The number has clicked over to 81 now, but the question of the title was posed by @revisesociology a few weeks back in a chat and I have been wracking my brain to think of one, but I might have to concede that no, Reputation might be the most useless indicator of an account behavior - but it isn't completely useless as a mechanism, as it does have an affect on influencing the reputations of other accounts, both up and down.
At the moment, I am 9th highest rep on the platform, according to Hive-db.com, which means that when I upvote or downvote, there is quite an effect on reputation, as useless as it is on the upside, it can come in handy on the downside to make the accounts of spammers and phishers very unattractive. While the reputation is useless to indicate much on the up, it is a pretty good warning on the downside for most people to at least be wary and take some caution.
I don't know the specifics, but affecting reputation is determined by staked weighting in combination with reputation and with my stake and rep, I think I can take an account from the starting 25 down to near zero with about 5x 100% votes. I can also move an account up into the 50s pretty quickly too - but that matters less.
While useless in many ways, it would actually be very useful to have a reputation mechanism that actually meant something, it is just that the way that this one calculates doesn't factor in enough points to be relevant, as it only uses stake and other reputations, which can obviously be gamed and was done through both selfvoting and the use of bidbots.
I think that in the future, there will be more sensitive mechanisms that are able to apply some kind of confidence score as to whether someone is qualified in some way. A simple example on Hive is one that often takes place through relationships, where if someone with a good reputation shares a post, voters may vote on it blindly trusting that the post is worth it, as the track-record tells them the likelihood of it being worth it is high.
Reputation is about influence and while it is hard to enumerate, reputation matters in the real world in many ways, both good and bad. But, reputation of all kinds doesn't mean that the value applied is indicative, as it is gathered and applied through a process of opinions, often from those who have no experience to accurately give a score. A "bad reputation" doesn't mean that the person is bad, nor does a "good reputation" indicate the goodness of someone, but reputations can precede us through various channels and can prime an audience into having an opinion or valence before they have any experience with us or a product at all.
For a product example, a restaurant can have a good reputation, but that doesn't mean that the food or service is fitting for every customer, which means that the good reputation is given by those who are suited to considering the restaurant positively. It is no different for people, where a reputation is calculated by transmitted opinions and the evaluated person is going to have a whole range of values along the reputation spectrum, depending on the audience they walk into. Because of this, it may be impossible to accurately apply a reputation rating of a single number on anyone.
However, as I said above, reputation in a specific area might be possible, where for example a specialist with education and training, as well as experience in a field could have a greater reputation in that narrow slice of information, over someone that has no experience. I think that this will gain importance when for example, information is being ranked on validity to mitigate the risks of fake news. Add a layer of decentralization and a broad sample size, and it is possible that in a large number of areas, there can be far clearer information as well as decisions made based on a confidence level of distributed experts.
Apply the same thing to a voting profile, and it could be that rather than the ridiculousness of voting for an individual, we would be voting for a range of ideas, where our own experience over time is factored into the weighting, so while we vote once, our vote is split across a range of factors with a weighting applied to give us more voting rights in one area over another. While there will still be a lot of imperfections, it should develop a better line of best fit for public policy.
On Hive, this is demonstrated poorly through the use of stake and reputation, where the assumption is that stake will be more inclined to work for the betterment of the platform than unstaked, and that stake will identify people of value who support their vision. The concept is pretty solid, the application is very poor, as people are people, regardless of stake and, they potentially make their decisions on who to support based on points that aren't necessarily in line with the betterment of the platform, or potentially not in a way that is needed now, so there might be an alignment problem. The decentralization of the stake and platform is meant to mitigate against the risks to flatten the influence curve to spread it wider, but that requires the distribution of stake to people who are more likely to look to improve the environment in some way, not just maximize themselves.
