Moving beyond "Reputation"--the Market View of Reality

[David Honig]

At 10:28 AM 11/26/01 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>It seems to me that reputation capital is a term that has limited
>value when applied to something as subjective as the areas above:
>having an article published in the editorial pages of the Wall Street
>Journal (or the Journal of Socialist Doctrine) may lower your
>reputation capital among some people and raise it among others. This
>is the nature of subjectivity.

Indeed, even when there are objective measures, all parties
may not agree because they may not agree on those measures.

If Alice Squirrel makes an alarm call and Bob Squirrel sees
a threat, but Charlie Squirrel doesn't see it, Bob and Charlie
will have different stats for Alice's alarm-call reputation.

But rep cap as an idea is surely *stronger* when you keep separate
numbers for different qualities -reliable vs. interesting posts,
for instance.  This is *necessary* since individuals vary greatly
within themselves.  Politicians with excellent reps on issue A
and mediocre reps on issue B, for instance.


Perhaps though authors should mention the *attribute* whose
reputation is estimated when its not obvious.  Similarly authors
should state *who* is doing the estimating when its not clear
its the author.


>Reputation capital is more valuable a term when describing traits that
>are less subjective. When dealing with an online ecash bank, you may
>want truthfulness and reliability and good customer service (for
>example), which are less subjective than "interesting political
>opinions."

But what counts as  "good customer service" varies by culture
and person, much like whether WSJ publication helps or hurts.