Short thoughts by David LeMieux
The idea of Mahalo hiring an ombudsman to maintain a neutral point of view is genius. If Mahalo is to be a spam free search service then it needs to try and maintain balance, especially on sensitive issues. Obviously there will be some bias, there HAS to be. I mean, even if it were possible to write a completely unbiased search result it would still be left to the interpretation of the masses. If the masses lean heavily to one side of the issue then they will say that the results are too biased in the other direction. But I digress. I think that opening up Mahalo's search results to the scrutiny of the masses, through a mediator, will not only make the service more reliable but will be seen as a very good decision as the service grows in users and capacity. Then again, maybe I am biased. (Ha! I had to add the one in there. I just HAD to. Really!)