Reputation

[Monica Keller]

What do you guys think of extending http://portablecontacts.net/draft-schema.html#account_element
with some reputation indicators.

Today we are being asked for: Number of friends/ Followers and Length
of time the account has been in existance. I am sure more metrics will
be requested but in the meantime what do you guys think of

<activity:actor>
<activity:object-type>http://activitystrea.ms/schema/1.0/person</
activity:object-type>
<id>tag:myspace.com,2009:/Person/4859568</id>
<title>Monica Keller</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://
profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?
fuseaction=user.viewprofile&amp;friendid=4859568" />
<link rel="avatar" type="image/jpeg" href="http://c1.ac-
images.myspacecdn.com/images01/81/
s_6e92c7004ff96f1295370b6254896a68.jpg" />
<poco:name>
<poco:givenName>Monica</poco:givenName>
<poco:familyName>Keller</poco:familyName>
</poco:name>
<poco:displayName>Monica Keller</poco:displayName>
<poco:preferredUsername>Monica 3.0</poco:preferredUsername>
<poco:address>
<poco:locality>Marina del Rey</poco:locality>
<poco:postalCode>90292</poco:postalCode>
<poco:country>US</poco:country>
</poco:address>
<poco:accounts>
<poco:account>
<poco:domain>myspace.com</poco:domain>
<poco:user_id>121</poco:user_id>
<poco:friends_count>10</poco:friends_count>
<poco:follower_count>2</poco:follower_count>
<poco:sign_up_date>2005-11-17T22:13:21Z</poco:sign_up_date>
</poco:account>
</poco:accounts>

For an example of this see:
http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method%3A-statuses%C2%A0update

[Chris Messina]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Christian Crumlish <xi...@pobox.com> wrote:

it almost seems like its own namespace

-x-

p.s.: see also http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/

Well, I think what Monica is talking about are more like "stats" than reputation.

Not all services count such things, but many could provide an aggregate count as to the number of friends or contacts someone has, or the number of fans or followers they've accrued. Twitter, Facebook, or Amazon might also provide the number of lists they've made (for Amazon, it'd be wishlists), or other stats.

I wouldn't call this "reputation" because of the weight (and near impossibility) of the subject matter — especially when applying it to two disjoint social contexts.

I think this at least bears inspection as Twitter is providing this information. For now, I've created a page on the wiki to explore this topic further:

https://activitystreams.pbworks.com/Stats

Chris

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[Allen Tom]

On a closely related note, many sites have asked us to add "sign up date" as well as other reputation attributes to our OpenID service, mostly for anti-abuse purposes. This would be a useful AX attribute, especially if OPs are willing to standardize on this.

Allen

Chris Messina wrote:

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Christian Crumlish <xi...@pobox.com> wrote:

it almost seems like its own namespace

-x-

p.s.: see also�http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/

Well, I think what Monica is talking about are more like "stats" than reputation.

Not all services count such things, but many could provide an aggregate count as to the number of friends or contacts someone has, or the number of fans or followers they've accrued. Twitter, Facebook, or Amazon might also provide the number of lists they've made (for Amazon, it'd be wishlists), or other stats.

I wouldn't call this "reputation" because of the weight (and near impossibility) of the subject matter � especially when applying it to two disjoint social contexts.

I think this at least bears inspection as Twitter is providing this information. For now, I've created a page on the wiki to explore this topic further:

https://activitystreams.pbworks.com/Stats

Chris

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[John Panzer]

+1 to stats. And especially to life-of-account, as this is expensive
to game without a time machine.

Note that even with minimal context, it is possible to do useful
statistical analysis and classification based on these types of
features.

