

Finding out if person X has property Y without knowing anything about X directly. - amichail

Let's say you are thinking about hiring X for your startup but have doubts about his/her programming ability.<p>You could then use this service to get back advice on X's programming ability.<p>The idea here is to assume that most people using this service to ask about X's programming ability have doubts about X in that regard.<p>And so, if many people did ask, then X would receive a poor rating.  If not many people asked, the service would not be able to offer any advice.<p>Essentially, this service would check whether many other people have the same initial impression about this person that you do.
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johngunderman
To implement such a system would require a huge network of trust. Otherwise it
would collapse as malicious individuals manipulated the system. Such a network
needs a wide reach in order to make it reasonably certain that any given
individual will be listed in its database. Possible? Yes. Making it useful?
Well, thats up to you. Building the initial database could be quite difficult.

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lacker
Just interview them. Your system might think someone has doubtful programming
ability when really it just shows they applied to a lot of places that used
your system. Also, it can never work for someone who is only applying one
place.

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amichail
Suppose after the interview you have these doubts but don't have better
candidates.

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lacker
Find more candidates. Picking a coworker is too important of a decision to
take a chance like that.

