http://phoenomi.com/2008/02/13/the-rise-of-social-governance/ Phoenomi - Surfing the Longtail Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:53:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 http://phoenomi.com/2008/02/13/the-rise-of-social-governance/#comment-10132 Phoenomi - Surfing the Longtail » Blog Archive » Hunting for the new Netflix algorithm Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:12:44 +0000 http://phoenomi.com/2008/02/13/the-rise-of-social-governance/#comment-10132 [...] Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to use reputation as a tool for creating better social experiences online. As I’ve said before, to do any sort of reputation system, you have to track a lot of user actions and then feed them into the right algorithm. The second part is by far the hardest to accomplish since you actually have to discover what the right algorithm is. A great example of this process in the real world is the Netflix prize. Wired has an interesting recent article on this here. I was excited to learn that one of the entrants is actually using human behavioral principles to better inform his algorithm. It’s a fantastically interesting read. Couldn’t a pure statistician have also observed the inertia in the ratings? Of course. But there are infinitely many biases, patterns, and anomalies to fish for. And in almost every case, the number-cruncher wouldn’t turn up anything. A psychologist, however, can suggest to the statisticians where to point their high-powered mathematical instruments. “It cuts out dead ends,” Potter says. [...] [...] Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to use reputation as a tool for creating better social experiences online. As I’ve said before, to do any sort of reputation system, you have to track a lot of user actions and then feed them into the right algorithm. The second part is by far the hardest to accomplish since you actually have to discover what the right algorithm is. A great example of this process in the real world is the Netflix prize. Wired has an interesting recent article on this here. I was excited to learn that one of the entrants is actually using human behavioral principles to better inform his algorithm. It’s a fantastically interesting read. Couldn’t a pure statistician have also observed the inertia in the ratings? Of course. But there are infinitely many biases, patterns, and anomalies to fish for. And in almost every case, the number-cruncher wouldn’t turn up anything. A psychologist, however, can suggest to the statisticians where to point their high-powered mathematical instruments. “It cuts out dead ends,” Potter says. [...]

]]> http://phoenomi.com/2008/02/13/the-rise-of-social-governance/#comment-9572 Phoenomi - Surfing the Longtail » Blog Archive » Solving trolling with social governance Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:12:53 +0000 http://phoenomi.com/2008/02/13/the-rise-of-social-governance/#comment-9572 [...] Paul Graham has an interesting piece on what trolling is and how to prevent it from dominating the comments culture of your site. This is exactly the kind of situation that an advanced social governance approach could solve. Check out Paul’s insightful warning: There’s a sort of Gresham’s Law of trolls: trolls are willing to use a forum with a lot of thoughtful people in it, but thoughtful people aren’t willing to use a forum with a lot of trolls in it. Which means that once trolling takes hold, it tends to become the dominant culture. [...] [...] Paul Graham has an interesting piece on what trolling is and how to prevent it from dominating the comments culture of your site. This is exactly the kind of situation that an advanced social governance approach could solve. Check out Paul’s insightful warning: There’s a sort of Gresham’s Law of trolls: trolls are willing to use a forum with a lot of thoughtful people in it, but thoughtful people aren’t willing to use a forum with a lot of trolls in it. Which means that once trolling takes hold, it tends to become the dominant culture. [...]

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