
Tim Berners-Lee has lost the plot - terpua
http://www.inquisitr.com/3165/tim-berners-lee-has-lost-the-plot/
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olavk
TBLs idea of a "web of trustworthiness" is not new, it has always been one of
the applications in his vision of the semantic web. One of the properties of
this vision is that the "trust-graphs" will be decentralized - there will not
be a single authoritative trust-rating pr site. (Whether we believe this
vision will ever come to fruition is a different issue).

> _the idea [...] needs to die quickly before repressive governments, and
> those that nearly are, use his words as an excuse to censor and filter the
> internet further._

Yeah right, as if repressive goverments need an excuse from TBL to censor the
internet. Anyway, they are certainly not going to wait for the realization of
"the semantic web" to start censoring.

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shafqat
I like this comment left on his blog:

"I respectfully disagree with your entire thesis. No one is saying we should
stifle a "false opinion." No one is saying that we won't allow people to
publish posts or blogs as they do today, on any topic they chose. The premise
is that we should be able to easily identify credible news. Yes, credibility
has subjective aspects but there are objective components as well - and those
are the ones we can easily address using the websites you deem so useless.
Objective fact checking, citation of sources, transparency - these are things
we can and should measure. By merely introducing a 'scorecard' or a 'track
record' for a news source, I don't think we've crossed the line to "global
totalitarianism."

I will defend your right to have an opinion, but I think you will find I am
not alone in thinking that it is you, Duncan, who may have lost the plot."

~~~
jrockway
Disagreeing with him is just one step away from totalitarianism! The
government's here and they're installing the 1984-style cameras in my flat
_right now_. Look what you've done!

It's articles like this for which I wish there was a downmod button.

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jacobscott
How is what TBL suggesting different in spirit from PageRank, or web of trust,
etc? Giving people some metadata isn't going to "be the start of a slippery
slope towards global totalitarianism." Article seems a little bit overzealous.

~~~
shafqat
Agreed. Duncan, however, is effectively calling my startup bullshit. I'm glad
the commenters on his site (and here) disagree with him.

~~~
gills
Your business as a voluntary, optional rating system is great. But if
credibility ratings were mandatory, how would dissenting voices be heard?

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mynameishere
_Millions of people supporting the McCain-Palin ticket in the United States
believe that the earth is 4000 years old and dinosaurs and men existed side-
by-side._

No, they don't. The writer of this article is as ignorant as the imaginary
people he is attacking.

~~~
fizx
As someone who grew up evangelical, I assure you that the only inaccuracy in
the statement is that millions believe the earth is _6000_ years old (i.e.
4000BCE). My estimate is that 25-50% of youth and 50-75% of the 40+ crowd in
the churchgoing population believe this.

~~~
bmj
And I can say that in my denomination (Reformed Presbyterian, which is
theologically conservative) the percentages are far, far lower. My own
congregation includes several university professors (CMU, U Pittsburgh) that
are not Young Earth Creationists. Heck, we even had a geology prof in the
congregation for awhile, and he certainly wasn't.

I don't consider our denomination "evangelical," but I'm sure the general
public would.

EDIT: I'm not trying to start a religious/cultural war...just want to point
out that saying things like "50-75% of the churchgoing population" is a bit of
a broad generalization.

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ryanmahoski
I think Duncan Riley is in over his head on this one. His argument is
basically that if we permit organized rating of web sites, that governments
will use the system to stifle unpopular opinion. That's a reasonable theory
but I think it breaks down when you realize Google has been rating the value
of web sites for years, and so have other entities with arguably a net
positive effect. What Tim Berners-Lee is proposing is a tool, run by a bunch
of what he considers to be credible organizations, and while we may worry they
won't do a good job I don't think it's clear that the cure is worse than the
disease.

~~~
gdee
>Google has been rating the value of web sites for years

Well, supposedly, they don't do that. We all are (links). They just do the
tally. ...and abuse the tally system from time to time (wiki/knol)

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bk
Speaking of online credibility...

Here's a past post and comments by Duncan Riley (the article's author) from
techcrunch. Judge for yourselves:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/29/its-fair-to-say-that-
ge...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/29/its-fair-to-say-that-germans-will-
soon-have-zero-access-to-online-file-sharing-sites/#comment-1947679)

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jmcannon
I find it interesting how a "trust rating" would affect traditional media
outlets, all of whom now publish scores of content online. A rating system
wouldn't just discredit LHC doomsday sites, but could potentially be a
positive source of pressure for TV news, newspapers, and magazines as well.

Anyway, I agree Duncan is being a spaz and that TBL's idea isn't completely
absurd. I imagine something like a Firefox plugin for factcheck.org.

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Hexstream
"Do not those of us in free countries benefit from receiving news that isn’t
filtered and controlled by the corporate media elite?"

... Sounds naive.

