So you got dumped from my Web of Trust...
Apr 15 '00
As many of you have probably noticed, I have gone ahead and cleared out my Web of Trust. The simple fact is, according to my own guidelines, it was becoming an impossible task to go through the list weekly and read some selections from everyone in my Web of Trust.
The honest truth is that most of the people I had trusted I simply had on my list because they wrote three reviews that I “Highly Recommended.” That criterion is out of date.
I suppose what everyone is now asking himself or herself is what it takes to get back into my Web of Trust…
What is the Web of Trust?
Epinions.com defines the Web of Trust as follows:
When you join Epinions.com, relevant opinions and product recommendations are chosen for you based on your Web of Trust. The site selects reviews and recommendations from:
* Members you trust
* Members whose opinions you rate highly
* Opinions and authors your trusted members recommend
The Web of Trust mimics the way people get good advice offline to help you get good advice online at Epinions.com.
* Friends have a proven track record. If a friend consistently gives you good advice, you're likely to believe her suggestions in the future.
* You know which preferences you share. If you both like art films, you're more likely to trust her opinion on what to see.
(This was taken from http://homepage.epinions.com/selected.html)
Why would I personally add you to my Web of Trust?
I guess the best way to get my attention is to just write excellent reviews. It doesn’t have to be something brilliant, but what I’m looking for have to be convincing and relevant. Since I read a majority of new reviews from the Just In section, this is where I’m going to find most of the people to consider adding to my Web of Trust.
My rating criteria won’t be changing. I won’t rate your epinions based on whether or not I agree with you. I will still rate based on how well the argument is presented and how you make your points to support whatever position you have. This goes for both commentaries and product reviews alike.
I will be looking at your other epinions. I will expect to see the same high-caliber work that I just read in the epinion that got my attention.
The next thing I will be doing is looking at your Web of Trust. I don’t care who trusts you, but I am interested in who you trust. If I see a lot of Epinionators on your list that reside in my current Web of Distrust, I will not be adding you as a member of my Web of Trust. I know this sounds childish at a first glance, but let me explain myself further.
When I trust someone (let’s use Naval, because he is the CEO of Epinions.com, and I hate using the word “someone.”) I am looking at more than the fact that he has written compelling epinions. I want people to know that in my biased opinion, Naval is a trustworthy character in his own right, and not just a good writer.
I want to tell the community as a whole that while Naval and I don’t always agree, he makes compelling arguments and states his reasons for making those arguments clearly. I want to show other people that Naval can help people use Epinions.com as a tool to help them make the decisions for which they are seeking advice or information. I want to steer the community as a whole and state that Naval trusts people who make a serious effort at making Epinions.com a more useful tool in their daily decisions.
I want to make it clear that I don’t expect to agree with everything Naval writes. In fact, I may never agree with Naval on a single issue. However, what I am telling the Epinions.com community is that Naval consistently establishes his position, and then backs up his position with facts and his own reasoning behind those facts.
At the same time, if I agree with most of what Naval writes, I want it to be known that he is in my Web of Trust because he can write well, and not simply because I agree with what he says. While our agreement may be the attention-grabber that was necessary for him to gain consideration for my Web of Trust, it was Naval’s presentation that earned his way into my Web of Trust.
Whether I agree or not with Naval’s epinions, I expect him to write a healthy mix of commentaries and product reviews. I don’t mind if Naval doesn’t write commentaries and only writes product reviews, but I do mind if the reverse occurs. I will not trust people who only write commentaries and have no product reviews in their portfolio.
I also expect Naval to write about more than one topic. While everyone has some area of expertise, I would expect Naval to write more than Kids and Family reviews. This doesn’t mean a huge majority of Naval’s epinions can’t be in Kids and Family, but it means I want to see an occasional movie or book review tossed in for good measure. I expect Naval to be a well-rounded member of the Epinions.com community since he is in my Web of Trust.
How else can you get my attention?
The second way I find people to add to my Web of Trust is by looking at the list of people who trust me. Let’s say Naval trusts me, but he is appearing as anonymous. Obviously I won’t see his name, and this attention-grabber won’t work.
When I do see Naval is a new member who trusts me, I will go through a few of Naval’s reviews and rate them. In turn, I will then make a judgement based on the quality of the reviews I have read, along with looking at the names of the people Naval trusts, which is the same as I explained before.
What I won’t do is add Naval to my Web of Trust simply because he added me to his own. There is just nothing trustworthy about that. If I meet Naval’s standards and Naval adds me to his Web of Trust, then that’s great and I’m thrilled. However, Naval is going to have to meet my standards to be added to my Web of Trust.
I will also, as I’m taking a look at Naval’s Web of Trust, make sure he isn’t trusting everyone he comes across. I will think something is wrong if his Web of Trust list is in the high hundreds or even the thousands. I feel very uncomfortable trusting those people. Again, I'm not talking about people who trust Naval, I'm talking about people Naval trusts.
Once you’re in my Web of Trust, can you be removed?
Yes, affirmative, definitely, you bet! I plan on going with the original plan, which is reading everyone in my Web of Trust weekly – time permitting. This is, in my opinion, one of the most important ways to maintain the integrity of the Web of Trust. I will not only scan their epinions, but I will scan their Web of Trust as well, again checking on names of people that are listed.
I also keep note of comments and ratings left by my fellow Epinionators. No, there’s no list on a paper or on my hard drive, but just some mental notes. I expect people in my Web of Trust to rate fairly and justly, and I expect them to be civil when they leave comments. Naturally, everyone can get their undies bunched up by certain reviewers, and I let that slide. However, if I consistently see nasty comments and unfair ratings, I keep a note of it.
If, in the course of reviewing my Web of Trust, Naval no longer meets my standards, he will be pruned. I could say “It isn’t personal” but that would be a lie, because it is entirely personal.
The other way to be removed from my Web of Trust is to remain inactive. While Naval may be reading and rating and commenting on a regular basis, I prefer to see people in my Web of Trust write on a regular basis. I consider regular to be at least once every 28 days. If Naval fails to submit a new review in that time frame, he will be removed from my Web of Trust. To get back in it, all he would have to do is write a new review and probably notify me.
Finally, I want to state that these are only my guidelines. I am not implying that your Web of Trust has to work in the same manner. You can run your Web of Trust in whatever capacity you see fit. The purpose of this writing is two-fold – to explain how my Web of Trust works and to give the reader something to think about.
Keep up the good work, keep writing great epinions, and keep working with the system.
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Epinions.com ID:
poseidon
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 - Top 200 |
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Member: Jeffrey Schwartz
Location: Sunrise, FL, USA
Reviews written: 511
Trusted by: 1098 members
About Me:
Feel free to contact with me... my Facebook account is located at http://profile.to/jeffschwartz/
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