Feedback Loop

squelch

when you get too much feedback you need to squelch it.

The answer isn't a simple one and can't be answered directly as Google and other search engines will not spell out exactly how their top secret algorithms work. But after reading through Quixtar Blog, the picture becomes clearer: The company, a revamped online version of Amway, has had trouble with critics online and decided to fight them by unloading an arsenal of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that go against accepted marketing techniques and into the muddy world of Web page spam, also known as link farms and Google bombing.

Companies subvert search results to squelch criticism

Wikipedia on Positive Feedback

More capturing of terms here - handy to have some of this text around to see how people are using these words in various contexts. From Wikipedia:

Positive feedback is a feedback system in which the system responds to the perturbation in the same direction as the perturbation (It is sometimes referred to as cumulative causation). In contrast, a system that responds to the perturbation in the opposite direction is called a negative feedback system. The term "positive" means responding to the same direction as the perturbation whereas "negative" means responding to the opposite direction.

The end result of a positive feedback is often amplifying and "explosive." That is, a small perturbation will result in big changes. This feedback, in turn, will drive the system even further away from its own original setpoint, thus amplifying the original perturbation signal, and eventually become explosive because the amplification often grows exponentially (with the first order positive feedback), or even hyperbolically (with the second order positive feedback). It is the vicious cycle phenomenon. An intuitive example is "the rich gets richer, and the poor gets poorer."

Both positive and negative feedback are closed systems. They are called "closed systems" because the system is closed by a feedback loop, i.e., the response of the system depends on the feedback signal to complete its function; without such a loop, it would become an open system. In contrast, a feedforward system is an "open system" since it does not have any feedback loop, and does not rely on feedback signal to perform its function.

Examples of positive and negative feedback, open and closed systems can be found in ecological, biological, social systems and in engineering control systems such as servo control systems.

Google search terms: wikipedia positive feedback, positive feedback

Systemantics (John Gall) on Le Chatelier's Principle

From John Gall's 1975 version of Systemantics (full text at Ohio State)

Every student of science is required at some point or other in his career to learn Le Chatelier's Principle. Briefly, this Law states that any natural process, whether physical or chemical, tends to set up conditions opposing the further operation of the process. Although the Law has very broad application, it is usually looked upon more as a curiosity than as a profound insight into the nature of the Universe. We, on the other hand, regard it as a cornerstone of General Systemantics. No one who has had any experience of the operation of large systems can fail to appreciate its force, especially when it is stated in cogent Systems-terminology as follows:

Systems Get In The Way.

Or alternatively:

The System Always Kicks Back.

In slightly more elegant language:

Systems Tend To Oppose Their Own Proper Functions.

Google queries: systemantics, John Gall, systemantics Le Chatelier

Principia Cybernetica Web on Feedback Loops

From Principia Cybernetica Web's article on Feedback:

In a system where a transformation occurs, there are inputs and outputs. The inputs are the result of the environment's influence on the system, and the outputs are the influence of the system on the environment. Input and output are separated by a duration of time, as in before and after, or past and present.

In every feedback loop, as the name suggests, information about the result of a transformation or an action is sent back to the input of the system in the form of input data. If these new data facilitate and accelerate the transformation in the same direction as the preceding results, they are positive feedback - their effects are cumulative. If the new data produce a result in the opposite direction to previous results, they are negative feedback - their effects stabilize the system. In the first case there is exponential growth or decline; in the second there is maintenance of the equilibrium.

This is part of their series on cybernetics:

cybernetics studies organization, communication and control in complex systems by focusing on circular (feedback) mechanisms

Wikipedia on Feedback

From the Wikipedia article on feedback:

Feedback is the signal that is looped back to control a system within itself. This loop is called the feedback loop. A control system usually has input and output to the system; when the output of the system is fed back into the system as part of its input, it is called the "feedback."

In cybernetics and control theory, feedback is a process whereby some proportion of the output signal of a system is passed (fed back) to the input. This is often used to control the dynamic behavior of the system. Examples of feedback can be found in most complex systems, such as engineering, architecture, economics, and biology.

There's proposals in the discussion page to totally refactor this page and a few related pages.

Google searches: wikipedia feedback, wikipedia feedback loop.

Feedback Loop

First post for layout.

Edward Vielmetti at Pure Visibility Inc.