| Subject: Re: Diagramming the network |
| From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> |
| Date: 7/3/10, 14:50 |
| To: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com> |
Robert-
Apologies for the delay in getting back to you; had to finish up a couple of articles, but am now deadline-free for a while.
My colleague Clark Robinson and I will be preparing further materials for you over the weekend, but in the meantime, Id like to provide you with a written overview of Project PM to supplement what we went over in our discussion the other evening.
Information flow is fundamental to the success of every manner of human collaboration. Nonetheless, the processes by which information is gathered, handled, transferred, and acted upon receive far less attention than is warranted. The purpose of Project PM is to change this dynamic by developing new techniques with which to more efficiently conduct information.
Because the great preponderance of information crucial to the success of a representative government is transferred through the media, Project PM focuses primarily on media reform. Our first and foremost effort has been to establish a distributed media cartel made up of bloggers as well as journalists who work at least in part through online media. Rather than simply assembling this group of exceptional media professionals into an online outlet similar to those currently in existence, we are instead organizing our participants into a network which itself operates under a unique schematic designed to take best advantage of the internet as a medium while simultaneously avoiding the drawbacks common to even the best online communities.
In order to seed the network, we have recruited around two dozen bloggers and journalists whom we have identified as particularly competent and intellectually honest. Each of these individuals is encouraged to bring other bloggers into the network based on their own judgment; these new participants are then connected to the blogger who has brought them in and may likewise bring others into the network,and so on . As such, the network grows perpetually while maintaining a high average quality in terms of its participants, as is explained further below.
Upon the launch of our network, each of the initial bloggers will be connected to each other via a widget which is embedded on their respective blogs, as well as connected to those whom theyve recruited. When a particular individual composes a piece of work that he considers to be of particular merit, the individual pushes a single button which causes the article in question to be sent to all of the bloggers to whom he is connected. Each of those bloggers in turn then decides whether or not they agree that the article is worthy of greater attention; if so, they push the button and thereby send it along to every blogger to whom they themselves are connected. Thus it is that information deemed worthy of attention by some great number of erudite and honest individuals from a variety of backgrounds will tend to perpetuate through the system and gain a larger audience than they might otherwise receive.
As the network expands by way of the process described above, it is inevitable that there will be failures of judgement on the part of participants when choosing additional bloggers to bring into the network. Let us say that Blogger X, who is rather competent, brings in Blogger Y, who is only moderately so, and who in turn brings in Blogger Z, who is a giant douchebag. Blogger Z begins composing and pushing forward posts to the effect that Barack Obama was born in Tehran or that ethanol subsidies are awesome or some such thing but these posts only initially go to Blogger Y and whatever horrid bloggers Blogger Z has brought in himself, assuming he has brough in any. Blogger Y may or may not be inclined to push forward these nonsense posts, but Blogger X will almost certainly delete them immediately and is quite likely to disolve his connection to Blogger Y for displaying such poor judgement. Thus it is that the system is defended from deterioration by the high competence of the initial round of bloggers and consequently comparable competence of those brought in gradually afterwards, coupled with the nature of the schematic itself. No supervision is necessary for the network to expand while maintaining a high level of quality.
A few other characteristics bear noting. Any participant may connect to any other participant who agrees to the connection, no matter where each participant resides in the network, and thus the network is likely to evolve from the shape of a pyramid to that of a web, which is advantageous in terms of ensuring that good information does not become overly regionalized. All participants are equal regardless of the order in which they joined. Participants are free to bring on as many other bloggers as they would like, although they will find that it is to their own advantage to be selective in this regard.
The system is capped off with another widget distinct from that used by the bloggers the reader widget, a downloadable application which displays those posts which have been pushed forward a certain number of times (as set by the individual reader). The end result should be the best system of news and information filtration that has ever existed.
That is the elevator pitch, at any rate. I have also sending you a link to a makeshift Google presentation that my lawyer and second-in-command Clark Robinson has prepared for you. Having just moved in to a new apartment, I only have sporadic internet access for the next few days, but Robinson is at your disposal and may be reached at robinsonchicago@gmail.com. I may also be reached via cell phone at all times. I will have Robinson share with you some additional documents including an incomplete list of our participants thus far.
Meanwhile, I have spoken to Michael Hastings and a few other of our best journalists and commentators and all of them are more than willing to get involved and will be quietly talking to various colleagues in the coming days without providing any details. I have also asked a couple of our people to begin thinking about ways in which a cable station could be most effectively implemented, emphasizing that we would of course want to rewrite all the rules of such things and take advantage of the internet as best we can.
1. One thing that might be useful to persons in their first encounter with the concept of Project PM is a page with the logo, and under the logo a paragraph explicating the symbolism of the logo, the paragraph being in effect a statement of the network's structure and purpose.
2. Along the same line of thinking, concentric rings of overlapping circles may be a better representation of the network's structure than a diagram with lines for relationships or arrows for routing of pushed posts, because the latter will be too complicated visually, even if you introduce color for differentiation.
(Google docs does not have a template for overlapping circles; I will see if I can find one online.)
3. A diagram with arrows might be useful to show a very local section of the network, such as how it works for one member blogger.