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Comments:
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- on Fri 12 Mar 2010
- 01:53:35 AM UTC
Why not instead rate it what
Why not instead rate it what you think the site(s) should be rated? Any site that uses ratings will have the flaw of being manipulated by users that just want to abuse the system. Not everyone that uses WOT's rating system abuses it. There always will be people that will abuse the rating system regardless of what changes are made.
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- on Wed 06 Oct 2010
- 03:15:28 PM UTC
@jebwis
Truths. . .
Found much false information, and some down right dangerous, although some is on track.So tell me jebwis, what is your background that you can claim all presented on that site as accurate, proven, and scientifically valid, or are you looking for someone just to blame.
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- on Fri 12 Mar 2010
- 03:45:02 AM UTC
Unethical?
Your title is also ". . . Wrong . . .".
First of all, WOT is NOT "unethical". Just because the rating is not in agreement with your OPINION does not mean that WOT is unethical. Is everyone that disagrees with your opinion unethical?
And "devious" and "deceptive" implies that WOT has some hidden agenda to downrate your site. It most certainly does not.
Misleading? Misinformation and disinformation pervade our culture, and we make poor decisions based on a poor understanding of the complexities and long term implications of issues all the time. NOT saying that the raters made a poor decision necessarily nor that you are making a poor decision by saying that mercury content in vaccines causes autism. I have no idea if either case is true. But the relevance of this observation is that WOT raters get it right in the end. As Winston Churchill once said, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing . . . after exhausting all other alternatives."
So it goes also with WOT raters. If your site has been rated incorrectly, WOT raters will make it right after a thorough evaluation.
(And though your charge that WOT is "unethical" may not endear you with the community, the community will nonetheless do what is right . . . and ethical).
The problem with your world view is that it presupposes there is a single truth on an issue as complex as autism . . . one arrived at through a rational consumption of facts. Competing views are thus, on your planet, not based on honest differences of opinion but on supposedly demonstrably false assumptions.
But I'm getting into argument philosophies and issues bias, which are not the realm of WOT. However, "trustworthiness" IS the realm of WOT. As it stands right now, WOT raters have "voted" that your site is lacking in trustworthiness. Further evaluation may or may not change that.
And while I'm on that topic, let me explain that the "well financed, desperate, fanatical, unethical pharmaceutical community" (an emotionally charged accusation if ever there was one, and not something that a reliable WOT rater would consider for making a rating) would find it extremely difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to game the system. That's because WOT is a meritocracy, and the weight of a vote is based on a raters reliability as determined by an algorithm of the system.
Reliability, and hence the weight of a vote, has to be established, and unless this "well financed, desperate, fanatical, unethical pharmaceutical community" spent a lot of time on WOT rating a LOT of sites reliably, they would fail to swing your site's rating one way or the other.
Sami, a member of the WOT staff, can explain that to you much better, but might I suggest that you familiarize yourself with how WOT works before you go charging it as "unethical". The wiki and the blog and the support page are some resources you can study to learn more about how WOT works. Clearly you have no idea at the moment on how WOT works. Before you go off half-cocked, learn how WOT works.
Now your charges may pertain to certain raters . . . I have no idea though if that is so. Whether there is a conspiracy by these "well financed, desperate, fanatical, unethical pharmaceutical community's" to downrate your site is a question that is unanswerable on WOT, though highly unlikely for the previously stated reasons, mainly because none of us knows why raters vote the way they do.
"well known, well financed, desperate, fanatical, unethical pharmaceutical community unfairly attacking the website through WOT by smearing it with inappropriately bad ratings and comments that are simply wrong"
Coupla' things here.First of all, if you think these people have "smeared" your site with "inappropriately bad ratings", then why not have your membership "smear" with "appropriately good ratings"? I saw nothing on your site that encouraged your membership to use the add on to rate the site.
And you state matter-of-factly that the ratings are "simply wrong". It would be more accurate to say they are wrong IN YOUR OPINION.
