Building Web Reputation Systems

Chapter 4. Common Reputation Models

Now we’re going to start putting our simple reputation building blocks from Chapter 3 to work. Let’s look at some actual reputation models to understand how the claims, inputs, and processes described in the last chapter can be combined to model a target entity’s reputation.

In this chapter, we name and describe a number of simple and broadly deployed reputation models, such as vote to promote, simple ratings, and points. You probably have some degree of familiarity with these patterns by simple virtue of being an active online participant. You see them all over the place; they’re the bread and butter of today’s social web. Later in this chapter, we show you how to combine these simple models and expand upon them to make real-world models.

Understanding how these simple models combine to form more complete ones will help you identify them when you see them in the wild. All of this will become important later in the book, as you start to design and architect your own tailored reputation models.

Simple Models

At their very simplest, some of the models we present next are really no more than fancified reputation primitives: counters, accumulators, and the like. Notice, however, that just because these models are simple doesn’t mean that they’re not useful. Variations on the favorites-and-flags, voting, ratings-and-reviews, and karma models are abundant on the Web, and the operators of many sites find that, at least in the beginning, these simple models ...