[Sigia-l] metadata redux

[Eric Scheid]

On 22/7/03 12:19 PM, "Listera" <listera at rcn.com> wrote:

> "Eric Scheid" wrote:
> 
>> human imposed meta data can actually be useful, and remain so, so long as
>> it's not a system which is open for exploitative gaming.
>> 
> Yes, as long as you can trust it. But by its own very nature it's open to
> gaming.

My point was that "open to gaming" isn't a binary situation, but instead a
scale. Some metadata frameworks are fatally flawed by the susceptibility
to gaming, others are less open. None, I suspect, are perfectly immune.

Do things like accept only one input for a given domain (to avoid flooding
with cloaked files), or building a web of trust to validate or affirm other
metadata (although that too can be gamed, ref: link farms vs google). It's
well nigh on impossible to outright prevent gaming, but the economic reality
is that you don't have to: make it uneconomical, and few would do it.

It's a matter of balancing competing forces.

There's also some meta data which by it's inherent nature is unlikely to be
gamed. Whilst something like website 'keywords' were massively gamed because
search engines only showed the top few matches (out of thousands,
irrespective of context), metadata like GeoURL are less likely to be gamed,
simply because there is very little benefit in doing so. Of course, some
people will still provide false GeoURL meta data (lookit me, I'm a blogger
in Antarctica!), but there is very little serious gaming going on... yet.

Actually, I just thought of something - say the Corporation of NYC did a big
push to get every Manhattan based website to include GeoURL metadata, and
then provided a search tool using that for use by the millions of consumers
in the region ... *then* it would be attractive to game the GeoURL data,
saying you're based in Manhatten rather than Boise, just to get in front of
those millions of consumers. Of course, this breaks down once Chicago, LA,
SF, London, etc etc get on board and do the same. Unlike 'keywords'
metadata, it scales as adoption grows.

Interesting. 

So, what are some of the underlying principles which might govern the degree
of gaming which is feasible?

e.