"Anyone with any common sense can easily determine this obvious fact"
Apparently then the reliable raters lack "common sense" and cannot determine what an "obvious fact" is.And while I'm on the topic of "reliable raters", have you considered the confidence factor of the ratings? Do you even know what a "confidence factor" is and how it is indicated on the scorecard? If so, what do you think it says about the ratings so far?
"to recognize this fault in the service and address a means of rectifying it"
So would "rectifying" it mean that all the raters should share your opinion? If that's the case, then why have a rating mechanism at all? If ratings are to conform with YOUR opinion, then all we would need is for you alone to rate sites, and not have WOT at all.Whether your site has been rated inaccurately, I have no idea. I know the topic of autism can become emotionally charged however (your post is a good example of that). I've visited your site and did not see anything obviously amiss, but I do not have an autistic child nor have I scrutinized all of the claims of the studies on either side. However, my views on the issues would NOT be the basis for any rating I would give. For example, I do not believe that vaccines are the proximate cause of autism, but that would not influence my rating one way or the other. (That's a "belief", an opinion . . . unlike you, I would not state it as a categorical "fact" . . . if you disagree with me, I would not consider you "unethical").
I would have to examine your content more closely to rate the site.
Is WOT unethical? NO!
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- on Mon 15 Mar 2010
- 12:26:07 PM UTC
Hi Bobjam I don`t think
Hi Bobjam
I don`t think Jebwis means WOT is unethical, but that those who are writing bad reviews about the mentioned site are.
Her complaint is that there exists a weakness, or "flaw" as she puts it, with WOT tools if users can, without valid reason, submit bad comments about a website just because they disagree with it`s contents and therefore harm the reputation of a perfectly innocent and good site.
If others catch onto this then it defeats the object of WOT. I think she has a valid concern. -
- on Mon 15 Mar 2010
- 01:54:24 PM UTC
Comments are not ratings
"Her complaint is that there exists a weakness, or "flaw" as she puts it, with WOT tools if users can, without valid reason, submit bad comments about a website just because they disagree with it`s contents"
Yes, users CAN "without valid reason, submit bad comments about a website just because they disagree with it`s contents". That is not a "flaw", it is intentional to allow users to express whatever opinion they have. And it DOES NOT impact the rating in any way.As annoying as some comments may be, they are NOT ratings, they are only opinions, and with the exception of profanity and such, any user is free to express any opinion they have.
In the past, for example, there have been some annoying comments on the scorecards of some good security blogs. Clearly those comments were wayyyyy out in left field, but WOT, as I said with the exception of profanity and such (see Top 10 WOT Question #2 here and read it closely . . . every bit of it) does not censor opinions, nor should it.
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- on Wed 06 Oct 2010
- 04:37:01 AM UTC
BobJam has convinced me
BobJam has convinced me that those who champion WOT are inflexible egoists who cannot see the huge problem with folks using WOT to vilify websites they disagree with politically. This is being done by corporations and the far right wing extremists in the United States.
Clearly, the best thing to do is uninstall WOT and let you folks live in your fantasy world where WOT, and it's users, are all perfect...
Adios...BTW, I will carry this viewpoint to my 300+ clients, and the numerous blogs and forums I participate in each week.
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- on Wed 06 Oct 2010
- 08:13:11 AM UTC
Re:
It´s good that you are convinced. Otherwise i would assume your post is something like ou, i WANT you to do what i want because i am always right (although i don´t have agruments, but arguments are something for loser)
Honestly, you compare WOT with the weird political system (which is more a show) and the weird political ideas in the USA? No offense against US users, but this post is, as the other posts/comments of this user, ridiculous and factless.
I´m really afraid that you´ll contact your clients and friends, who are awaiting your comments and have nothing else to do to listen to you, This is the end of WOT,right? (Honestly, how many do you have?Not soooooo much,right?;)
Blueberry Cake Level Member of the WOT Community
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- on Wed 06 Oct 2010
- 12:38:16 PM UTC
This is being done by
@ fudoki
This is being done by corporations and the far right wing extremists in the United States.
