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cory doctorow
it. To understand the true depths of meta-laziness, download ten
random MP3 files from Napster. Chances are, at least one will
have no title, artist, or track information — this despite the fact
that adding in this info merely requires clicking the “Fetch Track
Info from CDDB” button on every MP3-ripping application.
Short of breaking fingers or sending out squads of vengeful
info-ninjas to add metadata to the average user’s files, we’re never
gonna get there.
2.3 People are stupid
Even when there’s a positive benefit to creating good metadata,
people steadfastly refuse to exercise care and diligence in their
metadata creation.
Take eBay: every seller there has a damned good reason for
double-checking their listings for typos and misspellings. Try
searching for “plam” on eBay. Right now, that turns up
nine
typoed listings for “Plam Pilots.” Misspelled listings don’t show
up in correctly spelled searches and hence garner fewer bids and
lower sale-prices. You can almost always get a bargain on a Plam
Pilot at eBay.
The fine (and gross) points of literacy — spelling, punctuation,
grammar — elude the vast majority of the Internet’s users. To be-
lieve that J. Random Users will suddenly and
en masse
learn to
spell and punctuate — let alone accurately categorize their infor-
mation according to whatever hierarchy they’re supposed to be
using — is self-delusion of the first water.
2.4 Mission: Impossible — know thyself
In
meta-utopia,
everyone
engaged
in
the
heady
business
of
describing stuff carefully weighs the stuff in the balance and
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