No Blogging Tomorrow

Just a heads up - I will be out of commission tomorrow, so there will be no new posts. And don't think I'm taking the day off. I will be doing this.

Kelo vs. New London fallout

There's been some pretty interesting discussion over the recent Supreme Court decision to allow local governments to seize residential properties for commercial development.

It appears that somebody is going to try and act on the letter of the law and convince a local New Hampshire commission to build a hotel on Justice Souter's property.

Props to Kamylienne for pointing out the article - good stuff.

(on a related note, one of the features that we're working on is the ability for reviewers to hyperlink out to interesting articles. RIA does not exist in a vacuum, and if people are reading interesting, relevant stuff, why not let our reviewers link out to it?)

More Weblist Discussion

For the truly hardcore RIA users.... lots of Weblist philosophy going on in the comments here. A lot of it from me.

Two Opinonated Posts Worth Reading

A heartfelt condemnation of Rap Music from Souljunkie, and a beautifully written endorsement of agnosticism from traderboy.

Agree or not with the sentiments, I think you'll find these posts worth reading.

Sharapova Goes Down

My favorite tennis player Maria Sharapova just lost to Venus Williams, spoiling her bid to repeat as Wimbledon champ.

More Gay Marriage

Spain today became the fourth country to legalize gay marriage, following Canada, Holland, and Belgium.

Article HERE. (it's the NYT, so a registration is required)

There are lots of places to talk about gay marriage on RIA - these are just a few:

Gay Marriage as a political issue

Gay Rights as a political issue

John Kerry's support for civil unions

Bush's support of an amendment that would ban gay marriage

Arguments against gay marriage

MA Court rules in favor of gay marriage

Gay Marriage (debate corner)

War of the Worlds

The first War of the Worlds review just came in. And it's a good one - courtesy of Kamylienne.

Business Exec Gets Off

HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy got acquitted of fraud today, becoming the first of the big federal corruption chargees to avoid conviction.

RIA Features Preview....

Here are a couple of things that are either in development or being considered:

• New Search Engine. One that works like Google, catches misspellings, and delivers you ALL the pages that contain the query you're looking for, sorted by relevance. I think it will be great.
• Giving Weblist creators an Approve/Reject option on weblist suggestions that captures all the incoming data (description, rating, review, etc.)
• New registration process for new users that allows new users to rate items and register on the same form. Right now it's really confusing... you leave the comment, hit submit, then get taken to the registration page.
• New RIA User Toolkit - links to Recent Comments, Top Reviewers, etc.
  
• Featured Member functionality for home page.
• Vastly expanded user pages that includes a lot of things not currently present.
• Editing tool for item description available to ALL users. Think Wikipedia.
• Networking functionality that will allow you to view a list of members interested in a certain topic.
• Trust factor. More on this to follow.
• Interlinking profiles. So if I say that I like the Rolling Stones in my profile, the words "Rolling Stones" becomes a link that will show me other members that like the Rolling Stones.
• New Alert functionality. Alerts when a new item is added to a given topic, alerts when a certain user posts, as well as a tool for each user to manage their alerts.
  
• Top Contributors page (new item submissions, item edits, weblist items)
• RSS feeds of RIA content to other sites (recent comments page, top ten lists, etc.). So you can put RIA content on your MyYahoo page, for example.
• User Stats (so you can see how many times people have viewed your profile).
• Mod Flag ability that would allow moderators to put comments on hold.
• Getting rid of the ratings pop up window, going to a full page, and providing a few simple formatting tools (internal and external linking and paragraphs for example)

I think that's the big stuff. Feedback is always welcome (either public or private).

32 New Features in the Pipeline

Just a heads up... we are starting development today on a project development list that includes 32 new features for RateItAll. Stuff like a new search engine, expanded user pages, and cool new networking features.

No timeline yet as to when stuff will go live, but it's coming.

Responses to Bogus Weblist Flags

Just an FYI. Every time you flag a Weblist for administrative review, it does get read. Unfortunately, we have not a built an easy way into the tool to respond to the reviewer who flags the Weblist. So you will only very rarely hear back from RIA regarding the result of the Weblist that you flagged.

But we act on many of these, and all of them are read.

If you need direct feedback from me, a better way is to use the feedback links in the footer of every page.

Iraq / September 11 Link?

President Bush seems to be taking some heat internationally for using references to 9/11 to try and bolster American resolve regarding the war in Iraq.

Here's the article.

Was invading Iraq the right response to the 9/11 attacks?

NBA Draft

Not sure if anyone cares, but you can rate the top 20 or so 2005 NBA draft picks on this weblist.

Andrew Bogut went number one - he's from Australia.

Rate Fosters while you're at it - it's Australian for beer.

