Building Web Reputation Systems

What do Amazon's product reviews, eBay's feedback score system, Slashdot's Karma System, and Xbox Live's Achievements have in common. They're all examples of successful reputation systems that enable consumer websites to manage and present user contributions most effectively. This book shows you how to design and develop reputation systems for your own sites or web applications, written by experts who have designed web communities for Yahoo! and other prominent sites.

Building Web Reputation Systems helps you ask the hard questions about these underlying mechanisms, and why they're critical for any organization that draws from or depends on user-generated content. It's a must-have for system architects, product managers, community support staff, and UI designers.

- Scale your reputation system to handle an overwhelming inflow of user contributions
- Determine the quality of contributions, and learn why some are more useful than others
- Become familiar with different models that encourage first-class contributions
- Discover tricks of moderation and how to stamp out the worst contributions quickly and efficiently
- Engage contributors and reward them in a way that gets them to return
- Examine a case study based on actual reputation deployments at industry-leading social sites, including Yahoo!, Flickr, and eBay

ÀúÀÚ : Randy Farmer

F. Randall "Randy" Farmer has been creating online community systems for over 30 years, and has co-invented many of the basic structures for both virtual worlds and social software. His accomplishments include numerous industry firsts (such as the first virtual world, the first avatars, and the first online marketplace). Randy worked as the community strategic analyst for Yahoo!, advising Yahoo properties on construction of their online communities. Randy was the principal designer of Yahoo's global reputation platform and the reputation models that were deployed on it.

ÀúÀÚ : Bryce Glass

Bryce Glass is a principal interaction designer for Manta Media, Inc. Over the past 13 years, he's worked on social and community products for some of the web's best-known brands (Netscape, America Online and Yahoo!).

Bryce was the User Experience lead for Yahoo's Reputation Platform and consulted with designers and product managers on a number of properties (Yahoo! Buzz, Yahoo! Answers and Message Boards, amongst others) that employed it. Bryce distilled the research and best practices from those engagements into a series of User Experience Patterns for Reputation.

Bryce is also recognized for his work on visualizing complex ideas in a straight-forward and approachable fashion. His diagram, Flickr User Model, has been featured in numerous publications.

Bryce is a father to two wonderful sons and two bratty dogs. He and his wife live in beautiful German Village in Columbus, OH.

Reputation Defined and Illustrated
Chapter 1 : Reputation Systems Are Everywhere
An Opinionated Conversation
People Have Reputations, but So Do Things
Reputation Takes Place Within a Context
We Use Reputation to Make Better Decisions
The Reputation Statement
Reputation Systems Bring Structure to Chaos
Reputation Systems Deeply Affect Our Lives
Reputation on the Web
Chapter 2 : A (Graphical) Grammar for Reputation
The Reputation Statement and Its Components
Molecules: Constructing Reputation Models Using Messages and Processes
Complex Behavior: Containers and Reputation Statements As Targets
Solutions: Mixing Models to Make Systems

Extended Elements and Applied Examples
Chapter 3 : Building Blocks and Reputation Tips
Extending the Grammar: Building Blocks
Practitioner¡¯s Tips: Reputation Is Tricky
Making Buildings from Blocks
Chapter 4 : Common Reputation Models
Simple Models
Combining the...Reputation Defined and Illustrated
Chapter 1 : Reputation Systems Are Everywhere
An Opinionated Conversation
People Have Reputations, but So Do Things
Reputation Takes Place Within a Context
We Use Reputation to Make Better Decisions
The Reputation Statement
Reputation Systems Bring Structure to Chaos
Reputation Systems Deeply Affect Our Lives
Reputation on the Web
Chapter 2 : A (Graphical) Grammar for Reputation
The Reputation Statement and Its Components
Molecules: Constructing Reputation Models Using Messages and Processes
Complex Behavior: Containers and Reputation Statements As Targets
Solutions: Mixing Models to Make Systems

Extended Elements and Applied Examples
Chapter 3 : Building Blocks and Reputation Tips
Extending the Grammar: Building Blocks
Practitioner¡¯s Tips: Reputation Is Tricky
Making Buildings from Blocks
Chapter 4 : Common Reputation Models
Simple Models
Combining the Simple Models
When and Why Simple Models Fail
Reputation from Theory to Practice

Building Web Reputation Systems
Chapter 5 : Planning Your System¡¯s Design
Asking the Right Questions
Better Questions
Chapter 6 : Objects, Inputs, Scope, and Mechanism
The Objects in Your System
Determining Inputs
Constraining Scope
Generating Reputation: Selecting the Right Mechanisms
Practitioner¡¯s Tips: Negative Public Karma
Draw Your Diagram
Chapter 7 : Displaying Reputation
How to Use a Reputation: Three Questions
Who Will See a Reputation?
How Will You Use Reputation to Modify Your Site¡¯s Output?
Content Reputation Is Very Different from Karma
Reputation Display Formats
Reputation Display Patterns
Practitioner¡¯s Tips
Going Beyond Displaying Reputation
Chapter 8 : Using Reputation: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Up with the Good
Down with the Bad
Out with the Ugly
Teach Your Users How to Fish
Reputation Is Identity
Putting It All Together
Chapter 9 : Application Integration, Testing, and Tuning
Integrating with Your Application
Testing Your System
Tuning Your System
Learning by Example
Chapter 10 : Case Study: Yahoo! Answers Community Content Moderation
What Is Yahoo! Answers?
Initial Project Planning
Objects, Inputs, Scope, and Mechanism
Displaying Reputation
Using Reputation: The¡¦Ugly
Application Integration, Testing, and Tuning
Deployment and Results
Operational and Community Adjustments
Adieu
Appendix : The Reputation Framework
Reputation Framework Requirements
Framework Designs
Your Mileage May Vary
Appendix : Related Resources
Further Reading
Recommender Systems
Social Incentives
Patents
Colophon