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July 22, 2004
Group sponsorship
Posted by Clay Shirky
Ben Hyde is thinking about an anonymous reputation system, analogous to the proposed K5 user-sponsorship model, where users could get sponsored by groups, in a ‘letter of introduction’ kind of way, so as to be able to operate anonymously (though I think he means pseudonymously) but with some visible reputation:
Is it possible to have useful actor reputation systems without demanding that the actors give up their privacy? This is a key design problem.
It appears that the answer is yes. Consider as an example. Let’s say I have an excellent reputation in some community. I request that community write me a letter of introduction to the anonymous community. This letter says nothing more than the bearer of this letter is a good guy. I take the note to the anonymous community and they provide me with an reputation/identity that I can use to on anonymous actions [sic]. Recipients of those actions can then check that anonymous reputation. If I act badly in that persona then they place bad marks on the anonymous reputation; but it these do not go back to my original reputation - there is no back pointer. The only back pointer available is the link to the original community. I have damaged the reputation of my home community, and only that.
Comments (2)
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1. Ben Hyde on July 22, 2004 11:22 AM writes...
Thanks for link!
I'll probably have to admit I'm not sure I know what pseudonymous means. I think I mean anonymous.
In that posting I'm trying to understand how groups can empower contributors to add value while driving to a minimum the reputation risk for those contributors. Can you get the risk close to zero while solving the spam problem?
I was curious if I could to find a way to allow people to bud off a lump of reputation that absolutely could not be traced back to them personally.
The K5 proposal, if I remember it correctly, had a strong feedback loop that would damage the reputation of both the new member and his sponsor.
Permalink to Comment2. Clay Shirky on July 22, 2004 12:31 PM writes...
By pseudo I just mean "Can communicate more than once under the same address." An email address you can reply to but which ties to no other aspect of my identity, in other words. (But thats just me -- I reserve anonymous to mean "non-identified one-time communications", and pseudo to mean "non-identified communications with continuity of sender and ability to reply.")
And yes, K5 has the fallout going to the individual sponsor, while you have it going to the group, if I understand you.
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