Couple of highlights from Presiden't Bush's Iraq Speech

In a speech designed to inform and reassure the nation about progress in subduing the insurgency in Iraq, President Bush said that he will not be sending more troops to Iraq and will not set a timetable for pulling out.

He also said that the international community had pledged $34B to help rebuild Iraqi infrastructure.

A full summary of the speech can be read here.

Fred Phelps

Fred Phelps and gang from Westboro Baptist Church took it upon themselves to protest the funeral of a fallen Green Beret In Marblehead, MA. Why? Because MA is thought by Phelps to foster homosexuality.

Here's a link to the article (you may have to subscribe).

Here's a link to comment on Fred Phelps.

Oh yeah, Phelps is a Democrat.

Comment Worth Reading...

From LanceRoxas, and his thoughts on religion and tolerance.

There has to be a better way....

.... to network ourselves into subgroups than THIS.

I have some ideas. Stay tuned.

More News From the Big G

Google launched Google Earth today - it's a satellite imagery based mapping product that lets you zoom in on satellite images of buildings, streets, neighborhoods, etc. I saw a demo and it's pretty amazing. As usual with Google gadgets, it's for Windows only. Here are the full specs from the press release:

· Free software download available at http://earth.google.com
· 3D buildings in major cities across the United States
· 3D terrain showing mountains, valleys, and canyons around the world
· Integrated Google Local search to find local information such as
hotels, restaurants, schools, parks, and transportation
· Fast, dynamic navigation
· Video playback of driving directions
· Tilt, rotate, and activate 3D terrain and buildings for a different
perspective on a location
· Easy creation and sharing of annotations among users

You can comment HERE.

RateItAll Member Blogs

It looks like spartacus007 has set up a directory of RateItAll member blogs. There are only two listings on there, but I think we can grow it. I know that Redo has a blog, and I suspect that there might be some others out there.

Please add any submissions to his list, and let's start getting some exposure for these folks.

Spartacus, if you're reading, please let me do the "approvals" of the new listings so that folks can add descriptions and ratings as they add new blogs to the list.

Podcasting

Have you guys been following this podcasting stuff? It's getting pretty big. Podcasting is basically just a fancy name for uploading audio files to the Internet so that users can download them and listen to them at their convenience.

Applications include classes, comedy clips, church sermons, dating personals, and news broadcasts. Obviously blogging is already being impacted as well.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that Apple just announced that its free iTunes software now supports podcasting - meaning that users can download podcast files to their computers and synch them with their iPod. The podcast directory in the latest iTunes will feature content from the BBC, ESPN, and other news channels.

To show you how mainstream this is getting, I just added an evangelist called John Malone to RIA today. When verifying he exists, I went to BibleStudy.net and saw a big podcasting button which would allow you to download his sermon.

Google Video

This just in - a new Google feature called Google Video that lets users upload, host, search, and play video with a new Google Video player that displays the video right in your browser. It's all for free.

To try the service, click here.

To share your opinions, see Magellan's Google Video page on the Google Services and Tools Weblist.

More Natalee...

Not sure how I missed this one, but Sundiszno has created a nice list with some relevant questions regarding the Holloway Disappearance. Correct me if I'm wrong S., but I beleive a 5 rating indicates that you are in agreement, and a 1 rating indicates disagreement.

Let's just hope that Walmart doesn't feel like building where your house is....

Interesting Supreme Court case came through recently regarding the ability for the government to seize private, non-blighted property for commercial enterprises.

The case is called Kelo v. New London. Thanks to politico extraordinaire abichara for writing it up.

Supreme Court Nominees

Some people think this could get pretty contentious.

Feel free to add new listings to this list of Potential Supreme Court Nominees.

Mad props to Vfern for the suggestion.

For a complete list of annoying expressions (like Mad Props!), go ahead and click through.

Dangerous and Helpful Animals

Two shark attacks in three days off of Florida beaches ... Where do sharks rank in the most dangerous animals to man?

Conversely, which animals are most helpful?

Which inevitably leads to the question, if you could BE an animal, what would it be?

Aruba and Natalee Holloway

Not sure if anyone has thoughts on the Natalee Holloway disappearance. Seems to be a strange case... especially in that Aruba has the reputation of being one of the more peaceful and friendly places in the world.

Supreme Court Ruling on Ten Commandments Added to RIA...

here it is: Van Orden v. Perry

thanks to Redo for setting this list of Supreme Court Cases up.

No Supreme Court Openings..... Yet

The Supreme Court recessed for summer break this morning, but there was no announcment from Rehnquist as to his intentions to retire or stay on the court.

In other Supreme Court new, the Ten Commandements were ruled to be OK for display in Austin (no religious purpose) but not OK in Kentucky (there was a religious purpose).

