Secret Lithuanian Energy Source
Actually, I may be the last person to learn about Andrius
Kalikauskas and
MS Labs. Andrius is a passionate guy with
undergraduate degrees in math and physics and a physics PhD. Andrius was introduced
to Xpertweb by Mitch and Flemming as
a person who is interested in reputation
systems. Since they are Xpertweb's secret weapons, their recommendation ensured
that he would be involved.
Andrius' larger concern is thinking
itself. Most people don't realize that thinking is a
tool so
they
don't treat it with the objectivity they might use when shopping for a
computer or Sawzall. The tag line of MS Labs is "Do you care about thinking?"
Flemming riffs
on thinking:
Thinking is one
subject I'm really interested in. Our ability to think abstractly is one
of the key
traits
that
define what
a human
is. Yet we seem to have little clue how we do it, or how we might do
it better. Our future depends, of course, on what choices we arrive at, individually
and
collectively. And yet, most of us don't have any better strategy than picking
the strongest thought that appears in our head, or our stomach, or wherever
it
appears, and assuming that this is our answer. Without examining where it
came
from, and without having the faintest clue as to HOW to think.
The presence of that quote in this
post is an example of Andrius' work. He organizes and juxtaposes important
points of
view among
his MS Labs
members. I'd seen
the quote before, but might not have found it again without seeing it in
the MS Labs members' feed. Logically enough, the MS discussion group is called "Thinking
Relevantly."
Relevance is the first service Andrius is performing for Xpertweb.
Another is to help organize willing hearts and minds to help with the coding
and rollout. Andrius is pressing Flemming (actually, himself and Flemming...;-)
to have working code on May 23, for demonstration at the BlogTalk
conference in Vienna. That's what Andrius does, he catalyzes innovation.
Andrius and Flemming are both driven to take the broadest
view possible when starting a project, questioning every assumption and bias.
Combined with Mitch's dogma-killing
crusade, Xpertweb is reasonably protected from blowing smoke up its own
ass. All three of them know that the most dangerous force in developing a
new protocol is one's own assumptions and biases.
Half a Loaf
Here's an example of how Andrius is questioning our assumptions:
[A list of] references - kind words, frustrations,
evaluations.
http://www.ms.lt/en/work/references.html
My wish is to
see what initiatives are out there, help them find
synergy, and build a "web of references" so that people are
better able to hook up their efforts. Right now I'm just spitting the pages out
of
a little database on my laptop. I appreciate more data! Flatter
yourself! or somebody you care for! It should be something that's
posted on the web.
A key feature of this system is that the data is excerpted
from the web,
that is, it is data "in context" so you can see why those kind
words
were spoken, or learn more about the initiative. It's the power of
overhearing people speaking. It also lets people farm the information
that helps them present themselves, which seems only fair and helpful.
Partly
I'm doing this for my work on http://xpertweb.com because I'm
trying to show the importance of practicing with a real live system
and
seeing what kind of uses trigger self-sustaining participation. Already>
it's helped me understand the data breakdown between initiatives
and
references, and the various kinds of each. So that will be important
in
defining data elements.
Partly I'm doing it because I need to sell our lab's
team building
services and I realized that these words seem very convincing, as at
the
bottom of http://www.ms.lt/team/ Even the frustrations seem informative.
Partly
I'm doing it because I think its been long needed in order to get
anything done. I'd like to use a web of references to back up Tom
Munnecke's work on "uplift pattern languages" specifically applied
to
helping HIV/AIDS orphans in Africa. http://www.upspace.org
I appreciate all
kinds of feedback, and also data, and especially ideas
on how this might be put to practical use. At some point, too,
it would
be nice to put the database itself online.
When you go to the references
link, you see entries like this:
Minciu Sodas
kindword... Benjamin,
Leon on 4/2/2003 about Minciu
Sodas: This is excellent material - I've been lurking
here for some time and reading with fascination.
In the coming weeks I'll be sharing a new concept with the group
called iWork based on Dee Hock's (Visa) chaordic model - watch this space.
kindword... Bruk,
Ian on 4/2/2003 about Minciu
Sodas: I guess the one thing I didn't mention is that Minciu
Sodas, through Andrius
mostly I think, has
my trust. That is a big thing in my mind. It's just how to develop that?
kindword... Pillai, Bala on 3/28/2003 about Minciu
Sodas: How about us considering having our mindcosms working
as a union? -- a tighter minds
parallel of the
European Union? Assess what Minciu Sodas' comparative advantage in strengths
and resources are , ditto for APIC Mind Colonies and conjoin the two
better? Us rowing in the same direction but focusing on difference inter-connectible
aspects -- like a ship going in the same direction but key minds within
the ship are taking charge of different functions.
You'll find 14 sets of these kindwords on the page,
demonstrating why Andrius is so valuable.
I picked a series of three at random, and discovered something about non-explicit
reputation systems when I really examined those three sets of kind
words. Notice that the last one is a suggestion classified as a kindword.
Although it's the only such case among the 14, it points to the problems
inherent in a non-explicit
system.
Like blogs, kindword/frustration/evaluation comments can be helpful but they
share a failing we've discovered about blogs, which is why people
are trying to leverage them into knowledge management systems: non-explicit,
anecdotal text is quotable but otherwise unusable. Here's a report
just in from Jason
Calacanis on
how his company's venture capital database overtook the previous market leader,
which was a blog about venture capital:
That is the big lesson I think.. blog + database + research
reports = big business, blog plus nothing = a hobby. (author's
emphasis)
Reputation is too important to be a hobby.
