Reputation
Exploring ideas for helping the community build up a reputation in the Project Catalyst ecosystem using Atala Prism verifiable credentials
Join the conversation
Join the Catalyst Swarm Discord and join the reputation-systems chat under the Incubator grouping.
Measuring contributions
List of different ways the community provides input and contributions in the community that could be valued or measured along with the associated tools and services used in that context. Non exhaustive list.
Topic conversations (Cardano forum, Cardano StackExchange)
Chat messages (Discord, Slack)
Comment replies (YouTube, Twitter)
Live discussion (Zoom, Google Meet)
Idea boards (Miro)
Documentation maintenance (GitBook, Google Docs)
Code commits (GitHub)
Performing community roles (Community advisor, proposer, voter)
Ecosystem projects
List of projects that could issue credentials that help community members build a reputation. Non exhaustive list.
Reputation credential ideas
Key for the following ideas:
💡 Credential - What the credential could be issued to help with reputation
🔧 Tools / services used - What tools and services are already being used, if any, relevant to this credential
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - What community projects are relevant to this credential idea. It also may be the Project Catalyst ecosystem maintained by IOG or may require a new group to form to offer the credential.
✍️ Assessment - An assessment of the credential (Green is good, red is bad):
Impact (🟢 High, 🟠 Medium 🔴 Low) - How useful is the credential for building reputation. Consideration should be included on how easily the credential could be gamed by malicious actors which would reduce the impact of the credential
Moderation required (🟢 Low, 🟠 Medium, 🔴 High) - How much effort and moderation is needed to verify whether the credential should be issued
Implementation effort (🟢 Low, 🟠 Medium, 🔴 High) - How difficult would it be for this credential idea to take off? Would it be difficult to convince, onboard and work with the stakeholders required?
Project Catalyst focussed
Performing community advisor / veteran community advisor role
💡 Credential - Community advisors who provide valid assessments and veteran community advisors who review assessments could be issued a credential for performing the role for a given funding round.
🔧 Tools / services used - Ideascale (ideally soon a community tool when the data sources become available)
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Project Catalyst
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Performing the community advisor role and adding valuable community assessments is high value to the community.
🟠 Moderation required - Need a way to verify people are a community advisor through Ideascale or through a data source provided by IOG. Requires maintaining the policy and process for what makes a valid community advisor contribution, this likely becomes easier over time as the process iterates.
🔴 Implementation effort - If data sources and verification steps are made available then this can be implemented. Over the long term eventually it can be automated. Initially there's a privacy concern to verifying assessments against someones identity however zero knowledge proofs could eventually be used to issue credentials to people without revealing their actual assessments.
Creating proposals
💡 Credential - Issue a credential for people who made proposals in a given funding round.
🔧 Tools / services used - Ideascale (ideally soon a community tool when the data sources become available)
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Project Catalyst
✍️ Assessment
🟠 Impact - There is high value in writing up proposals with new ideas for challenges in a funding round. The main concern will be it can be easy to create a low quality proposal so the impact can be limited without quality thresholds which could also be subjective.
🟠 Moderation required - Initially may require moderation to verify the thresholds for a valid proposal and also the identity of a given proposer. Over the longer term this can be automated as the process stabilises.
🔴 Implementation effort - Need a way to verify people who create proposals through Ideascale or through a data source provided by IOG. If data sources and verification steps can be made available this can be implemented and over the long term eventually automated.
Becoming a funded proposer
💡 Credential - Issue a credential to the teams of proposals who get funded
🔧 Tools / services used - Ideascale (ideally soon a community tool when the data sources become available)
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Project Catalyst
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - There is high value in being a funded proposer as this means the community has voted on their proposal and wants the ideas shared to be executed on.
🟠 Moderation required - Verification needed for each of a proposal team members identity being associated with a proposal. This could be done using Ideascale if possible or may need to introduce a way to verify.
🔴 Implementation effort - If data sources and verification steps are made available then this can be implemented. Over the long term eventually it can be automated.
