One gives an overview of Agora - the decentralized reputation system based on Bitcoin protocol. Among possible applications an improvement for scholarly communication is previewed.
Firstly, philosophical background is introduced. Then Agora as a framework is described - it aims to provide transparent, decentralized and reliable framework for creation of reputation models.
The framework can host multiple communities and offers a set of rules that the communities can toggle on/off, configure or change as needed. This allows creation of contextual reputation models bound with the communities.
Verification via cryptographic handshake during physical meetings prevents sybil attack through "bot farms" and "man in the middle attack".