Google vs. Boilerplate Activism

ArmorFiend writes with this NYTimes article which "details the efforts of journalists to discern real reader-written letters from boilerplate form letters. Seems like there should be a centralized searchable DB of letters to the editor."

Moderators on slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

need a centralized searchable DB of trolls to discern real reader-written trolls from boilerplate form trolls.

Dark side or lighter side or darker light side?

[sammyo]

How about a filter that adds a bit of lexical noise to each email to the congressman or editor? A proxy service? Hmm, lobbying and such are big business, market opportunity anyone?

huh?

[pummer]

Editors and Lobbyists Wage High-Tech War Over Letters
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

Jennifer 8. Lee??!?!?

Let's demonstrate

[goatasaur]

E-mail written by a human being:

"How are you doin? I was hanging oout with aunt sally today and you should see her goiter! its the size of a watermelon... and mabel says blah blah blah..."

E-mail compiled by a spam program:

"HEY [e-mail], increase your penis size TODAY! CLICK HERE [mega-enlargement.com] for more details! LADJF43253K42LJ34L3K23JK4."

So you can see, humans have about as much interesting things to say as spam does. Maybe even more; I'm way more inclined to make my penis bigger than to hear the droll minutae of my family's lives. Who isn't?

Yes.

[Sheetrock]

It's the result of a terrible incident involving a strange polynomial and an unusual quantity of alcohol. Best just to not bring it up in the future.

Re:I'm not so sure that this is a good thing...

[RKBA]

Computers can supposedly create original paintings [kurzweilcyberart.com], so can it be long before they start creating original letters to the editor? ;-)

Re:"barrier of entry" should be higher than that

[Anonymous Coward]

once the barrier of entry (e.g. having to find paper, envelope, and a stamp, and then being able to write legibly) has been lowered so much, all sorts of half-baked opinions are voiced

Oh the irony of posting that to slashdot!

Re:I'm not so sure that this is a good thing...

[gokubi]

Correct. And think about the tax dollar savings! Ever compile the results of 30,000 hadwritten letters and faxes? Shove emails into a database and you are minutes from an accurate tabulation of the mind of the people!

I suspect this is just another attempt to discourage people from bothering elected officials with input. Can we get the election turnout below 25%? Anyone?

Re:I'm not so sure that this is a good thing...

[radio_jed]

And then that word-recognition technology that Yahoo! and everybody is using now will kick in and computers will be able to tell if the form letter is written with an algorithm and computers will make decisions and ... uh. Wait.

Letter to the Republican National Committee

[Milo Fungus]

Everyone copy and paste this letter and send it to the Republican National Committee [mailto]

:

Dear Republican National Committee,

I am opposed to your use of form letters in your activists efforts. I think people should express their own opinions in their own words.

Sincerely,
(insert your name here)

Re:Google

[Forgotten]

Because the template-filling routines read from a queue. The complete template looks like this:
from the $deadpan dept.
$subject vs. $object
$submitter writes with this $scalpee article which "$quotemademeaninglessbylackofcontext". Seems like $pithyorunarguablyobviousobservation.

I wish people would use shorter variable names.

Re:I'm not so sure that this is a good thing...

[teamhasnoi]

Bush barely has control of his bowels, much less his diction, word choice, or pronunciation.
"Wah ohn terra." Sure. Whatever you say, President Prezel.

Perhaps we can get the keepers of 'Koko the signing monkey' to come and translate for him...

a true story about letters to the editor...

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

Back a few years ago while I was in college, a friend and I ran a little humor club of sorts... Our "publications" were few, but we thought they were pretty quality...

Anyway, in the parody [timandjeni.com] that we made of our school's website [spu.edu], we encouraged people to use Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator [sigusr1.org] to generate letters to submit to our school paper [thefalcononline.com] as letters to the editor. As it turns out, I was reading said paper a few months later, and came across a very familiar writing style [thefalcononline.com]... We got quite a kick out of it.

ahh... memories.

It's disgusting.

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

What next? Newspapers and other news agencies printing press releases from corporations verbatim and claiming they are news?

Re:Letter to the Republican National Committee

[Milo Fungus]

Or an alternate version for the PPI. Be sure to cut and paste different paragraphs from it:

Dear Planned Parenthood Initiative,

I am opposed to your use of form letters in your activists efforts. I think people should express their own opinions in their own words.

