Government should mandate accuracy of MFP database

EvgeniZyntx

Now that would be helpful.

BRA_S

Less government!!! Leave me and my inaccuracy alone!

EvgeniZyntx

Less government!!! Leave me and my inaccuracy alone!

Dichotomy fallacy. We just need a more efficient government. You can haz both less govt. and more accuracy.

peejaygee1

The question is which government should mandate the accuracy, given it's a globally used website/app...and not all foods available in the US are available in the UK, Australia, China, Russia, Finland, Namibia, etc etc...you get my point...

Edited for spelling.

EvgeniZyntx

The question is which government should mandate the accuracy, given it's a globally used website/app...

The site resides in America and is run by an American company.

peejaygee1

So, are you saying that the rest of the world's food options should be left out because it's an American-based company? Or do you have a plan where the US government talks to other governments of the world to ensure the accuracy of their food products too?

Under your plan, would there be any way for people to add in their own recipes/food types?

424a57

Government should mandate accuracy of MFP database

Mandates don't guarantee compliance.

EvgeniZyntx

The MFP database is a self-regulating system. Inaccuracies, in theory, will be sorted out every time foods are reverified. Government mandates means hiring employees to manually verify the contents of the database. This is in itself a huge undertaking, but when you consider that the website is privately-owned, there is absolutely no incentive for ANY government to do so.

Or, they could just buy it and let it slowly fall apart due to a lack of funding, in which case we'd be even worse off because the ability for users to generate their own content, i.e. add and verify nutritional information, would be gone but there would not be enough funding to reliably keep the database updated. That would be a lose-lose.

Of course, you may not be serious about that desire of yours. I have my fingers crossed.

But they are not, inaccuracies are added and the information improvement paradigm requires the the quality of the information add is better than than the quality of the core data. It's just not the case.

peejaygee1

So, are you saying that the rest of the world's food options should be left out because it's an American-based company? Or do you have a plan where the US government talks to other governments of the world to ensure the accuracy of their food products too?

Under your plan, would there be any way for people to add in their own recipes/food types?

Foreigners can make their own MFP. Or their own laws. Why should I care about some fool in Germany and his strudel eating habits?
MFP should be required to validate those entries, particularly sushi. And bad sushi entry makers banned from all you can eat places.

Wow...just wow...

EvgeniZyntx

So, are you saying that the rest of the world's food options should be left out because it's an American-based company? Or do you have a plan where the US government talks to other governments of the world to ensure the accuracy of their food products too?

Under your plan, would there be any way for people to add in their own recipes/food types?

Foreigners can make their own MFP. Or their own laws. Why should I care about some fool in Germany and his strudel eating habits?
MFP should be required to validate those entries, particularly sushi. And bad sushi entry makers banned from all you can eat places.

Wow...just wow...

What is the problem?

scottkjar

Government should mandate the death penalty for MFP trolls.

BRA_S

Ron Paul for President.

btw lol at strudel

Maqneta

Ew no.

Alatariel75

Government should mandate the death penalty for MFP trolls.

And for people without a sense of humour and/or irony.

ritan7471

but...but...I'm an American living in Finland who enjoys Strudel. Which of the proposed separate MFP sites should I be using in this case?

dsalveson

So, are you saying that the rest of the world's food options should be left out because it's an American-based company? Or do you have a plan where the US government talks to other governments of the world to ensure the accuracy of their food products too?

Under your plan, would there be any way for people to add in their own recipes/food types?

Foreigners can make their own MFP. Or their own laws. Why should I care about some fool in Germany and his strudel eating habits?
MFP should be required to validate those entries, particularly sushi. And bad sushi entry makers banned from all you can eat places.

Wow...just wow...

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

EvgeniZyntx

The MFP database is a self-regulating system. Inaccuracies, in theory, will be sorted out every time foods are reverified. Government mandates means hiring employees to manually verify the contents of the database. This is in itself a huge undertaking, but when you consider that the website is privately-owned, there is absolutely no incentive for ANY government to do so.

Or, they could just buy it and let it slowly fall apart due to a lack of funding, in which case we'd be even worse off because the ability for users to generate their own content, i.e. add and verify nutritional information, would be gone but there would not be enough funding to reliably keep the database updated. That would be a lose-lose.

Of course, you may not be serious about that desire of yours. I have my fingers crossed.

But they are not, inaccuracies are added and the information improvement paradigm requires the the quality of the information add is better than than the quality of the core data. It's just not the case.

If that were the case, everything on Wikipedia would read "**** **** **** lol **** **** **** ****." Erroneous data gets ironed out longitudinally, even if it may take a while and even if the current state of data is never 100% representative of the ideal.

Only when the editing process is managed. Wikipedia like editing here would be useful. It just isn't so, one can't flag ones entries, follow up, etc....

EvgeniZyntx

but...but...I'm an American living in Finland who enjoys Strudel. Which of the proposed separate MFP sites should I be using in this case?

Who is proposing a separate database?
Also German strudel > Finnish strudel.


Wouldn't you like a site that measures in Finnish pfunds? Contact your EU rep.

ritan7471

Foreigners can make their own MFP. Or their own laws. Why should I care about some fool in Germany and his strudel eating habits?
MFP should be required to validate those entries, particularly sushi. And bad sushi entry makers banned from all you can eat places.

dmlynarski

Crazy idea, let me say. The power of this app and site lies in its social aspect, thanks to which people around the world are building and updating the database. For example I live in Poland - if this was supervised by any goverment on the planet it would be useless for me.

EvgeniZyntx

The MFP database is a self-regulating system. Inaccuracies, in theory, will be sorted out every time foods are reverified. Government mandates means hiring employees to manually verify the contents of the database. This is in itself a huge undertaking, but when you consider that the website is privately-owned, there is absolutely no incentive for ANY government to do so.

Or, they could just buy it and let it slowly fall apart due to a lack of funding, in which case we'd be even worse off because the ability for users to generate their own content, i.e. add and verify nutritional information, would be gone but there would not be enough funding to reliably keep the database updated. That would be a lose-lose.

Of course, you may not be serious about that desire of yours. I have my fingers crossed.

But they are not, inaccuracies are added and the information improvement paradigm requires the the quality of the information add is better than than the quality of the core data. It's just not the case.

If that were the case, everything on Wikipedia would read "**** **** **** lol **** **** **** ****." Erroneous data gets ironed out longitudinally, even if it may take a while and even if the current state of data is never 100% representative of the ideal.

Only when the editing process is managed. Wikipedia like editing here would be useful. It just isn't so, one can't flag ones entries, follow up, etc....

I can agree with you that the current level of user-guided corrections to the database are a lot lower than we should have, but in theory, the law of large numbers would sort out the anomalies if we simply had a greater sample size, i.e. people actually vetting their own nutritional information. But we don't, so it's still not an ideal situation.

Encouraging more individual participation is exponentially easier than government involvement though. And yes, I realize this is a troll, but it's an interesting discussion nonetheless.

Only half troll.
A government mandate of accuracy doesn't specify the method, if they want to crowd source, fine. Just need to improve the crowd source methodology. A tiered authoring validation system (aka Wikipedia) is tried and relatively easy to administrate. More useful than validating who says poop or wanker in the forums.