Moderation via Bitmarks (a webby crypto currency)

[BigBlueHat]

A couple days ago, @melvincarvalho linked me to a post he'd sent to the public-rww@w3.org list about Web Credits (a project he's been working on) and Bitmark (a coinage system similar in concept to Web Credits): http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rww/2014Sep/0006.html

One of the intended uses of this new crypto currency is "marking." Marking is a system for assigning value (in Bitmarks) anything with a URI. The getMarked site has more, but here's a teaser:

getMarked is a distributed reputation system, like karma or kudos which follows people around the web.

---

"karma" is an anagram of "a mark" -- @melvincarvalho

Bitmarks are currently available. getMarked is not yet formed. Klaranet (an IRC bot that does marking) is well on it's way.

If we ever felt we had a need (and cycles!) for Hypothes.is (the organization) to run it's own "annotation coin," there is a stub project (based on bitmark's code) for getting things started called Pfennig

@MarkPfennig can likely tell us more. :smile:

[BigBlueHat]

And...in case you think this is crazy talk: http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/30/reddit-fundraising/ (tnx @MarkPfennig!)

[ileathan]

marking seems exactly like https://hypothes.is/what-is-it/ but with an added economic incentive. Seems this might be the ingredient that the idea has been missing for so many years to get it rolling :)

[MarkPfennig]

We would be happy to help you set up Pfennig. You may see more benefit by using marks, as then the marks can be used in different domains and transferred in and out.

This kind of collaborative curating is baked in to marking, I feel on many fronts we are working towards the same goals, where you specialize and we generalize.

[dwhly]

So, someone tweeted this out, and now there is an active h. discussion going on about this subject at this page. https://poloniex.com/

[BigBlueHat]

@dwhly woot! :smile_cat:

@MarkPfennig yeah, at this point, I don't think our little team could support a crypto currency and all the stuff we're building for annotations on the Web (and elsewhere). Likely sticking with Bitmarks would make the most sense.

[JakeHartnell]

Huge +1 on this. I would love to explore this more. Even before starting work at Hypothes.is I've been interested in monetized reputation systems, tempted by the idea that you could build an information system that incentivizes telling truth over spewing spam. I'm going to read up on some more on this, but sometime soon I would very interested in putting together a hangout, call, meeting, irc chat, or .etc to talk more. : )

[dwhly]

Might be time for another #repcon. http://hypothes.is/workshop/

[JakeHartnell]

@dwhly, yes, I think so.

[melvincarvalho]

+1 to everything ... happy to help in any way we can!

[BigBlueHat]

@dwhly :+1: Let's chat soon about making that happen!

@RawKStar77 keep me posted on your reviews / thoughts. Maybe on the project site?

Thanks @melvincarvalho!

[ileathan]

I am also happy to help in anyway. Just ask, im decent with scripting languages is all atm. @BigBlueHat I am temporarily switching my browser preference for your annotations layer & im spreading the word. However bare in mind other people will be more stubborn so keep working on making it compatible :) :+1: :+1: for your work i wish i knew you sooner.

[tilgovi]

I am supportive of people wishing to experiment with cryptocurrencies as mechanisms for reputation accrual. I really want to understand what it would take for us to get this project into a state where those communities can experiment here.

As i first step, I wonder if we shouldn't focus instead on support for various embeds, such as oEmbed, or even full-on HTML-in-an-iframe, or whatever it would take for individual users to voluntarily place a button inside their annotation body that allows another user to mark it.

I can say with near certainty, though, that if Hypothes.is ever requires any sort of currency, cryptographic or otherwise, to post an annotation, I will probably leave the project on principle since I think it would probably be incompatible with my views on speech.

[ileathan]

Randall I think you misunderstood the way i saw it in my head is that the people can voluntarily reward good annotations with marks.

The actual annotations would remain free or i would not be a user.

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 7:58 PM, Randall Leeds notifications@github.com wrote:

I am supportive of people wishing to experiment with cryptocurrencies as mechanisms for reputation accrual. I really want to understand what it would take for us to get this project into a state where those communities can experiment here.

As i first step, I wonder if we shouldn't focus instead on support for various embeds, such as oEmbed, or even full-on HTML-in-an-iframe, or whatever it would take for individual users to voluntarily place a button inside their annotation body that allows another user to mark it.

I can say with near certainty, though, that if Hypothes.is ever requires any sort of currency, cryptographic or otherwise, to post an annotation, I will probably leave the project on principle since I think it would probably be incompatible with my views on speech.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/hypothesis/vision/issues/86#issuecomment-57735160.

[ileathan]

The idea is to provide users with incentive to make good annotations, and even to use the system in general. At no point in time will anyone be charged for using anything. Quite the opposite infact. I of course am not lucky enough to have been on the development team of hypothes.is but im sure they would agree with the above.

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 8:27 PM, Horacio Spinelli leathan7@gmail.com wrote:

Randall I think you misunderstood the way i saw it in my head is that the people can voluntarily reward good anotations with marks.

The actual anotations would remain free or i would be a user.

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 7:58 PM, Randall Leeds notifications@github.com wrote:

I am supportive of people wishing to experiment with cryptocurrencies as mechanisms for reputation accrual. I really want to understand what it would take for us to get this project into a state where those communities can experiment here.

As i first step, I wonder if we shouldn't focus instead on support for various embeds, such as oEmbed, or even full-on HTML-in-an-iframe, or whatever it would take for individual users to voluntarily place a button inside their annotation body that allows another user to mark it.

