This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#2This article does little more than pointlessly recycle the tired old trope of the "wisdom of crowds". Yes, the Boston police tried to create some sort of ad-hoc Mechanical Turk. With what results? The relevant video came not from a cellphone camera, but from a good old-fashioned department store surveillance camera. There is no mention of who did the analysis that identified suspects on that video; I suspect it was trained professionals and not the crowds. Meanwhile, we know the Reddit threads have resulted in a few false positives that only luckily didn't create a tragedy. I see no magical improvement in police efficiency with all this.
Oh, and the front page of Reddit is still a worse source of news than the front page of the NYT.
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#3This article does little more than pointlessly recycle the tired old trope of the "wisdom of crowds". Yes, the Boston police tried to create some sort of ad-hoc Mechanical Turk. With what results? The relevant video came not from a cellphone camera, but from a good old-fashioned department store surveillance camera. There is no mention of who did the analysis that identified suspects on that video; I suspect it was t…
A BI piece claiming the "Reddit hive-mind" essentially did the lions share of work in identifying the bombers [1] rolled across my FB feed an hour ago.
I typically don't put much stock in anything that comes out of Business Insider, nor have I attempted to verify their claims. Certainly grain of salt worthy.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/boston-bombers-martin-richard...
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#4This article does little more than pointlessly recycle the tired old trope of the "wisdom of crowds". Yes, the Boston police tried to create some sort of ad-hoc Mechanical Turk. With what results? The relevant video came not from a cellphone camera, but from a good old-fashioned department store surveillance camera. There is no mention of who did the analysis that identified suspects on that video; I suspect it was t…
A BI piece claiming the "Reddit hive-mind" essentially did the lions share of work in identifying the bombers [1] rolled across my FB feed an hour ago. I typically don't put much stock in anything that comes out of Business Insider, nor have I attempted to verify their claims. Certainly grain of salt worthy. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/boston-bombers-martin-richard...
The FBI had already identified the suspects at that point. The practice of presenting an image - possibly of poor quality - to the public and asking for information to help apprehend the suspect is pretty old and standard police practice. Yes, Reddit makes it easier for the public to respond - but there's nothing fundamentally revolutionary here.
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#5This article does little more than pointlessly recycle the tired old trope of the "wisdom of crowds". Yes, the Boston police tried to create some sort of ad-hoc Mechanical Turk. With what results? The relevant video came not from a cellphone camera, but from a good old-fashioned department store surveillance camera. There is no mention of who did the analysis that identified suspects on that video; I suspect it was t…
>Oh, and the front page of Reddit is still a worse source of news than the front page of the NYT.
I would argue that Reddit is no longer a news site. Go compare the front page of Reddit to the front page of Digg. You'll instantly see the difference. My current hypothesis is that as a community becomes more insular the quality goes down. Though obviously if there is a theme for the discussion board then veering off topic is bad.
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#6This article does little more than pointlessly recycle the tired old trope of the "wisdom of crowds". Yes, the Boston police tried to create some sort of ad-hoc Mechanical Turk. With what results? The relevant video came not from a cellphone camera, but from a good old-fashioned department store surveillance camera. There is no mention of who did the analysis that identified suspects on that video; I suspect it was t…
>Oh, and the front page of Reddit is still a worse source of news than the front page of the NYT. I would argue that Reddit is no longer a news site. Go compare the front page of Reddit to the front page of Digg. You'll instantly see the difference. My current hypothesis is that as a community becomes more insular the quality goes down. Though obviously if there is a theme for the discussion board then veering off to…
Reddit became just another aggregator. Flooded with legacy media content and meme photos with a pinch of porn and a junk commenting system. All of the peer generated content is lost in the sea of irrelevance.
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Oh, and the front page of Reddit is still a worse source of news than the front page of the NYT. I would argue that Reddit is no longer a news site. Go compare the front page of Reddit to the front page of Digg. You'll instantly see the difference. My current hypothesis is that as a community becomes more insular the quality goes down. Though obviously if there is a theme for the discussion board then veering off to…
Reddit became just another aggregator. Flooded with legacy media content and meme photos with a pinch of porn and a junk commenting system. All of the peer generated content is lost in the sea of irrelevance.
Subreddits seem strongly resistant to this, but maybe that doesn't help the un-logged-in or new user.
I read r/gundeals, r/til, and r/iama. None of those have crappy external links. There are the obnoxious memes within comments, though.
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#8This article does little more than pointlessly recycle the tired old trope of the "wisdom of crowds". Yes, the Boston police tried to create some sort of ad-hoc Mechanical Turk. With what results? The relevant video came not from a cellphone camera, but from a good old-fashioned department store surveillance camera. There is no mention of who did the analysis that identified suspects on that video; I suspect it was t…
I don't know about that last claim. The live news feed on reddit was very well curated, documented, sourced, and community driven for accuracy. Most developments came straight from the police scanner and people close to the scene PLUS a combined gathering of the mainstream news stories to accompany or support items. Some of it was I'm sure had flaws but a lot was pretty accurate from what I could tell.
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#9This article does little more than pointlessly recycle the tired old trope of the "wisdom of crowds". Yes, the Boston police tried to create some sort of ad-hoc Mechanical Turk. With what results? The relevant video came not from a cellphone camera, but from a good old-fashioned department store surveillance camera. There is no mention of who did the analysis that identified suspects on that video; I suspect it was t…
>Oh, and the front page of Reddit is still a worse source of news than the front page of the NYT. I would argue that Reddit is no longer a news site. Go compare the front page of Reddit to the front page of Digg. You'll instantly see the difference. My current hypothesis is that as a community becomes more insular the quality goes down. Though obviously if there is a theme for the discussion board then veering off to…
Now compare both of those to the front page of HN. My current theory is that as the community becomes more popular, the technical content goes down and the social thought-pieces and popular references go up.
Re: This Is the Modern Manhunt: The FBI, the Hive Mind and the Boston Bombers
#10This article does little more than pointlessly recycle the tired old trope of the "wisdom of crowds". Yes, the Boston police tried to create some sort of ad-hoc Mechanical Turk. With what results? The relevant video came not from a cellphone camera, but from a good old-fashioned department store surveillance camera. There is no mention of who did the analysis that identified suspects on that video; I suspect it was t…
I don't know about that last claim. The live news feed on reddit was very well curated, documented, sourced, and community driven for accuracy. Most developments came straight from the police scanner and people close to the scene PLUS a combined gathering of the mainstream news stories to accompany or support items. Some of it was I'm sure had flaws but a lot was pretty accurate from what I could tell.
I think parent is referring to the general case and not this particular instance. I could be wrong.