Social Protocols
"technical protocols" typically serve to facilitate machine to machine communications.
"social protocols" mediate interactions between humans,
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 signatures.
Joseph Reagle, W3C/LCS/MIT