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 Conditioning? 
 Introduction
The emergence of reputation systems
How do we identify what is good? And how do we censure what is bad? We will argue that developing a humane reputation system ecology can provide better answers to these two general questions — restraining the baser side of human nature, while liberating the human spirit to reach for ever higher goals.

Most social interactions require matching human needs on the one hand, and quality or taste on the other hand: hunting for a reliable mechanic, looking for an interesting book, sifting through potential investments, judging the merits of proposed policies. Drawing from a distributed pool of reputations has the potential to ease the search for opportunities, ideas, friendships, cultural goods, and high–quality services; hand in hand, pressure will increase for honest behavior, competence, and fulfilling subtle human needs. At the same time, more efficient tagging of con artists, sources of spam, untrue claims, and dishonest actions can better sanction antisocial behavior, for the most part in a bottom–up ""distributed court of opinion.""

Sustained rapid advances in information technology have created unprecedented abilities, which come along with unprecedented dilemmas. Data has never been easier to create and move around, but to make decisions one also needs to understand its context and implications. Just as important is what lies behind its face value, in realms such as speculative bubbles (Chancellor, 2000), shady financial practices (Partnoy, 2004), and the political statements that are the topic of much of our public discourse.

Access has generally become easier, driven by falling production, communication, and search costs; however, there are consequently far more suggestions, demands, and events to consider, straining our individual information processing capacity. Leaving the computational milieu alone to evolve ""naturally"" is no guarantee that an ideal or even acceptable society–wide information infrastructure will emerge, as Brin (1999), Lessig (2001), Norman (1994), Schenk (1998), Stallman (2002), Walker (2003), and others have warned. To promote an interconnected ecology of socially beneficial reputation systems, conscious design, analytical modeling, and learning from past successes and failures is indispensable.

Filtering tools are still in their infancy — and having a better window to look out at the world can also imply that others can more easily peek in. Search engines speed up finding similar work done elsewhere; collaboration tools from humble mailing lists to community software to advanced groupware aid both individual and collective problem–solving. Yet it seems that for many important issues, all these tools are not keeping up with the increasing scale and number of decisions we must make, leading to what (Homer–Dixon, 2002) has referred to as an ""ingenuity gap.""

Sheer computation power is not enough — another factor of 1000 in speed, storage, or bandwidth translates to a more modest gain in making better decisions, and perhaps even a net loss in other forms of effectiveness. (Indeed, if the data or assumptions are noisy enough, the programming aphorism of ""Garbage In, Garbage Out"" applies.) Those who seek to use technology or the public space of ideas to advance their own agendas can also leverage increased computation power. There is indeed a technological revolution still in progress, reshaping commercial and social interactions — but its ultimate course will be affected by designers, activists, researchers and civil society at large. As (Fischer, 2002) said:

""Peter Drucker argued that ""there is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."" Adding new media and new technologies to existing practices will not change the consumer mindsets of learners and workers. We need to explore new computational media based on fundamental aspects of how we think, create, work, learn, and collaborate ... New tools should not only help people to do known cognitive tasks more easily, but they should lead to fundamental alterations in the way problems are solved.""
In order for computational advances to translate to widespread social advances, the tools must confer the ability to ""think smarter, not harder"" — and use our collective evaluations of what is desirable to steer resources away from unproductive negative–sum games. Human brains provide an analogy: the difference between a moron and a genius lies primarily not in more or faster neurons, but in neurons that are wired together more effectively. In the same way, reputation systems are a generic tool that allow our observations, analysis, and actions to be ""wired together"" more efficiently.

What is special about the present time? A networked society that can easily share opinions and access re