From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 09:31:06 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Subject: self-ratings vs. market ratings
In-Reply-To: <adb61de708021004cef3@[205.199.118.202]>
Message-ID: <199605081856.LAA06645@netcom7.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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TCM
>Should "voluntary self-criticism" become widespread, I expect to rate all
>of my posts as suitable for children of all ages, suitable for
>hypersensitive feminists, suitable for Jews and Gentiles alike, and so on.
>Regardless of whether I'm advocating post-birth abortions or forced
>encheferation of Muslim girls.

heh. I had a feeling you or someone else would would say this.

as I wrote, I don't like the self-rating idea very much for the reasons
you bring up and because of the pressure on authors to rate their material
in certain ways. but I can see how self-ratings might coexist with a
market rating system.

>I believe the whole debate about PICs-type ratings and other "voluntary
>self-labeling" has taken us astray.

whoa, keep in mind that PICS involves "market ratings" as well. in my
mind this is the key part of the proposal and most important element
as I have been writing.  although others have suggested they saw 
it exactly the opposite. we will see what happens in practice.

>I don't see calls for authors to voluntarily self-rate their print works,
>nor do I see calls for newspapers to have articles rated.

in a sense this happens at the beginning of works. recall in Huck Finn
how Mark Twain warned against what people should not read the book.
columnists will sometimes say, "this is about [x], don't read it if
you don't like [x]". but I agree it is somewhat silly at times for authors
to rate their articles. but keep in mind we are using the word
"ratings" in a very general sense. it makes total sense for authors
to decide the "keywords" for their articles, for example-- and in 
the PICS rating system, such a use is possible.

>I say it's a waste of our time to even be thinking or worrying about how to
>implement an infrastructure for ratings.

hmmmmmmmm, I seem to recall earlier letters in which you advocated 
a market-type rating system in which services could rate things,
in the way that stocks are now rated, doctors/lawyers
could be rated, etc.-- let a thousand ratings services bloom.
(or maybe we were talking about reputations. in my mind, they are
mostly interchangeable--hence my interest in "rating" systems).

perhaps in the future people should be very careful to distinguish their
opinions on "self-ratings" vs. "market ratings" because people seem
to be conflating the two and have widely divergent opinions. also I 
want the reader to keep in mind that PICS supports both (and therefore
to criticize it on the ground of one alone is not wholly sensible).

I point out that market ratings exist and are everywhere around us.
a credit rating is in fact a kind of "market rating" in the sense I 
am using the word-- rating of some "thing" or "person" by another 
entity.

 In fact, building such an
>infrastructure could make later imposition of "mandatory voluntary ratings"
>(Orwell would be unsurprised) a greater likelihood.

my fear too. hopefully, designers can try to oppose it in their
writings ala the Bill of Rights. but it is always the case that powerful
technology capable of great good can be twisted into great evil
by the evilminded.

if the system is always championed as voluntary by definition, I can't
see too many sinister scenarios taking place. the problem would be
if people gradually lost this understanding over time. unfortunately
there is ample precedent for that kind of thing again in our government,
where the concept of "of, by, and for the people" seems to have become
blurry, to say the least.