New Project To End Stupidity Online 336
mrneutron2003 writes to tell us that StupidFilter, a new Open Source project started by Gabriel Ortiz and Paul Starr, plans to provide an intellectual prophylactic for memetically transmitted diseases. "Too long have we suffered in silence under the tyranny of idiocy. In the beginning, the internet was a place where one could communicate intelligently with similarly erudite people. Then, Eternal September hit and we were lost in the noise. The advent of user-driven web content has compounded the matter yet further, straining our tolerance to the breaking point. It's time to fight back."
oh shit ... (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm. (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps slashdot should implement a requirement for writing a cogent, unique paragraph before it allows a user to have mod points. Then, if they also change the moderation to be accountable (no longer anonymous, and no longer scarce -- see Kuro5in.org for moderation technology that actually works), it might have a chance at being useful in the sense that one could actually use it to filter messages, instead of being relegated to endlessly observe people use mod points in place of actually expressing a counter opinion.
Then again, slashdot could continue on with completely broken moderation. I could see that as a possibility, given the existing sample set.
Re:Hmmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anonymous moderation is subject to its own sets of abuses, but "accountable" moderation is no panacea.
kuro5hin.org is no solution (Score:5, Informative)
As much as some of the editors here are idiots. As much as they fail to edit. As much as they abuse their editorship (quips in the article, changing article text), they are also answerable to someone. And I think that's probably a good and important thing.
And as much as the mod system here at
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this is a db level of only 20 db. I think it would be interesting if they pushed it up to 65534 mod levels (96 db), (then give out more mod points) so that the distance between really dumbass comments and brilliant ones would be quite high..
Also, they could track individual categories separately, so you could decide to read the funniest of the flamebait responses (f
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"I totally agree with you. Your points are both intelligent and compelling, and I think everyone ought to look at things the way you do. Anyone who disagrees is an idiot, and it's not even worth the time to expose yourself to anything they say."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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So far, that post has an interesting, a flamebait, and an offtopic.
Pretty funny, really. We really do need an intelligence test for moderators. :-)
Re mod points, no, none for me either, not for many months now. Disagree with a slashdot luminary (or even policy) and you're toast for quite a while. Unfortunately, no one has applied an intelligence test to the process of becoming a slashdot luminary.
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Perhaps there is no way to talk about stupidity without causing stupidity to be created anew?
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"intellectual prophylactic for memetically transmitted diseases"
Does anybody else feel dumber just reading that?
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Re: Diction (Score:2)
I rather tend to be accused of creating similar sentences that make Rudolf Flesch spin in his grave.
A recursion problem? (Score:4, Funny)
'We have met the enemy...'
Re:oh shit ... (Score:5, Insightful)
S'il fallait excepter les imbéciles, à la fin du compte, on se retrouverait tout seul, comme un imbécile !
-- Raymond Devos
No, all you need is statistical grouping (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_filtering [wikipedia.org]
A simple thumbs up or thumbs down for any particular link would be all that's needed to move the user further away from one statistical grouping and closer to another. Then everyone will be in a group of similarly intelligent people. Each page and each link on a page could be given and display for example, a likely percentage match [wikipedia.org] (12%) with your preferences [goatse.cz] (89%).
It would require a shit load of servers to run the backend and a preference bar which can integrate with the browser. However, with billions of people in the world it's highly unlikely that any individual would end up in a grouping of 1.
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Recursive stupidity (Score:4, Funny)
2. It's aim is to end stupidity online
3. But ending stupidity online would require the removal of this project.
4. Repeat, Recurse And Profit!!!
My brain hurts.
Re:You misunderstand. (Score:4, Funny)
And it didn't even make the top 10 list [slashdot.org]!
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My favorite bit (Score:4, Funny)
From the project FAQ:
It brings up an interesting question, though. On my blog, I have two layers of filtering against spam, and I'll delete any spam that gets through. I'll also delete the insults and obvious trolls. But sometimes I'll leave the dumb comments intact. I don't know if it's pity, or the kind of amusement one gets out of, say, lolcats, or what.
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It brings up an interesting question, though. On my blog, I have two layers of filtering against spam, and I'll delete any spam that gets through. I'll also delete the insults and obvious trolls. But sometimes I'll leave the dumb comments intact. I don't know if it's pity, or the kind of amusement one gets out of, say, lolcats, or what.
Excellent point. I believe that stupidity is protected under the first amendment. I should also note that stupidity is fought in the fifth.
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And when stupid people exercise the Second Amendment... well, that problem tends to take care of itself.