On Tuesday, November 17, 2009, Allen Tom <at...@yahoo-inc.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On a closely related note, many sites have asked us to add "sign up
> date" as well as other reputation attributes to our OpenID service,
> mostly for anti-abuse purposes. This would be a useful AX attribute,
> especially if OPs are willing to standardize on this.
>
> Allen
>
> Chris Messina wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Christian Crumlish <xi...@pobox.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> it almost seems like its own namespace
>
>
> -x-
>
>

> p.s.: see also http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Well, I think what Monica is talking about are more like "stats"
> than reputation.
>
>
> Not all services count such things, but many could provide an
> aggregate count as to the number of friends or contacts someone has, or
> the number of fans or followers they've accrued. Twitter, Facebook, or
> Amazon might also provide the number of lists they've made (for Amazon,
> it'd be wishlists), or other stats.
>
>
> I wouldn't call this "reputation" because of the weight (and

> near impossibility) of the subject matter — especially when applying it

> to two disjoint social contexts.
>
>
> I think this at least bears inspection as Twitter is providing
> this information. For now, I've created a page on the wiki to explore
> this topic further:
>
>
> https://activitystreams.pbworks.com/Stats
>
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Chris Messina
> Open Web Advocate
>
> Personal: http://factoryjoe.com
> Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrismessina
>
> Citizen Agency: http://citizenagency.com
> Diso Project: http://diso-project.org
> OpenID Foundation: http://openid.net
>

> This email is:   [ ] shareable    [X] ask first   [ ] private

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[Steven Livingstone-Perez]

Yes - stats seems more appropriate and i think it's a useful thing to have.

 

I know an approach at reputation would be difficult but perhaps not impossible. The Yahoo link is an excellent starter here.

 

The issue IMHO is that "reputation" is quite a strong word and as such could potentially effect how you are perceived in the world. I might not use a given network very much and my reputation on that network may be classed as "unhelpful" simply because i do all my interaction on network b.

 

I do think something could be done, but only in an open way and in conjunction with the various social providers. They can help determine what defines reputation on their system and the user themselves can decide how that incorporates into their profile.

 

However, just to get something started i think a bunch of scenarios would need to be drawn up to consider possible approaches.

 

Good you've got the ball rolling on discussion anyway

 

steven

http://livz.org

[Steven Livingstone-Perez]

I suspect there is quite a lot that could be done here if wish to extend this concept.

 

For example, as well as sign up date some may be able to provide a metric indicating a level of verification - e.g. just assigned an OpenID, verified public email account (on a public site - yahoo, hotmail etc), verified company email (on a company domain) and so on.

 

This has been at the back of my mind for a couple of years now but not sure whether any discussion has happened around it.

 

/steven

http://livz.org

From: Allen Tom

Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 2:48 AM

To: portable...@googlegroups.com ; activity...@googlegroups.com ; sp...@openid.net

Subject: Re: Reputation

On a closely related note, many sites have asked us to add "sign up date" as well as other reputation attributes to our OpenID service, mostly for anti-abuse purposes. This would be a useful AX attribute, especially if OPs are willing to standardize on this.

Allen

Chris Messina wrote:

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Christian Crumlish <xi...@pobox.com> wrote:

it almost seems like its own namespace

-x-

p.s.: see also http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/

Well, I think what Monica is talking about are more like "stats" than reputation.

Not all services count such things, but many could provide an aggregate count as to the number of friends or contacts someone has, or the number of fans or followers they've accrued. Twitter, Facebook, or Amazon might also provide the number of lists they've made (for Amazon, it'd be wishlists), or other stats.

I wouldn't call this "reputation" because of the weight (and near impossibility) of the subject matter — especially when applying it to two disjoint social contexts.

I think this at least bears inspection as Twitter is providing this information. For now, I've created a page on the wiki to explore this topic further:

https://activitystreams.pbworks.com/Stats

Chris

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Personal: http://factoryjoe.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrismessina

Citizen Agency: http://citizenagency.com
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[Monica Keller]

Thanks for the great feedback guys, this is the benefit of
brainstorming in the open :P.

So yes I agree to ditch the term reputation. Reputation implies
subjectivity and this data I am trying to convey is very specific.

