[thesite] hosting listings on d.e.o.

[mccreath]

> From: isaac
>
> > 2) allow anyone to list hosts, and allow anyone to rate and comment them
> >    pro: still not a bitch to implement, and even if hosts start listing
> >         themselves, there is the control of the ratings and comments
> >    con: could still create such a morass that it would become useless at
> >         worst, no better than other such sites at best
>
> this con would be my primary concern. there would be other host ranking
> sites already, although i can understand the value placed in another
> community member's opinion.

Yep. The whole purpose of my bringing it up is that we would have an index
of hosts that have been run through the filter of the evolt membership,
which would increase that index's value, especially for other members.

> i wonder if we could exclude ratings, and just add a commenting feature to
> DEO items.

We could, but if we're going as far as adding commenting, we might as well
add ratings, too. The both require the same sort of backend work.

> although ratings would allow sorting, etc.

Good point. I hadn't even thought of that.

> i also have concerns that with evolt membership being free, we're
> really not
> stopping someone biased jumping in and rating competitors down, and their
> own service up.

true.

>could users see who has rated what?

I think that would be a valid way to do it. "X gave this host a rating of n,
and had this to say:"

> things could work ok for a time as we stay under the radar, i guess.

Right, but how long can we count on that? Prolly not very long, huh?

> maybe we'd be best just duplicating WEO and building HEO. but then where
> does it stop? do we build more sites allowing users to rate
> WYSIWYG apps? or copywriters?

HEO? hubris.evolt.org? ;) Oh. hosts.evolt.org. No, I really don't think this
warrants a subdomain. I think it could be a nice addition to DEO, but only
if we have the right kind of controls in place. Otherwise we're duplicating
effort and devaluing DEO.

David