I'm interested in Reputation Systems.
What is a reputation system? Well, a reputation system is a program that calculates and communicates your reputation. What your reputation is based on depends on the individual system. Everything2's reputation system is based on writing good articles, so a good reputation can be translated to "this person's writings are worth reading." SF0's reputation system is based on submitting interesting praxis, so a good reputation can be translated to "this person's praxis are worth looking at." EBay's reputation system is based on satisfactory completion of sales, so a good reputation means "this person can be safely sold things too."
I personally feel that reputation systems will be pretty important, for two basic reasons. First, reputation systems help the internet do what it's good at. The way I see it, the internet is good at two things: transmitting data and helping people contact each other. Technically I suppose that people contacting each other is a form of transmitting data, but never mind that. The problem with that arises is, of course, that some of the data is bad (spam, viruses, boring things, etc) and some people are bad (trolls, predators, people who want to stab you, etc). Reputation systems can help with this problem - by allowing people to collate and display their opinions of people, it becomes easy to see which people are worth getting in contact with and which data producers are worth watching. So that's good.
The second reason is a bit more esoteric. Drawing on the ideas of David Ronfeldt, I do believe that networks working in concert are the next big thing, as big an event as the rise of capitalism with the industrial revolution. And I believe that reputation networks are an important part of allowing the collective intelligence of networks to reach it's full potential. They're a piece of infrastructure like banks are to capitalism - they facilitate effect working. For the simple reason that you're going to have the collective intelligence, who are you going to collect with? If you're engaging in dangerous or important work, the answer can't be "just anybody who wanders by." The answer that seems to be developing is "only people who can trust a lot," a trend that can be observed in John Robb's discussion of primary loyalities - because fourth generation warfare can weaken the state to the point where it can't provide services or protection, people fall back on their basic religious, tribal, or familial relations, binding together on these lines and abandoning more general connections.
It is my hope and belief that good reputation systems can undo this trend. Because at it's core, a reputation system allows you to trust complete strangers. Trust them to make you an honest sale, trust them to write good articles, trust them to act in an reliable fashion. And trust is an absolute requirement for cooperation. Once you're able to trust people then you can begin to work with them towards your mutual interests. Once trust is established, the ability to collective intelligence multiples a thousandfold. If you can create a powerful reputation system then you can start cooperating safely with vastly more people. I have an idea for what a powerful reputation system would look like, but that's for another post.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
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