For several months now I have used the service Web of Trust (WOT) to gauge the trustworthiness of many websites that I visit, but recently I have grown concerned over the actual accuracy of those that rate websites for the service. The problem that I see, which can happen on any website where a community is involved, is that there are those that have had personal conflict with site owners and use the WOT service to backlash against them. WOT provides any registered individual the ability to rate and comment on a website. It then provides software protecting users based on these ratings.
The thing is, the openness may be a bad thing per se, but the idea of the service itself is good. There just needs to be some moderation. I actually use WOT in a project that I have developed to determine whether content being published to the service is malicious or not, but I see many times false positives. Sites that do not deserve a bad rating at all. What WOT needs to do is place each comment or rating in a query based system and require that proof be provided if the comment may be damaging to a website. This way a bias person cannot rate poorly against a website based on personal conflict.
It really is a good service, just needs more work.
Many people know me as the lead developer behind the bt.gd URL shortener. When I was hired to do the development for bt.gd it ran off of yourls. yourls is an open source URL shortening toolkit that can be installed and used similar to WordPress, but I knew as a developer that using such open source software would not drive traffic. Why would someone be attracted to a website that looks and responds similar to a hundred other websites using the same piece of software? Therefore, I wrote the entire website from scratch to be able to scale and perform to a much higher standard. What is my point?
Since the launch of bt.gd in November of 2009 I have seen a spike in the number of URL shorteners on the Internet. I do not know what may have caused the spike, but what I have noticed is that many of the URL shorteners run yourls, and like any other market with open source software it is being polluted by generic websites. I understand if you want your own URL shortener, but if you create one at least take what is given and make it your own. Do not just install and forget. Bring something to the table that makes your site worthy. Not just create one because you can.
This rant-like post that I am creating is not targeted at any particular website and it is also not just targeted solely at yourls. I just find it irritating how many websites just install and forget. Even I have done it. This blog, it is simply WordPress with a theme that can be downloaded from the WordPress website. I did customize it slightly, but it does not offer anything that any other blog can’t provide. This blog is just a personal website though so I am not seeking to impress anyone or attract new customers. It is the websites that offers services to the Internet as a whole that I am referring to.
All I am asking is if you wish to download open source software and install it, customize it. It is open source for a reason so that you have the ability to change it, so take advantage of that.