Proposal progress & KPI reporting
💡 Credential - Issue a credential to proposers that complete a number of progress reports or meet KPI objectives
🔧 Tools / services used - None
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Project Catalyst
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - There is high value ensuring that funded proposals are auditable and proposers who execute as intended could be verified and provided a credential for that work.
🟠 Moderation required - Some verification is needed to check that what has been reported is correct before they are issued a credential.
🟠 Implementation effort - A separate system would be developed for reporting which isn't tightly coupled with Ideascale at the moment making easier to start implementation.
Catalyst Circle elected member
💡 Credential - Issue a credential for people who become elected for a period of time into the Catalyst Circle and similar governance circles.
🔧 Tools / services used - None
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Project Catalyst
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - There are only a few Catalyst Circle members so this information is more readily available and more easily verifiable then other information however this is still a valuable contribution to the ecosystem
🟠 Moderation required - Will need a community verifiable process as to how the election was carried out and then a list of any credentials issued to the elected members.
🟠 Implementation effort - Is currently an adhoc process performed by IOG. This is easier to change and update than the comparison of Ideascale for verification of other roles. A documented governance process with exposure of the results data along with a verification process would be sufficient.
Community recognition
Community contribution awards
💡 Credential - Issue credentials to community members periodically based from contributions they have provided to the ecosystem. Examples could be being the biggest open source contributor or the best idea & insight contributor - The types of awards would need defining. Contributions can be nominated each round and then voted on by the community. The winner of the credential could also receive a financial reward for their contributions to help encourage behaviours that are seen as public goods.
🔧 Tools / services used - None
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Requires a new awarding community project
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Helps effectively identify people in the community contributing a lot to the ecosystem that may otherwise get unnoticed. The main concern for the process is if it is gamed to nominate people others are friends with or encourage collusion to benefit from any award.
🔴 Moderation required - Requires a governance process that would need trust and work to moderate and execute.
🔴 Implementation effort - Initial implementation likely used trusted members to bootstrap the process but would still need some form of voting system to execute a community vote. Long term need would be to implement a governance process that incorporates what is possible from the award policies to automate the process and remove trusted parties where possible.
Community endorsements & recognition
💡 Credential - Community members could endorse other community members for a their contributions or skills that have been highly valued. An example of this was carried out by SPOCRA members.
🔧 Tools / services used - None
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Requires tools for community to make endorsements or offer recognition
✍️ Assessment
🟠 Impact - Endorsements and recognition for skill or contributions to the ecosystem are of value to the community. The endorsement or recognition has an increasing value based on the reputation of the person issuing the endorsement or recognition. However endorsement and recognitions have the issue of being easily gamed if anyone can perform the action as multiple identities could vouch for someone making it difficult to have confidence in the value of any related credential.
🔴 Moderation required - Would require This type of recognition is less suited to a simple credential and requires implementation thought.
🔴 Implementation effort - Requires new tools to allow community to endorse or offer recognition to others that ideally vets the community member doing the action.
Collaboration and communication
Hosting live sessions
💡 Credential - Sessions are recorded and determining who organises and hosts a session can easily be determined and issued a credential
🔧 Tools / services used - Zoom, Google Meet
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Catalyst Swarm, Gimbalabs
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Easy to understand value proposition of helping open up conversation about a given topic and hosting a session on it.
🟢 Moderation required - Community project owners only verify whether a host delivers the live session.
🟢 Implementation effort - Requires a simple way to for non developers to issue credentials to other people. Community projects can independently adopt when they want and use as often as desired.
Attending live sessions
💡 Credential - Sessions can be recorded for verification but also hosts can issues them to people who stay to the end of sessions as a simple way to verify attendance. In the longer term this could potentially be automated if people can attach their identity to video calls in the future.
🔧 Tools / services used - Zoom, Google Meet
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Catalyst Swarm, Gimbalabs
✍️ Assessment
🟠 Impact - Helps to over time highlight a history of engagement and participation with the community however doesn't signify the strength of any contributions given so a useful but limited impact on helping reputation.
