Firstly, @Jayanth, Naveen, Rakesh, Jyo,nampu, srikanth, Teja, Ram, Amrutash,shanmukh,Preethi, nesh, pinky,sheshank,sanjeev, lk, Pratyu,suri,mohan- Thank you very much for commenting! Babloo recently asked me when I am posting my next post! i am kicking myself :P
Secondly
In the last post I just wanted to talk about the order of magnitude of the kind of expenses you are looking at. I am just suggesting that entrepreneurship is one way if u are looking for some fun as well as fun :)
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A month ago I was on a high of ideas. I usually get high when I get an awesome idea. I dont know what exactly an alcoholic high feels like but I think this high is close to it. I am looking for a lot of criticism, thoughts and discussions on the following idea.
I am just calling it wikicrime. No! This is definitely not about collaborating in an open environment to commit a crime. Before I actually explain I should start with a little introduction to my thoughts on corruption and crime.
For all those people who have a pesisimistic (did i make a spelling mistake?forget it) view about India please take a look at the following statistics. Readers digest conducted two experiments once 20 years ago and once in the recent times. They left a huge sum of money in envelopes at various public places and they found that 85% percent of the cases the finders were trying to return it to the owners. This percentage remained same at both times. Dude we live in a good place! But then....
What is it in India that is feeding corruption and crime? India has a good legal and constitutional system. The only problem I find is that they forgot to factor in the fact that MAN/WOMAN as of now lives only 70 years on an average. It seems as if they have designed all this assuming man lives for ever. So lets get the truth no matter what and not punish the innocent under any circumstance. Cool! Very commendable. What the hell are u going to do about the people who are commiting crime and using this as a loop line? Where is the complementary system to reduce this? There is none as of now.
There is a need to make this faster. If we just speed up all these processes in India by 2X we will be at much better position. Well, since law is not something which can be changed so fast I think the idea of wikicrime might help in this matter.
Let me explain my idea. We start a wiki where anyone can post details of corruption or crime they face/come across.(they can do it anonymously). This wiki has to be made popular enough that people get used to posting into it and people who can help need not spend time in searching for crimes. Newspapers do it to some extent but they dont have enough space to publish stuff. This also has another advantage that the criminal (or the corrupted guy) will start getting a little concerned once he find his name and act in a wiki. It should have a provision where the most popular criminal (or corrupted guy) ends up topping the list :P. You could vote for a guy and increase popularity.
This does nothing in terms of punishing the guy who commits crime. But it does make him popular for what he does. Nobody wants their kith and kin to think they are criminals (or corrupted). For instance if that ACP Rathore who was molesting had his name, photo and his act documented in a wiki and people start voting him and taking him to the top things would have been faster.
There are drawbacks with this system. There can be a lot of fake/false accusations. These would stay at the bottom of the popularity list. We should make sure that a post made is not deletable under any circumstances. If its a false accusation let it be still on the wiki but we should make sure things are not buried under any circumstance. If its a false accusation people will know about it and I am sure the guy can give an explaination about it.
Implementation of this idea:
To start with we should have support of the following stake holders -
1. news reporters who work in crime investigations - Tehelka?
2. money in the form of donations not in the form of sponsorship (sponsors might pressurize if they contribute a lot of money). We could put ads but then google might end up placing ads of only things like condoms, viagra and stds because of the way google ads work.
3. Publicity to people and support from them.
Well, thats all I have thought of as of now. Thank you in advance for all the criticism and suggestions from you. Lets see how this turns out. please do comment guys!(of course that applies to girls too!)
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Check this out..
ReplyDeletewww.BRIBEline.org
Something on the same lines as your post.. But the list is not visible to the public AFAIK..
Adarsh
Hey,
ReplyDeleteThanks da. Nice to know that it exists.Seems like the purpose and the manner in which it is implemented is different. It also seems like it is for US. It is to help companies. What about crimes committed by the companies itself? Can you also comment on the pros and cons of this? You could share some thoughts about the implementation. I am trying to get a good view of things.
You have a lot of faith in the collective intelligence and the sense of justice of the masses using this site.
ReplyDeleteHowever -
how can you be confident that false accusations won't rise to the top of the list. All you need is one really unpopular guy (anybody we might love to hate) being blamed for a crime. (think of the bad saas in a saas-bahu serial being blamed for paining her real life bahu).(aliter think of lalu being blamed for another scam.)
In case of wikis - the site is kept clean because it deals with verifiable facts and there are hazaar volunteers wiling to keep it clean.
In case of file-sharing networks etc - bad/corrupt files never reach the top of the download lists because it does not make sense for the users to download or popularise such files - nobody has any personal feelings regarding the same - we would never love a corrupt file or love to hate a good movie.
The point I'm trying to make is that such systems need a stabilizing mechanism - some sort of control system to keep the system stable - couldn't find any such thing in your post...
Right now system is unstable because of -
1. anonymity offered to the accusers and voters 2. probable lack of objectivity on part of the voters.
3. self interest of accusers and voters.
point 2 is more of a problem if the website gets a large following.
point 3 is more of a problem if it does not.
@Anubhav - Nice analysis. I dont think we can eliminate this possibility but we can have systems which minimize this system. As you rightly pointed out something like this brings down the popularity of the site.
ReplyDeleteLook the following solution.Let us say we have two lists. One list- Let us say the popularity increases based on the number of posts the thread receives.We make an algorithm based on the number of posts, photos and videos related to that.
Second list - This is the popularity based thing. So this can have the false accusations topping the list.
