Denham’s post from the unsymposium is worth a read, not just picking out the key take aways but providing some commentary on them too. The observation about film and hypertext and so much digital media making as a relational media is, I think, exceptionally important. The role of recommendations, and those systems that now elevate some people over others is what I meant about trying to work this out algorithmically. We know how to make recommendations based on things like what you buy compared to other people who buy similar things. But to do this just on comments we make is much harder – how do you tell who is more authoritative than someone else? The most common way this is being done at the moment is through peer review. I rank other people’s comments and those who consistently seem to be highly rated by others will be elevated in terms of authority in, and by, the system (this is essentially a slashdot system as they invented it). But there is a lot of time and money being spent on trying to solve this just on the stuff that’s already out there, without needing people to vote and rank.