Allow users to be able to say, "I don't ever want to see this idea again."
The idea would be added to an ignore list. There should also be an "ignore list" link, so users can review what they wanted to not be bothered with.
This can be for both good and bad; an annoying, abusive, or not very intelligent user could be marked to be ignored. There could be multiple levels of ignorance --
1. Don't want to see anything ever again. 2. Only want to see user's name when they annotate -- don't want to see the text of the annotation. 3. Have a timeout on the above (specified by the user -- granular to the second. Not that it'll be needed, but in the future who knows how fast our communication with our machines will be?).
Users should be able to create multiple ignore lists, so that they can organize the ideas they don't want to see any more into "good", "bad", "troll", "cars", "computers", etc.
The point is to allow people to self-moderate what they see, in addition to having public moderation (voting).
This will expose more of the database to them -- for instance, the Top Ten list has pretty much the same items because they are great ideas. As someone else said, in order to have new ideas in the Top Ten, people have to vote *against* the ideas in the Top Ten. That's destructive.
Instead, increase the number of ways someone can see the data. The greater the perspectives, the more ways of looking at problems. And the faster the database becomes self-aware.
Thing 1-- Thing 1, Aug 13 2000 (??) Human Interaction http://www.theonion...01/cybercorner.htmlAnother great idea. [Scott_D, Aug 13 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004] Hmmm... guess I shouldn't have deleted the "Halfbakery killfiles" idea after all.
(To clarify: I shouldn't have deleted it because the idea seems to have resurfaced here. I wasn't suggesting that the author was deserving of placement in such a killfile.)-- bookworm, Aug 14 2000, last modified Aug 15 2000 Thing 1: I think you're harping too much on the self-awareness idea. There are other networks, like Everything, that are more interested in such things. The beauty of halfbakery (if that's the right way of saying it) is the quality of the posts and the manageable, human scope of the entire enterprise. Here we are talking to jutta who put the whole thing together. We have no need to interconnect to an impossible degree, because we *can* get our mind around the entire site. The function that halfbakery serves (that's "new") is that of a big community whiteboard, not of a search for artificial intelligence.-- mcfrank, Aug 14 2000 I'm going to ignore this one.-- Scott_D, Aug 15 2000 OK, [mcfrank], you're right, I tend to go off the deep end a little with the whole self-awareness thing. I'm programming Perl, and I'm teaching the computer to do something that used to have to be done by a human. I didn't think about solving this problem that way until I learned Perl; kudos Larry Wall.
But listen -- I am teaching the computer to perform a "lower function." Just like our brain cells taught our liver cells that they'd be happier serving us by removing toxins. (I want to be a brain cell. ;-)
So let me argue the benefits, rather than the features (self-awareness).
1. It would allow you to make friendships with like-minded people more easily.
2. This and my other idea about [] creating a link to the person referenced's homepage. I.e. [jutta] would have a link to this comment when she "logged in" to HalfBakery. You'd be able to continue your conversation more easily.
3. It would be much better not to *delete* things. Marking them as "baked" or "ignore this now" is much better, because somebody may later enter the same idea or comment when they could have been saved the energy by viewing what was already said about it.
4. I'm still open to donating to this cause. I like it that much, and want to see it improve.
5. http://www.mindpixel.com and http://www.openmind.com/commonsense already have an agreement to share their data. Halfbakery should join in!
Thanks for listening,-- Thing 1, Sep 11 2000 Looking through recent entries, I've changed my mind once again. Since there doesn't seem to be any better way to excise the lame puns and fart jokes, let me ignore the people who post nothing else.-- bookworm, Sep 17 2000 If this "ignore" thing ever happens, I think I'm screwed.-- AfroAssault, Nov 01 2000 We're all somewhere in a continuum of noise tolerance. Some overlap. Some are outliers. I'm trying to moderate things such that I still like the results, without sending everybody into a tail-spin of paranoia.
I would like to make do without an ignore list. Given my own conservative values, ignore lists are just a symptom of under-moderation. Nobody should host text they don't even want to read. Calls for ignore lists tell me that I'm hosting text I don't want to read and need to work up the nerve to remove it.-- jutta, Nov 01 2000 Is it time to bring this idea back up?-- bookworm, May 24 2001 Then find showing me where the good ideas are? All I can find are variations on "Exploding Custard Man as renewable energy source."-- bookworm, May 25 2001 I throw myself upon the mercy of the court!-- zaphod12, Nov 30 2001 I thought that you had kissed us goodbye?-- po, Nov 30 2001 random, halfbakery