Everyone Has An Opinion On The Web, Even the Experts

Abstract of presentation to be given at International Ratings Conference, 2007

Self labelling is predicated on the idea that the best person to describe content is the person who created it. The tagging of photos and blogs is now the norm but the translation of these tags into useful advice across national, cultural and linguistic boundaries requires the use of controlled vocabularies. Several already exist, among them WCAG for accessibility, Quatro for trust and integrity, HON for health information and ICRA for child protection. All of these attempt to inform a particular audience that "this is (not) for you."

Any label is an expression of opinion made by an individual at a particular time and is, rightly, open to question. ICRA is leading the application of the Semantic Web to this area. A new working group at W3C is defining a content labelling standard [WCL-XG] that will facilitate the creation of labels whose provenance is identified, whose authority can be challenged and whose opinions can be reinforced or contradicted. Self labels, third party ratings and user generated labels can be created, shared and compared.

Such a system complements and can benefit from established methods of sharing of opinions on the Web. Sites like del.icio.us use shared bookmarks as a way to pass on recommendations about sites. Search results are heavily influenced by recommendations in the form of links to sites. eBay, Amazon and others have made 5 star reputation ratings commonplace.

Parents and regulators will wisely seek the opinions of classification bodies but not all content can be professionally rated, especially UGC. Indeed, it would be a black day for freedom of expression if it were. The combination of multiple sources of data, including vox populi, offers a way for users to find what they want, trust what they find and avoid what they or their parents would rather they didn't see.

References

International Ratings Conference 2007: http://www.ratingsconference2007.com
WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
QUATRO: The Quality Assurance and Content Description project
HON: Health On the Net Foundation
ICRA: The ICRA vocabulary
WCL-XG: Web Content Label Incubator Group
del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/