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I'd argue that a cross-internet reputation service would fix this problem. 1. The reputation system is affected by voting on all sites in which you participate

by kazanz 9y ago

I'd argue that a cross-internet reputation service would fix this problem. 1. The reputation system is affected by voting on all sites in which you participate. 2. The history of your participation across sites is viewable in your history (ala reddit, HN) 3. Your reputation is displayed with you participation wherever you participate. Sites could then put reputation limits only allowing users above a certain reputation to participate. Making the cost of toxicity increase. The biggest problem would be getting the walled gardens to adopt the system.

bufferoverflow 9y ago
Even if you can make that work, that will only lead to the tyranny of the majority. You're filtering for the most common denominator opinions. I wouldn't want to be a part of this kind of sterilized community. And how will you solve brigading? All it takes is two large groups disagreeing on something, and your reputation goes down the drain if you're in the slightly smaller group.
- kazanz 9y ago
  Your reputation will go down, with THOSE people. If they refuse to agree they refuse to agree. There is nothing toxic about that. An accounts "history" and "reputation" will be tied to each site. A liberal who posts regularly on echo chambers on both sides of the aisle will have a middle of the road reputation. On Fox news for example you'd see next to their comments: FoxNews.com Rep: -123 Global Rep: 38 A high global rep is due to the high score posting comments on WashingtonPost articles. Where you would see: WashPost.com Rep: 161 Global Rep: 38 I'd expect someone with a reputation of 0 to be an honest individual gaining views on both sides of an argument. Someone with a global rep of -1833 is probably a troll or someone who doesn't interact with "like-minded" people, which could of course be seen by looking at the history of where the reputation came from. You as a consumer, would most likely flag site reps to show on all pages, so maybe you on every site you visit would see a users reputation like so regardless of the site you are on: Current Site Rep: 3 FoxNews.com Rep: 283 WashPost.com Rep: -87 Global Rep: 221 And you could, of course, dig into their history of reputation, and even Hide/star particular users who you notice are trolls/note-worthy to you personally.
jerf 9y ago
Single-dimensional "karma" numbers are part of the problem. If you allow multi-dimensional karma then you have the problem that aggregation mechanisms are going to be site-specific (in karma systems, 1 + 1 is not necessarily equal to 2 even before considering multidimensionality) and you end up drawn back to the individual sites hosting the concept anyhow.
monksy 9y ago
So you're suggesting the Black Mirror Nose dive approach?
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  When I watched that, I thought of "Facebook Hell Universe". Because I think that's what Zuck would want - having a reputation system under his control and control of everyone under it.
- kazanz 9y ago
  I realize my first comments is not as detailed as it should have been, I've expanded in the comments. Black mirror is same vein, but different concept: Getting loans, buying cars, via a single reputation score is different than giving people a tool to curate the content they wish to consume. By having access to a "user's reputational history" across multiple sites, you can see where their reputation is coming from. Then you as a consumer of internet media, can choose what site reputation to put value on. Letting you curate and avoid toxicity, or live in your echo chamber if thats what you want. Its like asking a couple friends if they'd loan their weed wacker to the new guy down the street, they say he acts kind of shady but has always brought back their garden tools. Same thing. You ask users of a couple sites how this other user has acted. They say he made some jokes, but also had some valid points here and there. We don't then say, oh they made crude jokes, charge them an extra $1000 for rent.
taurath 9y ago
While that would be a huge problem, also think about communities where RL anonymity is a necessity. The recent Twitter idea to verify every user only works when people are willing to put their full name out there, but as we've seen on facebook that doesn't really stop anything - these are not really CEOs of respected companies, they're nobodies playing with the little bit of power they have in their lives.
Waterluvian 9y ago
My intuition screams that this is a bad idea. It's like an Internet credit rating / popularity contest combined.
noetic_techy 9y ago
Allow me to poke holes: - You've just created opportunities for sites who don't participate to attract customers. "No reputation requirements, we don't judge you". Great for curated niches, bad for mass market. - People with diverging but still main stream political views getting their reputation docked by those in the other camp who control the site. It can flow both ways. Reputation starts to get linked to the echo chamber, in that those who don't echo the same get docked. - Someone hacks you and starts messing up your rep across multiple sites.
- kazanz 9y ago
  A lot of other posters in this thread seem to agree that anonymous groups work better. I tend to agree. But getting everyone on the planet to switch to anonymous environments will be incredibly difficult and take a very long time due to intrenched financial interests. I could hardly get my wife to switch to Mastodon (even being able to keep her identity there), let alone my mother in law, or my rarely seen co-worker. So for point 1: I'd say let "no reputation" sites attract customers. If people want to participate in completely anonymous groups they are responsible for the groups they choose and the opinions in them. Good on them. But for the rest of the people who lack the awareness, knowledge, or motivation to seek out these communities, we have a responsibility to find a way to make non-anonymous communication less toxic. For point 2: Knowing the reputation of a user for the site you are visiting as well as their global reputation helps the reader make a more informed decision about the worth of this person's comments to them than without. Lets use politics. Assume a user with liberal tendencies argues intelligently with conservatives in Fox News comments where his comments are downvoted because they are diverging. They also comment thoughtfully on r/SandersForPresident where his views are appreciated and upvoted. When I see this persons comments on Fox, I will see his fox new's score is -128 and his overall score is 3. A troll on the other hand may have a -348 on Fox news and -828 overall. From this I can conclude conservatives don't like the first user, but some other people do like the first user. I can also conclude the second user is a troll, or doesn't ever participate in groups that share somewhat similar viewpoint. All of which you can see in their history, where their scores for various sites are listed, perhaps you could even bookmark scores for specific sites you want to see. Of course, this is binary, and can be improved with dimensionality, but is still better than nothing at all. For point 3: Hell, what is someone hacks your bank account? I think a bigger concern would be someone automating downvoting of your account or upvoting of their own. Which would require more thought.
maxerickson 9y ago
That will only work if you insist on tying the reputation to identities. Even then it probably won't stop people being awful (there's plenty of awful stuff posted by identifiable people). But if people can be pseudonymous, it won't work at all.
petermcneeley 9y ago
Absolutely! You dont have any contact information here but feel free to contact me offline if you wish to collaborate on a piece about this topic or just to share some ideas. you can reach me at petermcneeley@hotmail.com

