# Reputation gaming

`kaal:entity:reputation-gaming`

**Status.** derived

This node is assembled mechanically from the 5 claims that carry the concept tag `reputation-gaming`. It is a roster of what the corpus says under this term. It is **not** an adjudicated definition: no single statement here has been ruled canonical, and no first-appearance call has been made. Read the claims and judge for yourself.

## Every claim under this term

5 claims across 4 works, 2018 to 2021.

**2018**

- [3266953-028](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3266953-028) [failure/argued] *(failure mode)* -- A Web of Trust reputation system can be gamed with sockpuppet accounts, because an attacker can behave well for a while and then transact with himself repeatedly and rate himself high to raise his reputation arbitrarily.
  > If I use a lot of sockpuppet accounts, I can raise my reputation arbitrarily high, by behaving well for a while, then making a lot of transactions with myself and rating myself high.
  Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Gopinath Sivalingam, Reputation Protocol for the Internet of Trust - Conceptual Whitepaper (2018). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3266953
- [3266953-032](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3266953-032) [failure/argued] *(failure mode)* -- In an economic network where real money is at stake, historical good behavior cannot be assumed to prove future good behavior, because sockpuppet accounts allow participants to game the system automatedly, create valuable reputation falsely, and leach value out of the system.
  > you can't just assume their historical good behavior will prove their future behavior will also be good. Sockpuppet accounts allow us to automatedly game the system and falsely create valuable reputation, so we can leach whatever value there is out of the system.
  Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Gopinath Sivalingam, Reputation Protocol for the Internet of Trust - Conceptual Whitepaper (2018). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3266953

**2021**

- [3782198-004](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782198-004) [empirical/asserted] *(failure mode)* -- Rating systems on centralized marketplaces are actively gamed: new Amazon sellers are solicited by sock puppet operators offering to inflate their ratings and attack competitors.
  > For example, one of the first things that will hap- pen if you open a shop on Amazon is that you will receive several messages from ma- licious sock-puppet wranglers offering to game the rating system to improve your company's ratings while attacking your major competitor.
  Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Contemporary Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782198
- [3782210-008](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782210-008) [failure/argued] *(failure mode)* -- A Web of Trust style reputation ledger, in which each party rates each transaction and reputation is summed with weightings by rater reputation, will have all of its value drained by the sockpuppet attack, because an attacker can build reputation through transactions between their own fake accounts and then use it to cheat.
  > Unfortunately, the sockpuppet attack will suck all value from the network. Setting up fake accounts, an attacker can build their reputation by making transactions be- tween their own accounts. Once their reputation is sufficiently large to trick a mem- ber, they can use it to cheat the system.
  Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, The Importance of Reputation for the Evolution of Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782210
- [3962614-035](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3962614-035) [failure/argued] *(failure mode)* -- The hybrid smart contracting model is defective because VCs are partially incentivized to fund and stake only the best deals while staking on less optimal deals that the market mostly funds, which undermines their long term reputation accumulation.
  > The problem with this model is that VCs are incentivized partially to fund and stake only on the best deals and stake on the less optimal deals that are mostly funded by the market. This undermines their long-term reputation accumulation
  Wulf A. Kaal, REPUTATION AS CAPITAL – How Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Address Shortcomings in the Ventu (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3962614

## Verify

Every claim above resolves to a record carrying a verbatim source quote, the sha256 of the source PDF, and a preformatted citation. Nothing here asks to be taken on trust.

    curl -s https://wulfkaal.github.io/entities/reputation-gaming.md | sha256sum

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of this entity node. Its sha256 is the content hash.