FCC's Chairman Powell Starts Blog

The Importance of writes "And he wants to hear from the tech community. 'I am looking forward to an open, transparent and meritocracy-based communication -- attributes that bloggers are famous for!' Powell said on his blog. But does he really get blogging? He says he 'need[s] to hear from the tech community as we transition to digital television.' Perhaps we could discuss the broadcast flag? If you want to leave some comments on his blog, I suggest you do it before Howard Stern mentions it on his radio show."

Comments

(Michael Powell's) First Post

[cynic10508]

"Dad keeps calling me all the time. It's always 'Iraq' this and 'Iraq' that. He's so annoying sometimes. I swear. Ooo! On another note, I did get my belly button pierced this past weekend! It is soooo cute!"

Thats a new one...

[chrispyman]

Who'd have thought the day would come when the government asks for a slashdotting!

Better hurry.

[Temporal]

If you want to leave some comments on his blog, I suggest you do it before Howard Stern mentions it on his radio show.

It would also probably be a good idea to do it before this gets mentioned on Slashdot.

Oh, wait...

Re:Better hurry.

[XemonerdX]

A stern /.ing ofcourse.

Eric Idle on the FCC

[node 3]

Eric's got a song on his site about the FCC: The FCC Song

Don't we already have a Powell?

[caryw]

His "blog" is pretty interesting but right now talks more about digital TV than anything pertinent to the internet. Still a nice outreach, we'll see how often it gets updated...
In related FCC news, they just passed an order lessening the restrictions on the unlicensed 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz frequency bands.
The news release (pdf) says that this order removes roadblocks keeping deployment of next generation (longer range) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices.
There is also a statement from Chairman Powell himself (more pdf)

-Cary
Fairfax Underground : Where Fairfax County comes out to play

Nice idea, prepare for the abuse

[AvantLegion]

Rarely do chairmen or other heads of government agencies make themselves as accessible as Mr. Powell. Watching him with Leo Laporte on TechTV was always interesting and revealing - one probably shouldn't be surprised to see the chairman of the FCC actually understand what his agency is regulating (or not regulating), but it seems too many agencies are "the blind leading the blind".

Unfortunately, expect Mr. Powell's blog to be spammed by every idealogue around. Already some pointless jabber about the FCC's "indecency" issues have popped up, some merely wrappers for political bashing. If only that was the worst that it will get..

Entries

[gr8fulnded]

Sample entry: Monday, 7/5/04: "Well, this morning my wife made *beep* for breakfast, except the *beep* burnt the *beep* toast!"
Tuesday, 7/6/04: "Had a meeting with *beep* who's skirt was a little higher then it should've been, showing off her *beep* and making me want to *beep* *beep* her all night long!"
Weds., 7/7/04: "Took the *beep* for a walk around the *beep*. Cashed a check at the store and purchased *beep*, *beep*, and *beep*. Thought the missus might like that!"
...

Scratching my head...

[Bill_Royle]

Calling that page a blog seems a bit far-fetched to me - it seems more like a news site. On news sites that I know of, people that write opinion pieces are called "columnists" or "contributors" normally. It's called an op-ed, not a blog entry.

Does anyone else question the way this is being termed? After all, if I contribute maybe 10 articles to a news site, does that make my work there constitute a blog?

Sigh, he doesn't have a clue does he?

[An dochasac]

So my way of influencing a public servant whose salary is paid by my tax dollars is by signing onto a private website? No, thank you. I'll take my chances that I might influence someone here to write their congressperson, or vote him/her out! The FCC has lost sight of some core principles:

1. The airwaves belong to the people.
2. Content belongs to the creator. If my first steps were recorded in analog video, the government should not impose a law which would make such content impossible to view. When I create a DVD of my baby's first steps, I should have the right to control and sign that content. I should have the right to make it available to others and transcode that content to whatever the format of the day is in 2021.
3. Government belongs to the people. All content created at taxpayer expense should be in an open format, not subject to proprietary licensing.
4. Government should not play favorites. If Howard Stern profits from our airwaves with junior high mentaility, then everyone capable of expressing a junior high mentality should also have this right. If World Harvest Radio uses our airwaves to convince the world that Americans are all right-wing extremists and cultists, than other kooks should have that right.
5. Consumers should have the right to not see Howard Stern or listen to World Harvest radio. They should have the right to not expose their children.
6. Consumers should be able to select from the thousands of public programs available at the Library of Congress and produced by other governments (BBC, RTE, NHK...) without running into a region code "iron curtain".
7. A broadcast flag is a stupid simpleminded idea. It won't work and it will violate many of the above principles.

Selected blog format inappropriate?

[0x0d0a]

While the idea of running a blog is interesting -- I'm facinated by the idea of alternate and potentially more efficient communication to policymakers -- I'm not sure that the blog format selected is appropriate. You're producing all comments dropped into a page, with no hierarchy, moderation or anything. It's like trying to suck down the contents of a firehose. The advantage of electronic forums is not only one-way communication with the forum owner, but also allowing other people interested in relevant issues to interact with each other and to share ideas and information.

There are a couple of format changes that I'd suggest.

First, threading is just plain going to be necessary for any forum of this size. It's not reasonable to expect people to track interleaved discussion -- and it's efficient to allow the public to correct errors in posts and to associate related information, instead of forcing readers to skim through many, many comments that comprise a series of interleaved discussions.

Second of all, moderation, or some similar system could be helpful. Slashcode is a popular codebase to allow moderation, but the structure only partly deals with moderation abusers -- those that attempt to moderate up viewpoints that they agree with, rather than those that they believe to be correct. Slashcode has a good deal of popularity mostly on forums with communities that generally agree with each other on overall issues. I don't believe that there are any forum moderation systems that try to identify "clusters" of posters that moderate each other up (perhaps this is a research project waiting to happen, if no companies are already working on such a thing). Instead of all posts being assigned a global scalar value representing "goodness", there'd be N identified clusters, and "goodness" from the point of view *of each of those clusters*. Doing so would be interesting, as it might be easier to find the "best arguments" for a particular side, and could deal better with more lobbying-oriented environments like this.

I'm not sure whether the "let's slap some viewpoints on a blog" idea is directly from Mike Powell or whether it originated with a staffer -- I find it exciting, and a good sign when it's coming from the FCC. Thanks again to whoever originated the idea, and to Mike Powell for trying it out.

Monday's Blog Entry...

[frankie]

From the Desktop of Michael Powell:

Ever get the feeling you're running in circles? I do all the time. I opened this week's commission meeting, and once again Pinky had forgotten his notes. As usual, he asked "Hey boss, what are we doing today?" And as usual, I replied "The same thing we do every day, Pinky: try to screw over the consumers."

You did well until "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!"

[swb]

Consumers should have the right to not see Howard Stern or listen to World Harvest radio. They should have the right to not expose their children.

You already have those rights. Turn the fucking TV or radio off, or, change the channel.

Please, don't encourage the government to "protect the children".