Determining a community rating for a user using feedback ratings of related users in an electronic environment

Abstract

Community ratings are determined for users of an electronic marketplace. In A typical configuration, the community rating of an individual reflect the individual's reputation in the electronic community (e.g. feedback rating) as well as the reputations of the users the individual sponsors and the reputations of each user they sponsor, and so on. Various methodologies are provided for determining a community rating, such as aggregating feedback ratings, or weighting or thresholding these feedback ratings.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method, comprising:
 associating, by a processor, one or more individual feedback ratings with a plurality of users in an electronic community, the plurality of users including a particular user, one or more first descendants referred by the particular user to the electronic community, and one or more second descendants referred by the one or more first descendants to the electronic community;   deriving, by the processor, a community rating associated with the particular user by aggregating the individual feedback ratings respectively associated with the particular user, the one or more first descendants, and the one or more second descendants; and   storing the community rating associated with the particular user in a storage device.