9.6 KiB
Universal relative web-of-trust reputation protocol on Nostr - UniWoT
Clients may submit and query reputation events denoted by kind=9400 and that contain tags representing the reputation rating.
The reputation query mechanism relies on the existing NIP-12 Generic Tag Queries.
This NIP is a data type definition and does not require any change to relays.
A reputation definition comprises a dimension, category, scale, rater, rated, comment and optionally an expiry date. Also, the elements informant, ratingProofType and externalRatingProof will allow external ratings to be recognised by Nostr (to be described in a future NIP).
Dimension = dimension of reputation. E.g. 'judge', 'creator', 'businessPartner', 'employee'. Stored in tag 'y'
Category = the dimension's context. E.g. 'politics', 'gardening', 'socialMedia', 'contract'. Stored in tag 'x'
Scale = -1 to +1, enabling positive and negative ratings. Stored in tag 'scale'
Comment = optional text comment provided by the rater to compliment the reputation rating. Stored in event.content
Whitelisted/blacklisted IP address = tag 'p'.
Expiry Date = optional date of expiry of the reputation event. Stored in the 'expiration' tag.
Apps can decide the categories and dimensions they wish to use. There is no centrally-defined list of categories or dimensions. Other apps may adopt or query reputation events made by other apps if they are interesting to them. Clients may synthesise disparate reputations that will enable wholly new use cases to emerge.
Regarding blacklist/whitelist registration. It is recognised that blacklist/whitelist detection and management is a complex issue and outside the scope of this NIP. The whitelist/blacklist tag is just to bring such lists in-protocol, allow sharding and enable efficient selective replication.
Examples
// rate someone as a good judge of 'AustrianEcon' content
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", ratedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["ratingprooftype", "1"], // Nostr-native rating.
["x", "AustrianEcon"],
["y", "judge"],
\"scale\", 80
],
"content": "Paul follows a wide breadth of quite good Austrian econ commentators."
}
// rate someone as a producer of 'AustrianEcon' content
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", ratedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["ratingprooftype", "1"], // Nostr-native rating.
["x", "AustrianEcon"],
["y", "blogger"],
\"scale\", -20
],
"content": "Paul's Austrian econ commentary is somewhat interesting but not highly insightful."
}
// rate someone as a good judge of 'MilitaryAnalysis' content
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", ratedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["ratingprooftype", "1"], // Nostr-native rating.
["x", "MilitaryAnalysis"],
["y", "judge"],
\"scale\", 30
],
"content": "Paul follows a mixed bag of military analysts, some good, some not so good."
}
// rate someone as a good producer of 'gardening / orchids' content
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", ratedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["ratingprooftype", "1"], // Nostr-native rating.
["x", "Gardening"],
["y", "orchids"],
\"scale\", 100
],
"content": "His series of first places in the national orchid growing competitions 2019-2022 makes him an authority on this subject."
}
// declare someone as a paid subscriber to relay class XYZ
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", ratedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["x", "PaidSubscriptionExpiry"],
["y", "XYZRelayAccess"],
\"expiration\", "3248923749287"
]
}
// blacklist user from relay 'branle'
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", ratedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["x", "branle"],
\"y", "blacklist\"
]
}
// blacklist IP from relay 'branle'
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", blacklisted/whitelisted_IP_address],
["x", "branle"],
\"y", "blacklist\"
]
}
// rate user in respect of their contractworhiness.
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", ratedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["ratingprooftype", "1"], // Nostr-native rating.
["x", "Contract"],
["y", "contractworthiness"],
\"scale\", 90
],
"content": "This entity has performed well as a trading partner."
}
// private rating
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", encryptedRatedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["ratingprooftype", "1"], // Nostr-native rating.
["x", "Gardening"],
["y", "orchids"],
\"scale\", encryptedScaleValue
],
"content": encryptedComment
}
// private rating
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["p", encryptedRatedID], // Nostr pubkey in this case.
["ratingprooftype", "1"], // Nostr-native rating.
["x", encryptedCategoryeValue],
["y", encryptedDimensioneValue],
\"scale\", encryptedScaleValue
],
"content": encryptedComment
}
// declare someone as an employee
{
"id": "...",
"kind": 9400,
"pubkey": informant // Nostr pubkey in this case.
"tags": [
["w", raterID], // Nostr pubkey. Employer
["p", ratedID], // Nostr pubkey. Employee.
["x", "employment"],
\"y", "CEOrole\"
]
}
Suggested Use Cases
Motivating examples for reputation events
-
Allow an entity to rate other entities, thereby building a web of
trust. Allow reputation ratings to be numerically scaled and to be positive or negative.
-
Allow an entity to determine a trust score for entities outside
their web of trust.
-
Allow multi-dimensional reputation to be established in any domain,
including social media, ride sharing, business partnership ratings, employment/employer ratings, DeFi lending, decentralised ratings agencies. More generally, enables a flexible mechanism of reputation to emerge.
-
Social media app which automatically suggests content to a user
using ratings automatically calculated from their existing web of trust ratings of other users
-
Ride sharing app users to rate drivers and vice-versa.
-
Marketplace platform to allow buyers and sellers to rate each other.
-
Business partners to rate each others' contract performance in
various dimensions.
-
Decentralised finance lending platforms to permit lenders to
nominate and rate trusted users so as to extend favourable lending terms, thus introducing a new model of DeFi lending in addition to the currently capital-inefficient over collateralised lending model.
-
Bounty platform clients and service providers to rate each other in
various dimensions so as to provide extra heuristics of reputation when choosing partners and negotiating contract terms.
-
Employment listing platforms to provide the extra heuristics of
reputation of both employees and employers in various dimensions to allow better decision-making for both parties.
-
DeFi insurance providers to use an extra heuristic of reputation in
determining an insured party's risk in calculating insurance premiums.
-
Blacklist/whitelists: Any community (such as a Nostr client app, for
example) or individual to register a user or an IP address on a specific blacklist or whitelist.
-
Rating agency to rate entities. If one chooses to trust the rating
agency, the rating agency's ratings then appear in their WoT.
-
Attestations: allows an entity to declare a generalised attestation
regarding another entity. e.g. effectively declare 'Bob is the CTO of Swan Bitcoin," via a proof provided by Swan Bitcoin.
-
Allow an entity to issue an accreditation to another entity, with an
optional time-limit.
-
The above two examples largely intersect with the facility of
soulbound tokens.
-
And more.
-
The motivating philosophy for this NIP is to better enable the
decentralised economy via a flexible, extensible, relative web-of-trust reputation protocol, better manage spam and improve censorship resistance. This reputation model is conceptualised to enable organisations and individuals to establish and maintain their reputation as a valuable asset to facilitate interactions and seek favourable trading terms without involvement of third parties. This circumvents coercion by state actors, the censorship of the establishment financial system and dystopian WEF/UN ideals. A universal WoT reputation can be a key factor in enabling a global, pseudonymous economy. UniWoT.