Chas Linn — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 05:47:01 GMT

Alex, I found this article a great starting point in thinking about the mechanics of rating systems which I regularly use (benefit from) but generally don’t engage in. Just recently I have been asked to think about the design of a reputation engine. Now I know that your article is mostly aimed at buyers and sellers in a transaction but the point about risk does have some extension into social media too. However I would be interested in Christina’s view about the recommendation number 4 – ‘Avoid negative reputations’.

Do you mean by this that we should avoid reputations going negative as in ‘-3’, or we should avoid rating and reputation systems which allow negative comment full stop.

I notice that this site allows negative reputations (and seeing as I am currently on 0 at the point of writing this there is a danger I might go there too). But also it allows the attributed rating of 1/5 or ‘Yuck!’ which is negative in all but numerical value. This site then encourages negative comment and negative reputation where it is warranted. This obviously runs counter to your advice. What do you think about this?

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Chas Linn