Greg Burk wrote: | Well, this looks like a chance to quickly correct some mistakes without | spending a lot of time framing the issue. | | tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) writes: | > But this latest episode illustrates the role of reputations. Namely, my own | > reputation is not being harmed by bizarre commentaries from the Vulis-bot. | And it seems to me that your usage of "reputation" has at different | times meant both direct and indirect exposure. This clearly discards | important information, often to the detriment of your analysis. Perhaps | you can explain why the two separate things are the same in some | important way, aside from merely that they both involve esteem. A while back (Sept 94) I sketched out a system for using a numeric indicator (from -1 through 1) as an indicator of how interested (likely to read) you were in someone else's postings. I suggested that simple multiplication could achieve useful results. If I respect Alice 50% of the time, and Alice respects Bob 50% of the time, then a rough cut at my interest level in Bob would be 25%. If Alice disrespects Charles 90% of the time, that gives him a negative 45% in my book. By generating simple numbers like this, I can tune my tolerance level based on time. Its not perfect, but roughly works. Deranged Mutant pointed out that radically different opinions by a few people might cause the system to start behaving chaoticly, and Hal also had some interesting comments. Check the archives. | > In the mathematics of reputations, a negative reputation held by one whose | > own reputation is negative is a positive. | | I don't think this is an example of any such thing. I would not respect | a person even a tiny bit more just because a kook disrespects them. In | fact, since the kooks frequently hold each other in very low esteem, the | suggested polarity-math is self-contradictory. | | Rather, I think this is an example of how direct exposure supercedes | reputation. Kooks do mess things up a bit; but most people aren't kooks. My enemies enemy is my friend is oft true. In the system I outlined, direct exposure clearly does supercede reputation, except in the (possibly rare) case where you respect someone else more than you respect yourself. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume