From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 09:11:02 +0800
To: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Subject: Re: [Political Rant] Was: examples of mandatory content rating?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960413211541.9295G-100000@polaris.mindport.net>
Message-ID: <199604142144.OAA04096@netcom5.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Unicorn takes time off from his busy schedule of smearing and ridiculing
me with sniping pot shots to write up a more comprehensive attack:

>> I foresee that the "industry" of providing ratings is going to be
>> a very significant aspect of future cyberspace.
>
>I tend to disagree.  Ratings are generally consumed by parents and 
>otherwise custodial entities.  The largest and richest market anywhere 
>has always been the 18-25 range, or 18-30 depending on who you talk to.  

you seem to not address the more liberal concept of "rating" that I 
am using, which does give me an opportunity to elaborate.
 in my view, anyone who exercises judgement is in fact
applying a process of "rating". the results of that rating
may be "explicit" in the form of things like measurements, (MPAA
ratings being discussed) or they may be implicit, such as the
selection of content for a magazine by an editor. however,
at the root these are the same activities-- taking a subjective
human judgement, and creating some objective "product" or 
"conclusion" from these judgements. 

ratings abound in our society. we have SAT tests for students.
every test is a kind of a "rating" by a "trusted rating
agency". we have the Better Business Bureau. we have credit
ratings. we have "referral services". all of these someday
are going to be seen for what they are: services that measure
the "quality" or "value" of various other services or 
information pieces. as we move into an information society,
people will begin to understand the commonalities between
all these seemingly diverse areas. they will tend to become
more unified and diverse at the same time.

most people are applying the concept of ratings far too narrowly
in my view, like you do above. I tried to expand your horizons,
but you lept into the trap of seeing ratings only of value to
parents. ratings in general are extremely valuable to everyone
who lives on the planet. imagine some of the following ratings 
services:

1. quality of internet providers around the country
2.  lists of people who spam internet mailboxes
3. best hi tech companies to work for based on packages

etc. ad infinitum

all of these have audiences, and would be economically viable to
maintain in my view. we will let the market decide. but when
the future of our economy is "information", you are going to
see some very radical new industries emerge. ratings
are one of them.

>And like any ratings system, it relies on the raters subjective 
>judgement.  Not a very market stable or market wise system. 

false. subjective judgement is relied on all the time by everyone.
it is not perfect, but because it is not perfect does not mean
it is worthless. you are relying on the subjective judgements
of zillions of people by living on the planet, who made subjective
decisions like: how do I best build a house? how do I build a 
computer? how do I plan this city? these are all subjective
situations.

 Tell me who 
>would pay extra for a movie that had a rating on it. 

completely incorrect concept.  people pay a lot of money for 
TV guide, for movie rating books, the advertisers pay Siskel
and Ebert (a rating service), etc. (btw, it was Klaus who 
first gave the Siskel and Ebert example, and because he is
so sensitive to being properly credited for his visionary ideas, well
I am crediting him <g>)

 No reason to 
>bother.  People don't like the movie, they can leave. 

oh brother. surely you see how weak your argument is. they paid
$7 to leave at the beginning? and you think there is no market
for a movie rating service? such services already exist.

 Instead they pay 
>for the newspaper that has the review of the movies subject matter.

right. a rating service. you will see more and more in the future
as information is recognized to have value in our economy.

>  No 
>one much cares about the motion picture rating in any event.  Parents 
>perhaps, and children, to the extent that 'R' and 'NC-17' films are 
>mystified and thus interesting.  I can't even think of what the rating of 
>the last film I saw was.  I simply don't care.
>
you have gone off on a strange tangent that was not in any way justified
by what I wrote, although you have a pretty good argument against *something*,
I'm not sure what <g> -- I didn't claim that MPAA ratings were the
best example of a rating service. in fact it is a very primitive
kind of rating system in my view.

>> note that "good/bad"
>> is the most simplistic rating possible. even more superior rating
>> agencies might find "cool material".
>
>Like the "hot sites" on Netscape's home page, or Alta Vistas?  Or the 
>"site of the day" stuff?  Note that all this is free today.

false. they get paid by their advertisers to maintain that. just because
you don't pay doesn't mean that no money is involved. furthermore
there is a great example of an internet web site rating service called
"point communications top 5%"-- another economically viable venture.
these people do nothing but surf and rate sites, essentially, and
now they have a marketed book out on the subject. it's a rating service.

>  Again, they 
>all rely on the ratings judgement of the rater.  Given that most of these 
>services are funded by advertizing sales rather than user cost, I think 
>it's fairly clear that users wouldn't bother to pay for them.

that doesn't mean, as I repeat, that rating services will not increase
and thrive. there are many ways for an economy to run outside of direct
fees.

