Black White

Inspired by the article about the new project to combat corruption in Kazakhstani universities.



I want to talk about the Black-and-White lists, to recall my experience fifteen years ago and today, to listen to community opinion on this matter.



Who cares - please go.



My first experience on such lists has been for 15 years already - for a year and a half since March 1996, the Black & White log was conducted on the basis of materials from the Fido conference pvt.exch.black.log . Archive of the last log remained in the annals of history . At that time, it was a promising initiative - an attempt to use the opinion of the community for real purchases. Now, from a distance, you can draw some conclusions.

1. The opinion of each person - informally and emotionally. Echo-conference was just an outlet where you can talk. As a result, this log reflected the emotional attitude of a living person to the company (in fact, to a soulless machine)
2. The main members of the community are students, there was more radicalism in their opinion than justifications.
3. To put the company a reasonable score of plus or minus, you need the opinion of at least a few people. Firms with such reviews were units.
4. There were no removal procedures from the list - only positive or negative reviews.
5. The white list turned out much less than Black. And for planning purchases, it is more interesting to have positive impressions - of which you can savor negative ones.

It is quite logical that I was disappointed in the result when, after a year of work, I tried on the basis of accumulated statistics to give recommendations at the place of purchase. The quality of work of firms on these notes was actually determined by the quality of work of specific people, and the smaller the company, the more personalized the service - which was what the community members liked. Any other indicators were simply ignored.

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Then they tried to establish contacts with the consumer society for the exchange of information - this did not interest them either, for the same reasons. Now this is history.



Today I actively use another list - inadequate buyers of online stores from livejournal.com. There are lists of buyers with delivery by mail cash on delivery, which confirmed and did not buy the order. Quite a real return - before there were up to 25% of such orders, now - no more than 5%. Although those on the list are offended ...



As for the mentioned anti-corruption project - in fact, it’s also a blacklist — I want to gather together and voice my thoughts here. Specifically, it has both removable and fatal shortcomings. In order…

1. Pre-moderation of each application is declared, but nowhere is it indicated how it will be checked. Nobody prevents students from coordinating and throwing mud at a too principled teacher.
2. The opportunity to justify is very limited - only in a separate forum for teachers. Opportunities to remove the "slander" is not provided. All this can easily turn into a settling of accounts and the removal of “black” and “gray” records for money.
3. Anonymity of messages is a plus for the author, but a minus for all others. No legal action on the results of anonymous messages can be done, except for the same account information. If a signature were required - such statements would be more substantiated, and it would be possible to transfer materials to law enforcement agencies, the heads of the guilty, to law enforcement agencies, to actually do something.
4. Most of the “bribe takers” will remain on the “gray list” - without confirmation or refutation, with 1-2 reviews. Like, stained and piled off.
5. The authors of the messages are students, from whose maximalism one cannot escape anywhere simply by virtue of age and drive. So, like 15 years ago, it showed pvt.exch.black.log , there will be more emotions than facts.

Well, and a few words about the project Navalny (also a variant of BlackLog). Its big plus is that specific and time-limited projects and cases are blacklisted. There is a person responsible for these materials - Navalny himself. And there is evidence - expert opinions, publication of tender materials, etc.



And what does the respected Habrasoobschestvo thinks about this topic?