Is that your opinion from a 'far left wing perspective'?and let you folks live in your fantasy world where WOT, and it's users, are all perfect..
Or is this what you would like to believe because you can't comprehend what WOT is about.Using an obese PC. I offer it a bit and it takes a megabyte.
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- on Wed 06 Oct 2010
- 12:43:17 PM UTC
> BTW, I will carry this
> BTW, I will carry this viewpoint to my 300+ clients, and the numerous blogs and forums I participate in each week.
Please do. I am sure that if you repeat your well structured and fully thought out reasoning to as many people as possible, as many times as possible, even if they do not want to hear it, that they will soon come to appreciate some real truths.
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- on Wed 06 Oct 2010
- 12:50:21 PM UTC
Re:
I am sure that if you repeat your well structured and fully thought out reasoning to as many people as possible, as many times as possible, even if they do not want to hear it, that they will soon come to appreciate some real truths.
LMFAO :o)
Blueberry Cake Level Member of the WOT Community
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- on Wed 06 Oct 2010
- 05:39:57 AM UTC
Then what is the point?
"First of all, if you think these people have "smeared" your site with "inappropriately bad ratings", then why not have your membership "smear" with "appropriately good ratings"?
If this is what it boils down to, then what is the point? Would not, for example, adult websites eventually go Green if the porn fans all voted the site Green. And does this not explain why, for example, Facebook is Green, when the majority of comments, which seem to coincide with some of the WOT raters views on social networking, are Red?
Why does www.slutload.com/ get such stellar ratings, yet www.watergardenhotel.com/ suffer?
WOT: to protect and to serve.
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- on Fri 12 Mar 2010
- 06:45:31 AM UTC
re: ageofautism.com
Hello jebwis
welcome to WOT Forum.Interesting introductory post - what is it they say about first impressions?
You need to learn about WOT more, since you are rather new, as are most of the people who left the not so nice comments on the Scorecard. I'm not in the mood at the moment to point out how comments are not ratings, and how WOT is a Meritocracy - not a democracy, where ratings (votes) are cast as a secret ballot. You do some research about how WOT works before you blatantly condemn things you have little understanding about.
As for the website: ageofautism.com
I see nothing wrong with this website - it's certainly isn't malicious or harmful, or inclusive to adult material, etc. I may not agree with all of it's content, but I don't disagree with all of it either. As for the advertisements, they're holistic in nature; obviously you're not going to see Pfizer advertisements here.
Yeah the whole CDC vaccine thing is questionable - interesting how CDC used Thorsen's "research" to justify the safety of the Swine-Flu vaccinations (mercury-ladened/preservative) Our family elected not to get them based upon that fact. (BTW, what ever happened to that all-world killer anyways?)
I rated highly and commented - personal experience with autism and people with various handicap disorders in general; nuff said.
BTW, you might want to reformat the OP a bit. All bold is just as loud as all CAPS and the red is generally used on this forum to represent rating requests or simple warnings.
peace,
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WOT Services Ltd. - gives us safety through Web of Trust.
WOT Community - gives us security through unity.
Thank you all
- G7W -
- on Wed 06 Oct 2010
- 03:48:45 PM UTC
@g7w
Respect your opinion, but you are out of character with all due respect.
Just pushing content aside and looking at the site alone gives red flags that you normally would have jumped on.
Emotion and material aside. . . How would you have rated?
(not asking what you would have rated. Thought you might ask yourself this.) -
- on Fri 12 Mar 2010
- 04:51:20 PM UTC
rated 4 Greens. I probably
rated 4 Greens. I probably just trashed my Reliability score in doing so, but all the yellow marks just didn't make any sense.
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- on Fri 12 Mar 2010
- 05:17:05 PM UTC
No, I doubt it
I don't think you "trashed" your reliability. I think the site will eventually go green, and I didn't myself see anything on it that warrants a poor rating (with the exception perhaps of the OP's inflammatory remarks, which I hasten to add is not cause for a poor rating . . . just a symptom of a new member going off half-cocked and annoying at worst).
