5 ms·

Isn't the author looking at the data to find patterns to then measure it by. I'm no expert, but it seems like he is trying to find patterns to support a preconc

by 8ig8 13y ago

Isn't the author looking at the data to find patterns to then measure it by. I'm no expert, but it seems like he is trying to find patterns to support a preconceived opinion (which I don't necessarily disagree with).

cameron913 13y ago
It certainly isn't a scientific study but it does bring attention to the expanding breadth of the platforms involved in public discourse. How do you solve the problem of a fabricated public? That aside from the business and technical problems faced by the likes of amazon, facebook, twitter etc. regarding faked personas. I personally find it troubling because it is just these kinds of issues which provide the best fodder for those who view anonymity as a liability.
- gz5 13y ago
  agree w/ the theme but anonymous != fake. we can be anonymous and very "real", e.g. a verified reviewer, w/ a public review history etc, but whatever identity he chooses to display to the group.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    I personally prefer to call those "pseudonymous" rather than "anonymous". A track record is effectively an uncompressed name: the salient part of anonymity is precisely that it has no useful metadata for the expected audience. That gets highly academic about what we really mean by anonymity and what purposes we want it to serve, though, which we can get into if you want.
    - yuhong 13y ago
      Of course, I prefer to use my real name and for others to do so if possible. I want to push for authenticity and get the problems fixed if possible, but that is another mess.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        One of the issues is that there is no such thing as a real name. There's the obvious difficulty: the "real" part, which can be defined any which way and by picking one reality can exclude other valid realities. But there's also the fact that not everyone has a name. See the third comment on http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b... One of those possible realities is that "real name" is defined as "legal name" and you'll find a long history of people rejecting that: hacker nicknames, author pen names, rebels' noms de guerre. (A survey in film: The Matrix, "Goodbye, Mr. Anderson" "My name is Neo."; X-Men, "What's your name?" "John." "What's your real name, John?" "Pyro."; Pirates of the Carribean, "Captain. Captain Jack Sparrow.") Authenticity is a wonderful sounding goal, but it still doesn't provide a very strong comprehension of your goals. So if you get past the problematic concept of a "real name", you still don't have enough to really design for it. For instance, it's arguable that "Yuhong Bao" is less authentic than writing it in Chinese. It's also arguable that it's more authentic. What's in a name? A name is just a pointer. The functional difference between a real name and a fake name is, in the end, just taste.
        yuhong 13y ago
        This is not the point though. I am talking about how people often can't use their real name all the time because of problems and how I'd like the problems to be fixed if possible.
        saraid216 13y ago
        Since the problems are those of trust, you're really aiming for a perfect trust society. That's sort of hard. I'm working towards that myself.
        yuhong 13y ago
        Yea, I know that some problems can be difficult to solve.
cscheid 13y ago
A simple sanity check would be to run the exact same analysis on different books, and compare the book to the population. It would of course not be definitive, but, for example, if I had seen that only 1% of the books on amazon have this many people mentioning professions on reviews, I'd get suspicious.
zecho 13y ago
I agree, but a very damning statistic is buried at the end of the article. The vast majority of these 1-star reviewers don't have other reviews on Amazon, which seems very odd, considering the book's subject matter is wonkish.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  "The vast majority" is putting it lightly. All but one 1-star reviewer have zero other reviews. And the one 1-star reviewer with multiple reviews is Richard Bennett of ITIF, someone who is verifiably real and biased against the book.

by 8ig8 13y ago

cameron913 13y ago

It certainly isn't a scientific study but it does bring attention to the expanding breadth of the platforms involved in public discourse. How do you solve the problem of a fabricated public? That aside from the business and technical problems faced by the likes of amazon, facebook, twitter etc. regarding faked personas. I personally find it troubling because it is just these kinds of issues which provide the best fodder for those who view anonymity as a liability.

gz5 13y ago
agree w/ the theme but anonymous != fake. we can be anonymous and very "real", e.g. a verified reviewer, w/ a public review history etc, but whatever identity he chooses to display to the group.
- saraid216 13y ago
  I personally prefer to call those "pseudonymous" rather than "anonymous". A track record is effectively an uncompressed name: the salient part of anonymity is precisely that it has no useful metadata for the expected audience. That gets highly academic about what we really mean by anonymity and what purposes we want it to serve, though, which we can get into if you want.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    Of course, I prefer to use my real name and for others to do so if possible. I want to push for authenticity and get the problems fixed if possible, but that is another mess.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      One of the issues is that there is no such thing as a real name. There's the obvious difficulty: the "real" part, which can be defined any which way and by picking one reality can exclude other valid realities. But there's also the fact that not everyone has a name. See the third comment on http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b... One of those possible realities is that "real name" is defined as "legal name" and you'll find a long history of people rejecting that: hacker nicknames, author pen names, rebels' noms de guerre. (A survey in film: The Matrix, "Goodbye, Mr. Anderson" "My name is Neo."; X-Men, "What's your name?" "John." "What's your real name, John?" "Pyro."; Pirates of the Carribean, "Captain. Captain Jack Sparrow.") Authenticity is a wonderful sounding goal, but it still doesn't provide a very strong comprehension of your goals. So if you get past the problematic concept of a "real name", you still don't have enough to really design for it. For instance, it's arguable that "Yuhong Bao" is less authentic than writing it in Chinese. It's also arguable that it's more authentic. What's in a name? A name is just a pointer. The functional difference between a real name and a fake name is, in the end, just taste.
      - yuhong 13y ago
        This is not the point though. I am talking about how people often can't use their real name all the time because of problems and how I'd like the problems to be fixed if possible.
        saraid216 13y ago
        Since the problems are those of trust, you're really aiming for a perfect trust society. That's sort of hard. I'm working towards that myself.
        yuhong 13y ago
        Yea, I know that some problems can be difficult to solve.

cscheid 13y ago

A simple sanity check would be to run the exact same analysis on different books, and compare the book to the population. It would of course not be definitive, but, for example, if I had seen that only 1% of the books on amazon have this many people mentioning professions on reviews, I'd get suspicious.

zecho 13y ago

I agree, but a very damning statistic is buried at the end of the article. The vast majority of these 1-star reviewers don't have other reviews on Amazon, which seems very odd, considering the book's subject matter is wonkish.

interpol_p 13y ago
"The vast majority" is putting it lightly. All but one 1-star reviewer have zero other reviews. And the one 1-star reviewer with multiple reviews is Richard Bennett of ITIF, someone who is verifiably real and biased against the book.