- Kollock, Peter. The production of trust in online markets. In Advances in Group Processes (Vol. 16), edited by E. J. Lawler, M. Macy, S. Thyne, and H. A. Walker. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. 1999.
- Hess and Hagen, 2002, Informational Warfare
- Smith, E.A. and R. Bliege Bird (2003) Costly signaling and prosocial behavior. In: Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr (eds.) Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: On the Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life. MIT Press: Cambridge.
- Resnick and Zeckhauser. Trust Among Strangers in Internet Transactions: Empirical Analysis of eBay's Reputation System. In The Economics of the Internet and E-Commerce. Michael R. Baye, editor. Volume 11 of Advances in Applied Microeconomics. Amsterdam, Elsevier Science.
- (optional) Resnick et all. Reputation systems.
- (optional) Friedman and Resnick. The social cost of cheap pseudonyms.
- Liu, Hugo. Gossipmonger project
1. Please read the papers listed above. The Kollock is a good introduction to types of reputation systems, as is the optional Resnick paper. Hess and Hagen talk about gossip as informational warfare, Smith and Bird
2. Based on the readings, write an essay that addresses these questions:
- How can we compare online reputation systems, in which the information about the subject is attached to the subject, with gossip based reputation systems, in which the information about the subject passes through a social network, but is not part of the subject?
- Can we design a network/gossip based system for online communities that would overcome some of the ebay style system drawbacks?
- How can we model the difference between the implicit and explicit social sanctioning?
- How does time affect reputation? Does this change in different contexts? Can you think of examples?
When possible, frame the discussion in your essay in terms of signaling. What is reliable about different types of reputation? When is gossip reliable? What makes it so - or not?
Please submit the URL of your essay by Tuesday evening.