’’The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and work well, came as a distinct shock. ’’ - Eric S. Raymond (ESR) in his seminal work on Open Source Movement ’’Cathedral and the Bazaar’’ (CatB)
What is a Cathedral? What is a Bazaar?
A Cathedral is a system where a bunch of experts sit in isolation developing/writing first-class reviews using the best possible style, English, vocabulary & straight to the point. Most often than not these experts also happen to be ’’Paid’’ by the Review site. By this definition most Professional review sites are Cathedrals (for e.g. Movie reviews on popular magazines web sites etc.)
A Bazaar is a system where anyone is Free to express his/her opinion as he/she feels right. There is not much restrictions on what can be written or how it should be written. MS and other Consumer Opinion Portals follow Bazaar style
MS is a Bazaar
The beauty of MS is that anyone & everyone can express their views (reviews) on any topic, without any interference from the MS Mgmt. or support on what the Content should be, how it should formatted, what level of English should be used etc. etc. The only pre-requisite to membership is you should have a valid E-mail Id! This enables everyone college students, busy professionals, housewives, retired senior citizens, amateur writers.... well anyone with an internet connection to write reviews here.
This gives us a wide spectrum of opinions. For e.g. what do college going Kids feel about a bollywood flick like KMG? What do the Senior Citizens feel about it? Working professionals? Housewives? Guys? Girls? We get to read a hundred different opinions. We may not agree with all these opinions, but we’ll at least know what others feel about the same product.
And all these writers are Unpaid writers and (mostly) don’t have any personal agenda in ’Recommending’ or ’Not Recommending’. So their views are honest & based on their personal experiences. Compare this with the predicament of a professional writer asked to write review on the product launched by a company which contributes some 80% advertising revenue to his magazine or web-site! How honest his opinions/reviews will be?!
Should there be Restrictions in a Bazaar?
Of course there is a restriction on the usage of offensive, vulgar & abusive language. But that again is in the best interests of the community to maintain a healthy atmosphere. Even in Open Source community moderators are always on the guard against vandals, viruses & Trojan horses!!
What constitutes Useful & Junk in a Bazaar?
MS is a confluence of Free thinking individuals. What constitutes Junk to you might be Useful to others & vice versa. Ever read... ’Not all fingers are equal’, ’One mans food is another man’s poison’...
The deciding authority on this topic are MS Mgmt & MS Support ONLY. They have the final say in what should & should not be hosted on their web-sites. So if you find any reviews that you feel are Junk, rate them NR & report it to MS Mgmt. Let them decide whether it is Junk or not. Why you or me should be the Judges of what constitutes Useful & Junk for the entire Community??!! Let the Community decide by using their Ratings.
Bazaar models produces Sub-standard output
’’why do so many of you display contempt for your own process?’’
’’Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.’’ - ESR (CatB)
Mouthshut doesn’t guarantee automatic discovery & delivery of Useful (as per our likings) opinions. The reason being it is simply impossible to determine the content which will be liked by all, as members hold such varied likes & dislikes.
But MS does give each one of us the power to apply our own criteria (filters) so that we can teach the system (MS) to deliver the content that is useful to us over a period of time. It doesn’t happen in a day or two. You need to train over a period of time, keep fine tuning it & optimizing it to deliver the best results.
The pillars of MS filtering system are
‡ Trust List / Distrust List
‡ Sorting content based on Trust List
‡ Filtering (out) content by Distrusted Members
‡ Ratings ( last but NOT the least)
First Rate, then Speak : Let me start with the last point. The question I ask any intellectual/elite who cribs Democracy doesn’t work is ’Did you Vote today?’. Most of us elites stay comfortably at home during election days & when the Govt. fails, we shamelessly complain ’The System doesn’t work’. Now... coming to MS, I would translate the question as ’Did you Rate the reviews?’. Well, you don’t use your valuable Vote (rating) to lower-rate the review... yet crib at the end; Junk reviews are getting rave ratings. How do you expect the process to work, if you are not following it yourself? .
Every review passes hundreds of pairs eye balls, if all the members rate objectively & honestly, the system will produce the best results. Otherwise it will be skewed by the likings of the regular few who rate every review under the Sun. Rate the Revs. & the System will work. Invite more members like you to become members of the site. Network with other like-minded members to provide Honest ratings. Communities develop & produce better results when members network & work for a common goal - betterment of the MS Community.
How much Trust you have on your TL/DL? : Whoever thought of TL/DL did it with 2 intentions
‡ User control over (filtering/sorting) over what content he/she wishes to see
‡ A Networking tool
... and not as a political tool or a quid-pro-quo tool.
If you wish the System to work, ONLY add those whose reviews you REALLY respect the most, find their opinions honest & reliable some 80% of the times to your Trust List ™ ; add all those whose views you don’t agree most of the time say 80% or you feel write exclusively ’Junk’ to your Distrust List ™. Set your Sorting to your TL & filtering to your TL. Most importantly keep your TL (& DL) dynamic.
The moment you feel your TL is not working, you need to retrain it. Analyze the problem... add/remove members from your list. Keep your TL lean & mean , so that it works for you. Ditto for DL.
The second purpose of TL is networking. Once you find a member whom you trust, going by his/her TL, probably you’ll find members who think along the same lines & the web of Trust ( network of similar thinking individuals) grows.
Remember the whole system.... ’Best Debut’, ’Hot Reviews’, ’Hall of Fame’, ’Star Writers’ etc. etc. works just based on 2 things... Ratings & TL/DL. Collective community discretion is respected unquestionedly in every recognition that is awarded to members. If we feel the System is not working, we are not working hard enough to make it work!!
A Community Works when every one of us strives hard to make it work, contributing our individual mites & 2 cents
Ending Line
’’Enjoyment predicts efficiency.’’ - ESR (CatB)
Lets keep MS an efficient community that we enjoy being members of.