But, as useless as it is currently on Hive, I do think that in the coming years, reputation of individuals and communities is going to be of increasing importance of relevance, as the world is going to have to start contending with an increasing flow of fake and biased information designed to do harm - including improving deep fake videos that appear very real. What this means is that platforms are going to have to do a better job of filtering, but more than that, we are going to have to do a better job of what we share, considering much of what we share we don't actually consume entirely, just headlines.
Similarly to the trust in some people based on what they share here, there is the future potential that a confidence level could be applied to what we share on all platforms, where if something is proven fake, the score can be affected negatively, or if a user is often sharing good information the score can be improved - with the ubiquity of social media, this could also inform the interest level in the narrow field areas, so it is not only professionals, but also enthusiasts that have a scaled rating on topics.
There is obviously a lot of complexity and caveats involved in designing a "web of trust" in this way, but with enough data points and automation to record important numbers without self-reporting (self-reporting is unreliable), it could be that a decent mechanism that can actually means something could be found. I don't expect this to be soon or used well however, especially in the hands of corporations and governments who already use profiling for their own benefits, but as a concept, there is opportunity and regardless of whether it is used well or not, because of that opportunity - it will be used - so it is better to consider it openly and as widely as possible.
So, while there might not be a more useless public metric on Hive than rep, reputation itself is a tool that we as social animals use to manage ourselves, a heuristic of trust that we apply to our world as to who can influence us and therefore, the decisions we make. As a world that has larger groups and has become far more integrated and connected at the global level, the human brain is unable to accurately factor in reputations well, but will naturally do so based on irrelevant data. This means that there is a need to solve the problem at some kind of technological level to provide trusted information we can act upon, without having to spend all of our "human time" cross-referencing data through our biased filters.
I know that for example, @blocktrades is working on this kind of thing in his spare time (who I tag just in case I can add something to jog his thoughts in some way) and I assume that a lot of the platforms are seeing the coming need to be able to verify what they share and promote, as they will start becoming more responsible for the content on their platforms.
What I do think is that blockchain and tokenization are the likely candidates that can be integrated into form the fabric, with each becoming a transparent layer that overlays to become a well-informed and verifiable blanket of trust. This gives a very strong usecase to blockchains and tokens and one that crosses across industries, fields and institutions in the same way as the internet itself. And since it leverages the same networks of value, the acceptance and barriers of entry to do so might be lower than expected.
While the technology may allow it, it is us as people who have to make sure that it is going to work in our favor as a society and individuals - something that we aren't overly great at doing, due to our own biases and level of confidence in things we might not know much about at all. The discussion of humanity however, is always open.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Well, you've totally crushed me. My one goal since 2017 has been to get my Reputation as high as it can go! It's been an ongoing theme of complaint throughout my time on the Blockchain "How come they're on a higher Rep than me? They don't post anything!"
While I accept that the individual behind the account might be a complete scumbag I was always under the impression it was an indication that at least the account had built up a reputation over time on the platform although I found out recently that in theory, you could 'buy' your Rep as it was linked to how much HP you have which in turn you could inflate by buying Hive rather than earning it.
I am actually saddened, until (In my case) my account reaches the dizzy heights of 3-4K HP the only criteria I thought was achievable was Reputation and now you've pulled the security blanket from under me. 😭
How about Reputation be controlled by the likes of PeakD, Hive.blog, Ecency or any others? I suspect the only metric they could use would be:
How many posts you made.
How many replies you made.
I'm now off to rip up my "Peter wrote something good today" certificate. 😢
I shared this post on Twitter to try and get your work in front of more people.
You can find your post and me on Twitter if you like? https://twitter.com/dick_turpin
I've also upvoted you and shared your content on Hive.
I read your post. No Bots were used, this was all done manually. Hope That Helps.
Don't forget, you can upvote peoples comments too!
A high reputation score will still have a psychological effect on people, at least for first impressions.
Reputation shouldn't be related to HP, though I only looked quickly over the documentation during my research on Hive.
