Experts discuss the benefits and risks of online reputation systems.

In making decisions, we often seek advice. Online, we check Amazon recommendations, eBay vendors' histories, TripAdvisor ratings, and even our elected representatives' voting records. These online reputation systems serve as filters for information overload. In this book, experts discuss the benefits and risks of such online tools.

The contributors offer expert perspectives that range from philanthropy and open access to science and law, addressing reputation systems in theory and practice. Properly designed reputation systems, they argue, have the potential to create a “reputation society,” reshaping society for the better by promoting accountability through the mediated judgments of billions of people. Effective design can also steer systems away from the pitfalls of online opinion sharing by motivating truth-telling, protecting personal privacy, and discouraging digital vigilantism.

Contributors
Madeline Ashby, Jamais Cascio, John Henry Clippinger, Chrysanthos Dellarocas, Cory Doctorow, Randy Farmer, Eric Goldman, Victor Henning, Anthony Hoffmann, Jason Hoyt, Luca Iandoli, Josh Introne, Mark Klein, Mari Kuraishi, Cliff Lampe, Paolo Massa, Hassan Masum, Marc Maxson, Craig Newmark, Michael Nielsen, Lucio Picci, Jan Reichelt, Alex Steffen, Lior Strahilevitz, Mark Tovey, John Whitfield, John Willinsky, Yi-Cheng Zhang, Michael Zimmer

Hassan Masum is a policy and technology strategist and Affiliate Researcher at the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation at the University of Waterloo.

Hassan Masum's profile page

Mark Tovey is an Affiliate Researcher at the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation at the University of Waterloo. He is the editor of Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace.

Mark Tovey's profile page

Craig Newmark's profile page

By giving the reader a broad understanding of the positive and negative aspects of reputation systems out there, [The Reputation Society] touches upon almost all aspects of society affected by these online systems. Many of the authors also discuss next steps in how to improve reputation systems or restructure them to allow them to better serve the public good, whether it be in the realm of science, philanthropy, or justice.—Journal of High Technology Law—

The book contains a collection of essays exploring the development of online reputations from some of the field's leading experts and even a few thoughts from Internet pioneers like Craig Newmark, of craigslist.com fame.... Building reputation systems is the easy part. Figuring out the benefits and downfalls of their proliferation is where things get tricky, particularly because there are ratings systems that are useful, and some that are a lot less helpful.

—The Londoner—

The carefully collected essays in this timely book provide readers with intelligent, multidisciplinary insights into the roles reputation and trust play in social systems...Overall, this book offers a very accessible yet rigorous introduction to reputation systems, while also covering several important subjects in great detail.

—ACM Computing Reviews—

The premise of this book is an interesting one—not that reputation in itself is intrinsically valuable and thus worth pursuing, but that the structure of the online universe, the Internet in all its forms, is actually changing the way individuals and organizations are being perceived and treated....A very interesting book...

—World Future Review—