🟢 Moderation required - Session hosts can verify people who finish attending a session and can use recording to show verification if needed.
🟢 Implementation effort - Requires a simple way to for non developers to issue credentials to other people. Community projects can independently adopt when they want and use as often as desired.
Contributing to live session conversations
💡 Credential - More subjective and difficult to hosts to track so may need an element of voting or an effective policy for what conditions must be met to receive a good contributions credential.
🔧 Tools / services used - Zoom, Google Meet
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Catalyst Swarm, Gimbalabs
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Indicates community members engaged with the community that offer insights.
🔴 Moderation required - Can be subjective and difficult to judge to determine valuable contributions to conversation. There could however be a simple vote or process to determine people who will be issued a credential for insightful contributions however this is still difficult to track as a session happens.
🟢 Implementation effort - Requires a simple way to for non developers to issue credentials to other people. Community projects can independently adopt when they want and use as often as desired.
Contribution badges
💡 Credential - Give community members credentials when they receive badges in platforms that track users conversation and discussion based contributions
🔧 Tools / services used - Cardano forum, Cardano StackExchange, Reddit
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Requires a new community project
✍️ Assessment
🟠 Impact - Valuable contribution to the community to answers questions or engage in these conversation forums. Accounts could be made by malicious actors and respond to multiple things in attempt to attain a badge that may have offered little value.
🟠 Moderation required - Verification is more simple as it would be outsourced to the web platform used to confirm the badge ownership, what would require some moderation is checking whether the system is being gamed by bots or non users
🟠 Implementation effort - Requires a way to verify both ownership of account and that they have a specific badge. There would be some ongoing implementation effort of ensuring the tooling still works as the web platforms providing the data get changed and for preventing the system from being easily gamed.
Sending valuable message contributions
💡 Credential - Engaged community members sending messages can represent a valued contribution in community discussions and could be rewarded with a form of reputation credential. Contributions could potentially extend to emoji responses as a form of participation if communities used messages that measure emoji response for voting or feedback.
🔧 Tools / services used - Discord, Slack
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Any projects that uses chat services
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Can be an effective way to identify the biggest contributors in community discussions. Issuing them a credential can help others become aware of their contributions.
🟠 Moderation required - A tool could highlight the larger contributors to make an easier list to digest for moderators. Moderation would still be needed after periods of time to decide who should be issued a valuable messages contribution credential.
🟠 Implementation effort - Would require a tool to extract messages send by each user and then allow someone to view that information to moderate who would be suitable for being issued a credential.
Contributing idea and insights
💡 Credential - Issuing a credential to people who offer valuable ideas and insights about a given topic
🔧 Tools / services used - Miro board
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Catalyst Swarm, Catalyst School, Gimbalabs
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Ideas and insights offer value to a conversation. Measuring contributions onto an idea board could be gamed to attain a credential
🔴 Moderation required - Moderation is needed to determine what are considered valuable contributions on an idea board, a policy would need to be followed or the trust of the moderator to determine the contribution value. Lots of room for subjective and controversial decisions in moderation.
🟢 Implementation effort - Requires a simple way to for non developers to issue credentials to other people. Community projects can independently adopt when they want and use as often as desired.
Education
Completing an educational course
💡 Credential - Verifying completion of education courses can be range from simple online quizzes through to more manual assessment which would be up to the issuing community team. The higher the value of the credential the more merit the issuing team has to charge for maintaining that as a service to ensure higher quality moderation.
🔧 Tools / services used - None
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Gimbalabs, Catalyst School, Mutual Knowledge Systems, Reach
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Demonstrates participation and education for a skill valued in the ecosystem.
🟢 Moderation required - Moderation is needed that a person completes the course and any assessments and with that verification can be issued a credential.
🟢 Implementation effort - Requires a way to for non developers to issue credentials to other people. Community projects can independently adopt when they want and use as often as desired.
