Computing and using reputations for internet ratings

ABSTRACT

Ratings for products and services are increasingly important on the Internet, as they allow users to harvest the wisdom of the community in making decisions. However, the difficulty with ratings is that little is known about the people providing them. Interpreting ratings well requires that the reputations of raters be factored into the scores computed for rated objects, even though these reputations are not explicitly available. Taking advantage of the insight that reputation can be computed implicitly from ratings, this paper addresses the reputation problem for raters and its application to evaluating rated objects. We develop a general method to automatically compute reputations for raters based on the ratings they and others give to objects, and incorporate these reputations to generate value-added information about rated objects. We evaluate our mechanisms by performing experiments on data from major rating sites, and show that they have the desired properties of a good reputation system. In the process, we analyze some key characteristics of different types of Internet ratings. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation into automatically computing raters'reputations and applying these reputations to better evaluate rated objects.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.3 Information Search and Retrieval
          Subjects: Search process

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Human factors

  J. Computer Applications
  J.7 COMPUTERS IN OTHER SYSTEMS
      Subjects: Consumer products

General Terms:
Human Factors, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
rated object, rater, rating, reputation hierarchy, score