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I hadn't heard of it, but it does seem to have correspondences with the rating systems I'm envisioning.

I should also add I've found portions of many of my own ideas espoused by other people in other research literature when I started doing literature searches, sometimes with very similar ideas, even down to shared ideas about specific mathematical techniques that might be useful to analyze web of trust data.

But back to the Bridgwater method, updating this type of rating system based on performance is also possible in most information domains and IMO designs for a rating system should include plans for allowing feedback on current results to influence future results. Admittedly measuring performance won't always be clear cut in all domains, and will probably depend on Darwinian theory to some extent as well.