If generally useful reputation systems evolve for mobile devices, truly world-changing smartmobbery becomes possible. In a Darwinian metaphor, we’re really in the earliest stages of evolution — the Jurassic epoch, perhaps. Right now, the two main branches on the evolutionary tree of reputation systems are those derived from eBay to rate sellers of goods, and from Slashdot to rate posts in an online discussion. This story and subsequent discussion on kuro5hin is an attempt to move the dialogue forward regarding the design of online reputation economies.
Toward a Moderation Economy
- December 4th, 2003
Comments
@ 10:54
There is another side to the argument, which is that it is unusual that the Slashdot karma system is hard to game. eBay, for example, is not. Social network systems may replace current reputation systems, at least in the cases where the underlying social network is dense enough to provide value.
@ 13:39
I suspect that a combination of the two is what we want to see evolve. A social network system that relies on personal recommendations has two weaknesses. Clay Shirky pointed out one: Your sister’s friends might well be reliably considered worth dating/hanging out with/engaging in some transaction — but not your sister’s friend’s crack dealer. So recommendations break down as soon as you get two degrees out from the recommender. The other weakness is that I might well recommend my friend as someone you can trust to send a check if you send some goods, but can I be relied upon to vouch for that friend’s suitability for dating, or his/her table manners? One of the problems to solve is that no person is uniformly trustworthy/recommendable in all realms.
@ 17:19
One can imagine a FOAF-like ‘My Reputation’ document with categories and scores made publicly available like a resume.
@ 22:19
Bitchun Society, here we come!