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Our last post on “crowdhacking,” or reputation manipulation by bogus online posting, noted that one barrier to success by the would-be crowdhackers was the effort required to build up a long-term reputation in a community.

While drive-by reviews, comments, etc. by a paid poster are quick and easy, communities that develop reputation systems for their members will frustrate these efforts - commentary by high-reputation, long term members will be more visible and credible, while posts by new members will be less visible and perhaps suspect.

Currently, the primary way around this problem is to simply pay an established member to post what you want. We keep hearing that this happens in DMOZ, where a few high-level editors may offer immediate inclusion of sites for a fee. Microsoft recently earned some negative PR by hiring a consultant to edit their Wikipedia entry (ostensibly to correct errors).

The next evolutionary step, then, is for a commercial exchange to spring up which facilitates the transfer of established community memberships. I’m sure this happens occasionally now, but I haven’t seen public commerce in memberships at review sites, discussion forums, etc. Just as Google’s PageRank system and sandbox added value to well established domains which outlived their original purpose, so would reputation systems add value to well established community memberships.

Imagine that I’ve been submitting reviews and participating in discussions at a travel site for a few years. I haven’t become a highly visible “star”, but I’ve got a consistent and long term posting history and, perhaps, I’ve racked up some reputation points. Now, I’m burned out on the community and don’t plan to participate. Normally, I’d just fade away… but in today’s crowdhacking world, perhaps someone would buy my membership. Now, that would certainly be unethical, but ethics aren’t a big piece of the whole reputation manipulation thing.

How long will it be before we see ads like this?

FOR SALE - ESTABLISHED MEMBERSHIP IN _______ COMMUNITY. Joined in 2004, consistent posting history. 25 product reviews submitted, average peer rating 4.6 out of 5. 400+ forum posts. 15 recommendations from other members. This community is highly influential for purchases of ______, with an Alexa ranking of 750 and 400,000 unique visitors per month. Will transfer member ID and password to highest bidder.

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