This article in the Disenchanted webzine raises at least two interesting points – both related to class online:

He/she maintains because the Internet conceals identity:

people are choosing peers and personal competitors from the ranks of classes they’d otherwise never try to hold a candle to. Most of us judge our accomplishments against other people within the same age, income, and sometimes ethnic group as us. So a young lower-class kid is not going to feel he has to compete against the accomplishments of a upper-class, middle-aged man […] But since we began looking for friends and peers on the Internet, those traditional class distinctions have been ignored because they’re almost invisible […] That in turn has meant the pressure to excel is enormous on the young and the unaccomplished. Without visible class distinctions there’s no filter, and without the filter there’s a compulsion to compete with people who are ?out of your league¦.

I suspect there may be something to this effect but I believe it is somewhat over-stated. It is often not that difficult to judge the status of people writing online. If they are in the media (which is what most people consume online anyway) you will probably assume they are high status individuals. And these days people (like myself) often provide “about me” information when they publish. Moreover, the way that people write and what information they use can itself often be a guide to their status even if you don’t know anything else about them.

The other interesting assertion in the piece is that “the higher classes are now looking for other ways to recognize each other within the context of the Internet.” The author suggests that in future reputation systems attached to digital signatures will be used not to help people identify posts that would be likely to be interesting – instead they will be used like having a degree is today as a blunt instrument to indicate your status in society.

If you want to create an exclusive Internet club who’s members can only be two levels of trust away from Charles, then it’s as simple as writing a few lines of code on the login screen. If you want to screen job applicants, then you can require their electronic signature (which could be considered reasonable now that many people apply for jobs online)

I think that there will probably be a pretty high correlation between people’s online reputations (at least as regards “information quality”) and their social status. Higher status tends to indicate better education tends to produce more insightful postings, all things being equal.

However, I am more optimistic than the author – I believe that if what you produce is thoughtful, then online reputation systems (if they work, and none I have seen so far are without large flaws) would tend to highlight your work, whatever your social status. After all, why filter for status when you can filter for quality directly?

What interests me is what will happen if “low quality/high status” information sources start to get ranked below some “high quality/low status” ones. Will online reputation systems be able to undermine entrenched social forces?

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