Comments on New Currency Frontiers: Reputations

2009-04-17T01:39:00.000-07:00

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Thanks for another very insightful comment! I com...

2009-04-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks for another very insightful comment! I completely concur. There are hidden assumptions embedded in social contracts that make translation to other communities very difficult. That is why I was distinguishing between explicit and implicit promises. I think many of those hidden assumptions fall into the implicit promises category.

If I say I will send you a product within 24 hours, and it takes me a week, I have broken an explicit promise. That seems to be something that could translate across boundaries. But if I say I will send this product in a timely manner, that might mean something different to you than it does to me. In my community a week IS in a timely manner.

That is why if we want to leverage these reputations currencies to the fullest extent possible, we will need open standards. Many people don't know how their credit ratings are calculated, and as a result they have fear around it. They don't know the rules of the game, so they are in a condition of learned helplessness.

Therefore we need to make explicit the rules of each reputations system. In an explicit context, I suspect there might be more opportunities for translating reputation across boundaries.

This is a dicey topic which probably merits anothe...

2009-04-14T10:52:00.000-07:00

This is a dicey topic which probably merits another whole post to sort out some of the issues.

I think we should acknowledge that we already use reputation currencies. Every certification and formal title is a kind of reputation currency (UL Certified, FCC Compliant, Certified Organic, Justic O'Connor, President Obama, BBB Gold Star, Olympic Gold Medal, Academy Awards, Harvard MBA, etc.)

We manage to use most of these currencies just fine without much the confusion you refer to.

All currencies are actually a social contract. This is most obvious in reputation currencies. But we have done our damndest to try and pretend that dollars are devoid of social contract and are "just business." We then commit all sorts of folly by creating reputation currencies and confusing them with medium of exchange currencies. (Examples: Facebook's new "I'll give you 5 credits for that cool post." or
Twollars being a "thank you" currency which is configured as a medium of exchange with a credit limit, current balance, and convertibility to donations.)

Reputation is always context dependent based on the norms within a community with which you hold the social contract. I could be known in the business community as a sharp, reliable, mover and shaker, but in my son's Little League community as the bozo who picks his kid up late and never comes to the games. Different needs, expectations and social contracts.

A very few of those factors might be able to be translated across community contexts, but it's dangerous to do because how they are measured embeds all sorts of unspoken assumptions from the social contract which may be very different in another context.