I use Gnus to read Usenet because of its extensive scoring options. I'd like to see something similar for the web, with the following capabilities:
Kill: remove a link altogether. I already do this via Proxomitron when I'm running Win98.
Lower: anything coming from GeoCities/Tripod/etc. gets a lower default score.
Raise: sites I like get a higher default score.
Trickle-down scoring: sites that high-scoring sites link to receive higher scores. sites that link to low-scoring sites receive lower scores.
Adaptive scoring: links I select receive higher scores. Links I immediately back out of receive lower scores. Links similar to those with high or low scores receive less high or low scores.
Score decaying: adaptive scoring would wear off over time, so a one-week research project on leeks wouldn't throw off your entire system.
Highlighting: I would highlight links based on score on a green-to-red spectrum (the current visited/unvisited system rarely helps me), but this could be very customizable. You could put a little icon next to the link to denote high/low score, for example, or put the actual score in parentheses.
Selectable filter files: people use the web for different things. I'd have different scorefiles for research and entertainment.
The disadvantage of this right now is the bandwidth; you've got to preload linked pages to score them. Other than that, it could be written as a proxy to work with today's browsers.-- bookworm, May 02 2000 Launch.com http://www.launch.com/music/launchcast/The radio part of Launch.com [dontthink, May 02 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004] WebFree http://www.falken.net/webfree/Same idea as Proxomitron, but for Macintosh. No recent updates for a couple years, but it works perfectly. [land, May 02 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004] Reputation Management http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990905.htmlThe Always Opinionated, Always Right(eous) Jakob Nielsen on the topic of reputation management... [land, May 02 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004] Proxomitron http://www.computerstuff.net/prox/This is the current homepage for Proxomitron. [dgeiser13, May 02 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004] Interesting ideas...loading a page in the background is not too big a deal, I think; some websites do this already, for graphics, and it might be possible to load just the HTML and grade it, rather than all the graphics...or the HTML, THEN the graphics and give part of it's score on how long it takes the entire page to load...-- StarChaser, May 02 2000 Sometimes when online, especially in Microsoft's "Zone," I wish I could just reach out and remove a page or entity from cyberspace altogether.
In any case, some of the features mentioned call to mind the music rating system used at Launch.com. Launch uses your ratings to determine how often songs are played your digital "radio" station. ....and all completely free...-- dontthink, May 02 2000 random, halfbakery