Exploratory discussion: content rating

 From a discussion in #microformats trying to brainstorm
around a  
gravatar.com-like system based on distributed hCards, we
stumbled  
across perhaps a simpler problem to solve.

All content published on the web is unrated (in terms of
nudity,  
violence, profanity etc) by default. There is currently no
*simple*  
method for authors to express a rating for their content so
that  
visitors may choose to filter on their level of comfort.

Many attempts have been made to solve this over the years.
An obvious  
example is http://www.icra.org/
It seems they've pretty much all failed, possibly due to
being over- 
complex and hard to implement.

The rough idea being considered is a microformat that:

a) can be applied to any element on a page to express a
rating for  
that element
b) is based on a simple, understood rating system such as
movie ratings
c) by its presence attempts to 'lower' a rating from its
default  
state of unrated.

something like <img src="..."
class="rating-x" />

Based on the examples template, I've created http://microformats.org/

wiki/content-rating-examples, and we're currently looking
at examples  
in the wild.

I think I'm right in saying that none of use involved so
far have any  
experience in this exploratory process, and so welcome all
input  
(even if it's to say we're stupid).

drew.





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On Jul 27, 2006, at 8:23 AM, Drew McLellan wrote:

> All content published on the web is unrated (in terms
of nudity,  
> violence, profanity etc) by default. There is currently
no *simple*  
> method for authors to express a rating for their
content so that  
> visitors may choose to filter on their level of
comfort.

This was discussed at some length last October:

http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats
-discuss/2005- 
October/001684.html

Peace,
Scott

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Scott Reynen wrote:
> This was discussed at some length last October:
> 
> http://microformats.org/discus
s/mail/microformats-discuss/2005-October/001684.html 

Drew specifically wants to add tags to content within the
page, not to 
links to a page.  IE:
<img class="NSFW-nudity" src"..."
/>


Atamido

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On 27 Jul 2006, at 14:46, Scott Reynen wrote:

> On Jul 27, 2006, at 8:23 AM, Drew McLellan wrote:
>
>> All content published on the web is unrated (in
terms of nudity,  
>> violence, profanity etc) by default. There is
currently no  
>> *simple* method for authors to express a rating for
their content  
>> so that visitors may choose to filter on their
level of comfort.
>
> This was discussed at some length last October:
>
> http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats
-discuss/2005- 
> October/001684.html

Unless I've misunderstood, that proposal was different in
that it was  
attempting to apply a 'xxx' rating to a link.
Here we're talking about rating an item of content itself,
like a  
photo, paragraph or perhaps an entire page.

Interesting to see the NSFW model cropping up again.

drew.


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On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:23:05 +0100, Drew McLellan wrote
> From a discussion in #microformats trying to brainstorm
around a  
> gravatar.com-like system based on distributed hCards,
we stumbled  
> across perhaps a simpler problem to solve.
> 
> All content published on the web is unrated (in terms
of nudity,  
> violence, profanity etc) by default. There is currently
no *simple*  
> method for authors to express a rating for their
content so that  
> visitors may choose to filter on their level of
comfort.

The problem with ratings is not that they're hard to write
(or rather, that 
problem is easily solved). The problem is determining what
ratings mean. 
NSFW in one location can be very different than NSFW in the
building next 
door. An R rating may imply that anyone under 17 shouldn't
be watching this 
(according to the MPAA), but it can also mean that anyone
over 13 should be 
fine. And you have variations based on the actual content
matter. MPAA is 
hard on sex, but soft on violence, European rating systems
may be different.

The cultural issues involved in creating a ratings system
that actually 
*work* in practice, across borders is really really hard.
You need to solve 
that problem before a microformat for ratings makes any
sense.

IMO, of course.

--
<http://www.solitude.dk>


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On 27 Jul 2006, at 15:41, Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen wrote:

> The cultural issues involved in creating a ratings
system that  
> actually
> *work* in practice, across borders is really really
hard. You need  
> to solve
> that problem before a microformat for ratings makes any
sense.

I disagree that that problem needs to be solved. I'm not
sure it can be.

By that logic you're saying there's no value in having
some way to  
indicate that content may be offensive to some people, so
best have  
no indication of that at all. Remember that the default
state on the  
web is that everything is potentially off the top of the
scale of any  
individual's idea of acceptability. There's no harm done
by giving  
content a more 'liberal' rating than another person might
than if  
that content was never rated in the first place.

drew.


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Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:23:05 +0100, Drew McLellan wrote
>> From a discussion in #microformats trying to
brainstorm around a  
>> gravatar.com-like system based on distributed
hCards, we stumbled  
>> across perhaps a simpler problem to solve.
>>
>> All content published on the web is unrated (in
terms of nudity,  
>> violence, profanity etc) by default. There is
currently no *simple*  
>> method for authors to express a rating for their
content so that  
>> visitors may choose to filter on their level of
comfort.
> 
> The problem with ratings is not that they're hard to
write (or rather, that 
> problem is easily solved). The problem is determining
what ratings mean. 
> NSFW in one location can be very different than NSFW in
the building next 
> door. An R rating may imply that anyone under 17
shouldn't be watching this 
> (according to the MPAA), but it can also mean that
anyone over 13 should be 
> fine. And you have variations based on the actual
content matter. MPAA is 
> hard on sex, but soft on violence, European rating
systems may be different.
> 
> The cultural issues involved in creating a ratings
system that actually 
> *work* in practice, across borders is really really
hard. You need to solve 
> that problem before a microformat for ratings makes any
sense.
> 
> IMO, of course.
> 
> --
> <http://www.solitude.dk>



The differing personal and cultural views of
"morality" were discussed 
on IRC.  It was suggested that a microformat could instead
indicate what 
sort of content was represented in the element.

