Reputation Systems
As I continue to integrate my “real life” with my online life, I have been thinking a lot about reputation. How can I prove (to some extent) that I am me? How can I prove that I am trustworthy? What does it mean to be trustworthy? I like to use analogies, and the closest one I can think of right now is my FICO (credit score) number. There are three companies that collect and analyze information about my financial history and activities (very rarely with any sort of permission from me). They then sell this information to a third party who is trying to decide if I am worth the risk of doing business with.
Of course, there are other things besides financial risk that affect my online reputation; no analogy is perfect. I have often wondered what would happen if the three credit report companies went away overnight and we all had to start over tomorrow. I assume that costs of doing business would go up slightly, as with less information to go on, it is more risky for someone to decide to do business with me. On the other hand, if my credit score was low enough, a business might go off of an “average” credit score. Even with a slightly increased cost due to uncertainty, I might come out ahead.
There are a couple places I can think of online, like eBay, where a reputation system has been in place long enough to build up some history, but most online “locations” have not had a system in place, or have not had enough time to build up this history. Even on eBay, if I have built up an account with a negative reputation, there is little incentive to keep that account rather than abandoning it and starting with a new one. In addition, how do I go about building up a general online reputation without having to start over for each new website or online community? I continue to ponder this, but haven’t figured out a lot of answers yet. What do you think about online reputations?