If I'm looking for a Java programmer for
a particular solution, and I need it by Tuesday, how do I use the accumulated kindword entries
to find the perfect programmer? I want the kind words, of course, but
I need quantitative ratings and average rating reports and numerical
comparisons that act as pointers to help me get to the these little blocks
of text. All of that info might be available elsewhere, but surely it
will be captured on the site of the person with the reputation, (or in
an RSS feed) so, that I can click on a link to an order form as soon
as I'm satisfied that I've found what I need. The Xpertweb approach is
to require the buyer to provide the kind (or not)
words and a
number grade (01-99%). Then we can look at all the Java programmers who
have sold n or
more tasks involving, for example, graphic representation of numerical
data.
The operative word is require.
A reputation system is worthless if it captures ratings only at the whim
of the buyer, or worse, at the whim of participants in a forum, as in this
example, where the comments do not necessarily relate to a particular task.
They can be too vague to benefit the next customer. Therefore it's imperative
to require that a grade and comment be recorded within a specified period
after presentation of a completion report or invoice.
Pulling the String . . .
Have you ever had one of those projects which seemed simple,
but once you got into it, you discover non intuitive requirements embedded
in your initial enthusiasm?
Such a discovery is like pulling a string out of a sweater. Actualizing the
Xpertweb meme is a little like that.
Here's what happens when you think seriously
about
a useful reputation system:
- The central form, a Completion Report or Invoice. (form 1)
- In order to capture
a grade and comment, there must be a contract in place to
require
the rating, presumably in an order form. (form 2)
- The order
form is really 2 forms, the order plus a buyer authorization to
proceed.
(form 3)
- There's often give-and-take between the buyer and seller
to arrange scheduling, delivery details, etc. The parties can do it over
the phone or email, but since we're building forms anyway, why not provide
a little subroutine for negotiating the details? (forms 3a & 3b)
- There's nothing explicitly required between buyer acceptance
and the Completion Report or Invoice. It's useful to provide a Remarks
Form,
initiated by either party. (form 4)
Fair enough, those forms could be designed in an afternoon.
But there are other considerations. Once completed, where should their data
be stored? Today, such information is kept by the seller. Naturally, the
seller
will
yield
to the
temptation
to excise the unflattering remarks. The data could be kept on a central server,
but then what happens to reputations built through blood, sweat and tears
if the central servers go out of business? It's not like the W3C is gonna
store this info for us. Just as bad, any centralized system may not scale
as needed or worse, is corruptible, as described in the HumanTech Parable.
The only answer left standing is that both the buyer
and the seller must keep the information, which must be identical to be valid.
That means that both parties must have a web site with space and programming
for the reputation system. Ratings so mirrored are demonstrably valid.
If there's any divergence, the ratings cannot be presumed to be valid.
The ratings are only useful if subsequent users can access
the reputation data. Conventional wisdom says the data should be a mySQL
data base with a CGI. Then, of course, each user would need an XML-RPC
or SOAP
routine
to access reputation data from all the other sites. That's a load which is
sure to overload the requirement for user-maintained data. (Visionary doesn't
have to mean stupid–there are some experts who think Xpertweb is silly
enough already!) The obvious but counter-intuitive answer is to post all
data as
pure XML in plain sight on each user's Xpertweb site with known paths to
the data.
And it doesn't stop there. Our little Xpertweb engine (the
little engine that might) needs to help its users describe specific products,
like a customized PHP-MySQL shopping cart or mowing a 20,000 sq. ft. lawn.
Once described, that product data must be accessible as a product page, and
the product itself must have a reputation built around it. When someone needs
their drain fixed, they're not really looking for a plumber, they're looking
for a fixed drain.
That's almost the end of our little string, so I'll spare
you the rest.
Freeing the Horse
As Doc reported on Thursday, these requirements seem implicit
if you're serious about a useful reputation system, sort of like seeing the
horse in a block of marble and removing all the marble that doesn't look
like a horse. In fact, as Doc also related, a useful reputation system seems
to me to be implicit
in the XML spec. Though enterprises seem to be using XML primarily as
a serialization routine (like SOAP) to connect legacy data systems, XML
is fine as a data format,
if you're willing to live with its verbosity.
As a data format hosted on
a web server, XML is readable by search engines, a skillion parsers
and certainly by a thin-client purpose-built script like the one we're
building for Xpertweb. We're even on the cusp of a promise dormant since
the spec
became a recommendation in February, 1998: An XHTML page can contain explicit
links to bits of XML data and, without any programming display linked data
when the page is opened. XML is truly data for the rest of us, because
it frees us from CGI programming and the hidden data that only CGIs can
talk to.
Internal Combustion
All those moving parts seem obvious and necessary if you're
serious about a useful reputation system. If there are any shortcuts, we'd
love to hear about them. We have recurrent internal debate on whether all
these moving parts are necessary, typically when a new teammate signs on,
as in Andrius' case.
I see a reputation engine as a kind of internal combustion
engine. Even if it's a two-banger, you still need quite a few moving parts
to get it to turn over. I think we have a pretty good design and built-in
means to re-engineer it while it's running. That's why I welcome dogma slayers,
but note that there's more to a reputation engine than it seems at first.
10:21:44 PM 
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