Power-law distributions emerge when new nodes attach to the existing network with some preference for the current winners. You can increase the severity of the distribution by increasing the preferential attachment, and you can temper it by decreasing it.
For example to increase the severity the trick is to encourage the new comers in the belief that current leaders are a good proxy for their quality measures – it’s a simple message: ‘Go with the winner!’ To decrease the severity you need to provide to new commers with a more complex message: “Pick what’s best for you, here’s a bucket of information to help you do just that.”
Improving the information available to newly arriving members of the network, providing them with more complex subjective information, enables them to make their decision more rationally. That will make for a more diverse network and a less severe power-law distribution.
A system like Epinions.com manages this by creating a bit of a feed back loop that allows existing members to report to new members what they now know. Word of mouth can also help, since a new comer
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[...] I’m struck by how much Technorati’s new WTF seems to so very analogous to Everything2. Both want to be about providing useful definitions for things. They aren’t quite encyclopedias or dictionaries (ala wikipedia) because their domain is more dynamic, more situated in the cultural noise. I’ve mentioned in passing before my cartoon version of the Everything2 story, e.g by giving bonus points for “cool” postings they ended up getting a site full of entertaining rather than authoritative stuff. So far the Technorati system has a very simple voting system. Too simple if you ask me. T’s WTF is, of course, are in that fun period of first contact with users [1]. But then there is quite substanative difference; Everything2 was a giant experiment in reputation and governance. I doubt that’s high on Technorati’s agenda. [...]
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