Reputation system in Filecoin

Reputation is an important part of an efficient market. People must evaluate the quality and credibility of their counterparties before making a deal, and Filecoin is no exception. However, as a decentralized market and ecosystem, Filecoin, as a protocol, is positioned to support the different needs and interaction modes of users.

There can be multiple reputation systems on Filecoin to meet the different needs of network participants. In addition to improving the efficiency of the network and providing high-quality services, the diversified and decentralized reputation system on Filecoin can also well support the new needs of users.

Decentralized markets require diverse reputation systems

All reputation systems "rate" participants by collecting various forms of data. Such systems are critical to the functioning of markets. Platforms such as eBay and Uber build rating systems based on user feedback, allowing people to make informed choices about who to buy from or who to ride with. Effective reputation systems build trust between parties, improve service quality, and foster loyalty between users and service providers.

For people, whether storing or retrieving data, they must be able to make basic judgments about miners before they can confidently make transactions. Specifically, users need a way to measure the quality of miners, and lenders and underwriters must be able to make judgments about their reliability and creditworthiness. For these reasons, miners on Filecoin must establish a reputation based on feedback from users who have worked with them. But depending on different use cases and user needs, scoring and reputation systems can take many forms. Network participants will game a single reputation system. Therefore, the reputation system on Filecoin is diverse, designed to allow users to express their preferences to promote improved service quality among storage providers as a whole.

During the mainnet launch week in November, Digital MOB partner Cezar Paraschiv introduced their solution for the Filecoin reputation system. By collecting on-chain and off-chain metrics about miners, DM.OB is building a scalable, transparent reputation system that will provide relevant reputation metrics through a public API and network dashboard. We encourage everyone to build their own reputation system for specific use cases.

The basic elements of the Filecoin reputation system

Filecoin aims to bring a distributed data storage model to people around the world. The Filecoin reputation system functions as an infrastructure layer that can be integrated into other projects and applications. To this end, it will be provided through a public API and web application to facilitate use and allow other application developers to integrate it into their projects.

In this way, the Filecoin network will facilitate the emergence of a truly decentralized economy that can be more open, transparent, and convenient than previous systems. In line with these goals, Filecoin's reputation system is designed to be as fair, efficient, and decentralized as possible. To this end, its design will be based on four key principles: trust, flexibility, customization, and transparency.

Trustworthy

In order for users to have confidence in their decisions, Filecoin's reputation system must be reliable and trustworthy. Reputation systems are notoriously easy to manipulate. But this is mitigated by the diversity of reputation systems and the variety of use cases. Metrics and ratings for a specific use case may not be applicable to another. Multiple reputation systems also provide a layer of social consensus and cross-validation, making the entire system more robust.

flexibility

The intentions behind a miner’s operations are just as important as the operations. For example, a miner who cancels a contract due to ethical issues should not be treated the same as a miner who accidentally leaves a user in trouble. A reputation system should recognize that not everything is black and white. It allows for appeals, follow-up actions, and investigations where appropriate to help ensure that any impact or punishment is fair and proportionate.

Additionally, as the Filecoin protocol continues to grow and expand, its reputation system must be able to adapt and evolve with it. To this end, the system allows reputation ratings to be adjusted in real time based on future updates to the Filecoin protocol.

Customization

A unique element of Filecoin's reputation system is that users can fine-tune their experience to their specific needs, resulting in ratings that are not only trustworthy but also valuable. Each Filecoin user can choose how much weight to assign to a given metric. For example, a user who only needs to store a small amount of data may not focus on storage capacity, but may want to ensure that any potential miners have high uptime and bandwidth retrieval ratings. In this way, Filecoin allows people to customize reputation ratings based on their specific needs and goals.

Transparency

Finally, a key factor in the success of any rating system is the credibility of the system itself. Ratings become useless once users no longer trust them. Therefore, the complete methodology for calculating user ratings will be available to the public at all times. As the network grows, any adjustments to the rating system will be public, allowing anyone to verify the criteria by which miners are evaluated at any time.

Towards a transparent and trustworthy future

Filecoin's reputation system will be key to the continued development of the ecosystem. We encourage interested parties to build different systems and develop trust between parties in a decentralized manner, with the goal of improving the overall quality of the Filecoin distributed storage market. Through a strong, transparent, and credible reputation system, Filecoin can bring distributed storage and the growing decentralized economy to more people.