roundtable: Re: New way to label information on the Internet

roundtable: Re: New way to label information on the Internet

Re: New way to label information on the Internet

Brent Wall (brentw@freenet.scri.fsu.edu)
Wed, 20 Dec 1995 19:28:13 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 19:28:13 -0500 (EST)
From: Brent Wall <brentw@freenet.scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: New way to label information on the Internet
To: communet@elk.uvm.edu
In-Reply-To: <199512192101.QAA35810@elk.uvm.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9512201935.A3944-0100000@freenet3.scri.fsu.edu>


Curtis, Hello,

First, I read in a trade rag this week that DEC has some new fangled 
intelligent Web searcher.  Views?

Second, I sell the Web to my folks here in Leon County as a productivity 
tool.  To wit:  if you need info on x, do this or that web search. I do 
this all of the time, and, frankly, the results are less than 
spectacular.  For instance, we wanted to look for government reports and 
technical journal articles on privatization.  After searching Lycos, 
fedworld, among others, the search was less than satisfactory.

I try to sell the web to my folks as a productivity tool.  As a part-time 
academic I tend to look to a variety of professional journals, but most 
are not available on the net.  Thus, a serious literature search is still 
a very iffy enterprise.

Where are we on serious literature searches on the web, Curtis?

Brent Wall
Leon County  FL
<brentw@freenet.scri.fsu.edu>


On Tue, 19 Dec 1995, W. Curtiss Priest wrote:
> 
> UNTANGLING THE WEB
> A new system for labeling Internet content, developed originally to provide
> a standard format for identifying objectionable material, could ultimately
> provide a way to sort Internet content according to topical categories,
> creating a sort of cyber Dewey Decimal system.  The Platform for Internet
> Content Selection (PICS), a product of the MIT-based World Wide Web
> consortium, would enable organizations to easily add descriptive or
> judgmental labels to newsgroups and Web pages, providing guideposts for
> surfers who want to steer clear of superfluous or objectionable information.
> PICS itself is value-neutral, says the project's spokesman, but it will
> provide a standard for others to use in developing their own rating schemes.
> "Ideally, the system will encourage rating not just by large-scale
> commercial services, but also by individuals, school boards, political
> organizations, and others," says Esther Dyson.  (Technology Review Jan 95 p11)
> 
> >From Edupage
> _______________________________________________________________________________
> |           W. Curtiss Priest, Ph.D., Director       *********************** |
> |      Center for Information, Technology, & Society *  Improving humanity * |
> |                                                    *  through technology * |
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> |                Melrose, MA  02176-4522         BMSLIB@MITVMA.MIT.EDU       |
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