For example, class="content-nudity
content-profanity".  I don't think it 
is unreasonable to collect a number of such
"moral" (for want of a 
better word) red flags (eg. violence, sex, and so on) that
are fairly 
universal.  Obviously things like
"content-tiananmen-square" are 
entering the realm of metadata which I believe is outside of
the scope 
of what this microformat should be.

If we look at an existing example of content filtering
implementation 
such as ICRA (http://www.icra.org) this is
obviously something that is 
desirable to content generators (ICRA's corporate members
include AOL, 
Microsoft...), content carries (...T-Online, British
Telecom), and 
every-day content consumers wishing to protect
themselves/their 
children/employees/etc from unsavoury content.  I believe
this is beyond 
the scope of existing microformats like rel-tag and hreview.

Where I believe ICRA falls down is the complexity of its
implementation. 
  If a uF for content "rating" is desirable, and
can designed with 
simplicity in mind, I think it's uses are varied and
extensive.  Of 
course, further exploratory discussion is required before we
can be sure.


Best wishes,
Dave Cardwell ~ http://davecardwell.co.uk/

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In short, this is a solved problem.  "content
ratings" are just tags, and...
* Use xFolk to tag resources (anything with a URL).
* Use rel-tag to tag content (e.g. blog posts).

If you want to specify specific "content rating"
systems, use the rel-tag
tagspace feature to do so. E.g. you can tag something as
"NSFW" by linking
the rel-tag to 

http://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/NSFW



Longer:


On 7/27/06 6:46 AM, "Scott Reynen" <scottrandomchaos.com> wrote:

> This was discussed at some length last October:
> 
> http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats
-discuss/2005-
> October/001684.html

Right, which concluded with:

<http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/
microformats-discuss/2005-October/0017
17.html>

I.e. just use tags.  This is a solved problem.


On 7/27/06 7:41 AM, "Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen"
<solitudesolitude.dk>
wrote:

> The problem with ratings is not that they're hard to
write (or rather, that
> problem is easily solved). The problem is determining
what ratings mean.
> NSFW in one location can be very different than NSFW in
the building next
> door. An R rating may imply that anyone under 17
shouldn't be watching this
> (according to the MPAA), but it can also mean that
anyone over 13 should be
> fine. And you have variations based on the actual
content matter. MPAA is
> hard on sex, but soft on violence, European rating
systems may be different.
> 
> The cultural issues involved in creating a ratings
system that actually
> *work* in practice, across borders is really really
hard. You need to solve
> that problem before a microformat for ratings makes any
sense.
> 
> IMO, of course.

Indeed this is the crux of the problem.  Determining a
taxonomy for content
tagging (which is essentially all this form of
"rating" is) is outside the
scope of microformats.


On 7/27/06 7:52 AM, "Drew McLellan"
<listsallinthehead.com> wrote:

> By that logic you're saying there's no value in
having some way to
> indicate that content may be offensive to some people,
so best have
> no indication of that at all.

Actually yes.

> Remember that the default state on the
> web is that everything is potentially off the top of
the scale of any
> individual's idea of acceptability.

I disagree.  If by default you mean typical, then certainly
not.  I wouldn't
expect the average person to be offended by the average web
page.

> There's no harm done by giving
> content a more 'liberal' rating than another person
might than if
> that content was never rated in the first place.

The problem is that the term "rating" in this
context *presumes* taxonomy.
That's why Andreas is point is crucial.  Since developing
such a taxonomy is
outside the scope of microformats, it doesn't make any
sense to attempt to
solve the problem in this manner.


On 7/27/06 7:12 AM, "Drew McLellan"
<listsallinthehead.com> wrote:

> Unless I've misunderstood, that proposal was different
in that it was
> attempting to apply a 'xxx' rating to a link.
> Here we're talking about rating an item of content
itself, like a
> photo, paragraph or perhaps an entire page.

Whether it is a link to another page, or a link
("src") to an image, it
makes no difference.

In either case, you can just use xFolk to tag the resource
with whatever
tags you want, including tags from a formal "content
rating" taxonomy as
long as that taxonomy has a representation on the Web.

As far as tagging a chunk of text, currently you can only
tag an entire blog
post via rel-tag which so far has been good enough.  There
really hasn't
been demand for paragraph by paragraph tagging and thus I
think that falls
outside the 80% use case (certainly outside the 80% content
publishing case
- have you even ever seen someone tag the content of
individual paragraphs
separately in the wild?).


Thanks,

Tantek

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