Reputable sources


Reputation is more important than a clear identity

Bruce Shneier writes a terrific piece about internet anonymity versus internet reputation.

In a recent essay, Kevin Kelly warns of the dangers of anonymity. It's OK in small doses, he maintains, but too much of it is a problem: "(I)n every system that I have seen where anonymity becomes common, the system fails. The recent taint in the honor of Wikipedia stems from the extreme ease which anonymous declarations can be put into a very visible public record. Communities infected with anonymity will either collapse, or shift the anonymous to pseudo-anonymous, as in eBay, where you have a traceable identity behind an invented nickname."

Kelly has a point, but it comes out all wrong. Anonymous systems are inherently easier to abuse and harder to secure, as his eBay example illustrates. In an anonymous commerce system -- where the buyer does not know who the seller is and vice versa -- it's easy for one to cheat the other. This cheating, even if only a minority engaged in it, would quickly erode confidence in the marketplace, and eBay would be out of business. The auction site's solution was brilliant: a feedback system that attached an ongoing "reputation" to those anonymous user names, and made buyers and sellers accountable for their actions.

And that's precisely where Kelly makes his mistake. The problem isn't anonymity; it's accountability. If someone isn't accountable, then knowing his name doesn't help. If you have someone who is completely anonymous, yet just as completely accountable, then -- heck, just call him Fred.

I think he's got it precisely right. The reputation is the important thing, not knowing who it is. The New York Times built up it's reputation, it didn't sell it's reporters and editors as media stars. Of course it coasted long after on that reputation, but that is another entry.

Institutions depend on their reputations. Some individuals do too.

Hat tip to Rite Wing Technopagan.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Thu - January 19, 2006 at 05:18 PM  Tag


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