>> in fact in a sense, every
>> editor of every newspaper is a sort of "rating server". he culls,
>> filters, and selects information that the readers like.
>
>That's a far cry from rating.  That's simple exclusion.  There is no 
>discussion of the reasons and rationale for excluding, merely the 
>exclusion. 

no, frequently you will see editors write columns about what kind of
information they are excluding etc.  the whole concept of how much
space they dedicate to an article, the size of the headlines, the placement
of the articles, all are an "implicit" rating of the material. as I said,
some ratings are explicit, some are implicit. but the whole field
is going to become increasingly blurry in the future.

> This is the cypherpunks lite example.  Will there be a place 
>for content/subject based news review, yes.  But it will be much more 
>interactive than ratings made by a central authority. 

notice you seem to equate "ratings" with "central authority". PICS
is a good example of how this is a fallacious line of thinking. indeed
what I and Klaus have openly advocated is a distributed rating system
in which there are no "official rating agencies" other than those
that simply choose to be rating systems. you let the information
market decide.  PICS does support such a 
system, and is designed with that as a key design goal.

repeatedly in your message you try to extrapolate on the future
based on some very primitive and rudimentary systems in the present,
which I think is not going to give you a very realistic view. it
would be like the prediction made in popular mechanics, "computers
will some day become as small as a room".

your notes on copyright I don't really want to respond to, as I have
written essays here on my thoughts on the subject before that cover
it.

>There has been much talk lately about a move back to the centralized 
>computing model.

not by me. but note that the concepts of "centralized" vs. "distributed"
can become blurry in various situations, and I believe this blurring
will continue.

>Who is going to bother with centralized ratings when customized ratings 
>are a few keystrokes away.

nowhere in my article did I say that ratings would be centralized.
it is true they will be "centralized" in the sense that each agency
decides what ratings they have and how to store them etc.-- but
the agencies themselves are decentralized. their systems may in
fact also be decentralized (e.g. rely on many different reviewers).

  The basic premise that people will prefer to 
>have material selected for them rather than select it themselves is, in 
>my view, fatally flawed.

hmm, that's strange then that magazines and newspapers exist, or
mailing lists with moderators, etc.  maybe we don't  live on the
same planet or something.

>You really think central authority rating a la TRW is a "good thing"?  I 
>submit you've never had to deal with TRW.

imagine a rating service that rated the quality of companies. such a
company would be the consumer's complementary tool. the companies
rate their customers, and the customers rate their companies. indeed
a rating service designed for one audience (such as companies) is
going to be mostly worthless and perhaps even opposed by other
audiences (such as consumers). but once everyone has ratings that
they use, perhaps they will "live and let live".

>You are also ignoring the fact that if such an industry ever does 
>exist, there will be a free market of raters.  ...
> A centralized and 
>standardized ratings system is going to be an economic flop.

you seem to want to argue with me no matter what I say, so you read
all kinds of things into my essay I didn't write. I advise you to stick
to what I wrote if you are going to attribute things to me, although
your fiery passion against debunking the nonexistent is amusing and
I wouldn't want to squelch all future emanations of it.

a major point of the post I wrote was that ratings is a system that
involves a free market. nowhere did I argue for "a centralized and
standardized rating system" in the sense of one authority making
all the subjective decisions. what I *do* favor is a unified
*framework* wherein such decisions can be collected and traded
within, with PICS a very nice early attempt at this important
capability.


>> in the old system, censorship was accomplished by the government
>> putting chains on, or burning, "atoms". in the future, people will just
>> select whatever information they are interested in.
>
>In the future?  They do that now.  What do you think Alta Vista is?
>Alta Vista in its purest form, cataloging, is by no stretch of the 
>imagination a ratings system. 

no, I consider it a ratings system. the ratings are "implicit" vs.
"explicit". they are making subjective decisions about how to organize/
present the material etc similar to what an editor does, which again
I suggest is a "rater of information", although his judgements
are reflected implicitly, not explicitly, in his end product.

> It's also free.  So much a for massive 
>retail ratings industry.

again, I never said that individual consumers would pay for every
rating they consume. systems whereby advertisers effectively pay
for these ratings will be very useful as well. you seem to be 
"hot and bothered" by something I wrote, but I can't pinpoint exactly
what I said that got you so torqued up.

>Its interesting to me that you can be both so freedom of information 
>oriented, and central authority obsessed at the same time.

your idea that I am interested in a central authority as far
as "one unified rating agency" is totally incorrect and not 
supported by anything that I wrote in my post, and in fact I 
think outrightly contradicted by serveral statements in it.

again, what I do advocate is a unified technical standard by
which multiple rating agencies can all coexist. I am expressly
against coercion of consumers or retailers to follow particular rating
guides for any purposes. the entire system must be voluntary in
most aspects. 

however, an individual retailer should be free
to screen his merchandise or selection based on his own judgement,
which may or may not be based on ratings. if a large group
of retailers agree to ban various material based on their
voluntary decision to follow particular ratings, so be it.
the consumer is free to choose a different retailer that
better suits their needs. a consumer cannot demand a particular
kind of service however in my view if the retailer is not
interested in providing it.