The interface module provides simple methods for a news reader program to send votes into the collaborative system, or to request information from the collaborative system.
Exactly how a user indicates his or her evaluation of an article is a user interface question left up the designer of the news reader program. The news reader designer can choose whatever mechanism fits in best with the existing user interface. The designer might even choose not to require explicit voting on the part of the user, but rather anticipate the user's vote based on observed behavior. If the user saved or printed the article, he probably found the article very useful and the news reader could record a positive vote (perhaps an anonymous one since the user did not explicitly authorize the vote). If the user killed the author or the subject thread after reading an article, it would be safe to assume the user did not like the article.
For casting votes, the interface module supports two basic mechanisms. Votes can be sent anonymously or identified. The system will attempt to keep anonymous votes from being associated publicly with the user who cast them by sending them on to a vote server where they will be aggregated with other votes. For identified votes, the interface module attempts to enter the votes into the user's current vote file.
Votes cast anonymously are passed directly on to a vote server for inclusion in net wide tallies. Identified votes are sent on the vote server for inclusion in aggregate summaries, but they are also placed in a vote file specified to the interface module. The interface module will also check the validity of the other votes in the vote file at this time (see maintenance mechanisms below).
When answering requests for information, the interface module can combine the votes from several sources, each source being a vote server or a vote file. Combining different vote sources in the interface module makes possible queries of the form: ``Show me all the articles that Joe User or Jane User liked.'' The collaborative information returned by the interface module will consist of lists of articles and the combined evaluations for those articles. The news reader program can use this information as it sees fit to help the user filter his or her news. For example, the news reader could display the information directly to the user, or it could change the presentation order of the articles to show the most recent ones first, or it could use the information as an input to another filtering mechanism such as keyword spotting.