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Online Reputation Is Hard To Do

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the to-say-nothing-of-trust dept.

Symblized writes "A new article from InformationWeek argues that not only does the Web need ways to verify identity, it also needs better ways to measure reputation . The article uses Digg, Wikipedia, and eBay as examples and muses whether their models could be applied more widely. There's also a profile of Opinity, a company that tried to introduce a reputation system and didn't make it. Choice quote from a source in the article: 'The idea of a transferable, semantic reputation is identity nirvana.'"

2 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Trust is the currency by Raindance · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Trust is the currency of the participation age." -Jonathan Schwartz

    This is the $64,000 question. Building a reputation/trust system is very difficult. Honestly, Slashdot is one of the better examples of this (Slashdot's moderation system does alter the flow of the discussion but it does get a downright reasonable signal-to-noise ratio vs other online communities).

    I'm volunteering at Citizendium, which is another possible datapoint. We're assuming that real names and respecting verifiable expertise will allow us to benefit in some fashion from existing scholarly reputation systems, and to build a more cohesive community.

    Eventually, I think it'll be feasible to layer reputation and credentials (for sites that care) on top of a system like OpenID. People will be able to choose what reputation/credentials to share with which site. Information that you want to follow you (e.g., "I have a BA in Math from UCLA" or "I have excellent karma on Slashdot") will follow you across sites.

    But yeah, it's a very difficult problem. Figuring it out is a big, potentially very lucrative issue.

  2. Re:And what do you buy with that currency? by Sigma+7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In this anonymous online world, this would be an attempt to establish character. So in the future, acting like an asshat for fun in formus would relfect on you elsewhere. I'll play devil's advocate here...

    Let's say you comment on the theory concerning the use of demolition explosives on one of the world trade centers - pointing out that the collapse of the WTC doesn't look like other building demolitions, or that the "symettric demolition" claim is incorrect.

    However, the conspiracy theorists on the site are extremely fanatic about their theory (as opposed to a more moderate site that tries to investigate properly.) As a result, you receive a large quantity of negative feedback that attaches itself to your online reputation.

    Other things that can affect you would be playing RTCW:ET, where you get kicked from a server for n00bism as you didn't dodge the three panzers that get fired into your local area (because another player thought you should have.)

    And my personal favourite - just claim you support Bush. Your reputation would instantly tank.