Kevin Marks proposed to the emergent democracy list yesterday a way to flag that just because we’re linking to something doesn’t mean we agree with it. Among the benefits, this would give Google and other apps that count links a way to judge whether the link should count as a recommendation.

After we kicked it around for a while — wondering, for example, whether it should take a binary value or a range and whether we should call it “whuffie” — Kevin formulated the proposal. We’re calling it “vote links” (not my favorite since voting is just one application) and it’s simplicity itself: you optionally add “vote=X” to any link, where X can be “1”, “-1” or “0”. To take Kevin’s example:

<a href=”http://ragingcow.com” vote=”-” title=”nasty corn syrup drink”>Raging Cow</a>

The best place for info is Kevin’s site where he has a discussion and links to other list members’ blog entries.

Categories: Uncategorized dw