Social Protocols, Design Principles, and Analytic Methods

"technical protocols" typically serve to facilitate machine to machine communications.
"graphical user interfaces" serve to facilitate machine to human communications
"social protocols" mediate interactions between humans using computers/networks,
or computer agents acting on behalf of human concerns.
enable the creation of rich content, verifiable assertions, decisions, and agreements -- to develop and manage trust relationships
often driven by explicit policy requirements
the web requires mechanisms of trusted abstraction, assurance, redirection, and cues
the key components of this are meta-data, negotiation, and trust mechanisms.