I think reputation and trust go hand in hand. I like the web of trust concepts, where global trust scores don’t mean as much. We’ve found in the last few years that we vary in major ways by how much each of us trust public authority figures with established credentials or various conspiracy theorists. I don’t think it’s a stretch to find two people who sort a given list in exactly opposite directions.

People are also incredibly ingenious about gaming reputation systems. If given enough time we tend to produce a situation where everyone is suspect and we just end up with zero reputation all round, then resort to buying standing and pretend it’s meritocratic.

We should try to avoid the trap of social scores and any scoring authority, even in algorithmic form.

I don’t have any solutions though, only wishes.