A reputation is pictured as a possession — something you build, hold, and can have taken from you. The foundation I work from says it has no single location: it is a set of present marks plus a term in the denominator of every host who has read them, and not one component of it is in you. That is why you have never inspected the thing you call yours, why four hundred people hold four hundred different ones, and why the thousandth decent act is worth almost nothing while the first lapse can be worth four hundred and fifty-eight times as much. … readWhat Is a Reputation