Gregory Brown wrote:
...
> 
> I just think that if ranking is to be done at all, it should be by an
> independant third party.  When it's incorporated into the system, it
> becomes more about 'leveling up' than it is about the topics for
> enough people to make it a bit unpleasant.
> 

What might be handy is some metadata.  Not simple ranking (which, as 
D.A.B. pointed out, can get real sour), but indications of, say, level 
of complexity, completeness, relative "freshness", whatever.

(One can sort of do this now by bookmarking and tagging Web-archived 
mailing list messages on del.icio.us, if people feel adventurous.)


There is great value in informed collaborative filtering; I'd be more 
inclined to read  a thread if I knew, for example, that this or that 
person marked it as interesting, but it may be tricky to keep this from 
degrading into random chatter without some annoying amount of 
administrative intervention.


-- 
James Britt

http://www.ruby-doc.org       - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://www.artima.com/rubycs/ - The Journal By & For Rubyists
http://www.rubystuff.com      - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://refreshingcities.org   - Design, technology, usability