There's nothing wrong with setting a goal even if it doesn't have any utility behind it, you should still strive towards increasing your reputation. It's still a number which you can increase with positive interaction in the community.
I am sorry! :D
If you look at the top 10, you will see a very mixed bag of results, the top 2 in particular:
https://hive-db.com/accounts/reputation
To save you some heartache, I actually see use case for reputation as a social indicator that does indicate some consistency, plus, it might warrant further investigation. For the most part though, it will of course favor people who post, not comment. I do vote comments so there is a factor there on my posts, but again, it will require consistency.
On a separate note, I personally value my own reputation as I know exactly the effort it took to get it and exactly how I have done it. I consider under self-evaluation that to get here, I have performed pretty well and in a way that I have considered value adding as often as possible. So, there is value for me in it.
I think that like the decentralized blacklists, it will be possible for interfaces to apply their own metrics/ evaluations in regard to reputations as well as other metrics. I really hope they do, as like you, there are many people who like to aim for numbers and hit milestones - in my opinion, it is a huge part of the gamification model we could apply without so much focus on stake. I would like to see "statistic dashboards" where users can choose what factors interest them to run the calculations, potentially, these could be integrated by user choice into their blog interface to have some personalization effect using the metrics to which they are most attached or proud of. There are many ways to play on Hive, we should be rewarding users on the platform in more ways than just tokens.
I like your "Statistic Dashboards" idea. In fact, this response is so good I think I'll share that too. Thanks.
You are welcome :)
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.I suspect, strongly, that reputation will work much better for communities than for individuals. The base is obviously much broader and the willingness to circle jerk much lower.
A more useless number than reputation on Hive? I'd suggest the membership number. Everybody that has ever joined is counted as a member. Every account is a member. Way less than 10% of that number actually participate in any way on a monthly basis. Just logging in is considered activity.
That said, I like the idea of the reputation number. As you said, not so much on the upside as on the down. Anyone under 30 is probably a bad actor in the eyes of the community. Anyone under 50 probably isn't exactly busting their butts (except for BRAND new peeps).
Society has a funny reputation parameter. When you consider that doctors are held in near universal regard despite the fact that half of them are below average. Politicians are generally held in low regard despite the fact that half of them are above average.
So. We proceed to the Hard Fork which could have happened 2 minutes ago. Latest best guess I have heard is maybe Wednesday or Thursday when 17 of the consensus witnesses actually run the code. Lurch seems a good word here.
I do too, which is why I made note to mention it. I think that there can be two layers (more as well) where a community is able to build a reputation for itself by being able to attract high reputation users, then based on the discussion/ content /etc, more layers of confidence can be applied.
Nice one!! Yeah - this might indeed be more useless, considering there are some people with thousands of accounts :)
And, both groups are among the most educated among us in a culture that generally values education. People don't think too much about these things though, we just base our opinions on what we see, without considering that for the most part, we have never met the individuals, we are given the view.
The HF was delayed to make sure as many of the apps are able to get up and running immediately, as many hadn't checked in to say if they had tested with Eclipse yet. The delay isn't ideal, but I think it is better than a lot of application failures that would be considered a failed HF - even if the HF runs smoothly.
I agree. I actually expect the HF to go well simply because of the nature of it. Mostly correcting previously identified problems.
And you are correct. App failures can make the HF look really bad. But we are on track now, it's going to happen...
I am looking forward to getting this one out of the way and then playing around with some more social mechanisms in the next :)
Exactly. This one is 'gotta do' stuff, the next one should be up for lots of discussion.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Although reputation does not mean as much as it should on Hive I still value mine as I feel I have earned it. It is almost at 75 now. I think the algorithm favours those who get a lot of big votes from a few sources, so those who bought votes were able to build their rep score via that or self-voting. Now they cannot be lowered. At least we have the blacklist indicators to give us some idea if the account has been abusing the system.
It is not a high priority, but maybe we can have a better metric eventually. I know who a lot of the high rep people are anyway.
