The idea of ​​combining the democratic nature of the forum, the personality and hierarchy of the blog, and the qualitative definition and extraction of valuable content using the collaboration, is finally beginning to take real shape.

We called the system AZ Sutra. Sutra is a “thread” in Sanskrit, as well as a valuable statement. Sutra is any integral branch of communication, I like it more than thread (also “thread”, by the way). AZ - activity and significance.

(I described the prerequisites for creating the system on Habré in the texts " Interfaces of communication systems - see a tree behind the leaves " and " Freedom for comments! Or" each according to his merits ").

Here are four basic principles of the work of AZ Sutra:
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I. Any message has a chance
Any message or (even) a comment can become the "king of the mountain", that is, get traffic and positioning. To do this, he simply needs to score Relevance (user ratings).


Ii. Significance is multidimensional
The message has its own tag or tag cloud. Significance is distributed between message labels, that is, Significance is thematic. If the conversation began about football, and then word for word went in the direction of earning money, then the composition of the message labels and the distribution of their significance will show the drift of the topic, even without a detailed reading of this Sutra.


Iii. Visibility of messages depends on the position of the observer.
On the basis of relevance based navigation on the Sutra. You can scroll / page, and you can jump ... We just scale it. With a large scale, all or almost all messages are visible, with a small scale (a bird's eye view), only significant or very related to the reference message are visible. Hence the concept of a focal or reference message, that is, a message regarding which the user is looking at the Sutra.



Iv. User expertise is multidimensional
The significance of users as authors and appraisers is also different in different labels, the essence of topics. A very influential gentleman in politics, maybe zero in technology. Significance of users gives them the power of voice in the assessment, and the power of the voice in the statements - their messages are more likely to attract traffic attention.

More about algorithms

Survey material, which describes the mathematical principles of AZ Sutra is available in the public domain in the system itself (labeled Mathematics ).
To be honest, there is a huge amount of symbols, formulas and again formulas in it, I sometimes even fear to look into it.

Therefore here in three words I will set out the main points, so to speak - without formulas.

The significance of the message immediately after birth depends on the significance of the author. The growth of importance depends on who and how evaluates the message. Note that significance is always a vector, that is, significance in a label (tag).

Significance has the property of degradation with time, but not to zero.

Evaluators of messages get an increase in significance if they fall into the trend. The premium for the evaluation for them is the more the earlier they “correctly” evaluate the message.

The author receives a Significance increase if his message is rated. Evaluation can be done for each label separately, or you can simply add / minus the entire message, and the system itself scatters estimates by the labels, theoretically, taking into account the expertise in these labels of the appraiser himself.

The visibility of the message is calculated in relation to the focus and taking into account the number of competitors per demonstration. The advantages are:

1. Close relatives (replies to the message)
2. Nodal messages (those that have become nodes for new branches)
3. Thematic analogues. Labels are being compared, including the calculation of related labels.
4. Meaningful messages

Illustration of the work of zooming
The whole sutra about Cortes at the minimum scale. Pay attention to the completeness of the bio.

Problems and what remains to be

Of course the biggest problem with interfaces. Namely, with the evaluation interface and the Sutra zoom interface.
Here we need fresh breakthrough thoughts. The top panel, which we call the sutra frame management, needs to be more interactive. In addition, many questions on navigation within the system.

Further, there are simply pending concepts:

1. The system for assigning / deleting labels on messages. How will these actions be promoted?
2. What to do if the number of positive and negative ratings is close. For example, the label “Islam” message can have 50% to 50% of supporters and opponents.
3. Global constants of the system, so far exhibited from the point of view of common sense. Procedures and normalization algorithms are needed.
4. The thresholds for the significance of messages for entering the traffic funnels (Label page. The best of the day, week, and so on) have not yet been mathematically substantiated.

What do you need

The project is already breathing, you can feel it, but to perfection it is still very far away. Honestly, this is not yet an end user system, but a technology-ideology.
We are a very small team, three people are almost completely in this process (I-Yuli Orlov, Ivan Pleschev — code, Pavel Ivanov — layout, design) plus a attracted mathematician Sergey Tsarev, who helps with particularly clever mathematical algorithms.

We want to make an open source project, because development will be faster this way. And there is much to develop. Personally, I see it as a platform for the communication tools of the new generation.

We need comrades, critics, advisers. In general, help is needed in the development of this system.
You can see everything here on this slow test server az2.snega.ru.
Invites in AZ Sutra will distribute on request in PM, send your mail (and preferably a clever idea).

UPD: Registration is open.
UPD March 02, 2017: Works have been stopped. Now we begin again.