
Re:GO GOOGLE! (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder if the editors might be responsible for some of these "bury brigades"?
from the faq
Do Editors Moderate?
The Slashdot Editors have unlimited mod points, and we have no problem using them.
Our moderations represent about 3% of all moderation, and according to Meta Moderation, the fairness of these moderations are either statistically indistinguishable from non-admin users, or substantially better. The raw numbers are: 95.1% of non-admin upmods are fair, and 94.7% of admin upmods are fair. 79.1% of non-admin downmods are fair, and 83.6% of admin downmods are fair.
The editors tend to find crapfloods and moderate them down: a single malicious user can post dozens of comments, which would require several users to moderate them down, but a single admin can take care of it in seconds. This tends to remove the obvious garbage from the discussion so that the general population can use their mod points to determine good. Otherwise, a few crapfloods could suck a lot of moderator points out of the system and throw things out of whack.
You can argue that allowing admins unlimited moderation is somehow inherently unfair, but one of the goals of Slashdot is to produce readable content for a variety of readers with a variety of reading habits. I believe this process improves discussions for the vast majority of Slashdot Readers, so it will stay this way.
Re:GO GOOGLE! (Score:4, Informative)
Mike, its because you are an asshole troll you get modded down. If you stopped behaving like a dickhead you would do better.