I have been able to lower the rep of some abusers, but I do not encounter so many these days. That is a good thing for Hive.
I value mine for the same reasons.
I don't know exactly how the algorithms work, other than supposedly each point is 1.5x harder to get than the last. I don't know how rep comes into play. I have wondered what it would happen to rep if for example I had Freedom's stake to vote with :D
I think the need is growing rapidly on all media. It will get interesting once platforms are considered publishers.
Yes, which shows the social value of reputation, as you know who are high rep without that number present, because you have been paying attention to interaction and content on the platform. If at least some of this could be accurately mapped and automated, it would be very useful for a number of purposes - not all good.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.I've done some experimentation in implementing web of trusts before, and while I've never managed to get anyone else to implement any such system in a live platform, the concepts remain more or less the same.
The biggest problem for such systems is that they're extremely computationally intensive as difficulty scales exponentially with network size. Especially in the case of trust propagation.
Trust propagation calculation would provide trust levels that mimic how in person communities trust each-other. It'd be vulnerable to the same attacks as such too, but should be immune to many common digital attacks such as someone creating a thousand bots that then upvote each-other to infinity.
As a less computationally intensive alternative, Hive could implement a compromise of calculating per-community reputations. Hive consists of many communities, and it would make sense for people to have their own reputation score within every community in addition to their global reputation score. This would partially solve the issue of reputation not being a good indicator of behaviour in a given area.
Would it be simplified ( :D) if there were many webs calculating only segment of the data and then being collated and factored together, without needing to calculate every factor individually?
BTW, I am definitely not the person who should have influence in the way to do this :D
Back in the day, the User Authority score was doing something complicated (very flawed imo) but had a decent idea behind it.
I do think that communities should start adding in their own metrics that can be leveraged by the entire community also. I think that at the very least, it is a layer of gamification that gives people targets within communities to aim for and could even be used to raise people into positions like moderators, without relying on "who you know" as much.
Thanks for dropping in - it is a really interesting area, despite me not having a good grasp on the technicals.
There are many tricks you can do in order to reduce how much time is spent on calculation, it will still scale exponentially though as fundamentally you're calculating a unique user score for every user per user. A network of 10 users will have 100 scores, a network of 100 users will have 10000 scores.
What most programmers do in the case they've got something that grows exponentially is that they'll set a hard cap on how many items can be processed together. For example, Discord limits users to a maximum of 100 Guilds because one of their algorithms scales exponentially in computation usage. In Discord's case however it's likely down to bad programming, their entire platform is a disaster from privacy to moderation management to developer competence.
I've got a lot of projects in mind for Hive. Though I have no idea how many, if any, I'll ultimately implement. The blockchain does lack some features that would make my ideas easier to implement, such as on-chain smart contracts, but we'll see where things go.
I think that all experiments are welcome on Hive and at the second layer, there might be some very useful implementations we can all learn from across multiple points. At the very least, this is far more fun than posting pics of meals on FB :)
I'm mostly here for the technical aspects of Hive, I'd like to see it become popular enough to weaken the tech giants like Google and Facebook.
There's a bit too much focus on rewards for my liking, it's to a degree that'll potentially scare off a lot of users. I made a post a short time ago regarding some major things Hive needs before it can seriously grow, I probably should've mentioned the over emphasis on rewards somewhere.
I think that the rewards are a novelty that takes focus as it gives everyone the ability to earn something. This will likely change in the future as there is more spread as well as more people mainly looking to consume.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.I remember when I hit 50...I thought, G-dog's livin' large now y'all...It wasn't long after that I realised how utterly useless that metric truly was. Well done on the number though. It's right up there and us plebs can only dream of such heady heights. Lol.
Still, I'll be honest man, I like it clicking over. Makes me feel good, although it probably shouldn't.
