+--- On Wed, 30 Nov 1994, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
| Yet another situation where collaborative filtering can help. If the MPAA
| had an online presence and a public key to have digital signatures
| verified, then they could go around the net attaching their 'G' Seal of
| Approval on the Barney page, their 'PG' SOAP on the Nancy Drew page, their
| 'R' SOAP on the Oliver Stone page, and their 'X' SOAP on www.playboy.com.
+
Seems like these schemes would only be workable if an "unrated" page was
assumed to be unacceptable and was "blocked" (which it sounds like Brian
intended). I wouldn't expect the playboy people, for instance, to
willingly rate their pages unless pressured/forced to do so. (Perhaps
that's a bad example, since a corporation is associated with that site.
I wouldn't expect some individual maintaining a pornographic/erotic web
site to use MPAA ratings, and pressuring an individual to do so would be
much more difficult.)
Another solution might be to have a centralized "rating server" (or
several) which a browser might consult before retrieving any page. In
this model an author would not have to agree to be rated. Such a
browser, however, would require two connections for each retrieval, one
to the rating server and one to the origin server.
+ [more from Brian]
| While I personally abhor the thought of prohibiting the flow of
| information, I am pointing out that it could be technologically
| accomplished rather elegantly.
+---
It's hard to express how abhorrent I find the rating server idea; and I
don't think the other schemes are much better. I agree that it could be
accomplished. However, if a browser either rejected all unrated pages or
consulted some central morals committee before retrieving any page, the
effect on the flow of information would likely be quite drastic. I
don't know that any such solution would be "elegant."
</marc>