Whenever you link to a page, the link itself contributes to the ranking of that page. Whether you agree with the content of the page or not.
A while ago we were talking about Emergent Democracy,
Deliberative Polling and
anti-links and how
all links are not created equal. I suggested creating a
polling system.
Kevin Marks had a more elegant idea that he called
Vote Links. Discussion
ensued. Naming got in the way of implementation (my fault) -- until he and
Tantek Çelik discussed it at an Etech session on
real world semantics and moved forward to draft
an XHTML compliant Vote Links specification.
Add a set of three new values for the rel attribute of the <a> (link) tag in HTML. The new values are "vote-for" "vote-abstain" or "vote-against", which are mutually exclusive, and represent agreement, abstention or indifference, and disagreement respectively.
We are stuck in a
Power Law without the benefit of both positive and negative feedback. Where the loudest voice in the room impels the focus group.
Vote Links add another dimension to linking that could be used in a variety of contexts, such as calling a vote. And in calling a vote, the last thing you want is a hanging chad. Enabling people to make choice explicit enables new services, who knows what they will be. I say services because you can make wonderful decentralized discoverable resource (e.g. FOAF), but adoption happens when you have a service at the center.
There is lots of room for services that extend or augment link structure, as
Tim Oren recently commented:
As we all know,
Ted Nelson meant hypertexts to have
bidirectional links. But due to a laboratory accident in Switzerland, we ended up with this lame thing. Mechanisms such as
Google link search and
Technorati are just hacks, ways to leverage Moore's Law to ameliorate a fundamental flaw in our hypertext data architecture, crawling the Web faster and faster to aggregate all of our trackbacks.
Putting something like Vote Links out into the world is of course not without controversy, but the irony is detractors help promote it.
Lago put some good thought into a
contrary opinion based on two assumptions and two problems:
The first assumption is that indexing and tracking applications treat links as endorsements. Lago agrees with this, but says humans interpret links in different ways. Fine, but the problem is how the applications interpret links and then present them for interpretation by humans. You can tally opinion on the top Daypop yourself, but it takes time and doesn't leverage explicit input from authors.
...the second assumption is that the links are so separated from context that the human reader needs assistance in determining what the linking entity thinks about the link. Again, its not about the reader of a page with a link on it. Right now I have less ability to tag my opinions and interpreting semantic context is too complex to easily build services and has its own
issues.
Lago thinks the three of us are not only A-List, but part of a Technorati gang. He must be missing some context, but assuming its a misstatement I'll agree. He suggests there are two problems:
Gaming is the easy one. This is the job of identity and services created, not the tag.
The second serious problem is hegemony. I’m using the term in the Gramscian sense, where it means the continued and persistent ability of an elite to convince the non-elites that their interests are represented in the elite’s actions. The suggestion is that because an imbalance of power exists, the skinny tail of the power law links in line with the A-list. The problem is today they have no choice to. Blogspace is driven by more than Sarnoff's Law. Metcalfe's Law and Reed's Law empower us to differ from
broadcast media, where controversy creates content that cycles in positive feedback until our attention is exhausted. In blogspace, there are many on the A-List who use instruments of controversy to gain or sustain popularity.
Giving bloggers an inherently democratic tool to take issue with controversy but not contribute it shifts attention from the power law to the underlying bell curve of opinion. It won't be a sound dampener for the entire echo chamber, but will give us some new perspectives of the space and what we choose.
1. JayT on February 14, 2004 9:32 PM writes...
I'm afraid I would be quite skeptical of most of these notions, Mr. Mayfield.
This is where academia meets industry, I believe. Iow, where the "Ivory Tower" types meet the Star-Trekian "Firengi", and they start thinkin' along the same lines. A new species of neural-network con-man can be just one of the many possible unfortunate results.
"Vote Links add another dimension to linking that could be used in a variety of contexts, such as calling a vote."
I don't see this as anything more than explicitly stating what currently goes on, so I see this as COOL but not very innovative or informative. In fact, when I see a link from one person I've read to another I've read, and I know the topic matter and whaz COOL and what is NOT, then I normally already HAVE an idea how the linker is gonna vote on the linkee. They often already have, by provided their own info/context surrounding the link. And I find similar in most all cases of meeting people in various contexts and situations, (like on-the-job, at a bar,) not just in the Blogdom.
There are some people outside of the Blogdom that may find this hard to believe: Folks IN the Blogdom apparently find it hard to believe that a lot of people prefer to vote on IMPORTANT things in private, and not share that much except amongst close actual-real-world-friends-as-near-opposite-to-"Friendsters". (When I say "as-near-opposite-to-" I mean practically the antithesis (sp?) of.)
Similarly to religion.
Some folks prefer to NOT talk about these EXCEPT amongst NON-virtual-friends-and-relatives, and I don't know if these people prefer to wait to the last moment to decide things more, or not. It is only logical in times of turbulence, to wait until THE LAST MOMENT to decide most anything... Like anything these days. So people think about their vote a few weeks ahead of time, and are called "stupid un-decideds" by the "bandwagon-jumpers".
I found out back in '01 that IBM was decision-making based on only 90-day financial forecasts (thus some myopia of long-term objectives, afaik). Later I decided it made a whole lotta SENSE, to delay decisions until as much info as possible is available, especially when markets and such are changing SO rapidly.
So, to presume that a preference not to cast votes in public view can only (or even primarily, or at all) be presumed to mean "abstention or indifference" is to emphasize the least desirable features of the act of voting on somebody, ie telling somebody else they're screwed up.
In addition, why enhance THESE limiting kinds of blunt intruments on nuanced social discourse, as I've asked a while back a time or two, I believe...??
