[MUD-Dev] Reputation systems: a possible path for investigation

[J C Lawrence]

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 02:41:53 -0700 
Brian Green <Brian> wrote:

> When the PK hunters are most active, you will regularly see lists
> posted of known PKers and their fighting styles.  A fully developed
> reputation system would definitely hinder a niche group like this.

Absolutely, if the reputations are system derived, system computed, and
system defined.  If they're not, then it would seem to potentially
provide a rich feeding ground for knowledge miners.

> The tradeoffs are interesting.

Oh yeah.

> That difference is that people will accept that humans make mistakes,
> but will probably expect a reputation system provided by the game to
> be much less prone to error.  It's easier for humans to quickly adjust
> information that has been demonstrated to be incorrect.  

Yup, good point.  Or, as Larry McVoy puts it, "bullshit filters".

> If you as a designer allow any significant amount of errors into your
> system, you will most likely find that people will not pay attention
> to the system you're provided.

I'm not so sure about this.  If you make it excessively easy to enter
data into the system, but the reported value of a datum in the system is
a product of its intersections with other data and its support by those
who receive the hint then there's the potential for it to become a
typical icerberg structure self-reinforcing authority structures (items
accepted as "truth" becomes increasingly hard to belie, no matter their
fallacy).

> This also falls prey to people that try to game the system.  If a
> player can get a good rep from his mules and cronies in order to use
> your system as his personal warez FTP server, I'm sure someone will do
> that if the costs aren't prohibitive.

      ( FTP servers == offsite backups )
    O
  o
.
--
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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