hal finney had very interesting comments about pseudonyms and reputations. one of the most important notes about the chaumian systems he indicates is that it would be possible to have forums where pseudonymity is limited (one pseudonym per user) but at the same time the anonymity of participants is protected. this seems like a reasonable compromise between the extreme on one hand, `no one should be accountable for anything in cyberspace' and on the other hand `people should be accountable for everything in cyberspace'. it does appear that in a completely unaccountable system, i.e. where pseudonyms are cheaply obtained and accrue bad reptation without any consequence, `cryptochaos' can ensue. it is quite possible to have the equivalent of `floodbots' to mailing lists, and i'm really quite astonished that the only solution that anyone has developed so far is completly untechnological and IMHO backward: yelling at a site administrator. in fact, it seems to me the mechanisms for social interaction are most rapidly evolving on IRC, where there are all kinds of sophisticated rules regarding operators who have control over channels, to boot out participants, `ban' them, and the way that people `ignore' each other, etc.-- isn't it rather remarkable that no widely distributed mailing list software has any of these very basic mechanisms? i was just on IRC and i don't know how many people have noticed that (forgive me if it has been pointed out before) but a very interesting early incarnation of a positive and negative reputation has already been implemented by somebody's `commbot' program. it functions as a database of reputations of IRC nyms. here are some of the rules (ugh, can't they come up with a less offensive term for negative reputation?) anyway, i will be very interested to watch the evolution of reputation systems on the internet. =CommBot= =CommBot= Levels are used to determine which users can make me do what. =CommBot= The most important use of the levels are: =CommBot= userlevel >= 50 : user will be made channel operator by me =CommBot= userlevel >= 100 : user may modify user/shit/prot lists =CommBot= userlevel >= 125 : The user may use certain "special" commands. =CommBot= userlevel >= 150 : user may use all my functions =CommBot= shitlevel >= 50 : user won't be opped, and cannot modify =CommBot= : the various list, regardless of the userlevel. =CommBot= : I also will not allow this user to be opped by =CommBot= : someone else =CommBot= shitlevel >= 100 : user will be kicked and banned when the =CommBot= : channel is joined =CommBot= protlevel == 100 : I will not massdeop or masskick these users. =CommBot= : if a user with level 100 is deopped, I will reop +him/her =CommBot= =CommBot= SEE ALSO: WHOAMI, WHOIS, NWHOIS, USERADD, =CommBot= SHITADD, PROTADD, getting_access =CommBot=