[ronzensci]

There is a fundamental approach that has not been tried as yet

- Incentives

The real-world has that figured out long ago. If you find something that is truly useful & timely, you would be willing to pay real money for it.

Google Answers (answers.google.com) had tried an approach wherein a price can be put on a question and any legit reply which answers that q can claim it. 'Reputation' definitely still plays a role in this, but the system is flexible enough to allow a new comer to attempt answering a question & stake a claim to the funds.

The real-world has many of these aspects sorted out, like calling a plumber or a carpenter from your neighborhood to get your work done. The problem is we have embarked on creating a 'global' network (aka FB) without first having adequately understood how to create strong family & community network, before we go global with our social networking..

[nickthemagicman]

Stack Overflow site utilizes this really well. You get more privileges the more trusted you are.

[icc97]

skeptics stackexchange is a good example. Lots of people complain that too many comments are deleted, but it's an absolute lions den of controversial issues. The mods do a very tough job and handle hate speech better than anywhere I've seen.

[jk47msp]

Reputation will mean different things to different people.