Reputation and Trust as a learning and moderating tool

The development of the Web 2.0 has brought people closer to the web. Web applications, such as blogging tools and CMS, have made it easier for people to create and share content without the need of any web developing knowledge. We can all create our own blog to share our love and passion for something, but despite our knowldge and experty, the information in it might not be considered trustable and reliable to others. Therefore people need to gain some kind of notoriety and this can be achieved in different ways, such as referencing to other trusted sources or by providing proofs to support a statement. But what is more trustable than a person with a great reputation? A group of people with great reputation!!

Websites like Stackoverflow.com, which is part of the Stack Exchange Network, work like this: users gain reputation (points) by participating actively in the website where points are granted by the community. While gaining reputation the user is granted with new privileges such as accepting an answer, voting, etc…

What are the advantages of this system?

If an application relies on crowdsourcing then why not using the crowd to moderate the content? People with high reputation an enough privileges can delete and modify inappropriate content. Because of their reputation we can assume they are active in the community and therefore can easily and rapidly take actions.

We can also assume that people with a good reputation are also well trusted by the community and therefore their support and comments may be very valuable in our learning application. A feedback from a native speaker with a good reputation is more likely to be useful than an automated corrector limited to “Right” or “Wrong” answers.

What makes this system even stronger?

People being part of this community are all on the same level and the only distinction is made by the reputation system, which only limit is the users reluctance in participating and learning. Therefore the more the community is committed and active, the more content and and valuable information is shared.