Design patterns for reputation? Or is that recognition?

b2ix — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:04:00 GMT

It is great to see Randy Farmer's work on reputation published in Yahoo's Design Pattern Library. I like the level of detail, and the visualizations help to capture the mutitude of ways of representing this. As exicted as I am to see this, I'm not sure I would call these "reputation." Instead, these patterns strike me as different ways in which a system recognizes individuals and the actions they do. Put another way, these patterns appear to provide feedback for the person doing the action (possibly as a means of facilitating flow.)

If and when reputation comes into play, isn't that what happens when I begin to evaluate the actions of another person based on the information provided? The difference may seem subtle, but at the end of the day I do not control what you think about me and my actions. Instead, I control the actions I do, and (ideally) the visibility of those actions; Systems can recognize my actions, but my reputation will vary based on the person evaluating me. I'd be curious to hear more about why these patterns are or are not reputation. Is this all a semantic discussion or are there intrinsic differences for what we're all talking about here?

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Design patterns for reputation? Or is that recognition?