1. A method for providing trustworthy information about an item, the method comprising: querying a personalized database of trusted metadata concerning the item, the personalized database of trusted metadata including at least one report, the at least one report emanating from metadata received from an informer network, the informer network including a computer user and at least one informer, each informer in the informer network being trusted by the computer user either directly or indirectly to have opinions that coincide with those of the computer user, each indirectly trusted informer being trusted directly by at least one other informer in the informer network, each of the at least one report including one of an explicit subjective assertion, by an informer in the informer network from which that report originated, regarding the quality of an item and an explicit expression, by the informer in the informer network from which that report originated, of a degree of trust in another informer regarding the another informer's opinions; and indicating to the computer user the item's subjective quality based on at least one report about the item from an informer in the informer network in the personalized database of trusted metadata.
1. A method for providing trustworthy information about an item, the method comprising: querying a personalized database of trusted metadata concerning the item, the personalized database of trusted metadata including at least one report, the at least one report emanating from metadata received from an informer network, the informer network including a computer user and at least one informer, each informer in the informer network being trusted by the computer user either directly or indirectly to have opinions that coincide with those of the computer user, each indirectly trusted informer being trusted directly by at least one other informer in the informer network, each of the at least one report including one of an explicit subjective assertion, by an informer in the informer network from which that report originated, regarding the quality of an item and an explicit expression, by the informer in the informer network from which that report originated, of a degree of trust in another informer regarding the another informer's opinions; and indicating to the computer user the item's subjective quality based on at least one report about the item from an informer in the informer network in the personalized database of trusted metadata. 12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the querying is performed in response to a request from the computer user to display, in a file browser application, a list of files accessible from a computer and the item is a file in the displayed list of files.