Unfortunately, as soon as you start picking your own critics, the service is going to be accused of being biased. I think the only way to handle it is to let the user pick their own reviewers.. it's like building a list of nodes to trust not to collude.
Conversation
Absolutely right which is why the follower/following feature will come in handy. And our idea of who can be in the critics category- Only the top 200 authors rated on the platform get to review under the Critics Category. So their ratings decide, not us. Can change constantly.
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I am not a fan of this approach because I think most people are wrong about most things. You might end up with the most extremist views in the top 200. Would be even better if nobody could see who I'm following so they can't try to target me.
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Hmm interesting. What do you mean by target you? The follower/following feature is an area that our mutual friend (Dave Stann) has been helping with. It'd be great if the 3 of us dove deeper on how these 2 features should work- Critics Category & Followers.
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I mean, it's a risk revealing what my sources of truth are. Those sources could collude against me, become compromised, and then my perception of reality could be distorted.
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True, but do you really think an outlet or group of authors would sacrifice their credibility to gang up and disinform one particular person? I’m having trouble imagining how that would actually go down.
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Yes, I do. Depends on what the stakes are and who has a gun to their head. But, it's not just me -- if they can see a list of who they can influence, they can spread the cost across everyone.
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How is it any different than a news outlet having a list of their users/readers?
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That is also not ideal. Readers should be anonymous. The outlet (presumably) would not know which other sources of information the reader has, and therefore would not know how much influence they have, who else to collude with.
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Woahhh that’s a really interesting thought. I can honestly say I’ve never considered that aspect in regards to readers’ safety.
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Ok I see what you’re saying now. I’ll be thinking on this....
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This wins. Despite the social/viral value to platform network effects via publicly visible followers, it creates a ton of digital breadcrumbs to be scraped by god knows who for god knows what.
Like leaving a snarky Twitter comment for Trump or the NSA - no good can come of it.
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