It is important to share this information when we exchange user
generated content so the external parties have some idea on the value
of the content when surfaced to their users. Activities/Tweets are
fairly compact so there is not a lot to match on. Who the author is
adds value and how others respond to him/her definitely adds value. I
would love to get more feedback on what others think good metrics are

For now http://userlabor.org/ looks very aligned with what we want.
The only piece that I do not understand is network given that it seems
they do not account for bidirectional and unidirectional relationships
or how to calculate the values below for density, betweenness and
closeness... I am assuming its out of 1 ? Ha if the authors are on
this mailing list, let us know.

<network>
<item object="connection">269</item>
<item object="density">0.101</item>
<item object="betweenness">0.225</item>
<item object="closeness">0.700</item>
</network>


I should have left in my paragraph about what I meant by reputation :)
its just really a summary of the user's activity on a social network
that can be used externally to decide how to rank the user's content.
So for example if the user just signed up it may be a bot and be
publishing spammy links.



On Nov 18, 7:26 am, Sylvain Hellegouarch
<sylvain.hellegoua...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 18, 1:55 am, Peter Saint-Andre <stpe...@stpeter.im> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 11/17/09 4:45 PM, Steven Livingstone-Perez wrote:
>
> > > I had a stab at reputation a while back and did quite a bit of work on it.
>
> > > It's easy enough to add this stuff but quickly becomes of little real
> > > value - depending on what you want to achieve of course.
>
> > > As an example, plugging Twitter into this would be completely meaningless do
> > > to various issues such as auto-follow, gaming (which is very easy to do on
> > > twitter and other social networks) and others.
>
> > > *Personally* I think reputation is a whole new area and something i'd love
> > > to get involved in. I know Chris Messina mentioned it on a tweet a while
> > > back (erm i think it was twitter - their search isn't great) but not sure if
> > > he had started some thinking around it.
>
> > > I do think that to start it one would need to define the parameters of what
> > > it was intended to capture.
>
> > Agreed, reputation is a huge topic and not one to be considered lightly.
> > There's a large volume of experience (e.g., Slashdot, Digg, eBay,
> > Amazon) and analysis (see the academic literature) on such systems, but
> > IMHO the devil really is in the details here (what kind of community
> > context can you assume, etc.).
>
> > Peter
>
> Incidentally, Clay Shirky released an interesting note [1] regarding
> how to define what could be considered authoritative. This really a
> subject of importance, think of a band that want to get promoted,
> finding the authoritative source of reviewers for instance is
> critical.
>
> - Sylvain
>
> [1]http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/11/a-speculative-post-on-the-idea-o...- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Simon Perreault]

Monica Keller wrote, on 2009-11-18 11:57:
> I should have left in my paragraph about what I meant by reputation :)
> its just really a summary of the user's activity on a social network
> that can be used externally to decide how to rank the user's content.
> So for example if the user just signed up it may be a bot and be
> publishing spammy links.

You might be interested in the following IETF draft:

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-george-vcarddav-vcard-extension-01

It describes "social network" extensions for vCard. It could probably be adapted
to suit your needs. The document is being discussed on the vcar...@ietf.org
mailing list. You can propose your changes there, and I'm sure they will be very
well received.

Simon
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[Chris Messina]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Monica Keller <monica...@gmail.com> wrote:

It is important to share this information when we exchange user
generated content so the external parties have some idea on the value
of the content when surfaced to their users. Activities/Tweets are
fairly compact so there is not a lot to match on. Who the author is
adds value and how others respond to him/her definitely adds value. I
would love to get more feedback on what others think good metrics are

For now http://userlabor.org/ looks very aligned with what we want.
The only piece that I do not understand is network given that it seems
they do not account for bidirectional and unidirectional relationships
or how to calculate the values below for density, betweenness and
closeness... I am assuming its out of 1 ? Ha if the authors are on
this mailing list, let us know.

