Operational Models for Reputation Servers

This paper devises a classification system for reputation systems based on two axes, namely: who performs the evaluation of a subjects reputation, and how the information is collected by the reputation system. This leads to 4 possible operational models for reputation systems, termed the Voting Model, the Opinion Poll Model, the MP Model and the Research Model, each of which is then analyzed. Finally, the paper postulates the inherent trustworthiness of each operational model, and concludes with a hypothesis of how these systems might evolve in the future.