I breifly read Mr. or Ms. "Lago"'s post, but probably would wonder if it would benefit by a dimension of the contrast/synergy nature of solidarity and diversity slamming and scamming together... Like Diarist's combining with journalists, combining with Techo/capitalists, combining if Power-Starved Folks.. as a parallel example. But Lago speaks pretty clearly to his/her points, I believe:
"The suggestion is that because an imbalance of power exists, the skinny tail of the power law links in line with the A-list. The problem is today they have no choice to."
I know you mean "no choice to" in casting votes as a symbolic way of stoning somebody, explicitly, Mr. Mayfield... But... Again, people have a choice to vote or express ONTO another person, and in the Blogdom there are repercussions referred to as the "Echo Chamber" or "!Echo Chamber" both almost-same. So I would suggest that "Giving bloggers an inherently [un-]democratic tool [ie, the automation of and permanent recording of the stoning somebody else or some other-group] to take issue with controversy but not contribute it shifts attention from the" actual matters-at-hand being discussed.
So, to sum up too much of not-enough: Where Lago says "Hegemony is reinforced also by elites linking to other elites." I can't agree more, but would add Hegemony is reinforced-steelbarb put into concrete by elites linking to other semi-non-elites, supposedly in order to share the link-cult-good-feel with each other.
I'm somewhat bogwoggled (to use an archaic phrase from pre-Blogdom...;-) that there aren't more people questioning why people are trying to institutionalize the worst aspects of societies and civilizations, and speed those processes up to the max.
Guess I'm not as into "extreme" and "outta the box" thinking as some, so guess that makes me a reactionary to others... But imv, recording votes, even if you could do it fairly.. even if all this WAS possible.. it still wouldn't be the proverbial "all links will BE equal" anyway, because people will want to see how the Top 100 voted, just about 3 seconds after this might be implemented (if ever).
Permalink to Comment2. JayT on February 14, 2004 9:36 PM writes...
Bah... "My bad"...
"because people" [sic: should-a been MANY large marketing companies and other such organizations] "will want to see how the Top 100 voted, just about 3 seconds after this might be implemented".. and then the voters will want to see the results themselves, and lurkers will too, shortly after that.
Permalink to Comment3. lago on February 16, 2004 1:58 AM writes...
Actually, I don't agree with you on the first assumption. My exact words were "This is patently false, and probably just a misstatement." Hardly agreement, eh? Applications treat links as links, which I stated clearly. Humans are the ones who put value judgements on links. Ranking by a particular dimension is a presentation choice based on an anticipated human audience, and says more about the technologist than the user.
I used gang in the loosest possible sense, as people acting together as a group, or perhaps as a matched set, as with tools? ;) I don't think you're A-list, nor did I say that anywhere in the post. I'm embarrassed to be anywhere near the term "A-list" actually.
I'm also troubled by the argument that we can fall back on laws to explain social behavior. On the other hand, it will be amusing when Metcalfe's Law is as quaint to others as Marx's Tendential Law of the Rate of Profit is to us, so it has entertainment value going for it. "Blogspace" is driven by people, and layers of technology complicate rather than simplify analysis, despite reductionist efforts to express social behavior in the form of laws or, worse, graphs.
Finally, I maintain that the so-called "problem" you are trying to solve with VoteLinks is an artifact of the overambitious and ill-conceived application of technology to try to simulate the human perception/assignment of value. Granted, if you are motivated by money to build software or provide services, it makes more sense to continue to build layers of engagement, which you then get paid to maintain while others get paid to instruct users and fix problems, rather than acknowledging that the solution to the problem might be to back away slowly from the keyboard.
Permalink to Comment4. Peter on February 16, 2004 9:38 AM writes...
You've devised a wonderful system for voting for predefined options. However, I think the best part of blogging is that anyone can define a PROBLEM and anyone can define a SOLUTION.
In politics or public policy, the first step is identifying a problem, the next step is identifying a solution.
Currently, the public is not very active in guiding this process. However, through blogging, we could be.
Here is a simple scheme that I've devised:
http://democracythroughblogging.blogspot.com
From what I have read on brainstorming methods:
When solving any problem by brainstorming(business or public policy), new ideas for solving the problem are much more important than criticism of suggested problems. Further, most new ideas come from internal brainstorming (one person), as opposed to a group of people.
So, voting through links could be a problem as you suggested. However, if we remove the yes/no equation and instead focus on "endorsements only" as a vote, then this problem is solved. Read the link above for more about this.
Permalink to Comment5. Eric Baillargeon on February 16, 2004 9:48 AM writes...
When I post to tell my disagreement on something I just put the domain name whitout a link!!!
When you put something between "a" and "href" like the "rel" here, or title, some SE spyders can not follow the link.
If everybody where doing that, with two search like link:www.domain.com (not on google) and "www.domain.com" you can deduce the site is bad only by the more results on the second query.
Permalink to CommentMy2C
6. David Brake on February 16, 2004 11:08 AM writes...
Why a trinary choice? Why not +5 to -5 (agree strongly to disagree strongly with 0 being no view)? That would allow people to express a more nuanced view.
I think there will be a much more important "A list" factor - for the forseeable future only us weblog wonks will bother to use the tag at all...
Permalink to Comment7. Kevin Marks on February 16, 2004 4:01 PM writes...
Lago, yes, humans put values on links. This proposal is a way for them to convey this in a machine parsable form.
I agree that human assignment of value is far more nuanced than this, hence my direction of you to Hayek, but this is a way of adding a little bit of extra information, so that we can distinguish between link-as-agreement, link-as-disagreement and neutral links when counting the links by computer. Linkage as implicit endorsement is an issue, and I want to encourage people to link to those they disagree with.
The tri-state objection was addressed in the proposal - the yes/no/abstain model has stood up over time for calling for a division.
More on my blog:
Permalink to Commenthttp://epeus.blogspot.com