Separation of Church and Microsoft
theodp writes "Last week, the USPTO published a rather odd Microsoft patent application for Content Ratings and Recommendations, which describes how religious-based communities and other 'subcultures' can use the patent-pending process to prevent their members from viewing undesirable television programs and movies."
...it will be used against (intentional word choice) children/teenagers to enforce a parent/group's own set of values upon the youngster who might not even share them? That's called "raising" a child, and it's generally accepted in most places that parents have that right.Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Content ratings and recommendations is described in which embodiments provide that a viewer can create a rating system that other viewers can then subscribe to which forms a group, or subculture, that collaborates to identify and rate television programs, movies, and other programming choices for the viewers of the group. This adaptive and flexible approach enables individual viewers to discover like-minded subcultures, benefit from a rating system that represents similar viewing choices, and optionally, participate in identifying media content and rating the viewing choices.
A group of people willingly subscribe to a group that recommends TV shows they would be interested in and blocks those deemed inappropriate/off-topic/irrelevant. It's like Slashdot for TV.
Is there any chance that Slashdot moderators can apply 'Troll' and 'Deliberately Misleading Flamebait' to article titles and summaries?