See also: Security | Measure | Reputation
Trust is a characteristic of someone or something that is confidentialy relied upon or regarded by a user, client, etc to have adequate integrity. If something is stable or popular is will most likely become more trusted. Without trust comes a reduced ability to persuade.
Contents
Trust in a Social Context
Trust is important for the individual in social contexts. Those in trusting relationships understand that some information may accidently be not true. It is the reputation, determined over a period of time from various sources of information, that determines the confidence of any assertion by message exchange.
- education, intelligence and wisdom
- knowledge and expert information
- shared preferences for music
- persistant sources of reliable scientific data.
Reputation is created from various trust models amongst peers and in networksJust as a computer on a network gains from use of a protocol, trust becomes related to our own perception of the viability or truthfulness of a statement, expression, opinion, etc.Verification and reputation processes help ensure messages between trusted communications is kept moderated and reasonable. On the internet a trusted source of quality content can become a great source of knowledge.
Built, Found and Grown Trust
Built trust is the trust or social capital people have in a system that has been built through it specifically. It is distinct from the found trust that existed before the system was created or before some specific creative network of users began to use it to actively collaborate.
Found trust is trust (measured as social capital) that existed between people before they encountered some system. This may be established by reputation as well as by interaction. Without trust there is often little respect.
Grown trust is trust grown within or through use of a system. For instance, people co-operating in a guild, faction, political party or large public wiki may come to trust each other in ways and for purposes that the system does not measure, support, or take notice of.
This is different than the built trust that the system itself created and can claim some responsibility for, and also different from the found trust people had before they started using the system.
Related Links
- Advogato good resource for developers interested in trust metrics
- Liberal theory of power describes the kind of new political structures without governments that could emerge from the development of communication softwares with a trust system
- Electronic Journal of Sociology: Elements of Trust by Thomas Volken October 2002
- Mediated Trust defines 1st, 2nd and 3rd order mechanisms of deciding who to trust
Related Topics
TakeDown.NET -> “Trust”