3.1. Extending the Grammar: Building Blocks

Though understanding the elements of the reputation grammar is essential, building reputation models from the atoms up every time is time consuming and tedious. There’s a lot of benefit to developing tools and shorthand for common patterns and using those to configure reputation statements and templates for well-understood reputation models.

3.1.1. The Data: Claim Types

Remember, a fundamental component of a reputation statement is the claim—the assertion of quality that a source makes about a target. In Section 1.5, we discussed how claims can be either explicit (a direct statement of quality, intended by the statement’s source to act as such) or implicit (representing a source-user’s concrete actions associated with a target entity). These fundamentally different approaches are important because the combination of implicit and explicit claims can yield some very nuanced and robust reputation models. In other words, we should pay attention to what people say, but we should give equal weight to what they do to determine which entities hold the community’s interest.