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Economists (such as Partha Dasgupta) have observed that smaller networks (rural villages, open source projects, academic journals) tend to rely on informal reputation, whereas larger networks (international finance, DEFI blockchains, social networks) tend to rely on formal and quantitative reputation capital.
The oversight or steering function is a common feature of governance for many communities, from large social networks such as Instagram to small open source projects and academic journals. The steering committee doesn't have to be knowledgeable about particular topics, which requires specialized expertise, but should know what is general acceptable, which is something that a lot of people should understand. For example, Instagram doesn't get involved in whether pet or vacation photos should get more likes, but it will control what types of content are allowed. Similarly, the maintainers of an open source project may not be the most knowledgeable about each feature in the code base, but they should insist that there is proper documentation and testing for all the features that go into a project.
Reputation Tokens
The examples above are all networks run by centralized authorities, which grant reputation for activity on their websites. This creates two problems: The centralized authority would need to invest significant time and capital before there is enough activity to find experts. Meanwhile the experts find their reputation or social capital tied up in another network, which could disappear or make changes that devalue the reputation they've earned.
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