Hi all,
This evening I ran across (with disgust and annoyance) a great example
of why it can be foolish to trust automated processes to determine
whether online content is "good" or "bad." This sort of topic has
come up in the past when discussing the very large queue of feeds in
the Syndic8 database that are awaiting approval, i.e., regarding
automating some or all of the process of approval.
The example I mean is SplogSpot.com -- this is a site that ostensibly
helps distinguish legit blogs from spam blogs ("splogs"). There is
such a great trust in this apparently-automated analysis that the site
even offers an API to extend it's "wisdom" to other services.
Unfortunately for legit bloggers, their analysis is severely flawed --
there are apparently many regular, legit blogs listed in the site's
"splog" database. These are blogs that don't look anything like a
spam blog -- with one (human) glance it is obvious they are legit,
they're not even "borderline." Yet thanks to SplogSpot.com, those
perfectly-legit, regular blogs are subject to "second class treatment"
(or worse) because they are mis-identified as spam blogs.
In my small, pseudo-random sample of blogs listed there as "splogs,"
around half were very clearly not spam. If you have a blog --
especially one hosted on Blogspot -- I recommend checking their
database to see if yours is listed as spam. (Needless to say, I also
recommend that anybody using their API cease doing so until the
unlikely event that it actually becomes worth using.)
As for the Syndic8 approval queue, some things could be tested
automatically -- for example, a solid history of 404 errors or the
server name not resolving for (n) days or weeks. But beyond the basic
technical disqualifiers, the utter failure of SplogSpot.com to do what
it claims (and the grief potentially caused to innocent parties) is a
strong argument for the manual review process for feeds in the Syndic8
database.
</soapbox>
--
Stuart Whitmore
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.just-stuart.com/
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