[OpenID] OpenID Chance II

Bob Wyman bob at wyman.us
Thu Feb 1 22:17:35 UTC 2007


On 2/1/07, Johannes Ernst <jernst+openid.net at netmesh.us> wrote:> what you
are asking for is to augment identity information
> with reputation information, in this case an individual's
> degree (a kind of reputation using the above terminology)
> from a reputation source (e.g. the college where they got
> the degree).

In one sense, what Johannes says is true. However, I would counsel folk to
be careful about bundling too much into the bucket of things that we think
of as "reputation information." There is a whole potential industry of
people and organizations that can create "certified facts" or "verified
data" of one sort or another. The danger in calling all this stuff
"reputation" is that if you do so, we're likely to automatically assume that
organizations (like eBay?) that really do deal with "reputation" are the
most logical places for the data to be sourced from. This is not the case.

I believe that "reputation" should really be restricted to subjective
statements about "behavior" or perceptions. In other words, "reputation"
should be limited to things that have been discovered about the way you
interact with services and persons and the way they perceive you. (i.e. you
make true or false statements on eBay, you deliver things when you say you
do, etc.) We should be VERY careful not to allow the handling of "facts" (
i.e. you graduated from school X, or you were born on July 1) to fall,
without competitive contest, into the realm of "reputation" managers.

Reputation management and the certification of facts are two distinct and
orthogonal problem spaces.

bob wyman
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