Reputation Systems

In Gaming the System JC Herz discusses how Slashdot moderates posts and awards karma: “This complex exchange of social capital is what differentiates this networked experience from a non-networked one. In order to ‘network’ a course, the question is not, How can the content be delivered digitally? but more preferably, What are the students getting out of this experience that they wouldn’t be getting in the classroom or library? How does the structure of the experience make the students useful to each other? (that is, how can the collective consciousness of 20, 100, or 600 students be brought to bear on the learning process?)” A profile of the Slashdot model is also included in Manifesto for the Reputation Society, a very long and very thorough overview of recommender systems published in the current issue of First Monday.