- And now that the social filters of Facebook, Twitter and Google+ have begun to dominate the time of Web users, the Web runs the risk of becoming an out-and-out popularity contest. If we could filter the Web by reputation, we could turn it into a meritocracy.
But isn't reputation in itself popularity to an extent? Of course there are Twitter users that are celebrities - people who are famous offline and have a large online following because of that. There are other users like Scobleizer or Robert Scoble who isn't a celebrity in the normal sense but is one of the masters of social media. That doesn't mean he has the most intelligent or best articles. He engages his audience and combines his knowledge of social media with his knowledge and collection of tech based articles and ideas.
Which brings up another question. How is this reputation decided? Is it just going to be another site that we have to master to be "reputable"? Why should one do this?
Maybe I'm just missing a big chunk of information with this project. I have too many questions. I'm going to gather my thoughts and try again after dinner.
From http://hypothes.is/
- If wherever we encountered new information, sentence by sentence, frame by frame, we could easily know the best thinking on it.
If we had confidence that this represented the combined wisdom of the most informed people--not as anointed by editors, but as weighed over time by our peers, objectively, statistically and transparently.
If this created a powerful incentive for people to ensure that their works met a higher standard, and made it perceptibly harder to spread information that didn't meet that standard.
These goals are possible with today's technologies.
They are the objectives of Hypothes.is.
I'm okay with this. I think it's a reasonable thing to desire. More information that is better. Good.
Their site doesn't mention (as far asI have found) anything about this reputation/ID/true identity thing. It focuses mainly on elaboration on the above statement.
From http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-internet-peer-reviewed
- That’s the idea behind Hypothes.is. It will work as an overlay on top of any stable content, including news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation and regulations, software code and more — without requiring participation of the underlying site.
There is also a picture: http://www.kurzweilai.net/images/hypothes.is_.png
Again, I think this is a cool idea. If I understand correctly, it would be like comments - annotations, fact checking, etc - through a browser extension.
Ignoring the reputation thing, because there really isn't much information out there other than original article posted, it's a incredibly ambitious idea that may or may work and will most likely end up being a circle jerk of pseudo intellectuals. Can you imagine what Christian blogs will look like? Or atheist blogs? Or political blogs? Some things can be fact checked but a majority of what happens on the internet is purely opinion. Sometimes it's opinion backed up by facts, sometimes it's just a 12 year old spewing bullshit because he can. It'll be interesting to see how it goes but I'm not holding my breath for a new internet.
I've used the same formatting on Reddit, as suggested by John Gruber.
I just added one tweak: the link has a title which is the url. That way, you can mouseover the link, and see where it goes to.
Thanks.
Wikipedia works because the editors are there to impose accuracy and fact. Reputation isn't factual, it is opinion.