Weblist Guidelines

I've recently been engaged in a fairly intense discussion with RIA heavyweight Pbeavr about my lack of enforcement of the Weblist guidelines. Because the conversation is an interesting one and PB raises some good points, I thought I might share the gist of it.

The Weblist in question is: "A Completely Random List of Questions."

According to the guidelines, Weblists should have a "Focused Theme" and follow a "Ratings Format" (ie, allow a rational case for a 1-5 rating).

So is this Weblist in violation of the Weblist guideines? Yes. Is it still on the site? Yes.

Here's why. I'm currently trying to figure out how to handle Weblists going forward. Is any RIA intervention at all appropriate as these are lists supposedly managed by users? Is a no repeat policy really feasible given the growth of the site? Should I really be telling a user that a Weblist is without value when it is attracting plenty of comments?

I don't know the answer to these questions yet, and as such, I've been intentionally lax in enforcing the Weblist guidelines, especially when the Weblists in question seem to be generating interest. That's not to say I won't quickly delete Weblists (and posts) that are in violation of the RateItAll site rules (more discussion of site rules here) - but I've been letting some of the more harmless Weblist violations go.

I don't know how this all is going to play out yet, but I would say this - posting in a Weblist that is in clear violation of the guidelines could result in your post being removed at some point should the Weblist ever be taken down. That shouldn't surprise anyone.

So, currently the Weblist section admittedly feels a bit like the wild west. Keep flagging Weblists that are incomplete or offensive or duplicates, as I continue to remove them. There will most likely be changes forthcoming at some point in how these are managed, but I can't give a timetable.

But the general Site Rules still remain very much in effect across the site - things like no multiple ID's, no harassing other users, no reposting the same comment over and over, and no posting comments that have nothing to do with the item being rated.

MyYahoo

OK, this is cool.

The service is called MyYahoo.

Basically, it's a personalization service that helps you manage Internet content (news, blogs, web pages) from all over the web, and display them in the format of your liking.

For example, I try and read a number of blogs each day. I read the RIA Blog, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, John Batelle's Search Blog, the Lips Brothers Blog, etc, etc.

MyYahoo lets you aggregate the headlines from each blog on one centralized page. The page updates as the respective blogs update, so it's a great launching point for your daily reading.

If you want to try this service out (it's free), here's how to do it:

1) Go to MyYahoo (you'll need to have a Yahoo account)
2) Customize your news, weather reports, stock quotes, etc. by clicking on the respective "Edit" links.
3) To add the RateItAll Blog to your content, just go to the RateItAll Blog and click on the "Add to MyYahoo" button. Excerpts from the RIA Blog will show up at the bottom of your MyYahoo page. To move it up to the top, click on the "Change Layout" link at the top of the MyYahoo Page.
4) To search for new content to add to your MyYahoo, click the "Add Content" button and use the search tools to find content that interests you.

If anyone has a question on this stuff, feel free to comment on this post... I'll try and help out, as I think this is VERY cool. Once you have it up and running, please leave a review on the MyYahoo ratings page.

Iran, Iraq, and Michelle Wie

Iran's new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Iran will aggressively pursue its nuclear energy program in order to generate electricity. Is an active Iranian nuclear program something that we should be concerned about?

Magellan has put together a Weblist that looks to evaluate American successes and failures in its execution of the Iraq War.

And 15 year old Michelle Wie is trying to win the US open. For you boxing buffs, Pretty Boy Floyd hammered Arturo Gatti last night.

Partisan Hackery

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and Bush Administration strategist Karl Rove made headlines for their divisive opinons.

Durbin compared interrogators at an American prison camp to Nazis while Rove suggested that liberals wanted to respond to the September 11 attacks by wanting to "prepare indictments and offer therapy."

As many of us know from our RIA experiences, it is far easier to demonize our political opponents than to actually debate them.

Meanwhile actor Tom Cruise clashed with Matt Lauer on the Today Show over psychiatry and Ritalin of all things. Where does this clash rank on the list of celebrity feuds? And does this conversation make anyone want to see "War of the Worlds?"

Image Upload Problem is NOW fixed.

I mean it. Really :)

Saddamisms

What's your favorite Saddamism? Entertaining weblist from VFERN.

Image Upload Bug is Now Fixed

You should now be able to upload images to your weblists and user pages without a problem.

"Important Notification"

Just got an email called "Important Notification" from an email account called mail@rateitall.com.

This is bogus. If you get something similar, delete it. Spammers and trolls scrape Web sites for email addresses - as lawrence@rateitall.com is listed publicly on the site, they grab the domain rateitall.com, and try and create deceptive messages using the "authority" of a real site.

The way to check if the message is bogus or not is to use the "Check Internet Headers" tool in your email client. If the email listed in the header does not match the email displayed, it's most likely bogus.

