Reputation is defined as the beliefs or opinions that are generally held by someone based on certain behaviours and accomplishments. Since the beginning of civilization, reputation has been a metric of skills and qualities, conveyed through positions of power, badges etc.Even in the Web2 corporate, it's the reputation that is measured in titles, to indicate positions in hierarchy, which in turn determine one’s salary and benefits.In the gaming universe, reputation has been the core of game economics, where players earn in-game tokens based on their gameplay and then exchange it for skins, weapons and characters, etc, and higher reputation is depicted by a rare collection of in-game accessories and skills badge.
Reputation for brands and individuals is built over time based on good or bad actions and results that they achieve. This means, individuals are more conscious of their actions, as they cannot alter their past actions, leading to a more supportive community.
We have seen that building values and missions for the decentralised community is very crucial for setting the right culture. This also attracts intrinsically motivated talent to join our community. This forms strong communities that sustain participation even with uncertain monetary benefits.
For people who believe early in a project and help them build it for a larger audience and scale it, are rewarded for their actions and earn a reputation within the community. If this activity is tracked on-chain, reputation will be visible to a global audience and this individual can be listed out as a top-rated talent for his/her particular skill, eg: Community Building. This enables other newer projects to select members whom they know have experience to do the needed job, which is also verified. The value added to the community by a member’s contribution will directly impact the size of points received by a member. So, for a relatively new community, higher rewards are given to early community members.
Getting serious members is the first step, post which members need to engage to build for the common mission. This can be started by figuring out the right set of members, and we can select them using their reputation score in respective skill domains, and award them with initial opportunities to engage and contribute. But does this restrict newer members with lesser scores to participate and contribute in a community? Does this system increase the barrier of entry in the communities? If so, we need to figure out how we can find a better system.
Reputation token serves two main purposes:
Challenges for using Social token as a measure of reputation:
Challenges for using NFTs as a measure of reputation:
Challenges for using Quantifiable scores as a measure of reputation: