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The Internet

Henri Poole of Affero On Online Trust 55

Posted by timothy from the web-of-mutual-distrust dept.
Henri Poole writes "In the interview 'Trust Unlimited', Robert McMillan at LinuxPlanet asks Poole about the roots, current developments, and future of Affero's trust and commerce system. Poole talks about his work at the Well, Mandrakesoft's e-services initiative, and current work with LinuxQuestions, and covers topics of transportable reputations, gaming, profits, blogs, forums, independent media and the importance of independent perspectives and decentralized trust metrics in a democratic society."
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Henri Poole of Affero On Online Trust More

Henri Poole of Affero On Online Trust

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  • From the affero webpage Simply register and you are assigned a unique web address (URL). Once you attach this URL to your digital content, others can recognize you with reputation points and or financial contributions.
    What about the reverse , can I get money , for my reputation?
    Then I'll encash all my Karma before this post gets modded down and destroys it all.....
    • If you feel you're worth it, you can get listed as a person.organising to donate to. Then people can give *you* money if they appreciate your work.

      So it's particularly useful for projects that need a small cash stream to keep going, and for developers that would like to do more Free Software work, but don't have the money/time to do so.

  • Isn't it a little weird? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Henri Poole made the /. submission and talks about himself being interviewed in third-person?

    Does this make him a meta-karmawhore?

  • Wow, neat Idea. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Friday March 28, 2003 @08:05AM (#5614459) Journal
    With searching of google newsgroups, and forums, I can finally say thanks for someones post who fixed my problem, even if the post was months/years old.

    Now, how about we add this to Slashcode! This is moderation on a whole new level. Very cool idea.

    • Re:Wow, neat Idea. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by the_bahua ( 411625 )
      I have been looking for that kind of ranking for a long time, because wading through search results gets pretty cumbersome, pretty quickly.

      I just want my pr0n... uh.. I mean. My information.
  • This all sounds interesting. However what would be really useful is a way to translate this to a resume. The number of years in a certain language does not really translate well to being a good fit for a position. If working on open source projects and building a lot of OS Karma would help people get jobs then you would see a big rise in the quality and effort of open source projects.
    • I shouldn't imagine that putting the URL of your Affero profile on your CV/resume would help you very much. On the other hand, describing your various Free Software projects most certainly would - already/

      Maybe in a few years time, when Affero is more established, some companies might take heed, but I doubt it :)
      • Actually, I expect that the employers who know what Affero is and need the kind of people who have built good reputations with it will go to Affero looking for employees. Rather than putting it on your resume, they'll find your resume through it.

  • Yeah, I did that (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Launched with two other MandrakeSoft refugees in the summer of 2001, Affero is trying to build a standard system of reputation measurement for the Internet.

    Sounds like a project I worked on a while back. Except mine automatically gave a negative rating to anyone that claimed to be able to objectively rate every Internet user on the planet.

    Seriously though, who would pay any attention to something like this? Are there actually people out there that care if Joe from Texas gave them X for their "Internet rat

    • > Not to mention, if you haven't noticed that
      > every community that uses a publically
      > displayed "experience points" type system
      > slowly dies a redundant, boring death as people
      > continually spit out the same useless advice as
      > fast as possible to receive their precious
      > points. It seems to attract the bottom of
      > the barrel, perhaps because people who are
      > truly interested in the discussion don't need
      > the "incentive" and go to serious forums.

      Oh no....you're so wrong. Henri's

  • But who will stop the Trolls? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Once you attach this URL to your digital content, others can recognize you with reputation points and or financial contributions.

    So what's to stop someone from assuming your identity and ruining your reputation? It seems this alone invalidates the system.

  • Click here to donate to the Affero cause, "Rent me a hooker in Las Vegas weekend Fund"

    Thank you, and god bless.

  • Doesn't it seem a bit too generic? I mean he assumes that having a good reputation in one community should translate directly into a good reputation in another community, which is often not the case.

    For example, does having excellent karma in slashdot qualify you to be an authority on the linux kernel mailing list? Taking a real world example, if you were popular among all your neo-nazi friend for your strong political convictions, and you suddenly moved to israel, would/should you enjoy the same good

    • It's certainly not a catch-all solution, but then I can think of many cases where it might be useful. For example, if I were to prove very helpful on LinuxQuestions, then I'd get a good Affero rating for that. If I then offered my help on the GNOME documentation project, they'd have proof positive of my ability.

