The subject of topics for weblogs is getting some traction in the blogosphere. There are some promising apps for topics, including k-collector and Topic Exchange. Recently I wrote a post, in response to one by Clay Shirky, to say that weblog posts should be organized by topics in the blogosphere rather than organized by author. Clay Shirky pointed back to me and some interesting discussion came out of that.
One thing I'm not convinced there is a need for is a "reputation system". Marc Canter linked to a post by Bill Kearney, who had some interesting things to say about syndicating topics (btw Marc also got it spot on when he advised Bill to stick to the topic and lay off the personal abuse of Dave Winer). Bill says this about preventing "pollution" of topic spaces:
"Here we run into the need for some sort of reputation system. One that seeks to differentiate the valuable material from those just trying to incorrectly grab attention."
I don't think ideas should be judged based on who is the author. This is the point I was making in response to Clay's post mentioned above. Sure I want to be able to subscribe to individual authors that I enjoy reading and who I value as an authority. But when it comes to subscribing to topics that I'm interested in, I don't wish to pre-judge what people may contribute on a topic. The best ideas sometimes come out of left field.
The Web is fundamentally a free space. That's the beauty of weblogs, these tools make it easy for anyone to publish on the Web. If everyone has a right to write, then everyone has a right to be read. Even if they're wrong :-)
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I agree with the idea of aggregating blog posts by categories without regard for the author, in principle. However, this will shift the value of trust from the individual blog author to the topic aggregator.
If the aggregation is to occur automatically with code, then there needs to be some way of preventing spam, in code. If the aggregation is to occur by somebody who offers the service (i.e., moderated), then spam can be prevented much easier by a human, without needing to have any sophisticated logic or "reputation" systems.
Look at NNTP newsgroups to see what completely unmoderated topical aggregation would look like.
Posted by: Kenneth LeFebvre | July 15, 2003 5:22 AM
You're right there needs to be a way to prevent spam. As for moderation, I actually prefer unmoderated newsgroups to moderated ones. eg Slashdot is unmoderated and sure it has a lot of rubbish posts. But every now and then, out of the blue, comes a gem of a comment. And it often sparks new discussions, ideas.
The key is to find a way to moderate topic clouds by *content*, rather than by assigning a value to each author.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | July 15, 2003 2:54 PM
sorry "moderate" wasn't the best word to use in that last sentence. Darn non-editable comments :-)
How about this: The key is to find a way to regulate topic clouds by *content*, rather than by assigning a value to each author.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | July 15, 2003 3:20 PM
OH - so what you're saying is that I;m not important enough to be a topic - huh?
;-)
Posted by: Marc Canter | July 17, 2003 10:38 AM
actually you're important enough to be *both* a "what" and a "who", thanks to k-collector :-) Not to mention you're a bee according to Scoble ;-)
Posted by: Richard MacManus | July 17, 2003 5:23 PM