Trust, authority, karma, and ”interestingness”

So many of the rules and filters of social interaction are implicit, never stated out loud. So it’s fascinating to see software developers struggle to carry those rules and filters into virtual communities on the web. Such vague variables as ”authority” or ”trust” — which we silently apply to people around us in the fleshy world — must be reconstructed somehow on-line for these virtual communities to work.

”Trust” is a fabulous case in point. Communities and exchange marketplaces need trust to function…I’m not going to freely trade my money or my time if I can’t reasonably expect something in return. But how do I trust someone I’ve never met, and never will meet? And how can that trust (or distrust) permeate to a million other users with no direct ties?

Hence the rise of the trust metric — an attempt to measure, assign, and convey ”trustworthiness” among millions of strangers. As you might expect, most trust metrics work on two primary variables: the evidence of your actions in the on-line space (the comments you post, the time you spend reading or participating, the transactions you complete, etc.) and the assessment by other people of that evidence (did you say something smart, did you deliver the product you promised, or did you not, etc.).

The news-sharing site, SlashDot, attacked this problem several years ago with their ”karma” system, where moderators can attach points to thoughtful comments, and remove points from dumb ones. Users can then choose to see only comments posted by other users with high karma, filtering out all the bozos with little or none. Says SlashDot:

Your karma is a reference that primarily represents how your comments have been moderated in the past….If a comment you post is moderated up, your karma will rise. Consequently, if you post a comment that has been moderated down, your karma will fall….

Note that being moderated Funny doesn’t help your karma. You have to be smart, not just a smart-ass.

The mega-marketplace of eBay takes a similar approach to constructing reputation through its user feedback system.

In another spin on the issue of trust and authority, the blog-tracking site Technorati generates an ”authority” ranking for each weblog, based on the number of other weblogs that link back to it. More links equals more authority.

Most recently, the photo-sharing on-line community site Flickr added some algorithms that determine the ”interestingness” of photos posted to the system — determined by how many views the photo receives, how many comments, how many outside links, and so on. The result is quite amazing (just look at the most interesting photos from the past 24 hours), representing images chosen not by a small group of editors, but by the aggregated actions and choices of an entire on-line community.

As always comes the question: why should a cultural manager care about such things? Here’s why: good things come to those who are labeled as interesting, trustworthy, and authoritative. As the world gets more cluttered with information and options, these variables will play an even bigger role in where people look and how much they listen (ie, artists, audiences, donors, public officials, and so on). The more we understand these hazy and socially-assigned traits, the better we’ll be at our jobs.

NOTE: If you’re really intrigued by the question of how to rank influence or authority on-line in a way that’s thoughtful and meaningful — rather than just crass and popular — follow this thread.