PTI and Reputation Systems
Reputation systems collect subjective feedback — star ratings, reviews, endorsements, and social proof — typically locked to a single platform. PTI does not replicate consumer review UX; it governs portable community trust signals with evidence chains suitable for institutional decisions.
1. What reputation systems are
Reputation systems span consumer and B2B contexts:
- Marketplace ratings — seller/buyer stars, review text, dispute rates
- Gig platform reputation — completion rate, cancellation, rider/driver scores
- Professional networks — endorsements, recommendations, connection graphs
- Community forums — karma, badges, moderator flags
- Social proof widgets — aggregated sentiment and testimonial displays
Reputation systems answer: How do other users on this platform perceive this actor?
2. What problem reputation systems solve
| Problem | Reputation response |
|---|---|
| Counterparty quality uncertainty | Aggregated peer feedback |
| Platform trust bootstrapping | Cold-start default scores |
| Dispute prioritization | Low-reputation flagging |
| Search ranking | Reputation-weighted discovery |
Reputation systems excel at in-platform coordination. They suffer portability failure — a 4.9-star seller on one marketplace cannot prove reliability to a lender or landlord on another platform without manual screenshots and no verification chain.
3. What PTI adds
Reputation systems
- Platform-local ratings and reviews
- Subjective, often unverified feedback
- Gaming and review fraud exposure
PTI adds
- Governed community signals — endorsements with attestable events
- Portability via
pti_id— reputation travels across institutions - Context scoping — merchant vs informal_sector vs creative contexts
- Provenance weighting — verified partners outweigh anonymous stars
PTI distinguishes decorative social proof from institutional-grade community validation. Endorsements ingested as trust events carry emitter identity, consent status, and conflict policies — not anonymous five-star aggregates alone.
4. How they compose together
Integration pattern:
- Platform maintains user-facing reputation UX — stars, reviews, badges.
- Platform emits verified trust events for durable facts — completed orders, dispute resolutions, tenure milestones — not raw review text in lookup responses.
- Community endorsements flow through consent-first ingestion with anti-gaming policies.
- Institution receives weighted drivers — e.g.,
community_endorsement,merchant_fulfillment— with provenance labels.
PTI is not a social network. It is infrastructure for portable credibility derived from platform and community activity.
5. When to use each
| Scenario | Reputation system | PTI |
|---|---|---|
| In-app seller discovery ranking | Required | Not involved |
| Merchant loan underwriting | Platform stars insufficient | PTI merchant + community |
| Stokvel / ROSCA group trust | Informal ledger | PTI informal_sector context |
| Public review browsing | Required | Not involved |
| Cross-platform gig worker hire | Siloed ratings | PTI employment + digital_platform |
Use reputation for discovery and UX; use PTI when institutions need portable, explainable community trust.
6. Related PTI spec/RFC links
- RFC-005 — Trust Graph
- RFC-003 — Trust Events
- RFC-007 — Governance (consent, anti-gaming)
- Trust Context Catalogue (
informal_sector,creative,faith_mutual_aid) - Explainability guide