OTOH, though, there is a problem with this: after doing something long enough, a person loses his qualifications to judge the value of an introductory-level work. Sure, we can talk about whether the jokes in the third llama are better than the ones in the second, but the "proof of the pudding" for a text on that level is whether someone who doesn't know what they're doing can pick it up and learn how. As a degenerate example, try picking up Dr. Seuss' "Hop on Pop" and evaluate its ability to teach you simple prepositions; you can certainly see where they're used in the text, but you no longer have a frame of reference to gauge its effectiveness.

That said, I DO believe that a weighted rating system has potential, provided there is some categorization of intended audience. For example, consider (with a weight sliding-scale of 0-1.0):

• Advanced/Internals - example: panther - weighted at 1.0 for poster level 9, -0.1/level below
• Specialized Topics - example: Stein's NPP - weighted at 1.0 for poster level 6, -0.2/level below
• Intermediate - example: shiny ball - weighted at 1.0 for poster level 5, -0.2/level below, -0.1/level above
• Introductory - example: llama - weighted at 1.0 for poster level 3, -0.2/level above to a minimum of 0.1
• Reference - example: camel - weighted at 1.0 for poster level 3, -0.4/level below

This way, some estimation of the poster being in the target audience for the book is factored into the weighting system as well.

Spud Zeppelin * spud@spudzeppelin.com

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