Completing a workshop
💡 Credential - Issue a credential for completion of educational workshops on a given subject
🔧 Tools / services used - Zoom, Google Meet
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Catalyst School, Gimbalabs
✍️ Assessment
🟠 Impact - Demonstrates participation in learning about a valued topic or skill set. Isn't necessarily an effective way to assess what is learnt from the workshop.
🟢 Moderation required - Sessions can be recorded and usually multiple hosts are present meaning who completes and contributes towards a workshop can be tracked with moderate ease.
🟢 Implementation effort - Requires a way to for non developers to issue credentials to other people. Community projects can independently adopt when they want and use as often as desired.
Completing a university degree
💡 Credential - Issuing a credential for an academic degree qualification from a university.
🔧 Tools / services used - None
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Universities
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Effectively highlights relevant skills in the ecosystem such as degrees in software development.
🟢 Moderation required - University will verify completion of degree courses as they do currently and credential would be an extension to the process.
🔴 Implementation effort - Requires convincing a university to use a new credential system outside the Cardano ecosystem.
Completing an apprenticeship
💡 Credential - Being part of an apprenticeship or completing one could be valuable information for demonstrating skill or experience in a given topic.
🔧 Tools / services used - None
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Apprenticeship providers
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Effectively highlights skills and experience of a person. Initially may be lacking relevant apprenticeships related to skills in demand in the Cardano ecosystem.
🟢 Moderation required - Provider will verify completion of apprenticeship as they do currently and credential would be an extension to the process.
🔴 Implementation effort - Requires convincing a provider to use a new credential system outside the Cardano ecosystem.
Completing an online course
💡 Credential - Courses that are relevant to blockchain and Cardano could be useful for community members to verify. The impact on reputation can be limited when anyone can complete the course. Ideally the course includes some extra form of skill assessment stage to receive an outcome that could be turned into a verifiable credential.
🔧 Tools / services used - none
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Udemy, SkillShare, Udacity
✍️ Assessment
🟠 Impact - Can effectively identify relevant skills learnt from online education. This process can potentially be gamed or not provide enough assessment of skill so could have limited usefulness.
🟢 Moderation required - Provider will verify completion of online course as they do currently and credential would be an extension to the process.
🔴 Implementation effort - Requires convincing a provider to use a new credential system outside the Cardano ecosystem.
Improving content and resources
💡 Credential - Issuing a credential to community members to contribute to improving content and resources in the ecosystem.
🔧 Tools / services used - GitBook
👨👩👧👦 Relevant projects - Project Catalyst documentation, Catalyst School
✍️ Assessment
🟢 Impact - Highly valued contribution to maintain the content and resources that the community uses to learn about the ecosystem.
🟠 Moderation required - Requires at least moderate levels of moderation to determine what content is improved. Can be tracked using git commits making it fairly easy to track something that can often be valuable contributions. People meeting a threshold of contribution could receive credentials that would show value added to the community.
🟢 Implementation effort - Requires a way to for non developers to issue credentials to other people.
Most promising ideas
Short term - Can be done immediately
Completing an educational course - Highlights learning a skill, course can be both simple or complex and assessment is determined by provider making it easy to develop and offer the community
Completing a workshop - Highlights participation and can sometime skill learning, can be introduced easily and moderation can be manageable with easy to use tools
Attending live sessions - Highlights participation, can be introduced easily and moderation can be manageable with easy to use tools
Hosting live sessions - Highlights a contribution to helping conversation, can be introduced easily and moderation is simple
Medium term - Needs either more thought or to become unblocked
Community contribution awards - Highlights impactful contributions from community members, requires a lot of thought on what contributions to include and the governance process of nominating and voting on winners
Performing any of the Catalyst roles - Highlights people providing value to the ecosystem performing Catalyst roles. The main blocker for producing credentials for these roles is that they need accurate data sources along with a way to verify who has performed what role
Resources
https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lvFE7y4=/?moveToWidget=3074457364434471100&cot=14 - Miro board from after town hall meeting discussing reputation
https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lnAHABM=/ - Miro board for after town hall 27th October 2021 focussed on reputation
Last updated