      Webs of trust are always transferrable between similar communities. I don't think Poole is pretending Affero is the ultimate Karma system.
      • if I were to prove very helpful on LinuxQuestions, then I'd get a good Affero rating for that. If I then offered my help on the GNOME documentation project, they'd have proof positive of my ability

        To a point, but even in a case like this, being able to answer questions on linux does not mean you are good at gnome documentation. What if you are just an expert on setting up ntpd, and puke at the sight of a GUI? Whether you had a good rating or not, most open source communities will probably accept your he

        • Hmm, well ok, maybe "proof positive" is a bit strong, but it's certainly a useful indicator. Put it this way: without Affero, if I received an application to help with GNOME documentation (assuming I was in charge ;-), I'd have to check that person's previous documentation work out, and that's really all I could do. However, if I saw that on Affero this person had a good rating at LinuxQuestions, and a good rating for documents submitted to NewToLinux, then I'd know that his documents on NewToLinux are high

          • Conversely, if I went and looked at his
            Affero rating, and saw that he had
            received some negative or
            middle-of-the-road feedback, or that
            compared to others on LinuxQuestions he
            barely had any, I might be less inclined
            to take him on.

            And you think this is a _good_ thing?

            Suppose someone gets a negative rating for reasons that are really stupid or that no longer apply. That kind of thing happens all the time and then, looking at the evidence N years down the road, it's impossib
            • Oh come on now, you're taking my points to the extreme and pointing out their breaking points :) Of *course* I wouldn't judge somebody exclusively on some bad karma they got back in 1999, but then are you trying to tell me that if you had one position to fill, and you had two people applying, and one had a better Affero profile than the other (which, after a little investigation, proved well founded), you wouldn't choose the person with the better profile? Are you saying that Affero wouldn't help one bit?
              • Oh come on now, you're taking my points to
                the extreme and pointing out their
                breaking points :)

                I'm simply thinking through the implications of what happens if Affero succeeds on their current path. It's you times 100s or 1000s of others.

                Of *course* I wouldn't judge somebody
                exclusively on some bad karma they got
                back in 1999,

                Timing of "bad karma" isn't the primary issue. The unrecorded context is. Haven't you ever been in a situation where the group dynamic included people tr
                • Would you say, Tom, that you are a Johnson?
                  • > Would you say, Tom, that you are a
                    > Johnson?

                    I would say that that is question we should each ask of ourselves, and work towards in our lives. I would say that that answers are never simple, but the ideals not so hard to grasp. I would say that "The Place of Dead Roads" by William S Burroughs is, perhaps, his best work -- and certainly a milestone in American literature.

                    -t
  • Apparently not a very good one. Most all active WELL users are still interfacing through an ~15+ year old command line toolset.

  • CEO for SALE (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Syncroswitch ( 656450 )
    As the former CEO oif Mandrakesoft I cant take his article seriously. In the early stages of the linux community we saw a few well supported bleeding edge distros with focused objectives of what they wanted to accomplish. later linux boomed, and the big distros ate the smaller ones, then became complacent and generalized. Now (In the aftermath of the bursted bubble) we see an rampant growth in little, focused, and well supported distros,(www.distrowatch.com) while the lumbering giants beg for money, or try
  • I recommend reading the following two papers on The Solar Trust Model, a distributed trust model that can be used by anyone to compute relative trust of anyone else, regardless of prior relationships or context.

    The Solar Trust Model: Authentication without Limitation at:

    http://www.acsac.org/1998/abstracts/fri-a-1030- c li fford.pdf

    Networking in The Solar Trust Model:
    Determining Optimal Trust Paths in a Decentralized Trust Network at http://www.acsac.org/2002/papers/9.pdf

    From the second paper's abstract:
  • The way I look at affero is that it is another way that 1 systeem keeps track of your identity. The same as microsoft is doing with hotmail/msn. But affero doesn't use it to proof who you are for transactions. Instead it proofs your credibility as someone who adds to a community. With an added posibility to get donations because you are such a swell guy. It would be nice if we could combine this stuff.

    I mean it's easy if you don't have to log on everywhere and it's great to be or feel appreciated for your
  • Almost all of the top moderators and experts in that community have been using Affero.
    Isn't this essentially saying that all the people rated highly by our system are using our system?
  • Human trust or reputation is usually developed one-and-one and in personal interactions. It is a _little bit_ transitive (A trusts B, B trusts C, therefore A trusts C) but there are many interesting exceptions. It is a _little bit_ like an incrementally adjusted "score" in a long term game, but again, there are many interesting exceptions where it changes with the wind. Trust and reputation, in their human sense, are mysteries.

    A database about "trust" or "reputation" based on voting is something comple
  • Trust can extend itself as long as it's trusted to.
  • The nice thing about Affero is that it is flexible. Slashdot's Karma/Moderation/Meta-Moderation system captures some excellent ideas. All of them can be expressed in terms of Affero and shouldn't be overlooked.

    Another way of looking at it is simply the usual networking transaction that take place in the real world. Imagine that you are looking for a reliable contractor to renovate your house. There are a number of three-way transactions taking place between you, a friend you trust, and a contractor he
    • > Another way of looking at it is simply the
      > usual networking transaction that take
      > place in the real world. Imagine that you
      > are looking for a reliable contractor to
      > renovate your house. There are a number of
      > three-way transactions taking place
      > between you, a friend you trust, and a
      > contractor he trusts well enough to
      > recommend. The whole point of reputation
      > and networking is to allow a certain
      > amount of transitivity in trust
      > relationships.

      If I'm looking for

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