Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Re: A Detailed Proposal - Mk I

[Bryce Harrington]

On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, Simon Cross wrote:
> I think adding categories for reviewers would unnecessarily complicated
> matters.

I disagree.  It is neither complicated nor unnecessary.  I think you
are being too dismissive of it.

On the other hand, I feel digital signatures are too complex, as I
pointed out before.  It has the potential for blocking out editors who
might be extremely good in their subject but not know a thumb about
digital signatures.  Do you plan on providing indoctrination, or do you
prefer to just filter out people who can't/won't use them?

> My hope is that reviewers will organise themselves into teams
> for specific subjects.

Hmm.  Surely you are aware of the potential abuses prevalent in such a
loose system...  How would you plan to address them?

 Thus we could have reviewers who are members of
> the GNUPedia-Science review team, and you could choose this review team
> when you searched for science subjects.  If you were doing a search on a
> historical subject subject then you could search articles reviewed by the
> GNUPedia-History team.

> Perhaps a case could be made for review teams to be able to group
> together.  Thus there could be a GNUPedia-All review team, which has as
> sub-teams GNUPedia-Science, GNUPedia-History, and so on.

How does this differ from the Nupedia model?  It seems to be the same,
except giving up control over factionalizing.  If you wish to go this
route, then it would make sense to simply adopt Nupedia as (essentially)
the GNUPedia-All.  I think it would be highly ironic if the GNUPedia
team refused merging with Nupedia on principles, and then went ahead and
adopted those same approaches, themselves.  ;-)
 
> Bryce also mentioned a few other issues:
> 
> - Submission of article packages (tar balls):  The problem with submitting
> tar balls is checking the digital signatures.  If too much manipulation of
> the original submission has to be done, then clients will not be able to
> check the digital signatures on the articles they read.  I do think the
> ability to package a bundle of different media into unified article would
> be very useful though.  Maybe we can find away to make this work.

I think you're obsessive about digital signatures.  ;-)
 
> - Getting reviewers:  My proposal has a kind of "Catch 22" problem
> inherent in it.  How do we get reviewers when we have no articles, and how
> do we get articles when we have no reviewers?  The solution to the
> conundrum is that articles do not need any reviewers to be submitted.  I
> stated in my proposal that authors would be responsible for the review of
> their own articles.  It is, however, possible for reviews to be added
> without the author.

I'm dubious of this solution...  How would the authors not be biased in
favor of their own articles?  Or if they have their friends review them
(and pick the "most appropriate" ones), the reviews are going to be one
sided.  Might as well simply allow for un-reviewed articles to be used
initially.  It is certain that at some point someone will say, "This
article sucks!!!" and then you recruit him as your first reviewer.  ;-)

Thanks for critiquing my critique.  I think you should reconsider the
points I made, though.

Bryce