Abstract: A method and apparatus for objectively rating users of a collaborative writing system forms an online group having a plurality of members, and assigns one or more roles to each of the members within the group. One or more members of the group produce at least one digital writing within the online group. The method then monitors online activity of each member in the group with regard to 1) other users of the system and 2) the digital writing(s) produced by the one or more members, and calculates, for each member, a numerical influencer score for each assigned role as a function of the monitored online activity. The influencer score indicates the influence of the member in each assigned role within the group.