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Mob-Sourcing — the Prejudice of Crowds
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet takes a look at how crowd-moderation can capture and reflect the prejudice of individuals. 'As more web content is crowd-sourced and crowd-moderated, are we seeing only the wisdom of crowds? No, we're also seeing their prejudice. The Internet reflects both the good and ugly in human nature. ... Any system relying on people implicitly encodes prejudices as well. In a world where one politician with a call girl is forced to resign and another is handily reelected, there is no hope for moral or intellectual consistency in crowd-sourced or moderated content.'"
Anyone who needed ZDNet to tell them this clearly hasn't been on Slashdot very long.
Yes the system you used to post your comment was created by a singular fisherman, that's why it's called the "net". /sarcasm
I'd hazard a guess that your karma is in the cellar because your Gallileo complex prevents you from fully thinking thru what you are saying.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Wait, so someone actually used crowd sourcing as a way to gather information for a study against the common wisdom of crowd sourcing -- which reveals that crowd sourcing is prejudiced?
They expect us to believe that their "wisdom" gained from "crowd" sourcing shows "'the wisdom of the crowd' is prejudiced", and theirs isn't?
I disagree with the crowd all the time on slashdot, and yet my karma's pretty good. If you can express your point of view intelligently, it doesn't matter so much if you agree or disagree with "the masses". Slashdot's system is far from perfect, but if you compare it to other online forums, it's clear that a well designed karma system can mine the intelligence from crowds. The fact that wikipedia is pretty good, and that it is hard to out-guess prediction markets are other examples.
...not having RTFA, that the article is bogus.
Who's with me?
Having read the article, the author was irritated that some listings on craigslist got deleted, thought that it was unfair, and spun that into speculation about how moderation through the crowd might encode some prejudices in some way that he hasn't really thought through.
So, it's not bogus so much as half-baked.
I disagree with people all the time and am a downright asshole on here quite often. My karma is still high.
Of course, karma is an aggregate measure of reputation in a way. If your karma is low than you're likely a useless asshole to the community who is best gotten rid off. Not always but it's a good rule of thumb I'd say. Disagreeing with people all the time across every topic also likely means you're insane and delusional. Plus not contributing anything worthwhile, trivial to gain karma in various utterly neutral discussions, indicates you're here just as an ego trip and have no desire to help the community.
In general I found slashdot users actually quite good at moderating up intelligent and logical posts.
That is precisely why an my karma is in the cellar. Anyone who disagrees with the crowd anywhere, even on Slashdot, will get moderated into oblivion.
The reason why you have your karma in the cellar on Slashdot is because you're a creationist with a long posting history. The first time someone is seen making posts like that, they usually get a reply explaining why they're wrong. But when they persist in posting exact same arguments, already thoroughly debunked in countless past discussions, again and again - yeah, you'll get a Troll mod or whatever pretty soon.
Not from me, since I haven't seen mod points in years now (I think I post too much). But I'm not exactly surprised.
And, yeah, it's "groupthink" for sure. I don't see a problem with it, though. "Murder is bad" is also groupthink, and I'm certainly fine with that one.
Interesting how you stretch what he said beyond it's meaning in an attempt to support your own point. Good example of how not to post.
OK, I got it - as long as the dissenting opinions are acceptable and not debunked, they are acceptable.
Yes, if it's been debunked then it's wrong and as such of low value. Glad to see we're on the same page.
Of course, if they were acceptable and had been approved by the authorities, they wouldn't be dissenting opinions, would they?
Yes, the mysterious secret alien authorities running slashdot and sucking out our brains wish to keep you in your place. Now shut up and stand still while they insert the straw.