-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Declan wrote:

Sure, one can say: let's just have a complicated reputation space (think an array of arrays) for each one of these characteristics. To use a silly example: * truthtelling [0-255] * maturity [0-255] * morality [0-255] * netiquette [0-255] * spelling [0-255] * etc.

In addition to the interesting points you and Tim made about the value of trying to quantify the subjective, deception and gullibility (or trust, if you're feeling charitable) are factors worth taking account as well. How sensitized are the raters to the possibility that someone is acting in bad faith and taking them for a ride? What specific triggers erode or establish trust, and how easily are the individual factors manipulated? Given that the DoD is putting an ever-increasing amount of money into this sort of research, it seems like any "reputation rating system" which doesn't address the idea of deception and bad-faith actors is a juicy target for being subverted and corrupted from the foundation up. Deception is problematic enough as it is, offline: I can't think of a more spectacular failure of "reputation" than the case of good old boring long-faced church-every-Sunday solid-citizen Robert P. Hanssen. If his FBI colleagues had been asked to rate him by your above criteria, he probably would have been in the high 200s all across the board. And maybe deservedly so. But since those factors weren't in any way, shape, or form relevant to the fact that he was also the kind of person who could sell out his country for the sheer pleasure of the game of it, he got away with murder for years until he got careless and his shitty tradecraft finally caught up with him. How many thousands of man - -hours were wasted spinning in circles over "suspicious people" when the real bastard was nice and comfy right in the middle of their own ant-heap. Absolutely nauseating, how easy putting stock in a "good reputation" makes it to be compromised beyond repair. Something to consider, anyway. And bad-faith actors aside, if everyone in a group becomes fixated on boosting their ratings, they'll become less and less likely to contradict "the wrong (high-status) people" and more likely to go for cheap shots at the designated whipping boys to the point that the whole list becomes a pointless pecking - -order exercise in kissing the ass of the alpha baboons. Or something. Here's to saying what you think, popularity be damned. ~Faustine. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBPAMFDvg5Tuca7bfvEQIAzwCg2T7jO5Piut/3i9+6DJZ0veUEVY4AoJmM PZQUIq5LoYBapWpQlBBrp58p =5nZk -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----