Tim wrote: > A lot of the current/recent "reputation schemes" make a fundamental > mistake: they attempt to assign a scalar value to "the" [emphasis] > reputation of an actor. Even the schemes which attempt to assign a > vector rating, e.g, "Declan' s rating of Detweiler is..., Tim's rating > of Detweiler is...," make a fatal mistake.
Sure seems so to me. > There are no reputations attachable to actors in this way. Different signals are salient to different receivers, and more so when a group departs from targeted goal-seeking, that being determinative of saliency. Salience is not based on reality, but upon congruence with a perceptual framework and mind-set. Based on my observations, anything that does not fit within that framework is treated as a hostile signal. Groups end up engaging in nothing more than perceptual filtering. The result is often high "sprignal" instead of high "signal." (Recognizing the blur between your concept of signal and mine.) You are a maximum entropy channel, probably in part due to the increasing discord among goals, capabilities and perceptions, but also because of the interactions that you allow, high receptivity, etc. Most reputation schemes fail to separate the concept of source reliability and accuracy, much less take in considerations of coherence, credibility or intrinsic confirmation. It strikes me as destructive. (A high channel error rate is suggestive of a manipulated/corrupted channel, rather than a "good moderation system.") The biases involved with "past behavior" ratings are many, but some strike me as particularly relevant: (1) people tend to attribute the behavior of another person based on their "nature" or "character" -- rather than the situation. In contrast, we judge ourselves by situational factors. (2) probability estimates are affected by recall and like events. (3) anchoring bias. This is not suggest that "noise" reduction strategies are inherently bad, just to maybe stimulate some thinking in brighter minds than mine. And earlier.... > The familiar saw about two people being able to keep a secret...if one of them is dead. To wit, no two people can safely tell the same lie to the same person. ~~Aimee
