On Mon, 20 Nov 1995, James A. Donald wrote:
Any attempt to discuss and analyze reputations using morally neutral language is bound to wind up as boring long winded meaningless complicated word salad.
I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you give an example to how to discuss reputation (i.e., the concept of reputation, not a particular reputation) using morally non-neutral language? William J. Halverson wrote:
What is the differnece between 'reputation' and 'value'?
When we say the value of some object, we implicitely assume that the quality of the information we used to evaluate the object is good enough that we don't have to deal with uncertainty. When we speak of reputation however, we explicitely assume that we have less than perfect information and that uncertainties must be dealt with. We normally speak of value of objects and reputation of entities, because information about objects are usually easier to obtain than information about entities.
Why quantify it? If Bob's advertising/testimonials are successful, he may not even have a 'reputation' because only insiders know about him.
Quantification is an abstraction that sometimes allows one to think about a concept more clearly. You decide whether this is the case for reputation. I don't completely understand your second sentence. Only people who know that Bob exists has a reputation of him, so if only insiders know he exists, his reputation consists of the insiders' reputations of him. Wei Dai