| Close, but still, IMO, wrong. The ultimate question is is this going to be useful to me, and the answer to that is ... somewhat complicated. Informative, timely, accurate, significant (which may be none of the above), funny (may be appropriate or inappropriate, based on context and/or volume). Some information is often (though not always) better than no information. Bad information is almost always worse. (Aside: troubleshooting a systems issue yesterday I had the problem of someone trying to offer answers to questions where "I don't know" was far more useful than "I think ...". Unfortunately, I was getting the "I think ..." response, though not phrased as such.) What you describe, the wirecutter treatment, is the case of an expert opinion. Here there remain issues -- particular of the biased expert. But if I could give a hierarchy of opinions from least to most useful: -2. Biased.
-1. Ignorant.
0. None.
1. Lay.
2. Novice.
3. Experienced.
4. Expert.
5. Authority in field and unbiased. Note that the problem of judging expertise itself recapitulates much of the same problem. Qualification and reputation of the raters themselves is a critical element missing from virtually all ratings systems. |