I used to think more of it pre-bidbot, but it got destroyed. oh well. I like seeing it click over too - I think I get about 1 or maybe two changes a year and I think the next one might be toward the end of 2021 for me :D
Hmm, that's a long way off. I need about 0.8 to get to 78...Maybe 6 months or so I suppose. I'll not hold my breath. 😁
I'm not surprised it's 'in his spare time' - I can imagine it's not a priority!
Congratulations anyway, it's nice to move up rep even if it is prerry pointless!
Posted using Dapplr
Yep. I first found out about it at SF3 - it is a really interesting problem to think about, which is why I try to interject a post every now and again as a reminder and possibly to spark a new thought - even if my thoughts on the subject are limited :)
@bigtom13 added a contender for most useless - Membership number :D
It's not a metric though is it?!
not for an account, but it is used in various marketing forms.
not for an account, but it is used in various marketing forms.
Wow! I came by to tell you some things, they don't make sense anymore. I have read here very complete comments that give more value to your post, because they talk not only about reputation in general, but about your reputation in particular. The amount of followers, the amount of intelligent comments they make to your posts daily, that does speak of your reputation. That's the real reputation. The other thing is a number (which by the way we all want to achieve). I know some with reputations after 70 that nobody reads. I congratulate you because I know your work and thank you very much because you are one of the few who from the heights look down. Greetings and a good Tuesday, @tarakzp. ;)
I agree, as I also think that reputation is far more about the interaction and quality of interaction that one gets - both on the upside and the down :)
Vote count perhaps?
Vote count is a contender, especially with so many automated alts. At least it makes some people appear popular :)
Yep I look at vote count LESS than i look at reuputation so it's not just a contender it's a winner. Admit it you look at reputation more than vote counts. Specially if it's someone you don't know it at least gives you an inkling of how familiar they are with hive. Perhaps it's not a great gamification but it has some use to give us a ballpark.
I guess it also gives me an indication if they are low rep and are too familiar with Hive. Fair enough - vote count might be a winner :D
I guess it also gives me an indication if they are low rep and are too familiar with Hive. Fair enough - vote count might be a winner :D
I guess it also gives me an indication if they are low rep and are too familiar with Hive. Fair enough - vote count might be a winner :D
Reputation number is a bit iffy, but I personally, like many in the comments like it. Growing the number is one of the things I have been trying to do, granted not trying real hard because that involves the work of making post, but still it is a slow grow number. With the lack of bid bots on Hive, it seems to me that the Reputation Score reputation is improving somewhat.
I do agree with, I think it was steevc, that the vote total is the most useless metric when it comes to being meaningful. (650 votes is a big big number, reality payout less than 5.50)
Yep, there are quite a few who like the rep, including me - even though it is useless :)
Steem-ua was a solid contender and at some point even open-sourced. But I think it may be too computationally intensive to be integrated in HiveMind.
Even though it still had some opportunities to be gamed, they were few. But I think the recent AV evolution may have hurt the ranking of some in that metric. Still best potential alternative I have seen to the current model so far.
Yeah it was, although I am not sure about what they were actually calculating still. Too much weighting on being a witness also. But if I remember correctly, they were calculating billions of points.
I don't know much about this, but thought a possible value of this would be to restrict downvoting to those with xx (40ish?) amount of reputation just to keep the spammers and those disruptors from downvoting until they had spent enough time to weed out the ones created just to cause trouble. While it may not have a significant impact on folks, it can be very demoralizing to newbies to see the post they worked hard on downvoted by these troublemakers. Not sure how else it has or could be used, but tossing out an idea.
Yeah, some people get up in arms about the nothing downvotes - I think it is because many don't understand the staking mechanisms or the trolling nature of some people online. The problem with having a rep limitation is that there is actually markets out there to buy and sell accounts - weird eh? :D
Yes, didn't know about those markets or how the rep limit would interfere, but TMI, lol. I don't want to get that deep into it. I do enough technical diving for the day job, this is for entertainment and enjoyment. Thanks for the response!