I can say with near certainty, though, that if Hypothes.is ever requires any sort of currency, cryptographic or otherwise, to post an annotation, I will probably leave the project on principle since I think it would probably be incompatible with my views on speech.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/hypothesis/vision/issues/86#issuecomment-57735160.

[tilgovi]

Thanks, @ileathan, that was clear. I was mostly stating it for completeness and to see if anyone actually disagreed, but I didn't expect that. Now there should be no uncertainty for anyone who stumbles on this thread.

[dwhly]

Just so it's clear here. Agree. 100% optional. Reddit gold functions more or less in this style IIRC. i.e. optional green love.

[MarkPfennig]

I can say with near certainty, though, that if Hypothes.is ever requires any sort of currency, cryptographic or otherwise, to post an annotation, I will probably leave the project on principle since I think it would probably be incompatible with my views on speech.

Yes, speech should be free, marking should be optional. The point of marking is to enable agreement, to make stating "+1" something useful, not to monetize or require payment.

I really want to understand what it would take for us to get this project into a state where those communities can experiment here.

On it, will update in due course with a couple of different approaches and code to use

[tilgovi]

Thanks, @MarkPfennig. Even just pointers to code where people have added marking to an object would help.

[tilgovi]

Maybe we should prioritize getting our OAuth Provider up and going with an interface for users to create applications. Then someone can run a annotation marking service. Users log in with their Hypothes.is ID and the service listens for annotations of participating users. The community can decide for themselves what syntax works. https://hypothes.is/a/vmAXPst9QUm8VlE1Uz6VdA

There's no reason any of it needs to be coded into our server.

[tilgovi]

Or I'd be really interested to see if we can support embedding things in our annotation body, so as an author I could add a marking widget to my annotation or something.

[BigBlueHat]

@tilgovi so...annotations are already "mark-able." In fact, https://hypothes.is/ has a balance of 30₥:

klaranet (bot) 9:19 AM https://hypothes.is/ has 30₥

From a moderation stand-point, it'd be up to us to check for balances on the URLs of annotations. Storing that in our own, local bitmark thing would likely just be an optimization.

Add some simple content negotiation to that URL, and we'd have a reasonably quick way to look up Bitmark-based "value" of annotation (or an annotator or the page being annotated) because Web.

Schematic: :computer: :beers: :computer:

[ileathan]

May i give some input?

I think the annotations should include a little facebook-like "mark" button into the GUI of each comment. where another user can click it to mark the respective annotation. Maybe if the user wants they can remove that and make the annotation "unmarkable" (VIA THE GUI).

-Like BigBlueHat mentioned annotations are already mark-able. What I suggest merely makes things more user friendly.

I think this little step will motivate the masses to adopt this annotation system, I think it may truly be a much needed missing ingredient that both encourages use from an economic perspective and deters spam, later on a filtering out of NON-NEW annotations with no markings may prove quite useful for example.. I myself want to make a website that filters ANYTHING based on reputation and/or markings someday :)

Anyway these are just some personal thoughts whatever you guys decide im sure will be quite awesome :)

[tilgovi]

I think the annotations should include a little facebook-like "mark" button into the GUI of each comment.

I would like to see this tackled more modularly by viewing this as one kind of embedded object, though. Hypothes.is does not add a mark button. Users do.

[tilgovi]

Hypothes.is does not add a mark button. Users do.

And if that seems a bit tedious, consider having default annotation templates, or other such approaches where the user still has control over which such buttons appear in their annotations.

What I'm trying specifically to avoid is Hypothes.is making a decision to use any one system or another for badging, marking, etc, for the time being. I say that not because we shouldn't ever, but because if we build modularly for flexibility with these things we are always free to default whatever we want for users using the same mechanisms.

The idea is for users to be able to experiment ahead of us; for us to be able to promote things we want to formalize in the future; and for decisions we make down the road to not supplant the ability for users to continue experimenting in different directions.

Is there any marking service that's already implemented as some kind of embeddable object, through a mechanism like oEmbed or similar?

[dwhly]

What I'm trying specifically to avoid is Hypothes.is making a decision to use any one system or another for badging, marking, etc, for the time being. I say that not because we shouldn't ever, but because if we build modularly for flexibility with these things we are always free to default whatever we want for users using the same mechanisms.

Huge +1 to that.

The idea is for users to be able to experiment ahead of us; for us to be able to promote things we want to formalize in the future; and for decisions we make down the road to not supplant the ability for users to continue experimenting in different directions.

Nicely put.

I think the idea of being able to quickly pass some bitmarks (or any other similar currency) to someone using some kind of simple markdown or whatever is great, but lets stay away from special dedicated buttons for it.

[tilgovi]

Buttons are fine if those buttons can be rendered as part of the body, rather than something our UI decorates every annotation with.

[ileathan]

@Randall leeds .. I applaud your words VERY MUCH, but just note that John Doe leaves the default settings on to everything 80% of the time.

Which is just more reason to ensure proper default settings.

Also, just my opinion, graphics are beyond fine. John Doe needs buttons.

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 3:25 PM, Randall Leeds notifications@github.com wrote:

Buttons are fine if those buttons can be rendered as part of the body, rather than something our UI decorates every annotation with.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/hypothesis/vision/issues/86#issuecomment-58254980.

[tilgovi]

@ileathan 100% agreed about defaults.

But getting the right defaults is tricky. Much easier if we can look around and say, "Well, the community is already doing X and it seems to work well for them."

That's why I want to ensure the community can innovate without having their idea blessed.