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I've been hearing talk for years about a "web of trust" system, that could filter spam simply by having users vouch for eachother and filtering out anyone not v

I've been hearing talk for years about a "web of trust" system, that could filter spam simply by having users vouch for eachother and filtering out anyone not vouched for. However, I haven't seen a function system based on this model yet. Personally I'd love to add in something like the old slashdot comment model, where people would mark content as "helpful", "funny", "insightful", "controversial" etc, and based on how much you trust the people labeling it, you could have things filtered out, or brought forward.

pjc50 8mo ago
I think the last one of those I saw was Advogato? Some of the social media systems, including Bluesky, started as invite-only, but that was only ever really for rate-limiting and in particular there were no negative consequences for inviting someone who was subsequently banned.
wongarsu 8mo ago
There is the simpler version that is approximately "you can only get in if someone vouches for you. If a person you vouch for misbehaves you get punished as well". That's effectively a "tree of trust" with skin in the game. And it's incredibly successful, used in lots of communities, crime rings, job recommendations, etc. Any attempt to generalize this by allowing multiple weak vouches instead of a single strong one, or allowing people to join before getting vouched for, or removing the stakes in vouching for someone, etc. always end up failing for fairly predictable reasons. No matter how much cool cryptography you add
- berenddeperend 8mo ago
  Wouldn't that be easy to bypass by just adding one or two proxy accounts? Say person A invites me (a bad actor). I could invite a second throwaway account, with which I invite a third throwaway account. I do bad things on my third account. Could you reasonably punish person A for this? You'd first have to prove that the throwaway accounts all belong to me.
  - lukan 8mo ago
    No one has to proof anything. If A invites B and B invites C who acts openly bad, you can remove all parties at once and maybe revoke on appeal. All up to the community. Otherwise it would be indeed simple to defeat. But before banning A, one can also just give a Warning. No restrictions here in principle, but I am also open for concrete implementations that work well.
    - account42 8mo ago
      The point is that either there has to be a limit for how much you get punished for the acts of your grandchildren, which leaves room for motivated abusers to work around your system, or people can expect to be banned for basically no fault of their own if they ever invite anyone, in which case your system is DOA.
      - lukan 8mo ago
        The point is, it is a balance each community has to find on their own. In reality this means adjusting depending on incidents. But if A invites B who openly does bad things, it very much is the fault of A to drag this person into the community.
  - Miraltar 8mo ago
    Create some sort of score that goes up when a "child" misbehaves. The further the child the lower the increase but at some point you get banned anyway
Obscurity4340 8mo ago
I think Tildes and Lobste.rs does
Gormo 8mo ago
> However, I haven't seen a function system based on this model yet. HN's mirror-universe counterpart, Lobste.rs, works basically this way.

pjc50 8mo ago

I think the last one of those I saw was Advogato? Some of the social media systems, including Bluesky, started as invite-only, but that was only ever really for rate-limiting and in particular there were no negative consequences for inviting someone who was subsequently banned.

wongarsu 8mo ago

There is the simpler version that is approximately "you can only get in if someone vouches for you. If a person you vouch for misbehaves you get punished as well". That's effectively a "tree of trust" with skin in the game. And it's incredibly successful, used in lots of communities, crime rings, job recommendations, etc. Any attempt to generalize this by allowing multiple weak vouches instead of a single strong one, or allowing people to join before getting vouched for, or removing the stakes in vouching for someone, etc. always end up failing for fairly predictable reasons. No matter how much cool cryptography you add

berenddeperend 8mo ago
Wouldn't that be easy to bypass by just adding one or two proxy accounts? Say person A invites me (a bad actor). I could invite a second throwaway account, with which I invite a third throwaway account. I do bad things on my third account. Could you reasonably punish person A for this? You'd first have to prove that the throwaway accounts all belong to me.
- lukan 8mo ago
  No one has to proof anything. If A invites B and B invites C who acts openly bad, you can remove all parties at once and maybe revoke on appeal. All up to the community. Otherwise it would be indeed simple to defeat. But before banning A, one can also just give a Warning. No restrictions here in principle, but I am also open for concrete implementations that work well.
  - account42 8mo ago
    The point is that either there has to be a limit for how much you get punished for the acts of your grandchildren, which leaves room for motivated abusers to work around your system, or people can expect to be banned for basically no fault of their own if they ever invite anyone, in which case your system is DOA.
    - lukan 8mo ago
      The point is, it is a balance each community has to find on their own. In reality this means adjusting depending on incidents. But if A invites B who openly does bad things, it very much is the fault of A to drag this person into the community.
- Miraltar 8mo ago
  Create some sort of score that goes up when a "child" misbehaves. The further the child the lower the increase but at some point you get banned anyway

Obscurity4340 8mo ago

I think Tildes and Lobste.rs does

Gormo 8mo ago

> However, I haven't seen a function system based on this model yet. HN's mirror-universe counterpart, Lobste.rs, works basically this way.