[WikiEN-l] Trust metric Was: Userbox compromise proposal

[Nyenyec N]

Currently several tasks in Wikipedia require editor's to make a guess
about the trustworthyness of other editors.

Right now it's all informal. Is the editor:
* a friend?
* trusted by a friend?
* distrusted by a friend?
* logged in?
* a sysop?
* a user with more than N article namespace edits?
* on the ArbCom?
* a longtime editor?

Does she have:
* a lot of thank you notes, barnstars, etc on her user page?
* a history of conflicts, blocks, bans, RFCs etc?
* a history of conflict with a friend?

It takes time to evaluate all this so mostly a through evaluation is
done only for a handful of other editors one interacts with.

But imagine that you had an assistant who could do this for you and
come up with a number and insert that number whenever you see a
signature or browse RC, RFA, RFC and all others?

Just like it's impossible to spend minutes evaluating each seller on eBay.

The big challenge is to come up with a system that doesn't bog down
the servers and cannot be easily gamed.
It doesn't need to be perfect the first time, just better than
nothing. Slashdot's rating system for example evolved for several
years.

BTW users of Cryptoderk's Vandalfighter app already use a crude
version of this when they add users to their temorary or permanent
whitelists / blacklists.
Its immensely useful for RC patrol.

-- nyenyec


On 1/4/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/4/06, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm not sure if there is an easy solution. Maybe an eBay rating /
> > Slashdot karma like system is the way to go.
>
> Possibly a trust metric.  I seem to recall that Slashdot's system lets
> you see friends, freaks, friends of friends, friends of freaks, etc,
> but I'm not sure that this sort of thing helps. In Slashdot's case I
> think the tinkering with Karma and the like developed into an arms
> race, and in any case Slashcode is more user-tunable; reading at level
> 3 I never see any nonsense, but you can't operate a decision-making
> process in that way.
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