onfocus

It's about that time to start thinking about sxsw again. That means sxswBlog is go! It's new AND improved this year with a new design and lots of trackback goodness. check it out.

It's pouring down rain and thundering here in the north bay. Thunder is an odd sound for this area. It's not the infinite rumble or violent cracks of the Nebraska storms I grew up with. It's more like a constipated growl.

If you like to play around with Windows Scripting you might get a kick out of The Scriptomatic Tool: "Why do some system administrators get fancy cars, yachts, and Rolex watches? It's because they know how to write WMI scripts, and you don't!" It's an easy way to learn about all of the WMI classes, and what information you can get at. Fun stuff. I need to look into Hypertext Applications (.hta files) for writing simple client apps.

service note: onfocus mail may be a bit wacky as the mx fairies work their magic across dns land. my hotmail account will still work. Though my hotmail account is next to useless these days. I'm pretty sure some black-arts spam manual mentions my address specifically, "callibrate your spam cannon by pointing it at this hotmail address first."

I can't wait to vote tomorrow!

Punch Drunk Love was terrible. Not terrible in a I-expected-wacky-Adam-Sandler-and-didn't-get-it sort of way, but terrible in a pretentious-misogynistic-waste-of-talent-and-worse-my-time sort of way. It's just another in a series of unimaginative fear everyone movies like One Hour Photo. And this one was mean-spirited.

Anil's discovery about We Blog related comments spam is just another reason why better identity management is needed for open weblog comment systems. Beyond an identity bank like I mentioned a few days ago, I think there are some other steps weblog authors could take to weed out unwanted comments. First, create a quick "terms of posting" that lets people know what is acceptable and what isn't...and publish it where people will see it before they post. Also, enforce consequences for violating the terms. I'm not sure what that should be. Maybe making the IP Address of the offending poster public (this is like putting up bad checks at your local food joint) would help. Blocking that address (or range of addresses) from future posting could be the way to go, though it's trickier with large ISPs. I think the real key is heavy moderation. As soon as someone violates the terms, delete the comment; no note that you've changed something, no email to the offender, just delete. The idea is that trolls and spammers will get bored when no one listens. (But we all know how well that works for email.) These aren't long-term solutions, but they could help while the ratio of unwanted contributors to good contributors is still low.

Goodbye Meg and Jason. I'm sad they're leaving the Bay Area, and I'm very happy for them.

Mark Pilgrim's discussion of how to stop spam in comments is very interesting. I don't have an answer for it, but I think it also brings up another important issue related to comments: persistent identity across sites. I think there are a couple of types of people who post comments. Some people have a carefully constructed Internet identity that is linked to their real-world identity. They care about how they are perceived on the Web because it affects their real-world lives. Others post anonymously with pseudonyms, and they don't care how that username is perceived because it isn't linked to their real-world life. I think there's a place for both types of posters, and the level of identity-revelation should be voluntary. I think this difference causes friction though, and it could get worse...especially as it relates to persistence.

How do I know that "WackyD00d" posting on site A is the same real-world person behind "WackyD00d" posting on site B? Especially when current weblog comment systems allow the user to put anything they want into the name, url, and email fields. How would the real person behind "WackyD00d" posting on site A police the use of his/her online identity on a site they don't control? Abuse could hinder discussion. It doesn't seem to matter if everyone is posting anonymously, but when real-world reputations are on line it could be problematic. For weblogs to be taken seriously as a place for discussion, I think this problem needs to be addressed.

Requiring a login with email verification could provide some protection, but you run into the problem of putting up a barrier to conversation...especially if you have to register on every site that you'd like to participate. I think some sort of central "Identity Bank" that generates a pgp-style key that could be included with comments across sites could work. It would be a barrier (though lower than a login), and there are some privacy concerns. (I wouldn't trust my info with Passport/Microsoft, for example.) But somehow offering that option to people who care about their online-offline identity link could help. And I think it could be done like PGP, where no one company has the keys to everyone's ID. Mabye it could even be done with PGP somehow.

I saw Bowling for Columbine last night in a packed house. Michael Moore seems to have taken that Shaw quote to heart, "If you tell people the truth, make them laugh or they'll kill you," because parts of the movie are hilarious. Some of his arguments were frustrating, but he had many, many good points to make. Certain sections reminded me of Manufacturing Consent, because event after nauseating event is shown in succession and it's not fun to look at the negative aspects of our society. But I think it's necessary to confront those aspects if we want to change them. This film brings you face to face with the violent side of American culture and its effects on everyone. And it's worth going to see it for Marilyn Manson's insightful comments alone. The audience I saw it with erupted into applause at the end.