Frequently, I need to answer the question, “Is this source of information reliable?”. Lately, I have been thinking that a decentralized platform to post reviews for websites and see aggregated statistics about those reviews would be pretty useful.
While I am open to any suggestions, the software being OSS and decentralized is important for me to consider the platform reliable.
Also, I believe the optimal review platform should hold at least ratings, tags, and text.
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I think ANY platform for reviews is going to get gamed and flooded with fake reviews. I don’t see how decentralization would solve that.
Not true, I could set up a WordPress blog and start writing reviews. As long as it stays a niche thing I share with a couple of friends online, that “review platform” won’t be gamed or flooded by fake reviews.
My point being that closed “publishing” instances can be reliable.
Sure, there can absolutely be reliable sources of reviews. The problem is in verifying what is reliable and what isn’t. Why in the hell would I ever trust some random dude’s WordPress blog as a reliable source of reviews? I would have no way of knowing that companies aren’t paying you or giving you free products.
Outside of something like consumer reports, which has built up a reputation over a long period of time, how does one figure out that a source is reliable? Review the reviewers? Those reviews would just get gamed too.
A Federated decentralized review platform would have the same issues all current platforms have. The problem is you are asking for authority. From platforms that in general don’t require it. It used to be there were a few out there and that you could trust to try to be neutral and nuanced. But so many people in the face of just having money thrown at them find their ethics disposable. And one by one all of them largely fell. If there were an algorithmic or heuristic way to sort the week from the chaff Google Microsoft or someone else would have already done it. They haven’t. The only way to really do it would be to curate the reviews. Which would be a lot of work on the part of a lot of people who must already have trust.
But if you manage to crack this problem you will have sold once the biggest issues on the internet.
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While I cannot think of a better decentralization example, the lack of source code makes me worry this solution would not satisfy the open source software (OSS) criteria.
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