-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) writes:

Briefly, think of "restaurants" when thinking about reputations. If one arrives in a new city, most restaurants may have the same baseline reputation, e.g. "none." A few may be known by name, for their "reputation," either good ("You have to eat at Louie's--the laser chicken is incredible") or bad ("Blecch!). Positive reputations and negative reputations are self-explanatory. And the reputations of others may affect the reputations of restaurants ("John Gilmore says he likes the Burma Burger on Castro Street."). Bad recommendations may affect the "reputation capital" of John, for example. (We speak of "reputation capital" because it can in some sense be "spent.")

That part of the "reputation capital" theory has always seemed suspicious to me. "reputation capital" doesn't behave linearly. There's too much incentive to bottom-feed and too little incentive to shoot for the heights. As an "asset", it is extremely non-liquid. It is hard to spend it in a controlled manner. Too much incentive to bottom-feed: For example, let's say there's someone well-known who frequently speaks nonsense on crypto issues. We'll call her "Norothy Nenning". She makes a recommendation on some particular crypto issue, say "The government's Nipper chip is a safe and effective form of crupto". Plenty of naive people will credit her to some degree. True, fewer people than if she had carefully husbanded her reputation, and to a lesser degree, but still a lot more than zero. Notice that that's a zero cost/benefit ratio. She never does anything to husband her reputation, she just spends it every chance she gets. And while no single expenditure rewards her as much as it would if she made the same expenditure with a good reputation, she spends so much more freely that it is a good strategy for her on the whole. "Reputation capital" is hard to spend down to absolute 0 because it is significant work to distinguish valid "reputation capital" from worthless counterfeit, and it is easy to counterfeit... just talk. I anticipate the answer "Well, the work pays off". But that misses the point. Frequently the work required to tell the good "reputation capital" from the worthless is as much as would be required to find the straight dope yourself. Too little incentive to shoot for the heights: Suppose you judge that you've accumulated twice as much "reputation capital" as Joe. How do you get twice as much payoff? It seems to me that above the threshhold of credibility, minor side issues make more difference than your two-fold "reputation capital" differential. As an "asset", it is extremely non-liquid: How exactly would you "convert" your reputation into other capital? Would you accept bribes and tell lies? Seems to me you would only get a one-shot "conversion" and it couldn't possibly hope to equal your investment. As soon as you leave the information-broker business, you discover that your "asset" cannot be converted, sold, auctioned off, or much of anything else of value to you. It is hard to spend it in a controlled manner: See above. The single bribe-and-lie will spend your "reputation capital" down to below the threshhold of credibility, no matter how much you started with. Human discourse often tends to be absolutist. It is often very difficult to make people understand and retain a message of partial support or qualified support. Particularly on hot issues. Restaurants, sure, you can give 1 to 5 stars, but in many subject areas there is no such system. And any system you yourself invent tends to be ignored. So I think the latter part of the analysis is wishful thinking, or at least restricted to a small subset of subject-matter. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQBVAwUBMi4omrMyVAabpHidAQGGPAIAizIOktCC4B5gtVYPblaTi9FL6ZtwTfkP sAFHT626mMLz1f/ZKa2SLq3pdag09ACCklJLJ1djFwSFP4bvoijMfw== =rFti -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----