<network>
       <item object="connection">269</item>
       <item object="density">0.101</item>
       <item object="betweenness">0.225</item>
       <item object="closeness">0.700</item>
     </network>

I looked at UserLabor a long time ago and had hopes that it could be the model for Activity Streams. Their model ended up being a bit too esoteric and original for my tastes, and hence our work was born.

Whether we can leverage their <network> concept is worth considering — though I don't know that it actually accurately models what we need. 

APML also tried to provide a mechanism for weighting tags some time ago, but that's not quite what we want either.

I worry a little about reaching beyond the core of what Activity Streams were designed to do, but I understand Monica's desire to meet developer's thirst for more data about the actor.

Finding a convention to convey stats certainly has merit and is worth considering.

I would be interested to know if anyone has examples of other networks providing friends/follower/contact counts in their APIs, and if so, how they represent such attributes?

[Chris Messina]

Very interesting!

I've fleshed out some more details on the wiki page:

https://activitystreams.pbworks.com/Stats

Please add more attributes as you think of them!

Chris

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 6:48 PM, Allen Tom <at...@yahoo-inc.com> wrote:

On a closely related note, many sites have asked us to add "sign up date" as well as other reputation attributes to our OpenID service, mostly for anti-abuse purposes. This would be a useful AX attribute, especially if OPs are willing to standardize on this.

Allen

Chris Messina wrote:

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Christian Crumlish <xi...@pobox.com> wrote:

it almost seems like its own namespace

-x-

p.s.: see also http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation/

Well, I think what Monica is talking about are more like "stats" than reputation.

Not all services count such things, but many could provide an aggregate count as to the number of friends or contacts someone has, or the number of fans or followers they've accrued. Twitter, Facebook, or Amazon might also provide the number of lists they've made (for Amazon, it'd be wishlists), or other stats.

I wouldn't call this "reputation" because of the weight (and near impossibility) of the subject matter — especially when applying it to two disjoint social contexts.

I think this at least bears inspection as Twitter is providing this information. For now, I've created a page on the wiki to explore this topic further:

https://activitystreams.pbworks.com/Stats

Chris

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Diso Project: http://diso-project.org
OpenID Foundation: http://openid.net

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[Elias Bizannes]

Wow, great discussion. This has a lot of potential.

The mapping of social networks has had a huge body of study in enterprises, and people have been talking about it for a while[1]. My former employer PricewaterhouseCoopers spent a bucket on analysing internal networks. The reason being, informal networks within a company is how information flows, and so it was thought by studying it and determining who the connectors are and to what groups, there could be better organisational planning.

So a spec on mapping networks is huge. For a start, it creates a tool to start enabling better filtering on the web - and whenever the social graph is thrown around as a world changing concept, it's the ability for our graphs to be able to filter the world. This has more value than any other thing I can think of. To put it more bluntly, importing my friends' details is one thing and caters to my laziness, but leveraging it to filter my world, is a whole different level and quite transformative.

I looked at UserLabor a long time ago and had hopes that it could be the model for Activity Streams. Their model ended up being a bit too esoteric and original for my tastes, and hence our work was born.

Really? I think they've over-simplified it. There's some body of research by McKinsey on the subject and the UML spec looks very similar to it. Basically, McKinsey studied these informal networks not just how many and to whom people were connected to, but also the quality of those relationships (ie, frequency of contact). I can sympathise with people getting to academic on things and rendering something impractical, but I'm curious to think how those four measures are too esoteric?

APML also tried to provide a mechanism for weighting tags some time ago, but that's not quite what we want either.

What's the weakness with APML?
 

I worry a little about reaching beyond the core of what Activity Streams were designed to do, but I understand Monica's desire to meet developer's thirst for more data about the actor.

I agree and think the above discussion should make its way into a new effort. The more you dig into this, the more we'll realise how many ways it can go.

[1] http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000006.php