Reading List (for the umpteenth time....)

[Alan Olsen]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, Bill Stewart wrote:

> Some of the cypherpunks implications were that we all saw
> reputation systems as a goal that Really Made Sense,
> but also that turn out to be much harder to implement,
> even on non-fictional paper, than to describe in fiction.
> What kinds of algorithms do you use?  How do people outfox them?
> How do you deal with not only the real Detweilers,
> but with people using the kinds of pseudonym hacks that
> Detweiler was constantly ranting against, such as creating a
> bunch of pseudonyms that all give each other positive ratings
> and positive reviews of each others' articles,
> to create a bunch of reputation capital that's undeserved
> and can later be burned if needed.

One of the other problems with reputation capital is that reputation
depends on perspective. 

The people who I respect and listen to are not always the ones that you
will repect and listen to. reputation is a more individual thing. I think
if you mapped who people found worthy of reputation that it would break up
into a number of different groupings.

And sometimes the reputation capital that someone has with me depends on
the subject.  There are some people I highly regard in the computing feild
that I strongly disagree with when it comes to politics or matters of
personal hygene. [Insert RMS joke here.]

It would be also interesting to see if in the standard Cypherpunkian
reputation capital system how many people's votes would be up for sale.
[Insert Libertarian joke here.] 

What I would find more useful in that sense is a system that would allow
rating, not for some sense of community barter or whatever, but as a way
to weed out the multiple voices.  When you start communicating with
literally thousands of people, being able to note which are the worthwhile
ones and who are the loons without having to go through a pile of notes
would be useful.  (I have envisioned something like this for my never
finished Mail App, but I keep getting distracted by shiney spendable
objects.) Making that set of judgements avaiable to others is the tricky
part. (There are people whom I regard as friends whom I have to filter
much of what they say. Just because they are friends does not mean I agree
with them. Just where those points are could become... difficult.)

It would be an interesting experiment.

I have considered building an IRC server where everyone is a randomly
generated nym. You can then judge people ny the content of their words and
not by the preconcieved reputation.  (Using certificates to track who is
who.)  You would then be able to rate each nym with whatever rating you
wished.

The problems I see in such a design are:

* Multiple accounts (either cooperating friends or tentacles)

* People ditching accounts and rebuilding when their reputation got too
bad.

* People who are true on some subjects, false on some subjects and
meaningless on other subjects.

* people who just "play the crowd".

* People who are just there just to fuck up the system.

It would be an interesting experiment.  I have a feeling it would devolve
into a game theory-like strategy game at some point though.  (Or look like
Slashdot, which would be worse.)

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