Re:My favorite bit (Score:5, Insightful)
All too often on Slashdot people actually believe that "Smart==Thinks like me" and "Stupid==Doesn't think like me"
What is stupid? (Score:4, Informative)
In the case of this particular project, it's more about the manner of expression rather than the ideas expressed. A short comment consisting of OMGs, LOL's and emoticions, with "ur k3wl i lik ur site" would trip the filter, but (to quote the page again) it "will cheerfully approve an eloquent, properly-capitalized defense of mandatory, state-subsidized rocket-launcher ownership for all schoolchildren."
In theory, if the filter is trained properly, it should also be able to distinguish between non-native speakers who have only a smattering of English (or another target language) and those who write in 1337-5p3@k and SMS-style abbreviations. But that requires the people training it to make that distinction.
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The people with the ability to do so.
If there is a contest between various people trying to silence those that they deem 'stupid', the stupid people will be the ones who get silenced. If they were not actually stupid, they'd be smart enough to be silencing the people silencing them instead of the other way around.
Slashdot editors are the exception that proves the rule.
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That's definitely not confined to /. Consider the number of Republicans who continue to call Bill Clinton "stupid" when he's demonstrably not, having been awarded the Rhodes Scholarship. (And before you mod me "flamebait", yes, there are examples going the other way too.) It's simply the tendency of the human brain to think all our beliefs are obvious so anyone disagreeing with us is missi
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Re:My favorite bit - Bush is definitely not stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
To verify this:
First, the rumours passed around from urban legends [about.com].
Now his SAT scores from CNN [cnn.com] were 566 verbal and 640 math.
And from here we have a setup of pre-1974 SAT scores against IQ [members.shaw.ca].
His score of 1206 combined sets him up with an IQ of about 130.
Now, from the IQ we can look at a distrubution of IQ versus percentage of people with such an IQ [members.shaw.ca] to see where a 130 IQ puts you, a
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One of the reasons people call Bush stupid is his complete and total lack of eloquence. Like it or not, people often associate intelligence with ability to form coherent sentences most of the time. I'm not sure how intelligent Bush really is, partially because he never proves his intelligence with decent argument or debate. Others do.
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But isn't that true of pretty much everybody? I mean, are there people out there who believe that "Smart==Doesn't think like me" and "Stupid==Thinks like me"? And if so, wouldn't they be so stupid that they wouldn't realise their own stupidity, and so think they're smart after all, and so... [out of stack space]
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Actually, if this was on digg it would be 'your thinking of digg'
Only on YRO (Score:2)
That only happens in YRO. The rest of Slashdot is surprisingly sane by comparison with practically anywhere, and I have pretty much default filter settings. Anonymous moderation works, in its own subtle way.
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Nonononono. You got it totally wrong! I'll explain: Smart==Thinks like *me*; Stupid==doesn't think like *me*
Got it?
Now... who's on first?
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Q: Do you really expect to be able to detect and filter anything that's conceivably stupid?
A: No, of course not. You'd need real AI for that, and beyond a certain point it's simply subjective; after all, a sufficiently advanced AI would probably filter out the whole of human discourse, which isn't the idea.
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Oblig ISR... (Score:5, Funny)
Evil Dr. Noone (Score:5, Funny)
What I want to know is who this evil Dr. Noone is and why she is allowed to deny things we mere mortals cannot.
For the uninitiated.. (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm pretty sure this project already exists, and is called just fucking google it. [justfuckinggoogleit.com]
Poof (Score:3, Funny)
And with that mistake, I'm now filtering out FastSilicon.
Re: Awesome thread to ask a (stupid?) question! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is there a big rectangle around parent's post? I don't recall that feature more than a month ago and I can't begin to figure out what FAQ it is under.
Never as now... (Score:5, Funny)
Ryan Fenton
Awesome!! (Score:2, Funny)
This was funny (Score:5, Informative)
First, BWAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Second, it's not 1978 anymore.
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Familiar dept. (Score:2, Funny)
-Rich Cook
From Portman et al (Score:5, Funny)
how it works (Score:5, Funny)
Great idea.
tits or GTFO.
I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
ITS OBVIOUS ..... (Score:5, Funny)
It should involve gradiated access (Score:5, Funny)
If you can't solve a grammar problem that requires you to know the difference between "their", "there", and "they're" you don't get to use email.
If you can't choose the correct definitions from multiple choices for "intellectual property", "piracy", "flame", and "rtfm" you don't get to use the web.
If you can't solve a quadratic equation, your computer is set to inbound traffic only.
Problem solved.
I forgot the most important bit. (Score:3, Funny)
We'll be nice and give them the benefit of the doubt -- they have to click on both that *and* the subsequent screen, that says, "install natalie.exe? Y/N" and only then does the shaped charge in the keyboard go off and blow off both their hands.
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Would now be a good time to point out that 'gradiated' isn't a word? (Perhaps you meant 'graduated'....)
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Graduated would work, but would imply that once passed, the test would not have to be taken again, which would allow for cheaters and nogoodniks. I think they -- well, we -- should have to take the test every time.
