Re: Distributed Data

robin nospam at acm.org
Tue, 9 Mar 1999 21:09:52 GMT

On Tue, 09 Mar 1999 15:35:55 -0500 Jason Dufair <funne nospam at iquest.net> wrote:
> People want to pop a CD in and see the track titles pop up.
> They'll add them if it's not there.
That of course has to be an option. It is then an anonymous submission.
That's fine. Other people who do have the ability to sign stuff can rate
it later.

> I think building a whole web of trust
> is not necessary for this model.
Not necessary, no. But nice. I wasn't suggesting a full-blown trust
model be built in from the outset. But having (optionally) signed
entries seems easy enough and potentially useful for building such a
web in the future, if needed.

> I'm quite sure people won't generate
> public keys to use their CD player app.
You only need a key if you want to submit signed entries, so most people
would benefit from the cleaner data without having to do anything but
run a trust-enabled client. And people who aren't bothered about getting
dud info occasionally can use a client that doesn't do the trust stuff.

Whether people would generate a key depends how easy it is. If it
just means they have to waggle the mouse for 10 seconds to generate
a nice random number, I think many people will. The more important
question then is will the CD-application writers implement it? Again,
that depends how easy it is. If the reference code does it, it's easy.

> I continue to suggest a simple
> majority on an ASCII match with precedence to the initial entry lacking a
> clear majority.
That would still be a possible mechanism for implementors who don't want
to worry about the trust thing.

What are the dynamics of a cddb entry anyway? Are there typically
many submissions? Or is it only when glaring errors get in that anyone
else submits a correction to the first and only entry?

How does IMDB do it? They must have a similar problem. I suspect they
depend on centralised moderation too.

Robin.

-- 
R.M.O'Leary <robin nospam at acm.org> +44 7010 7070 44, PO Box 20, Swansea SA2 8YB, UK