The only emails we send out are: New Message Notifications, New Item Submission Status, New Rating Alerts, Response to Feeback, and an occasional newsletter. If you see something that isn't one of those things, I would ignore it.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Interesting Weblist from Miss Perverse.

Also, my initial impressions of Bourbon Street? Smells like vomit. For a complete list of displeasing odors, click HERE.

Bolton in Trouble?

Senate Democrats block Bolton nomination. Article HERE.

If you're ever in New Orleans....

Eat HERE.

Awesome seafood, cool, mellow atmosphere with garden seating.

Heading to the Big Easy

Posting on the blog will most likely be light this week, as I will be in New Orleans for a webmaster conference. I will be popping on RIA throughout the day to make sure that things are going smoothly, but will most likely not have too much time to blog.

For those that are interested, I'm speaking about "online community." I think it's safe to say that we have that at RIA. I'll share more details about the meat of my presentation in the coming weeks - some of it should be fairly interesting because it involves features that I plan to roll out to RIA.

Jeb Bush Reopens Schiavo Inquiry

Here's the article.

Discuss here.

2005 Top News Stories

RateItAll was crying out for a Weblist like this. Brought to you by Spartacus007.

Rich Athletes

Athletes who earned the most money from June, 2004 to June, 2005 according to Forbes Magazine:

Tiger Woods ($87M)
Michael Schumacher ($60M)
Oscar De La Hoya ($38M)
Michael Vick (aka Ron Mexico) ($37.5M)
Shaquille O'Neal ($33.4M)
Michael Jordan ($33M)
David Beckham ($32.5M)
Kobe Bryant ($28.8M)
Lance Armstrong ($28M)
Valentino Rossi ($28M)

Anybody else think they're in the wrong business?

Feedback Requested

Hi All, I set up this Weblist in an effort to get feedback as how we can make the RateItAll Blog as interesting as possible. Any comments are welcome.

Suspicious Things

Couple of suspicious things in the news today:

- elections in Iran

- Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes to get married

- Ex-Tyco chief Kozlowski convicted of Grand Larceny (I guess the conviction itself isn't that suspicious, but I needed to somehow lump this with the other two bullets)

Withdrawal from Iraq

This just in.

Support for Iraq War Waning?

A Gallup poll reported this week says that 31 percent of respondents said they want to pull out some US troops from Iraq, and 28 percent want to pull out all troops. The combined figure of 59% is the highest support for withdrawal since the beginning of the Iraq war.

In congress, a resolution was introduced in the House that would require President Bush to announce a plan by year's end for withdrawing troops from Iraq. The resolutions sponsors are Ron Paul (R-Texas), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), and Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii). Of the four, only Jones had originally voted for the war.

Meanwhile, Representative John Conyers of Michigan, a senior House Democrat, has organized a forum to probe the reasons given for the Iraq war.

Says liberal New York City Democrat Charles Rangel, "Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war."

Is the Iraq War a war that needed to be fought? Here are some related lists:

- Do you believe the Iraq war was justified?
- Why did America invade Iraq?
- Most compelling reasons against war on Iraq
- Most compelling reasons for war on Iraq

More Gitmo

Interesting discussion of closing Gitmo going on . Though I'm not sure what the ratings scale is. By importance? By agreement?

Scary Stuff

Paul Klebnikov - killed for what he wrote.

It sounds a little dramatic, but I read stuff like this and it makes me determined to try and keep RIA open to as many competing viewpoints as possible.

Deep Throat Cashes In

(I hope the FCC doesn't censor us for that headline)

Anyway, Mark Felt - AKA Deep Throat - has apparently signed a book and movie deal. It would appear that his financial worries are over. Does this change your perception of the heroism or lack thereof of his actions? Here's a link to the newstory.

Also, Ricky Williams would appear to be back. I'm sure his Dolphins teammates will be thrilled.

And Steinbrenner has plans for a New Yankee Stadium for 2009. My opinion? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Sorry for not posting yesterday...

... but I have a good reason.

For my birthday, my wife made me a fantastic meal followed by some killer brownies. I ate more brownies than I probably should have, as is my style. A couple of hours later, I was in the emergency room and was told that I will need to have my gallbladder removed. If anyone has had this supposedly routine procedure, I'd appreciate words of encouragement.

It's always nice when signs of the aging process correspond to your actual birthday. Actually, it's not that nice.

Anyway, I convinced the doctor to postpone the surgery because I am scheduled to speak at a Webmaster Conference in New Orleans next week. He said this should be fine, but I need to lay off the fatty foods and alchohol. Lay off the fatty foods and alcohol in New Orleans? Hit me where it hurts.

Anyway, enough of that... onto today's headlines:

• Terri Schiavo is back in the news with the results of her autopsy being made public. Surgeon and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist clarified that he was not making a prognosis when he suggested that docto