The Social Network too.

I've received a great deal of commentary regarding this expansive idea which I'm posing and much of it was precisely the type of critique I was hoping for. The main problem with any social network is how do we weed out the noise, the spam, the phishing and problematic members of the community. Well upon the creation of this website I believe it should be invite only (also, as posed by an anonymous commentator: there could be the option to e-mail one of the higher ranked members for an invite). But we want this to be expansive and very open to the public, so whatever limiting invite-only type of methodology we use, it will eventually be dismissed and the floodgate let open for the masses to join in.  So that brings up many issues, the first of which is how do you stop people from spamming and attacking the site. Well that is where the highly developed rating system comes in:

The Rating System is common throughout social networks and forums all across the internet, a reward of votes places you in higher standing amongst whatever community you are posting within, what I'm proposing is an even more interactive and integral version of this. Each new member is only allowed a certain number of posts a day, maybe only one or two on the first day until they receive a rating from other members who have already established themselves. Each person is also given an allotment of ratings which they may dole out per day, the higher ranked you are the more ratings you can give out, an unrated person would not be allowed to rate anyone at all. Also the higher your rating goes the more privileges you're granted. For instance programming changes and changing content of certain pages may be granted to people with the highest ratings. All major changes, before being made, will require a vote by other members (voting of course would come after hitting a certain level).  This allows the more trusted members of the community to have more access to changing the shape and the feel of the website. The users will thus be able to decide which users are the most suited to be moderating and running a website of this magnitude.

Of course this has it's flaws, but the idea of this site is that every system and network that is created should be critiqued and amended until it's as well honed as we can get it.

Another commenter asked about specialized users who maybe represent a magazine or a group. I think this is a perfect example of where this website can go. Every field could have it's own specialized area and the rating system could factor that in, allowing people to be rated and ranked by their specific contributions and talents.  Once the ball gets rolling on the website the potential is limitless.

(also I'm dropping the whole STEVE thing, that was too silly).

-Mr. Internet

Reconceived Notions

History repeats itself is my least favorite adage of all time. Evolution and the technological progress of man is enough to refute that point immediately. The problem with this adage is that it has become ingrained in our minds, it's a sort of constant. We see the terrible things that have happened, and they weren't even too long ago, and the idea to try and progress past them seems futile when we come back to the old cliche of "history repeats itself". But I'd like people to start laughing in the face of this mock catch-phrase. I think the strongest argument against that notion is the creation of the internet. Now the internet is still just an infant, and it's currently in a highly developmental stage. Once the internet comes into it's own, blossoms into it's full potential and becomes even more accessible to the great masses, well than it will have the power to change the world in ways we've ever known. And it's not going to be the product of some blogger saying "peace on earth" or preaching utopia, it's merely part of the internets evolutionary trajectory. It has already proven to unite people in ways we never knew we were capable of, and it's only going to grow in that realm.

Now the benefit of this interconnectivity will be a sort of global reason which will be possible to achieve amongst the human populace. Now I don't say that we will come across this "global reason" lightly, I think it will take much progress and a great deal of fine tuning to our ever changing internet, to get us to that point. But the fact is that it is a point which can theoretically exist. If we as a species were to reach it, we could easily rally against an injustice anywhere in the world, simply by collective reasoning. Okay, sounds like socialism, sounds like sugar coated utopian ideals with limitless pitfalls on the way. And of course the barriers are indeed many, and the idea is indeed abstract and somewhat sugar coated. But there exists now, via the internet an ability to connect with an inconceivable number of people. This has never existed before. There was never a way for the everyman to dialogue back with the masses, mass media was always one directional, a single source being purveyed to the masses (one to many): newspaper, radio, television. Now we are in the realm of many to many, we just need to figure out how to use it.

So when the phrase history repeats itself comes to mind, what do we think of? We think of the terrible dictators who have massacred millions and committed atrocities that are nearly inconceivable. But say we start to see the seeds of a figure rising up, say something obviously wrong is brewing in a far away land. We can now say "Hey! That just isn't right!". Okay so again I'm oversimplifying. But we are little by little developing a global conscience, a sense of moral values that transcends a single group of people and embraces people as a whole.

The saying "History repeats itself" can go fuck itself.