I think people should express their own opinions in their own words, therefore I am opposed to your use of form letters in your activists efforts.

Like, I think people should totally have opinions, and stuff, but like, they should be their own. You're totally not an individual if you can only express yourself through someone else's words.

To form letters, opposed I am. Opinions given by individual, should be.

Sincerely,
(insert your name here)

Problem Solved ?

[KoolDude]

If making a centralized DB could solve the problem, we wouldn't see so many repeated stories on /. ;)

Re:How about using it against journalists?

[rthille]

There was a great cartoon in the paper this weekend. The scene was a classroom, and a kid with a laptop. The bubble coming from the kid was something like: "Miss Wormwood, Google beggs to differ." :-)

Gov. going to do that anyway

[Parsec]

Once the Office of Information Awareness gets its fingers into that, they'll be able to tell us which letters are boilerplate.

Non Conformist Oath

[pyrrho]

Ok, this is terrible and we all need to remember we don't want to be conformists so it's time for the non-conformist oath. Please say aloud:

. I am an individual

. I have my own ideas

. I with think what I want to think

. I well express myself freely

. I will not repeat things other people say.

Repeat five times. Thank you. (stolen and paraphrased...)

Re:How about using it against journalists?

[sporktoast]

[...]

using google to find out that a journalist's "normal american citizen" source is actually an activist, and a history teacher to boot.

Hey, thanks for the warning! Somebody call out the INS and hvae them deport that man to France at once!

We all know that "normal american citizen(s)" would never be caught having an opinion on any issue until asked by a proper journalist or polling organization. Not only does this guy have an opinion already, but he's admitted to online. He's been telling!

Sure, maybe we can forgive knowing a little about history (the war of 1812 happened in 1812, right?). But this guy's actually teaching others about it?!?
He can't possibly be a "normal american citizen". He knows too much!

DEAR SIR OR MADAM

[Nova Express]

I AM OUTRAGED THAT Slashdot IS QUESTIONING MICROSOFT'S COMMITMENT TO not faking letters to the editor. MICROSOFT HAS LONG SUPPORTED not faking letters to the editor, AND CURRENT ACCUSATIONS OTHERWISE ARE MERELY OPPORTUNISTIC PROPOGANDA BY COMPETITORS LIKE Sun, Apple, IBM, Linux, the United States Government, WHO, HAVING BEEN BEATEN IN THE MARKETPLACE, ARE TRYING TO CURTAIL MICROSOFT'S FREEDOM TO INNOVATE. YOU SHOULD SEE Slashdot's BASELESS CHARGES FOR WHAT THEY ARE: OPPORTUNISTIC LIES BY A KNOWN MICROSOFT-BASHER, SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT'S COMPETITORS. IN THE FUTURE, PLEASE REFRAIM FROM LETTING Slashdot USE Slashdot AS A FORUM FOR UNFOUNDED PROPAGANDA.

SINCERELY,

John Smith

[e-mail]

P.S. PLEASE NOTE THAT I, John Smith, HAVE NO RELTIONSHIP WITH THE MICROSOFT CORPORATION, CREATORS OF WINDOWS(R), MS OFFICE(R), INTERNET EXPLORER(R), AND OTHER FINE SOFTWARE PRODUCTS.

Re:huh?

[Kyeo]

The 8 is short for 867-5309.
Because her name is Jenny!
I'm sorry.

Re:I'm not so sure that this is a good thing...

[jerde]

... if I write a letter to my congresscritter supporting an issue, I support that issue whether or not the original words are entirely mine. After all, presidents use speechwriters -- and this is entirely accepted as the norm (though Lincoln often wrote his own, but that's an abberation.) And yet we say that the president himself (or herself, someday in the future) supports the issue. Why should members of the public be ignored just because they have speechwriters, of a sort? It's the opinion that matters, not the form of the opinion, as long as it's not threatening or rude to another person.

Database of Letters to the Editor

[tribguru]

I'm pretty sure that a repository of letters to the editor is already being kept [fbi.gov] for your protection.

Re:I'm not so sure that this is a good thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Well, except for the activists for the Think For Yourself Front. :)

but not the basterds from the Front for Thinking for Youself.