This wiki if implemented is definitely going to keep the police and the politicians a little more alert. People will know that if the police are not supporting. People will know that if someone is taking bribe. This is going to spill the beans.
Do you have a solution in mind?
@others - You could propose a solution too.
Great Idea, but just as Anubhav pointed out the sanctity of this system will rely on existence of a well-educated and literate public.
ReplyDeleteAlso, do you think implementing something like this will work in india, given that public is very backward in computer literacy.
Another problem i thought of was language to be used. Use of regional languages will help in a major way as most of the problems are bound to be within a state or district. Then have a translator to generate a English version of the entire post for others to view. Use of English in Indian sites usually results in lots of confusion because of grammatical errors,SMS language,incomplete sentences etc.
Just like in Wikipedia, housekeeping/editing/verifying facts will be a humongous task for this site.
Something on the lines of anniyan!
ReplyDeleteThe major problem comes in verifying the accusation. As a matter of fact anybody can claim that they have not done the act given they have a chance to speak. Who do you want to believe in ?
And the other one being the existence of this system counts on the computer literacy.
check this out... it is on similar lines except that i dont know how good the survey was..http://www.rakeshjhunjhunwala.in/2010/03/indias-top-10-greatest-assholes-india.html
ReplyDeleteConsider this scenario: Assume I'm a serial rapist, and somehow, I'm doing fine. This is what you'd do if you knew: You'd login to your nice little wiki, try to defame me to your hearts content and try to make as many people know about me. Naturally, as you said, nothing in the way of actually punishing me. This is what I would do: I don't like it that my name is mud, so I sue you. On grounds of slander. Now, whatchagonnado?
ReplyDeleteAnother nice fact: Percentage of internet users in India: < 4%. Enjoy!
@Sailaja - The point of wiki crime is not to do anything with the information collected. It is just to let the public/govt. know that things are being doucmented somewhere. Newspapers only publish news about famous people which is kind of obvious because they look for popularity. That Nithyananda is still trying to prove that the video is a morph! For instance one my previous wing mates was from Tribal areas. He is supposed to get Rs.1 lakh from govt. since he got admission into IIT. The govt. official asked a bribe of Rs. 70,000! He just decided to let the govt. have his scholarship and did not apply for it.
ReplyDelete@Spring - There are some people who commit crimes and still the government cannot do anything but there are a LOT of people who are not this powerful. Atleast these people will start behaving a little more ethically.
@Ravi - Firstly hello! welcome to my blog! Whom are u going to sue? You cant sue me because I am just providing a platform to post people's opinions. You cant sue the guy since he mostly post anonymously
ReplyDelete@about the internet user percentage. Do you know the rate of increase of internet users? :) check it out.
The place where my parents stay has 6-8 hours of power cut but we have BSNL broad band connection at home :) THe guy who finds out about this need not be computer literate. Someone close to him would do :)
ok, lets assume the site is well moderated (which is in the hands of managing team)..lets talk about the impact it can have....
ReplyDeletelook at the headlines on scams n crimes in newspapers n news channels... are the crime-doers unaware of the media?? is media able to stop them??
there are many govt organisations in india where bribing in various forms is mandatory....
in case you have collected n presented a many cases of crimes small in magnitude(which as per you are the low ranked ones).. the criminal has many options to choose..
*he may soothe himself that he is still low at ranking.
*he may feel happy by looking at the number of companions he got in the WC
*he can blame the anonymous writer in return...
many more options he ll have...n chooses the option as he wishes(not as you wish them to opt)
n bigger the criminal the bigger his philosophy to back him up....
n no action can be taken legally against criminal using the information from yr wikicrime(WC) as it is anonymously written....
not that WC goes without having any impact. i say that WC will only be one of the MANY factors driving/stoping the person doing what he intended to do...
for WC to have impact just computer literacy isnt enough, its how much the internet n computers intervene in the life of crime-doers n people around them....
may be you could start with a complaint portal in campus where issues of CCW, SAC (there were ppl who firmly believed SAC is meant for culting ;)), Saarang, shaastra can be complained...
If everyone in India wants to take bribes and if they think that is the way to operate make bribing legal(call it commission or whatever)! Let it out - accept the bloody thing. All this bull shit happens because people dont accept these things. A lot of parents of my own friends take bribes. The point is accept things which people dont want to eliminate. Let that be an incentive for them to work. A government official gets paid less for the work he is suppposed to do. THe most common thing which happens is he does not do any work or takes bribe for whatever he does.
ReplyDeleteWhat about worser crimes? Trafficking, exploitation etc. I would say that a wiki crime only makes things faster. The point is that is what the system needs.
It is a good idea..if the implementation is from within the system it wud very effective.I mean ACB or some other gov division should implement this.Accepting corruption is bull shit idea u can ever think.Atleast it is good that ppl are ranting abt this goddamn thing once in a while.Corruption is still existing because all the gov offices and ppl are still dealing with paper work and every signature and a stamp costs in this corruption.Instead if it is computerized and with a complete transparent system it wud lead to a healthy society.Even this has its own flaws and these were minor if we execute with proper transparency.
ReplyDeleteAnyways ravi it is a good idea.Common man implementing this have to deal with a lots of serious issues instead it can suggested to a concerning ACB division or something like that.There are many uncorrupted officers too in the society hu wud atleast think of this idea.
All those guys who feel accepting corruption is a way of life.Just give it a thought "Why in the name of hell shud I accept it?" whatever may be severity of this issue it isnt right thing to do.We are educated enuf to differentiate right from wrong...