[Foundation-l] Projekt: OpenCritics (let's free subjective content, too!!)

[Sage Ross]

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 9:42 AM, teun spaans<teun.spaans at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The only question which your statement here raises is why you limit yourself
> to reviews. Imho there might be a considerable market area for people who
> have opinions to voice on politics, religion, etc.
>

Reviews are quite different political and religious opinion.  Unlike
political or religious commentary, reviews (especially if they combine
numerical ratings with textual evaluation) are valuable in aggregate,
as they can help others make yes/no decisions about whether to invest
time and/or money into some particular, uniquely identifiable thing
(whether watching a particular movie or buying a particular
flashlight).

Hence the desirability of creating a free alternative to Amazon's
reviews.   Amazon's reviews, especially for manufactured goods, are an
extremely valuable public service (even if you don't shop at Amazon),
and the fact they are controlled and maintained by a for-profit
company means that the potential exists for Amazon to lock down access
or suppress negative reviews (in fact, this happens already) for the
good of their profits but to the detriment of the public good.
Although individually such reviews have subjective elements, I don't
see that as fundamentally incompatible with WMF values.

-Sage