I feel it has still some use as it allows me to know if the user has been using Steem/Hive for a while and if he is a successful writer (as there are no more bidbots).
But apart from that. Not much.
Yeah, there is some usecase in it for those who have a good understanding of precisely what it means and the history - especially cross-platform history. For a new user, not so much perhaps, but I think some use it thinking it is more meaningful than it is in the way they apply it.
I am taking the community route in my Hive journey. Targeting my posts to people with shared interests seems logical.
It makes sense and it also gives the chance to build a base from which to explore from. I see some communities kind of like rooms of a home, each has a personal purpose - but it is also nice to go out and eat too :)
Good metaphor. My favorite rooms at the moment are CTP, StemSocial, and NeedleworkMonday.
CTP? I don't think I know it.
Check us out--put ctptalk in the search box. We have a CTP token on hive-engine and a very active community of marketers who support one another's businesses and passions. We would love to have you! @jongolson is one of the founders.
Oh! @tarazkp C'mon! Are you by chance trying to tell me that that infallible UserAuthority Algorithm made by the chaps of @steem-ua turned out to be useless in the end?
At least from an algorithmic point of view to assess trustworthy & reputation thru the blockchain?
Oh boy! maybe we should adopt the chinese Credit Score System asap! };)
I think UA was calculating fine, just the wrong things perhaps.
As said, it is going to be done with more and more accuracy, how it is applied is going to depend on who applies it. Keep wealth in the hands of the few, it will be them who apply it.
I think UA was calculating fine, just the wrong things perhaps.
As said, it is going to be done with more and more accuracy, how it is applied is going to depend on who applies it. Keep wealth in the hands of the few, it will be them who apply it.
Well, congratulations on this milestone. Even with all of the color you have provided here on the meaning of reputation, I have to say that I am highly impressed by what you have achieved! And I’m glad that you have ability to take very effective action to correct bad behavior. Thank goodness your heart is in the right place.
I had not thought much about things like deep fake videos. The ability to get straight information that is trustworthy is already so aggravating today. That future reality is really frightening, since large segments of society have proven to be gullible and undiscerning.
Thanks :)
For me, the reputation score is meaningful as far as I know what it took to get it for me. As a social indicator, it is far less effective.
It really is frightening, which is why I think the attempts to mitigate damage are being considered, although they are about a decade behind where they needed to start perhaps. Hopefully, Hive or a second-layer app will be able to find a solution that can be built upon. For deepfake videos, I see reputable sources blockchaining and stamping them to verify - and over time, the real stuff will get enough verifications to apply a confidence level, while the fakes will eventually be unearthed and labelled so. Maybe in time, there will be more truth shared than not, which is not the case at the moment as fake spreads faster due to the sensational nature of much of it and our want to believe.
Yes, all true. The most disturbing thing to me right now is that people seem to feel that the very things one should accept as reality are about choice. If you don't like facts, science or actual truth, you just label it fake and then choose the reality you prefer.
This gives me a kind of hopeless feeling like nothing else in history. How can you argue with someone who has chosen their reality the way you select something from a menu? And the people advocating this approach are sitting in top government seats.
Anyway, I absolutely agree that a technological approach is imperative. I hope it comes to pass!
It's probably not quite as useful for what it's supposed to be measuring as anyone would like but it still has some use. Stupid high numbers and "beginner" (25 to say 35) numbers are more likely to be scrutinised (this stupid high number seems dodgy, avoid, this stupid high number seems to have earned it) and stupid low numbers are more likely to be avoided (unless it used to be a stupid high number and then you might be motivated to check why they're now a stupid low number XD).
I often check low numbers too, to see what kind of behavior led to them being there. Generally, it is well deserved - not always though.
30k followers of @kingscrown strongly disagree
How many active? They don't seem to comment on his posts much, last I checked, it was mostly KC replying to bots :D
Ssssshhhhhhhhh
wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more, say no more..