But the site itself seems clean . . . I didn't see anything on it that would warrant those comments (again, the comments are probably symptoms of other new members going off half-cocked . . . cooler minds, like yours and other experienced WOT raters, will prevail.)
(BTW, to rate Vendor Reliability, did you buy some of that compounded stuff? If so, that was some pretty fast shipping).
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- on Fri 12 Mar 2010
- 06:00:13 PM UTC
re: btw
The items I saw for sale, on the sidebars, are advertisements linked through: st.blogads.com
So in this case, I would consider "vendor reliability" as to whether or not the post content (it is a blog) are not fictional or plagiarized. They don't appear so to me.
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WOT Services Ltd. - gives us safety through Web of Trust.
WOT Community - gives us security through unity.
Thank you all
- G7W -
- on Fri 12 Mar 2010
- 06:47:11 PM UTC
> (BTW, to rate Vendor
> (BTW, to rate Vendor Reliability, did you buy some of that compounded stuff?
> If so, that was some pretty fast shipping).I will confess: I take something of an "All or Nothing" approach to rating - it's either all good or all bad - (excluding adult sites that are probably OK and so get 3 Greens and 1 red for child safety) only a minority of sites present an in-between.
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- on Fri 12 Mar 2010
- 10:23:44 PM UTC
I am sorry, but this site is
I am sorry, but this site is dangerous, ill-informed and has no scientific basis. Rated as such.
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- on Sun 14 Mar 2010
- 01:18:36 PM UTC
Agree but disagree
While I do indeed happen to agree with you that this site presents some "ill-informed" info about the relationship between childhood vaccinations and the cause of autism, and has "no scientific" basis . . . the guy who did the "studies" trying to establish the relationship has been substantially discredited by the UK health authorities and they are considering lifting his medical license because of these studies , . . and it may be "dangerous" in the sense that public health may decline if enough of these kids do not get childhood vaccinations (the mercury preservative has long since been absent in these vaccinations and is only present in certain flu vaccinations), it is all nevertheless a philosophical argument and NOT within the scope of a WOT rating to land on one side or the other based on these arguments.
As much as I disagree with the content of the site, and as apparent as it is to me that they're taking a shot at an easy target . . . that would be big pharma . . . in searching for somebody to "blame", I must restrain my views there and rate fairly.
I see nothing "hateful" or "criminal" (only parents of autistic children that are looking for answers about why their child has autism), nor do I see anything that would harm someone's computer by going to the site.
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- on Sat 13 Mar 2010
- 07:41:13 PM UTC
misuse of WOT to rag belief systems
Hi Folks,
Please allow that the newbie was a bit shocked that a solid site was redified, can clearly for offending some medical industry sensibilities, an industry that has some posters here who are either in their hip pocket or sympathetic to the establishment views for one reason or another. The propaganda machines have long tentacles.
Fortunately most of that is now rectified. WOT will be worthless if it becomes a tool of establishments -- political, educational, religious, scientific and in this case medical.
There still is some red on supposed "ethical issues". Sheesh. I have "ethical issues" with every drug company out there .. but that is not the purpose of WOT to foment wars on belief systems. And natural health alternatives vs. established allopathic and insurance-covered system care is a belief system. The more WOT-ers who simply say NO to misuse of WOT, the better.
Shalom,
Steven Avery -
- on Sun 14 Mar 2010
- 01:55:30 PM UTC
Understand, but
"Please allow that the newbie was a bit shocked that a solid site was redified"
While I do indeed understand that "emotional" response, that is still not justification to make a blanket accusation that WOT and WOT raters are "unethical" (a few may be, but not the majority and certainly not the WOT staff), particularly when the OP demonstrated a clear lack of understanding about how WOT works.If this is any indication of the judgment skills of this group, I think those skills are very very poor, and any opinions voiced by this group lack credibility because of that.
