(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick




Microsoft Tools Separate Friends And Flamers

from the yeah,-but-does-it-work? dept

Microsoft says they've created some technology that will be useful for sorting out the "friends from the flamers" on Usenet. Isn't this product about a decade too late? It basically looks at what people say in a newsgroup, how they say it, how long the thread is (longer threads indicate flames, apparently) and determines if they're "friendly" or not. These days, I imagine such a product (with some tweaks) would be more useful in analyzing the blog world. Either way, though, it would likely get tricked pretty quickly. The biggest problem I see is one of identity. How do they identify who a particular person is - and guarantee that the same person posting under multiple names/email addresses are connected?

1 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Jul 30th, 2003 @ 10:02am
  • like I'd trust Microsoft to tell me what a flame i

    by thecaptain

    Great, first Microsoft wants to tell me where I want to go today (or how I should use my own hardware) but now they'll determine what's a flame and what's not?

    I can only see the flood of clueless users coming onto usenet with this. If it works on the level of other Microsoft offerings, we'll see annoyances the likes of the great "me too" floods of AOL fame.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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