Measuring and rewarding contributors

One of the interesting aspects of We-Decide is that it creates incentives for members of the community to participate in drafting proposals.

The information market (see an example of information market platform here) will measure member contribution by giving them credits, which members can “invest” in proposals of interest. When members earn additional credits (for having invested in a proposal that gains attracts others), these are kept account of in a non-cash account, and turned into real cash by the amount the community has set aside for a given period, for all virtual credits earned on the platform. The system incentivizes members to invest credits only when they think they know relatively much on the topic, and especially when they can add to the proposal, by commenting or by co-editing.

In order to create the incentive to make good investments, members must face a cost when spending their credits. It is an opportunity cost we want to introduce, which is reduced activity for certain period of time. The best solution seems to be to give members only a percent of the lost credit per day. This means that if I support a bad argument, which loses value, I will have to wait a bit to regain my initial power of voice.

Therefore, the system ensures that those who earn influence do not become excessively powerful over time, they only have a temporary advantage over those who did not attract much interest. The balance of these are to be set by the community by adjusting system parameters.