Voting 1 to 9 on database contents

Over 1,500 Atari, Amiga or ST computer users (and soon PC users too) are linked through their telephone modems to a service called Compunet. Founded in 1984, it seems to be still the only database that encourages every user to review items, by allowing them to allocate marks from one to nine. The average (to the first significant place) is displayed back to the users, along with the number of people who have voted in this way.

'The average mark is displayed back to the users, along with the number of people who have voted in this way'

It is a very necessary development. The problem with most electronic publishing is not so much that there is no quality control - it is fine that anyone can publish anything - but that there is no grading by the readers; and so you are overwhelmed with trash waiting to be read and end up not reading any of it, because there is no way of quickly picking out the gems.

'The problem with most electronic publishing is that there is no way of quickly picking out the gems'

Compunet is over 25% under 18s and is mainly for games, comments, jokes, etc. Its director, Nick Green, envisages that the computerised grading system could have much wider applications - for instance in a large firm there could be voluntary accountability, with people describing their job and saying how well they are getting on, and readers giving grades.

Nick Green, Compunet, 5 North Villas, London NW1 9BJ (tel 071 267 7677). Compunet costs L12 per quarter, with telephone charges extra. Test demo on 071 284 4068. You need scrolling Teletype software (8 bit, no parity, 1 stop bit).

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