Lately I've happily heard more chatter on #nostr about "Web of Trust." In case anyone is unaware, a Web of Trust is essentially a reputation score. In my mind, it'd be a number, say 0 to 100, that would be displayed aside one's Nostr avatar. The number would signal to others your "Nostr rep" in a glance.
That sounds a little creepy at first - it sounds like a "social credit system" that would only amplify an echo chamber, and maybe it is in a way - but I think it has a place and purpose on something like Nostr.
In online arenas, reputation is critical. Anyone who's dealt with the coding space quickly learns that your reputation matters a ton. Try asking a question on Stack Overflow as a newbie and, unless you've flatly shown you've really done some legwork in preparation for the question, get ready to get slapped down quickly and soundly. Your lack-of-reputation precedes you. For anyone who's established something of a good reputation in an online space, maintaining that rep is huge. I've frequently seen prominent people or even anonymous "nyms" write something like, "There's no way I'd do or say or support that. My reputation is far more valuable than me shilling [fill in the blank]." It's the same in places where the digital world meets the real world. We all care about our reputations in places like Uber or Airbnb.
As I understand, the way that a Web of Trust (WoT) works is essentially as a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" system. Now, this up or down needn't be an actual up/down button on screen. In fact, we already have a Web of Trust. It's called good old fashioned, gettin' to know folks. When a well-known Nostrian posts a note and we see a ton of reactions from others, we're pretty sure that it came from the user that we think it came from. This is simply "building your brand" and establishing one's self, just as we do in our offline, face-to-face lives. Good reputations at work matter, as do bad ones.
In an online arena, though, it's possible to also actually have that up/down button. (Can you imagine having that in real life too?!) A Nostrich posts a note, another Nostrich wants to affirm it or shake their finger at it. Clicking up or down would either strengthen or weaken the poster's reputation.
An important note comes to mind here...
Clicking a "WoT button" is not liking or disliking a note. This is not agreeing or disagreeing. This up/down WoT button would say either, "Yes, this is legit and reputable." Or, no, "This is not good. It might be an imposter, a scammer, or way out of bounds for the community and just not cool." In this way, if any Web of Trust button were to be employed by Nostr clients, I'd hope they would be clearly distinct from likes or agrees...visually, verbally, etc. to denote, "This impacts the user's WoT score." I'll admit, there is nuance here. Because we are humans, liking/disliking someone's note is difficult to divorce from supporting or disapproving of their reputation. Yet, we should try.
To properly use a WoT button, I might grossly disagree with someone's note, but I could still respect their opinion maybe because it was well thought out, supported, or well-written. In this way, I might give them a thumbs up for WoT score, despite my disagreement. I see this as the type of thing that gives strength to open systems, like open source software or open source anything.
As an example, I've written frequently using the Hive blockchain as a blog backbone which employs a "reputation" score calculated by upvotes/downvotes. The formula essentially is:
- Someone else's good rep score helps you with an upvote. And, the higher their rep, the more it helps.
- Someone else's good rep score hurts you with a downvote. That is, if their rep score is higher than yours, then your score goes down.
- Someone else's bad rep doesn't affect you with any vote. They have a bad rep and they're just ignored.
The system is summed in this scratched out flow chart:
This system is not perfect! I've seen people get started, do some bad things and quickly get downvoted into the negatives, and quickly have their reputation throttled. Sometimes this is over scammery, more often it's over plagiarism. When they wake up to the situation, they typically ask, "What can I do now!" The only answer is, "Start to slowly rebuild your reputation. That, or, you're rekt. Get a new set of keys and just start over altogether."
Isn't that exactly what we do in real life when we've screwed up and made a fool of ourselves? Isn't that what we do when we've said or done ignoramus things and feel that deep, sad sense of hopelessness brought on by jackass behavior?
At that point, the only thing there is to do is to just slowly press on, methodically, one day at a time, and do better. Things will slowly change. That, or we move to an entirely different locale where no one knows us and we start all over again.
Despite the Hive system being far from perfect, it gives an idea of how a Nostr WoT system might work and maybe an maybe offers an idea of some building blocks.
Ways a WoT score could be a good thing:
- Nostriches can quickly "get a feel" for another user at a glance.
- Cuts down on plagiarism. It's too easy to copy/paste another's work and post it without credit. It's too easy to post AI generated content as one's own.
- Cuts down on scammery. It's easy to use someone else's username as your own and pretend to be a better-known Nostrich. Yes, it's easy to check this, but also, yes, many are fooled.
- It promotes good behavior, ideas, and value added. Conversely, it disincentivizes bad-actions.
- Bad actors are quickly identified as such.
- Others?
Ways a WoT score could be a bad thing:
- Echoing echo chambers. Psych 101 teaches us about the self-fulfilling bias and the availability heuristic. We accept what we like and buttresses us and push away what we don't like. We take to heart what is easily accessible (what's echoed) and we ignore what's hard to access (because we likely never even see it). This echo chamber effect is commonplace in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Case in point...I just wrote "cryptocurrency" and many here immediately went, "Blah! I'm out!" This reaction occurred because you've been told, "It's Bitcoin, not cryptocurrency!" I understand the disdain for other coins. Still, I'd suggest two things: (1) Check your hubris, stay humble. You're not always right. And (2), it's okay to think for yourself; don't apologize for doing so.
- Others?
Personally, I would love to see such a system implemented on Nostr. I'd love to see a NIP. And, I'd love to see clients pick it up and implement a visible score alongside avatars. If it happens, there will be growing pains. There will be barking complaints. But, I think it would serve more good than bad in this nascent Nostr.
And, oh, if you're thinking to yourself, "This is just some altcoiner trying to slide other coins into the Bitcoin space!", I'd say this: "I'm a Bitcoiner." I've been "in Bitcoin" a long time and I absolutely believe in it. Absolutely. Check my BitcoinTalk profile, it's bare, but my start there is timestamped. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=61129
Stay purple. 💜 Stay orange. 🧡