Building Web reputation systems
by F. Randall Farmer, Bryce Glass · first published 2010
15mentions
5recommended by
12HN commenters
2010–2022first – last mentioned
42% recommend58% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Explains that reputation is earned within a specific context and covers how to design reputation systems for particular problems, such as karma or star ratings. It is the go-to book on the subject.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…Commodore 64. Despite being written more than two decades ago, most of the conclusions from Lessons.. are still fresh and applicable to game mechanics today. Randall (@frandallfarmer) is also the author of Building Web Reputation Systems, published by O'Reilly - http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3900. Another nice reading, if you're interested in the subject.
on “The In-game Economics of Ultima Online (1999)” ↗First off, for anyone looking at web reputation systems, read the book on the subject: Randy Farmer and Bryce Glass, Building Web Reputation Systems: Book: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596159801.do Wiki: http://buildingreputation.com/doku.php Blog: http://buildingreputation.com/ I can pretty much guarantee there are elements of this you're…
on “How Not to Sort by Average Rating (2009)” ↗…type of score will work. Primarily because reputation is earned within a context. The web is just too big to provide that context. This is a point that is really hammered home in the new O'Reilly book Building Web Reputation Systems. Reputations (which this basically would be) are very powerful within context, but almost meaningless outside of it. It would also have to be quite bureaucratic to control how points are awarded, which…
on “Ask HN: Review my startup - Reputely (Game Mechanics Platform)” ↗These in general come from the book 'Building Web Reputation Systems', which covers the topic in a good bit more detail, as well as when and why certain approaches work to solve more specific problems (public karma, 5 star ratings..) Definitely worth looking at.
on “Reputation Patterns ” ↗There is a book that came out a few months ago by the people who built the reputation system that Yahoo uses called, aptly enough, "Building Web Reputation Systems". It's a really good book. One of the things they make very clear is that the idea of trying to build a globally useful reputation system is basically a pipe dream. The problem is that reputation is…
on “Rate my startup: community reputation system.” ↗Building Web Reputation Systems: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596159801.do
on “Ask HN: What is the best rating system?” ↗Randy Farmer's "Building Web Reputation Systems" is a good start: http://buildingreputation.com There's a blog, book, and wiki. Some keyword searches: http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=kw%3A+online+reputation+sys... https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=online%20reputation%20s...
on “Stopping the Internet of Noise – A useful internet back again” ↗…enjoy having the object descriptions read to them. Schneier on Security: Virtual Mafia in Online Worlds: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/virtual_mafia... Randy Farmer and Bryce Glass: Building Web Reputation Systems: The Dollhouse Mafia, or "Don't Display Negative Karma" http://buildingreputation.com/writings/2009/10/the_dollhouse...
on ““Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs” ↗Related: Just yesterday I noticed that OReilly recently published Building Web Reputation Systems (Randy Farmer, Bryce Glass) http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596159801 http://buildingreputation.com/ Randy was consulting with a company I was at a couple of years ago and while the two of us certainly…
on “Online Reputation Systems: how to design one that does what you need” ↗…problems made it not worth continuing. [...] [2] Schneier on Security: Virtual Mafia in Online Worlds https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/virtual_mafia... Randy Farmer and Bryce Glass: Building Web Reputation Systems: The Dollhouse Mafia, or "Don't Display Negative Karma" http://buildingreputation.com/writings/2009/10/the_dollhouse...
on “OpenTTD 1.10” ↗That's a great example, thanks for bringing that in. I was more thinking of community management since I'd just been skimming "Building Web Reputation Systems" again and its authors have quite a bit to say about the entanglement of social and technical problems. But like you say, there are a lot of domains where technical problems are entangled with social…
on “SecureBoot in Ubuntu 12.10” ↗I actually thought Randy Farmer touched on this in his Google talk on "Building Web Reputation Systems" - but maybe I saw it somewhere else, years ago. Like this: http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2006/08/using_5star_rat.html At any rate I thought it was common knowledge that 5-point ratings have issues…
on “Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down” ↗…http://buildingreputation.com/doku.php?id=chapter_10 BTW, everyone keeps assuming that reputation is all about karma. It's not. We cover that in chapter 1 (and over and over again in the rest...) Cheers, Randy Farmer, co-author Building Web Reputation Systems
on “Online Reputation Systems: how to design one that does what you need” ↗Randy Farmer goes over this concept in detail in Building Web Reputation Systems (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596159801.do). Google Tech Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn7e0J9m6rE See also: "YouTube: Five Stars Dominate Ratings" (http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-domina...)
on “Why Ratings Systems Don't Work” ↗…Google's page rank was a kind of side effect. People would bookmark pages that they found reasonable and then Google would harvest that curation signal and rank that content more highly. In 2010 the book "Building Web Reputation Systems" was published by O'Reilly and a consensus built around "algorithmic curation" based on social cues (like "reputation"). This web site is sort of the epitome of that way of thinking. It's diverse members…
on “We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom (2021)” ↗