Validating trust models against realworld data sets

Abstract

In order to validate a particular approach to trust modeling, researchers have typically designed simulations in which various multliagent conditions are modeled and tested. Graphs have tracked different measures to demonstrate success of the proposed trust model, including satisfaction of buying agents, profit of selling agents (in e-marketplaces) or the extent to which the simulation matched some ground truth for the user. In this paper we report on an effort to locate and employ existing datasets with information about real users, in order to validate a trust model. We describe how Reddit and Epinions datasets can be put to good use, towards this end. In addition to describing what we did for the validation of our own trust model, we reflect on how other trust modeling researchers may perform a similar process, of benefit for their own empirical studies.