"And yet I can't help thinking the reputation system is less about creating communities of friends than it is about building cults of personality around popular, "reputable" individuals... What happens to ideas that are smart but unpopular? In a reputation system, it's too easy for them to be exiled, cast beyond the bounds of what the community deems expressible... Sometimes we need to listen to people who have bad reputations. Often they are the critics, the people with a talent for seeing flaws and problems none of us want to face. Communities can't thrive if they never answer to the least reputable of their members. So, for now I'm waiting for a new community system, one whose wisdom will destroy reputations and replace them with something more meaningful. " Annalee Newitz is waiting for MemeStreams. SF Guardian on current 'Reputation Systems' (SIC) | 