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"Oh MAN, I can't get online anymore. I need to get some roots. Anyone got some roots for me? Please? OMG, PLEASE someone give me some roots for this thing. I need my fix!"
We'll start seeing 1-900 numbers advertising "Quadratic Equations Solved: Only $4.99/min!"
Taste the irony (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently not as fast as someone thought it was
Ok who is the wiseguy that is actually reading the article.
Nice, but... (Score:4, Informative)
OMG U CN'T BLOCK M3!!!!!!!1111 I R SMARTER THAN U GHEYFAGS
first godwin (Score:5, Funny)
I hope they can apply it to cable TV (Score:2)
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Good luck to them (Score:3, Funny)
Fixed (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdotted (Score:4, Insightful)
In other news . . . (Score:5, Funny)
It's a great deal, too! (Score:4, Informative)
A War on Idiocy? (Score:2)
The ONLY solution, I could think of, is a "WhiteList" lookup. It would work with a "sand box" a "baby pool", the "shallow end" and "we are so hip deep we R Ultra Kewl Geeks" -- of course, that is the "Deep End" of the Gene pool. You just create a slashdot/wikipedia training wheels program (OK, I do marketing on the side -- sue me for to
Green Day (Score:2)
"Wake Me up...When september ends!"
and laugh uncontrollably? Maybe think that Green Day is a bunch of usenet users.
yeah, me neither
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But it's already well established that there's something wrong with me.
Flashback to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Score:5, Funny)
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Q.E.D."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
If there were such a thing as an Online Stupid Filter, it would have filtered itself out of existence.
Due to many/most of its pages being references to suchlike aforementioned stupidity. A blue-light filter works by absorbing blue-light, a coffee-filter works by absorbing coffee (well, the grounds, at least) - any guess what a Stupid Filter absorbs?
Due to the vast majority of The Internet being not much more than stupidity, and in much the same way as a Black Hole will absorb all light and therefore be essentially invisible (we have never *found* a black hole, just a whole bunch of conditions which theory predicts would be "caused by black holes").
Seriously folks, The Stupidity Filter obviously doesn't work - the proof is in most comments on this page (present company excepted, naturally).
This post needs no comments (Score:2)
Hey, that's my project. (Score:5, Informative)
Go ahead, slashdot me. I dare ya.
Re:Hey, that's my project. (Score:4, Funny)
Now, for the Irony filter...
Soko
Obligatory Hitchhiker's Guide Quote (Score:2, Funny)
Facepunch did it (Score:2)
It will never work (Score:3, Funny)
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This is a really stupid idea (Score:2)
Too long have we suffered in silence under the tyranny of idiocy.
Including from people who incorrectly, implicitly, claim to be non-idiotic.
In the beginning, the internet was a place where one could communicate intelligently with similarly erudite people.
I don't usually do language trolls, but that's really rich coming from someone who can't spell "Internet" properly, and who directly implies the clearly false notion that today online, one cannot "communicate intelligently with similarly erudite people."
FWIW.
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Meet Mssers. Ortiz and Starr, self-proclaimed protectors of members of society from their own stupidity. If they aren't careful, they may find that the only way to escape the negative characteristics to be found in all men is a trip to
In other news... (Score:2)
Skipping the blogodreck, here's the real info (Score:5, Informative)
Skip the ad-laden overloaded blogodreck site and go directly to StupidFilter. [stupidfilter.org] The concept is straightforward - they're training a naive Bayesian classifier, like a spam filter, on a set of text excerpts rated by humans. You can look at random samples from the training set [stupidfilter.org] for amusement.
Wikipedia already has some 'bots that do somewhat similar things, looking for totally bogus edits and reverting them. Yahoo's "commercial intent" filter also does something like that, to separate commercial and non-commercial sites. We considered something like that for SiteTruth [sitetruth.com], where we need to distinguish non-commercial sites so we don't rate them by business criteria.
This approach to filtering will probably need domain-dependent filters. A political site, a social site, a sports site, and a game site all need different training sets. I'd go for a two-stage classifier, one that divided sites into about ten to twenty major categories, and then a stupidity filter trained for each of those categories.
Applying such a filter at blog posting time should be interesting.
And the characters in these books, and plays, and so on, and in real life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate the very least he can do is to shut up. - Tom Lehrer.
this project is stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
A different approach (Score:2)
Right (Score:2)
I, for one, (Score:2)
Re:How can they claim to fight stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nooo (Score:5, Funny)
[This post censored by StupidFilter v0.1 - Topic: Slashdot Memes.]
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Yup:
Firewall = if scr_addr != 127.0.0.1 deny
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I don't know... Stupidity seems to be perpetual and ubiquitous. We just need to find a way to combust it, and voila.