by kazanz 9y ago

bufferoverflow 9y ago

Even if you can make that work, that will only lead to the tyranny of the majority. You're filtering for the most common denominator opinions. I wouldn't want to be a part of this kind of sterilized community. And how will you solve brigading? All it takes is two large groups disagreeing on something, and your reputation goes down the drain if you're in the slightly smaller group.

kazanz 9y ago
Your reputation will go down, with THOSE people. If they refuse to agree they refuse to agree. There is nothing toxic about that. An accounts "history" and "reputation" will be tied to each site. A liberal who posts regularly on echo chambers on both sides of the aisle will have a middle of the road reputation. On Fox news for example you'd see next to their comments: FoxNews.com Rep: -123 Global Rep: 38 A high global rep is due to the high score posting comments on WashingtonPost articles. Where you would see: WashPost.com Rep: 161 Global Rep: 38 I'd expect someone with a reputation of 0 to be an honest individual gaining views on both sides of an argument. Someone with a global rep of -1833 is probably a troll or someone who doesn't interact with "like-minded" people, which could of course be seen by looking at the history of where the reputation came from. You as a consumer, would most likely flag site reps to show on all pages, so maybe you on every site you visit would see a users reputation like so regardless of the site you are on: Current Site Rep: 3 FoxNews.com Rep: 283 WashPost.com Rep: -87 Global Rep: 221 And you could, of course, dig into their history of reputation, and even Hide/star particular users who you notice are trolls/note-worthy to you personally.

jerf 9y ago

Single-dimensional "karma" numbers are part of the problem. If you allow multi-dimensional karma then you have the problem that aggregation mechanisms are going to be site-specific (in karma systems, 1 + 1 is not necessarily equal to 2 even before considering multidimensionality) and you end up drawn back to the individual sites hosting the concept anyhow.

