Reputation -Trust

1. The article "The Value of Reputation on Ebay: a Controlled Experiment" holds that eBay’s public reputation scores play a significant role in
the marketplace, and that virtually all significant sellers have strong reputations.
In statistics, if the mean is too high, it will be very difficult to analyze the true effects. Is it necessary to refine scoring system? If yes, what factors in the new system we need to consider?

2. Six degrees of reputation: The use and abuse of online review and recommendation systems by Shay David and Trevor Pinch
It has both advantages and disadvantages due to openness of online review and recommendation systems. As a buyer, I might need to be trained somewhat to be more cautious about the abuse of online review. It reminds me of the credibility of websites. When we think about whether to use information or not on a specific website, we also need to verify the credibility of this website. Could we say that they are the same issues?