Reply to Craig Newmark

I found a post about an interview with Craig Newmark and replied to it here

The following is in response to Trust and reputation systems: redistributing power and influence

1. Reputation need not be contextual. You only need to trust someone to adhere to one principle: karma neurtal (including honesty). everything else follows from that. For example, I have a friend who is most unreliable at keeping appointments. But he knows this, and even advertises the fact of his notorious unreliablity in this capacity. So we work around it. If we have agreed to meet on a particular day, he has to call me on that day a little before, to confirm that he will be able to keep the appointment.
2. Persistent and verifiable identity is not a prerequisit, nothing needs to be proved at all. look at ripple for example.
3. history is unnecessary - see ripple
4. Unvarnished does not track trust, it tracks opinions
5. no ethical standards are required whatsoever, laws would just get in the way - again, look at ripple.


Reply to Charles H. Green:
1. this one has been dealt with I believe
2. this does not happen in my network system
3. what if a takes responsibility for the indiscretion of b, and b takes responsibility for the indiscretions of c? If you are unable to think of anyone you trust enough to take personal responsibility for the consequences of their indescretions (if they were to default), then there is no conceivable efficient network system that would serve your needs.
4. The object of trust is correction of indiscretion. If a seller is completely useless, and you complain about it and they apoligise, give your money back, with compensation for wasting your time, then they have corrected their indescretion. If you have an (indirect) trust connection to amazon, then you trust who they trust, and if they trust an author, then you trust that author not to waste your time. Then authors will tend to work very hard to accurately describe their book and the target audience. Any attempt to obtain more readers than the book is intended for, for example by over-tagging, will result in complaints and therefore expense. The key component of the system I propose is what has been named by others as a system of "distributed lawsuits".

I met up with a normal person the other day and found myself talking about this project. It upset her so much that she said "I think your idea is stupid", and then stormed out of the cafe. She followed this up with a text message saying "Please don't ever contact me again. I refuse to associate with someone who believes that the victim should be punished."

My analysis of what was upsetting her is as follows:

The trust network system organically identifies faults/mistakes and fixes them one way or another. She was upset by the idea of the person who makes the mistake (declaring that a person not worthy of trust can be trusted) paying for it.
It was a good experience. I now understand why the system doesn't exist already. Average consciousness prefers authority based systems. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their own mistakes. I, and the others for whom this system is intended, would gladly pay for the privilege of discovering my/our mistake. Apparently I/we am/are a minority.

A friend asked for me to give him a simple task so I said:

"The first task will be completed when I receive an honest email from someone, telling me that they:
(a) have read my blog (http://adamharper.blogspot.com/) and all the material it refers to and are interested in developing it; and
(b) have sufficient experience in python to carry out the coding side of the project unassisted."

in this context, I found myself writing the following, (which may not make sense without the preceeding material):

The first component to develop should probably be the information network. This helps people who don't know each other to find each other and communicate without spam.

A statement of trust for someone not to spam, does not imply that you trust them not to swindle and cheat in business. This way, if you read someone's blog and think they are cool and won't spam anyone, you can add them to your network even though you don't actually know them.

Spam disputes are resolved in a similar way, but with a few differences. You can't sue them. you can't ask them to pay for their infringement. So instead you just inform them publicly that you consider their material spam, and if they don't remove it, you will initiate disconnection protocol (the one where you start by complaining to your friend). The public statements (which, along with a copy of the objectionable item, stay as a permanent record on that person for anyone who views their content through a connection with you) are there so that if someone just removes one ad and then puts another one up, and just says "oh, sorry that was a mistake" each time, a future user can distinguish between a genuine and well meaning idiot, and a fraudulent liar.

a big feature of this information network, is the ability to associate urls with authors/users, independently of the web page itself. Meaning that you can verify that someone is the same person without being able to spam them. Everyone has software (perhaps a firefox addon?) which tells them whether and how they are connected to the owner of a particular url, and anounces the (non-spammable) address of the owner of any url that has been registered by someone you are connected to (directly or indirectly). Perhaps you don't think this is useful. I do. When you read an article by someone, how do you know that it isn't someone else impersonating them?

Forward

I had a revelation while chatting to someone about communities. I was saying how I would never build a community based on the normal principles of democratic internal decision making and committees to decide who is allowed to join. If I make a community, I'm "the boss". If people don't like it, they can make their own.

Then I realised that this applies to the creation of a trust network. I have got bogged down by the prospect of having to start with full p2p implementation when I should really be keeping it simple, like ripplepay. Nobody is complaining that ryan fugger is the sole controller of the only ripple server.

With this in mind, I got all enthusiastic and started to make a rudimentary database, just to see what it would look like. Then I ran straight into the need for a programming language and expressed my anguish.

The person I was chatting to said "Dude this really needs to get out" (this is the first serious encouragement I have had) and has offered to keep me on track as I tend to either work too hard and burn out or lose focus or both.

I think I will learn Python instead of C++ for the simple reason that ripple is written in Python. Well, perhaps I was swayed a little by Eric Raymond.

The only way to get something done, is to do it yourself

My post on the p2p foundation forum has been completely ignored, and the nice folks on the ripple forum seem quite uninterested. I created a new sourceforge project but my programming friend has mysteriously disappeared. I will probably have to learn c++. This will take time. If anyone reading this is interested in helping out, please message me.

The search for similar conceptions

My friend Arthur found something really cool. It's the ultimate money system. It's called ripple protocol. Here's a working prototype

And I've found it easier to elaborate on my own conception in the forum for that project.

Through that I've been offered a load of links, some of which are not particularly useful and it's taking me quite a while to get through them. However The Appleseed Project is certainly along the right lines.

Why am I writing this? so that anyone who tries to cross-reference "ripple protocol" with "Appleseed Project" and "Network of Trust" or "Infoliberalism" is more likely to find the other members of this "family of concepts" (see the forum discussion mentioned above).

I should probably include the names of originators as well:

Network of Trust - Charles Bloom
Infoliberalism - Sylvain Poirier
ripple protocol or it's prototype ripplepay - Ryan Fugger
The Appleseed Project - Michael Chisari

Dear Internet

You are far too disorganised to be called "the inter-net". You should be called "the fragment-dump" or "the detritus-pile".

If you recognise this and wish to change your ways to become more collaborative and integrated, please implement the concepts illustrated by Charles Bloom in his article on The Network of Trust and by Sylvain Poirier in his article on Infoliberalism.

I may add my own conception, seeking to reconcile these two, at a later time.