Redstate

I especially loved the FAQ section;

Isn't filtering stupidity elitist?
Yes. Yes, it is. That's sort of the whole point.

Do you really expect to be able to detect and filter anything that's conceivably stupid?
No, of course not. You'd need real AI for that, and beyond a certain point it's simply subjective; after all, a sufficiently advanced AI would probably filter out the whole of human discourse, which isn't the idea.

So what do you plan to filter?
The idea is that the most egregiously stupid comments will also be the easiest to detect while remaining ignorant of context; comments with too much or too little capitalization, too many text-message abbreviations, excessive use of "LOL," exclamation points, and so on.

How do you rate stupidity?
Since we're trying to build a detailed database that serves as a very verbose example of What Not To Do, we look for comments whose prose style we can point to and say, "I don't even have to understand the content of this comment to know that it's stupid," -- based on the gross prose style alone, its stupidity is self-evident. It is then useful as an example for our parser to integrate into its database of stupidity.
I looked at some of the results from the Random Stupidity page, and they don't seem that stupid to me; what gives?
Keep in mind we grade stupidity on a scale of 1 to 5. Someone might get a 1 or 2 for a comment that used no punctuation, whereas a comment consisting of nothing but text message abbreviations with a dash of LOLLLLL thrown in for good measure would probably rate a solid 4 or 5. There is a certain amount of subjectivity, and our software is aware of that; scoring will be normalized to eliminate excessively generous or harsh estimations of stupidity.

What about ironic uses of "stupid" diction?
The StupidFilter is blind to irony. Our intent is that one or two instances of "lol" or "ur dum" in several paragraphs of otherwise-cogent text won't result in a false positive. However, we consider the StupidFilter's irony-ignorance to be a feature, insofar as even if an allegedly-smart person makes a short, stupid comment, their smartness doesn't make the comment any less stupid. If your mom had designed the StupidFilter, she might say "If you can't say anything smart, don't say anything at all."

It occurs to me that DailyKos would simply cease to exist!

I'm imagining having this run on every new user's first dozen comments or so, with egregiously high values causing the moderators to be alerted straightaway.

---
(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

"and that's why you don't have to pay income tax"
"fiat money"
"Republicans lack compassion"
"Hillary Clinton is experienced"
"blood for oil"
"so Bush must have known IN ADVANCE"

Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net

International Editor of

...stupid. Therefore, it'll censor itself and cease to exsist.

The WWW was invented by Tim Berners-Lee primarily so that egghead particle physicists could easily exchange hyperlinked virtual documents without the need to send emails, by using a vastly simplified markup language that any ordinary particle physicist could learn in a matter of minutes. It was an extraordinary tool, relatively simple and humble, and yet from that inauspicious seed corn we now have [insert your favorite idiotic website.]

Now look at it.

I like the idea of the stupidity filter, but I'm afraid they're fighting a losing battle -- which doesn't stop me from cheering the effort, mind you. I'm an elitist too, and I'm willing to pay to continue to be one.

Another trend I expect to emerge is an attempt to re-create the Internet of a decade ago by erecting virtual barriers to keep out the rabble. When I'm feeling down I call it "Internet Gated Communities", when in an optimistic mood, "The Faculty Club". This may lead to what many observers refer to as "the Balkanisation of the Internet"--a fragmentation of the "goes everywhere, reaches everybody" vision of the global nervous system into disconnected communities. This may not be such a bad thing. Yes, we will not end up with a ubiquitous global wired community. But if you want to get an idea what that might actually look like, here's a little experiment you can try. Turn off your spam filter and read all the spam you get in a day, including visiting the Web sites they direct you to. Now imagine that, multiplied by a factor of about a hundred. Welcome to the electronic global slum! I am one of those despicable people who believe that IQ not only exists but matters. From the origin of the Internet through the mid 1990s, I'd estimate the mean IQ of Internet users as about 115. Today it's probably somewhere around 100, the mean in Europe and North America. The difference you see in the Internet of today from that of ten years ago is what one standard deviation (15 points) drop in IQ looks like. But the mean IQ of the world is a tad less than 90 today, and it's expected to fall to about 86 by 2050. So, when the digital divide is conquered and all ten billion naked apes are wired up, you're looking at about another standard deviation's drop in the IQ of the Internet. Just imagine what that will be like.

[Emphasis mine.]

So I'm intrigued...how are we going to keep E.J. Dionne off the Internet, or at the very least filter him into the ether?