(fwd) The GroupLens Trial (fwd)
Gordon Irlam (gordoni@base.com)
Mon, 12 Feb 1996 14:23:05 -0800 (PST)
-]From: Brad Miller <bmiller@cs.umn.edu>
-]Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
-]Subject: The GroupLens Trial
-]Date: Thu, 08 Feb 96 19:01:48 GMT
-]
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-]
-] Are you tired of all the junk on Usenet these days?
-] Be part of a project that could change the face of USENET!
-] Here's your chance to help make USENET useful again.
-]
-] ---------------- What is GroupLens? ----------------
-]
-]In a nutshell, GroupLens is a collaborative filtering system that
-]helps you work together with other people to find the quality news
-]articles out of the huge volume of news articles generated every day.
-]
-]To accomplish this the GroupLens system combines your opinions about
-]articles you have already read with the opinions of others who have
-]done likewise and gives you a personalized prediction for each unread
-]news article. The prediction is on a scale from 1-5, and indicates to
-]you how likely you are to find the article useful.
-]
-]I am Brad Miller, a graduate student in Computer Science. I have been
-]working on GroupLens as my thesis project with professors John Riedl
-]and Joe Konstan. We have been working on GroupLens for two years, along
-]with our Colleagues Paul Resnick of ATT Bell Labs, and David Maltz at CMU.
-]We are ready to run a test of the system involving 10,000 users.
-]
-]For much more information, or to sign-up, please visit our web page at
-]
-] http://www.cs.umn.edu/Research/GroupLens
-]
-]
-] ---------------- Why should *I* use GroupLens? ----------------
-]
-]Because Usenet doesn't work any more! Too many people posting too
-]much junk have clogged the net. But, "put simply, Usenet is the
-]largest information utility in existence" [Harley Hahn,"A Student's
-]Guide to UNIX"]! We each need help selecting the nuggets of useful
-]information from the muddy sluice of the Net. GroupLens is a filter
-]that identifies the high quality articles that will be of interest to
-]*you*.
-]
-]The more users we get the better GroupLens works! We have been testing
-]the system for several weeks with about 25 users, but are now ready to
-]add many more. With 25 users we are getting good results, but in high
-]volume newsgroups we need more people. The more users, the less we
-]each need to read to be sure we're discovering all the good stuff!
-]
-]
-] ---------------- Hey! It's easy, and fun ----------------
-]
-]We have tried to make GroupLens as easy to use and as unobtrusive as
-]possible. In all cases the number of extra keystrokes you need to
-]type in order to rate news articles is zero or one! In return you get
-]predictions from GroupLens that tell you how good an article is.
-]
-]But what about PRIVACY? GroupLens lets you choose your own pseudonym
-]for your ratings and predictions. Noone -- not even the GroupLens
-]servers -- knows who "SpacemanSpiff" *really* is.
-]
-]You can also subscribe to the GroupLens mailing list by sending mail
-]to grouplens-request@cs.umn.edu. This list is for general discussion
-]about GroupLens, and may be helpful.
-]
-]
-] ---------------- What is the Future of GroupLens? ----------------
-] ---------------- What is the Future of Usenet? ----------------
-]
-]We are currently running GroupLens on a few groups with just 10,000
-]lucky people, to collect data on the best collaborative filtering
-]methods for figuring out which news you like to read. After a two to
-]three month test period, we plan to give away our software so
-]GroupLens can run for as many people, and on as many newsgroups as
-]possible. GroupLens has the potential to shape the future of the
-]Internet! This is your chance to help shape that future.
-]
-]
-] ---------------- To Join ----------------
-]
-]Get the GroupLens version of one of the following news readers [or modify
-]your favorite reader -- see footnote 1]:
-]
-] - gnus-5 under emacs or xemacs
-] - tin
-] - xrn
-]ELF and aout binaries available at
-]ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/users/bmiller/glsoft
-]
-]Join as a GroupLens member to read and rate news articles in one or
-]more of the following groups [or propose your favorite groups -- see
-]footnote 2]:
-]
-] - comp.os.linux.*
-] - comp.lang.c++
-] - mn.general
-] - comp.groupware
-] - rec.humor
-] - rec.food.recipes
-] - rec.arts.movies
-]
-]
-](1) We tried to choose newsreaders with a large user base. On the
-]other hand, if there is another newsreader that you think should be on
-]the list maybe you'd like to get to know the GroupLens client library!
-]The client library does most of the work needed to add GroupLens
-]support to any newsreader.
-]
-]We are particularly interested in finding a windows based newsreader,
-]if you know of a good, popular newsreader for windows, and we can get
-]the source code, let us know!
-]
-](2) Due to space and resource limitations, we cannot support
-]everybody's favorite newsgroup. On the other hand, we'd like to have
-]a small set of newsgroups with wide appeal. Let us know if there is a
-]particular newsgroup for which you would especially like to use
-]GroupLens.
-]
-]- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-]Brad Miller | e-mail: bmiller@cs.umn.edu
-]University of Minnesota | phone: (612) 626-8396
-]Department of Computer Science | www: http://www.cs.umn.edu/~bmiller
-]EE/CS 5-244 |
-]- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-]
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