I think a lot of the promise of social software is that it illuminates what were previously cones of darkness. For example, a given professor may have a bad reputation but this is only something which students who are attentive “to the grapevine find out about”. However, if you post class evaluations online where students can vote on their satisfaction with a course and everyone has access to that data, you eliminate a lot of information assymetries by enlarging the circle of people in the know.
You also create new layers of accountability in the sense that it becomes more difficult for people to hide behind their aura. You can look them up and check up on what they’ve contributed.

But I sometimes worry that we spend too little time thinking about the shortcomings of such systems. People who can adopt these systems and practices can gain a lot from them, but in order to leverage their full potential you also need to understand the shortcomings.