Comments on: But will it scale…? http://www.blindside.org.uk/2007/09/05/but-will-it-scale/ What's going to go wrong in our e-enabled world? Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:21:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: wendyg http://www.blindside.org.uk/2007/09/05/but-will-it-scale/#comment-2515 wendyg Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:34:11 +0000 http://www.blindside.org.uk/2007/09/05/but-will-it-scale/#comment-2515 Your email may be working well, but a lot of people's isn't. And in any case I would argue that a system that is requiring people to throw away (one way or another) 92 percent of the email traffic traversing the network is in fact broken. (And if I were getting that little spam through I'd be worrying about false positives...) I think you're right that it comes down to dedicated resources (moderators, spam filters, etc). But that means that every IT project has to allow for the potential for abuse that comes with scale, particular systems that are going to involve public interaction. There are a lot more people spraying crap around the Internet than graffiti in real life, and the consequences are more severe than the place just not looking "nice". As for game worlds, yes, there are people around to monitor behavior. But griefing is still a big issue. All very high school. (Gail Williams, the conference manager of the WELL, once said to me that she thought a lot of online behavior was working out unresolved "high school angst".) wg Your email may be working well, but a lot of people’s isn’t. And in any case I would argue that a system that is requiring people to throw away (one way or another) 92 percent of the email traffic traversing the network is in fact broken.

(And if I were getting that little spam through I’d be worrying about false positives…)

I think you’re right that it comes down to dedicated resources (moderators, spam filters, etc). But that means that every IT project has to allow for the potential for abuse that comes with scale, particular systems that are going to involve public interaction. There are a lot more people spraying crap around the Internet than graffiti in real life, and the consequences are more severe than the place just not looking “nice”.

As for game worlds, yes, there are people around to monitor behavior. But griefing is still a big issue. All very high school. (Gail Williams, the conference manager of the WELL, once said to me that she thought a lot of online behavior was working out unresolved “high school angst”.)

wg

]]> By: Tom Fuller http://www.blindside.org.uk/2007/09/05/but-will-it-scale/#comment-2420 Tom Fuller Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:14:54 +0000 http://www.blindside.org.uk/2007/09/05/but-will-it-scale/#comment-2420 Hmm. It's certainly the type of against-the-grain thinking that makes me, well, think. Online role playing games scaled okay--but on the other hand, they have dedicated IT staff policing the environments. Cheating is not an IT issue, there, it's a behavioural issue. This weblog has received less than 2,000 spam comments in 9 months, and most of them have been caught by Akismet--maybe Pelican Crossing should try it. (But don't get me started on the abuse of our wiki...) Email had a long head start in trying to figure out how to deal with abuse, but I would argue that they've come a long way. My two web-based email accounts perform scarily well in terms of keeping spam out of my inbox. The corporate account I use lets about 1 in a week--just to keep me on my toes, I think. What (I think) they all have in common is dedicated resources that have accepted responsibility for dealing with the issue. I think some scalability issues may come down to that. Your opinion? Hmm. It’s certainly the type of against-the-grain thinking that makes me, well, think. Online role playing games scaled okay–but on the other hand, they have dedicated IT staff policing the environments. Cheating is not an IT issue, there, it’s a behavioural issue. This weblog has received less than 2,000 spam comments in 9 months, and most of them have been caught by Akismet–maybe Pelican Crossing should try it. (But don’t get me started on the abuse of our wiki…)

Email had a long head start in trying to figure out how to deal with abuse, but I would argue that they’ve come a long way. My two web-based email accounts perform scarily well in terms of keeping spam out of my inbox. The corporate account I use lets about 1 in a week–just to keep me on my toes, I think.

What (I think) they all have in common is dedicated resources that have accepted responsibility for dealing with the issue. I think some scalability issues may come down to that. Your opinion?

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