Publishers need to die

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Alisa

The tax isn't a new paradigm. It was tried first with recordable media like cassette tapes. Small labels and artists got jack all out that deal. The big labels got the money. For them to be eliminated, you need a system that can't be gamed. I doubt you'll ever find one.

The Internet is that system. On the Internet you can get a much more precise statistic on usage then you could measure with the previous Radio, CD sales, Royalties and other analog systems. The overall trends and usage statistics can be in fact thousands of times more precise than any TV/Radio audience measurement tools used with the measurement of old media. Which does in fact permit the very precise measurement of popularity and quality of much less popular content.

And also making systems that cannot be gamed on the Internet is possible. Just ask Google if they don't know when a Gmail account user is a real person of if it's a robot.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Charbax

The Internet is that system. On the Internet you can get a much more precise statistic on usage then you could measure with the previous Radio, CD sales, Royalties and other analog systems. The overall trends and usage statistics can be in fact thousands of times more precise than any TV/Radio audience measurement tools used with the measurement of old media. Which does in fact permit the very precise measurement of popularity and quality of much less popular content.

And also making systems that cannot be gamed on the Internet is possible. Just ask Google if they don't know when a Gmail account user is a real person of if it's a robot.

People can be real and still be voting with an agenda. Churches and political movements can mobilize people to vote down ideas they find objectionable even if they haven't read it. People can have multiple accounts and hire themselves out to influence ratings.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Alisa

People can be real and still be voting with an agenda. Churches and political movements can mobilize people to vote down ideas they find objectionable even if they haven't read it. People can have multiple accounts and hire themselves out to influence ratings.

Nope they cannot. If they could game it then Google wouldn't work.

The reliability is at a much higher level than whatever insignificant gaming anyone religious or not might want to try to risk resetting their trust level for their user account on the system. And you only have one real life identity. Once you are a detected gamer/spammer/cheater, Google can identify your real identity as being such and it basically blocks you from influencing the system again until they find that you can be trustworthy again.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Nope they cannot. If they could game it then Google wouldn't work.

The reliability is at a much higher level than whatever insignificant gaming anyone religious or not might want to try to risk resetting their trust level for their user account on the system.

You're assuming Google isn't gamed. Bless your heart.

I live in the US. We have megachurches with tens of thousands of people. We have millions of evangelical Christians. I have nothing against them practicing their beliefs but we do not share a common philosophy and many churches have a tendency to mobilize their parishioners against culture they do not like. To be fair, I have staunchly Christian family that do not espouse such censorship. I know not all Christians approve these measures, but enough do that it is a serious force to reckon with. Even if they do not want to quash speech, I doubt many would want their tax money going to works that were opposed to their beliefs. The censorship-minded groups already try to get books banned from our libraries and schools. In some communities, they succeed.

I don't know if you have heard of the vocal opposition to the Harry Potter books. They enjoyed a popularity that won out over the opposition. In this rating system, what do you suppose would have become of these books if the opposition had gotten involved downvoting it early? Many people would rely on ratings to find good works and likely these ratings would shift such controversial works to the bottom.

[giddion]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Nope they cannot. If they could game it then Google wouldn't work.

The reliability is at a much higher level than whatever insignificant gaming anyone religious or not might want to try to risk resetting their trust level for their user account on the system. And you only have one real life identity. Once you are a detected gamer/spammer/cheater, Google can identify your real identity as being such and it basically blocks you from influencing the system again until they find that you can be trustworthy again.

So now google is fool proof? I guess you never heard of Google bombing then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb And that's just people manipulating search results, attach direct financial payouts to the results and every kid script kiddie that can code an algorithm will target google the next day.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Alisa

In this rating system, what do you suppose would have become of these books if the opposition had gotten involved downvoting it early? Many people would rely on ratings to find good works and likely these ratings would shift such controversial works to the bottom.

Nope. No group of people can down vote anything. The ratings and recommendations system takes into account that different groups of people may have completely different taste and interests. If you church going Jesus fanatics vote against anti Jesus books or something, then quite simply the rating and recommendations mechanism will automatically not recommend anti Jesus books to evangelical users. The ratings system will quite easily figure out who is being part of which group. There is NO way that a large group of people try to cheat a system like Google over the course of months and years hiding their true agenda in trying to globally down vote some certain anti Jesus type of books.

Simply put, the ratings system does not display some type of global 5-star ratings on books. Instead it figures out if books are more or less likely to interest each specific users. It could for example say something like "There is a 95% chance this book will interest you" or something like that. And there might be different levels of interest that the system can provide including different topics of interest so if the reader is in the mood for some special type of book or from specific types of authors he can simply filter then again and all recommended according to that unique users taste, recorded usage behavior and favorites. It can even measure amount of time spent reading each page of each book to figure out the very specific interest levels.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by giddion

So now google is fool proof? I guess you never heard of Google bombing then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb And that's just people manipulating search results, attach direct financial payouts to the results and every kid script kiddie that can code an algorithm will target google the next day.