Nevertheless, as I've said repeatedly, WOT is not in the business of rating "judgment skills" or the virtues, or lack thereof, of a particular argument such as this group is making. Consequently, those considerations should NOT enter into any rating evaluations . . . which I think is essentially the same thing you've said. So I certainly agree with you there.
As I have also said, I do not believe there is any "grand" conspiracy by big pharma to torpedo this site. I think big pharma has bigger fish to fry than this group (like the competition from offshore . . . particularly Canadian . . . pharmacies, patent issues, and trial lawyers that take shots at an easy target). My suspicion is that in the list of priorities for big pharma, this group, if it's even on that list, is wayyyyyy down at the bottom. (And BTW, I'm no fan of big pharma myself . . . my wife's Alzheimer's medication has no generic equivalent and I suspect big pharma will renew the patents on these things and I will not see generics in my lifetime . . . so big pharma is costing me, "the little guy", a lot of money, which angers me when I look at the profits they make from this stuff).
"WOT will be worthless if it becomes a tool of establishments"
Do you really think WOT can be manipulated by any entity? Precisely how would that be done with any success?I disagree with you on a lot of points, but we certainly agree that the arguments, be they "scientific" or not, are well outside the scope of WOT ratings.
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- on Mon 15 Mar 2010
- 12:40:31 PM UTC
Hear! Hear! Bravo! and, well
Hear! Hear! Bravo! and, well said! Steven Avery
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- on Sun 14 Mar 2010
- 12:06:03 AM UTC
Rating Comment
Rating's should be based off what the person reading or viewing the site feels about it, not what the person posting the site feels about it. I'm sure there are plenty of adult content websites that view it as art, is it? Perhaps but not for them to decide its for the public that views their site to rate. If people feel your site is not safe for certain ages, has problems with content of trust then of course there are going to be some discrepancy's. What you feel about your site isn't the point its what the people feel about the site. If you don't like a rating then change your site to what the viewers feel it should be.
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- on Sun 14 Mar 2010
- 02:18:33 PM UTC
Hold on
"If you don't like a rating then change your site to what the viewers feel it should be"
Wait a minute . . . .wait a minute. That may be true when it comes to marketing a site that sells a product ("the customer is always right"), but this particular site is not peddling a product (I'm not talking about their advertiser, who IS peddling a product), it's trying to sell an idea. And the "customers" in this case are the people that agree with this idea and those it thinks can be converted to adopt the idea. If this site was to change in response to it's ratings, it might have abandoned the idea which it is arguing . . . hence the entire group, not to mention the site, would be disbanded.And the rating has gone from poor to green. Consequently, would they have changed their "view" when it was rated poor and then turned around and then reconstituted themselves and reiterated their original argument when it turned green? Any credibilty they might have goes out the window when they start pandering to reviewers. Politicians are constantly changing their views based on things like polls (which is basically pandering to reviewers), and what would you judge the credibliity of a politician to be? My estimate would be equivalent to a used car salesman!
Say what you will about these people (and I myself strongly disagree with their idea), pandering to reviewers is NOT one of their faults.
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- on Sun 14 Mar 2010
- 12:39:11 AM UTC
the issue is a safe net .. not sharp intellectual disagreement
Hi Folks,
There is a difference between what a person "feels about it" in terms of a safe internet and what he "feels about it" in terms of ethics and in terms of personal beliefs. When you have conceptual disagreements .. take the debate-sites between Christians and atheists .. should they be marking each others sites as untrustworthy because they don't "feel" that the sites of the others are trustworthy ? What a waste of WOT energies those types of wars are.
Medical establishment versus natural health is a similar waste of WOT energies. And if 99% of WOT-ites quickly countered such attempts (which does happen to an extent) those who would game the system will realize that they will only have a very fleeting gain.
Newbies should quickly get the sense that WOT is not about taking political and religious and cultural and political sides, but keeping the Internet safe and sound and knowing what web-sites are sound. If we become either corporate shills or social activist shills, then WOT loses credibility. The case above is in that mix.