monksy 9y ago

So you're suggesting the Black Mirror Nose dive approach?

crankylinuxuser 9y ago
When I watched that, I thought of "Facebook Hell Universe". Because I think that's what Zuck would want - having a reputation system under his control and control of everyone under it.
kazanz 9y ago
I realize my first comments is not as detailed as it should have been, I've expanded in the comments. Black mirror is same vein, but different concept: Getting loans, buying cars, via a single reputation score is different than giving people a tool to curate the content they wish to consume. By having access to a "user's reputational history" across multiple sites, you can see where their reputation is coming from. Then you as a consumer of internet media, can choose what site reputation to put value on. Letting you curate and avoid toxicity, or live in your echo chamber if thats what you want. Its like asking a couple friends if they'd loan their weed wacker to the new guy down the street, they say he acts kind of shady but has always brought back their garden tools. Same thing. You ask users of a couple sites how this other user has acted. They say he made some jokes, but also had some valid points here and there. We don't then say, oh they made crude jokes, charge them an extra $1000 for rent.

taurath 9y ago

While that would be a huge problem, also think about communities where RL anonymity is a necessity. The recent Twitter idea to verify every user only works when people are willing to put their full name out there, but as we've seen on facebook that doesn't really stop anything - these are not really CEOs of respected companies, they're nobodies playing with the little bit of power they have in their lives.

Waterluvian 9y ago

My intuition screams that this is a bad idea. It's like an Internet credit rating / popularity contest combined.

noetic_techy 9y ago

Allow me to poke holes: - You've just created opportunities for sites who don't participate to attract customers. "No reputation requirements, we don't judge you". Great for curated niches, bad for mass market. - People with diverging but still main stream political views getting their reputation docked by those in the other camp who control the site. It can flow both ways. Reputation starts to get linked to the echo chamber, in that those who don't echo the same get docked. - Someone hacks you and starts messing up your rep across multiple sites.

kazanz 9y ago
A lot of other posters in this thread seem to agree that anonymous groups work better. I tend to agree. But getting everyone on the planet to switch to anonymous environments will be incredibly difficult and take a very long time due to intrenched financial interests. I could hardly get my wife to switch to Mastodon (even being able to keep her identity there), let alone my mother in law, or my rarely seen co-worker. So for point 1: I'd say let "no reputation" sites attract customers. If people want to participate in completely anonymous groups they are responsible for the groups they choose and the opinions in them. Good on them. But for the rest of the people who lack the awareness, knowledge, or motivation to seek out these communities, we have a responsibility to find a way to make non-anonymous communication less toxic. For point 2: Knowing the reputation of a user for the site you are visiting as well as their global reputation helps the reader make a more informed decision about the worth of this person's comments to them than without. Lets use politics. Assume a user with liberal tendencies argues intelligently with conservatives in Fox News comments where his comments are downvoted because they are diverging. They also comment thoughtfully on r/SandersForPresident where his views are appreciated and upvoted. When I see this persons comments on Fox, I will see his fox new's score is -128 and his overall score is 3. A troll on the other hand may have a -348 on Fox news and -828 overall. From this I can conclude conservatives don't like the first user, but some other people do like the first user. I can also conclude the second user is a troll, or doesn't ever participate in groups that share somewhat similar viewpoint. All of which you can see in their history, where their scores for various sites are listed, perhaps you could even bookmark scores for specific sites you want to see. Of course, this is binary, and can be improved with dimensionality, but is still better than nothing at all. For point 3: Hell, what is someone hacks your bank account? I think a bigger concern would be someone automating downvoting of your account or upvoting of their own. Which would require more thought.

maxerickson 9y ago

That will only work if you insist on tying the reputation to identities. Even then it probably won't stop people being awful (there's plenty of awful stuff posted by identifiable people). But if people can be pseudonymous, it won't work at all.

petermcneeley 9y ago

Absolutely! You dont have any contact information here but feel free to contact me offline if you wish to collaborate on a piece about this topic or just to share some ideas. you can reach me at petermcneeley@hotmail.com