Nothing is google bombed today. Being highly ranked on Google has a huge financial payout, so you can be sure that if there was a way to game Google, lots of people would be doing it. None are able to. The only way that you can get better search rankings on Google is by doing more relevant and better quality content.

And ranking search results is much harder than ranking recommendations for specifically identifiable books on a database of books. The books are all books, while Google search has to figure out what each page is actually about.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Nothing is google bombed today. Being highly ranked on Google has a huge financial payout, so you can be sure that if there was a way to game Google, lots of people would be doing it. None are able to. The only way that you can get better search rankings on Google is by doing more relevant and better quality content.

And ranking search results is much harder than ranking recommendations for specifically identifiable books on a database of books. The books are all books, while Google search has to figure out what each page is actually about.

The blog SmartBitchesTrashyBooks would disagree with you.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Nope. No group of people can down vote anything. The ratings and recommendations system takes into account that different groups of people may have completely different taste and interests. [...] then quite simply the rating and recommendations mechanism will automatically not recommend anti Jesus books to evangelical users. The ratings system will quite easily figure out who is being part of which group. [...]

Simply put, the ratings system does not display some type of global 5-star ratings on books. Instead it figures out if books are more or less likely to interest each specific users. [...] It can even measure amount of time spent reading each page of each book to figure out the very specific interest levels.

So this cool rating system already exists (link, please!), and takes all relevant things into account. And on top of all that, it knows how much time you spend looking at the centerfold vs. the articles in Playboy? And how much time you spend reading Playboy vs. Hustler vs. the Taliban manifesto? ("You" in the above, because of course I would never look at such trash -- nor would any right-thinking person! )

for clarifying your point of view to this degree. I'm out of here.

PLONK!

Xenophon

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

So this cool rating system already exists (link, please!)

Try last.fm, netflix.com and amazon.com for examples of some currently available recommendations engines. No right wing evangelical group has any influence to game anything on any of these.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

for clarifying your point of view to this degree. I'm out of here.

PLONK!

Xenophon

Smart move. This guy is pretty loco.

[Patricia]

I'm always wary of people who wish death on others.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Nope. No group of people can down vote anything. The ratings and recommendations system takes into account that different groups of people may have completely different taste and interests. If you church going Jesus fanatics vote against anti Jesus books or something, then quite simply the rating and recommendations mechanism will automatically not recommend anti Jesus books to evangelical users. The ratings system will quite easily figure out who is being part of which group. There is NO way that a large group of people try to cheat a system like Google over the course of months and years hiding their true agenda in trying to globally down vote some certain anti Jesus type of books.

Simply put, the ratings system does not display some type of global 5-star ratings on books. Instead it figures out if books are more or less likely to interest each specific users. It could for example say something like "There is a 95% chance this book will interest you" or something like that. And there might be different levels of interest that the system can provide including different topics of interest so if the reader is in the mood for some special type of book or from specific types of authors he can simply filter then again and all recommended according to that unique users taste, recorded usage behavior and favorites. It can even measure amount of time spent reading each page of each book to figure out the very specific interest levels.

So if their preacher tells them to go out an downvote that blasphemous book, they won't be able to find it and downvote it?

[Daithi]

Before I make my comment I wish to state categorically that I do not wish death on anyone. I'm assuming Charbax doesn't either and was just using Hyperbole.

Now that that's out of the way, I don't see why a system described by Charbox couldn't be implemented. You sign up for a service like Amazon and they ask you half-a-dozen questions. Do you usually agree with the conservative or liberal viewpoints? On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, indicate if religion is a part of your life. Etc. Of course this survey is optional, but if you fill it out then Amazon could adjust the ratings you see on books based on how like minded individuals voted. So when some people click on Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand they would see a high rating if they were conservative and maybe a single star if they identified themselves as liberal.

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Before I make my comment I wish to state categorically that I do not wish death on anyone. I'm assuming Charbax doesn't either and was just using Hyperbole.

Now that that's out of the way, I don't see why a system described by Charbox couldn't be implemented. You sign up for a service like Amazon and they ask you half-a-dozen questions. Do you usually agree with the conservative or liberal viewpoints? On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, indicate if religion is a part of your life. Etc. Of course this survey is optional, but if you fill it out then Amazon could adjust the ratings you see on books based on how like minded individuals voted. So when some people click on Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand they would see a high rating if they were conservative and maybe a single star if they identified themselves as liberal.

That's sort of like what NetFlix does with their ratings, but they depend on what you rate other films you've seen.