Maybe WOT should have a button for "unusual views" where such stuff can be vented or "warned" but there is nothing about "ethical issues" that should tinge the autism-vaccine debate sites, as there still is now. Personally, I think the drug companies leverage in the Journals and University Labs (amply exposed, much even used to be in the Wall Street Journal) is extremely unethical .. but I do not see it productive to be marking Pfizer as an unethical site. Folks can research those issues on their own,
Shalom,
Steven -
- on Sun 14 Mar 2010
- 01:31:05 AM UTC
"unusual views" and "ethical issues"
Although there is no rating on WOT for "ethical issues", there is a comment box for a WOT user to explain any ethical issues that the user might have with the site. As far as "unusual views" are concerned a WOT user could rate the site and use the 'Other' comment box to explain why the views might be considered unusual.
Although the OP might have a basis for the belief, I am more concerned that the OP claims to know the "truth" about vaccines without giving any indication that they are expert in that field. There is a common problem that so many people advance a belief as if it is certain knowledge and I am always suspicious of anyone claiming a belief to be true, especially in the absence of evidence gained by observation and repeatable experiment. In the debate about the efficacy versus the side-effects of a vaccine there has to be evidence to support either side, and just claiming to know the truth is not sufficient. Of course there are ethical issues to be considered within such a debate, and I see no problem with WOT users applying their own sense of ethics when rating sites.
It is in the nature of unusual views to be unusual, and if the majority of WOT users do not share those views then it is simply a fact of democracy that the unusual views will not be given the status that the holder of the unusual views might desire. Nobody is saying that those holders of unusual views should be prevented from airing those views but the mainstream majority are not obliged to accept or agree with any unusual views. Of course, there was a time when the mainstream view of the cosmos was that the sun and all of the planets circled around the Earth, and it was an unusual view to place the sun at the centre of the solar system. With the benefit of proper observation and evidence, the previously unusual view is now the mainstream view, which goes to show that an open mind is necessary on all sides of a debate.
To sum up, there is no problem with WOT users rating sites in accordance with their own sense of ethics and in accordance with their own views, whether unusual or mainstream, but it would be helpful if WOT users left comments on the WOT scorecard to indicate their reasons for agreement or concerns.
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- on Sun 14 Mar 2010
- 10:20:33 AM UTC
This site exists to spread
This site exists to spread disinformation, so for 'Trustworthiness' I believe it should have a low rating. For 'Child Safety' I would argue the same, any child who believed that vaccines cause autism would be at risk from disease.
Some people may actually believe what this site says, and as WOT members they can rate as they wish too. I would not be shocked if this did end up with a 'Conflicting' tag.
What makes me angry is the arrogant attitude of the OP that this site is the 'truth' and anyone who objects in a 'charlatan'.
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- on Sun 14 Mar 2010
- 02:30:16 PM UTC
Yes, but
"What makes me angry is the arrogant attitude of the OP that this site is the 'truth' and anyone who objects in a 'charlatan'"
Yes, the OP made me angry also, but anger is not an emotion to be in when you're rating. That's why I always cool down first BEFORE I go about rating. Granted, there is some anger that lingers perpetually, but there's much value in the sayings "count to ten" and "take a deep breath".
Unethical, Unfair, Wrong, Inaccurate, Devious, Deceptive, Misleading Ratings
"Age of Autism" is a credible website, but unfortunately for them, they tell the truth about vaccines. This results in the well known, well financed, desperate, fanatical, unethical pharmaceutical community unfairly attacking the website through WOT by smearing it with inappropriately bad ratings and comments that are simply wrong. Anyone with any common sense can easily determine this obvious fact and that these vaccine charlatans are conspiring to discredit the Age of Autism website to the point of slander. The providers of the WOT service have created an invaluable tool, but you have to recognize this fault in the service and address a means of rectifying it, otherwise the service will become absolutely worthless. I am currently using WOT and recommend it to my readers and my acquaintances, but if this flaw is not remedied, I will have to switch to another service and stop recommending it. Any questions?
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/03/did-kathleen-sebelius-pre...