Community

Main article: Ratings system

Community Defined

In the context of the ratings system, a community is a group of users who collaborate with each other. They generally have a broad agreement to follow certain rules, conventions, and norms. In some ways it is nothing more than a contract but a contract implies a straightforward give and take economic transaction, and hard economic obligations on both sides. A community is more than that and is less formal although it implies a type of governance, values, perhaps even a culture. It is still a contract, in the sense that members agree to abide by the community's standards and the community agrees to give the member certain benefits. But it is more than what a contract normally implies.

Contemporary communities include organizations in our everyday life: clubs, companies, non-profits, etc. Clubs, informal organizations (generally) organized around some interest (eg books, board games, sports, etc) could easily adopt a ratings system for their subject of interest. Book clubs could rate books, gamers could rate games, and so on. Sports clubs could rate their players and the competition using their own statistical metrics. Needless to say, matters of internal governance, such as voting on bylaws could easily be handled by the ratings system.

Companies and non-profits represent a larger and perhaps more organized type of community. They could use the system to rate their employees, or for taking surveys of their customers and donors. Ratings already exist to compare charitable organizations, particularly in how well they spend their money. This type of organization might benefit from an internal ratings system to discover problems before they become public.

Other examples of contemporary communities are so called hippy communes, also known as intentional communities. Another, more well established version of this, is the Kibbutz movement in Israel. Communities like the Kibbutzim and the hippy communes often exist within a loosely libertarian socialist context. Given their emphasis on individual liberty and egalitarianism it could be a model communities based on the ratings system might adopt.

We use the word community alot because it is necessary for what we are trying to do. A ratings system can only work amongst a group of people that are trying to accomplish something together. This would seem to become more true the more significant the goals of the group are. Indeed, many communities will arise out of a common theory of how society works, such as the tension between capital and labor. A truth-seeking ratings system, one that can really improve society, lead to better governance, etc. needs to be a significant community. Our ratings system is doing much more than helping people decide which product to buy or restaurant to eat at.

The loosely libertarian crypto community that our ratings system is, at least initially, directed at probably sees the individual as the basic unit of government. There's plenty of good reason for this since it is individuals that comprise the groups and individuals who do the thinking to make governance possible. But here we take the presence of individuals as a given and see communities as the basic building block for any worthwhile experiment in social improvement. This is not a value judgement, not a right or wrong thing. It is just why we refer alot to community and why we take the relationship between community and libertarianism seriously.

Communities are a natural expression of people's social instincts but they also bring complexity, especially if we regard individual autonomy and freedom as the highest ideal. Do communities occupy physical territory and have borders? What is the relationship between community members and its policies? What is the balance between individual liberties and the community? Do sub-groups within a community have the right to secede?

A community might not have its agreements written down. It could be just a set of norms that are implicitly followed. Over the past several years we've started using the word "norms" much more as bipartisan cooperation has broken down. We used to work together on matters of shared interest. Similarly, most people in a community agree to be reasonable and respectful toward each other. It is only when this doesn't happen regularly that we might decide to write it down as a rule.

In many cases community norms come from the surrounding culture. In a sense, this just means that communities influence each other and that there may be larger, more encompassing communities that envelop smaller ones. We understand that in our ratings based community system, members may be in many communities at once and that alot of overlap between communities will exist.

Steps in Community Building

We anticipate that like-minded users of the ratings system will come together to form communities. An important ingredient of this is the idea of consensual reality. At a practical level, Community-building tools will be available through the software. Some communities will be shared interest forums for enthusiasts of specific activities (sports, stamp collecting, etc.) But others will seek to develop political communities, complete with forms of justice, defense, and economic systems. Although the ratings system will encompass both types of community, we will focus here on the latter.

Let's start by discussing political philosophy and its importance in community-building. We might ask why a ratings system community would need this. What is the purpose, say, of Rawlsian liberalism in a ratings system where individuals will subjectively decide what they want and communities will collectively do the same? The answer, of course, is that any type of society, except for perhaps the simplest ones, need a political philosophy to guide them. Most societies (and smaller groups) have one even if they are not aware of it. Certainly if we deign to manufacture a new society, or some new social paradigm, we would want a political philosophy to aim for. Otherwise, why would we care? We are not doing this because a ratings system gives us a better way to judge the next car to buy, or who the best dentist in town is, although it might be useful for that too. We are doing it because a high-quality system of ratings can improve everyone and, by extension, society itself.

It would seem then that the first act of community building would be to identify, consciously, a political philosophy to follow. Communities would then proceed to define a constitution and a basic system of derivative law. But how does a community even agree on a political philosophy if it doesn’t have a system of law already in place? Well, it has the ratings system. And, presumably, it has some mechanism for communication which enables debate. We will, as the designers of the system, provide software with built-in defaults to enable debate, provide categories for ratings, a selection of algorithms, weights, etc.

Informal communities should then form spontaneously on the basis of shared interests (and philosophies). Like-minded people have a way of finding each other. Debate would then take place to establish a constitution or, using Rawls’ wording, a set of basic liberties. A system of derivative law might follow if the members could identify, at this point, specific such laws that would be necessary. It is usually the case that law follows experience and an understanding of what is necessary as the community begins to function as such. Along these lines, a government structure could be put in place, through further debate and following the agreed-upon set of basic liberties, if desired. Note that we would have the basic liberties established first, instead of as an afterthought as was done in the US constitution with the Bill of Rights.

We might also consider that the government structure might be very lightweight at first since we have the ratings system in place already, which acts as a default mechanism of direct democracy. A voting mechanism, a natural extension of the ratings system, will also be in place to allow formal decisions to be made. And since the ratings system is an information system, another necessary ingredient in community formation is already in place.

With a political philosophy, constitution, and some governmental framework (and derivative law), we have a formal community. Probably the first thing it will want to do is establish some criteria for membership, another issue to be debated, rated, and voted on. In any event, a community is born.

The Power to Effect Change

One of the benefits of large nation states is their potential ability to enact sweeping public policy changes very quickly. If the US and China alone were to agree to reduce their carbon footprint, all they would need to do is pass legislation in their respective legislatures and create a treaty. It is a relatively simple, and well understood process. It would take many small voluntary communities, each agreeing to do the same, to achieve this.

But this is only in theory. The US and China are egregious in their lack of concern for environmental issues and no hopeful treaty along these lines is on the horizon. The US is politically incapable of effecting great change and China is determined to become the next superpower, a plan largely built around expanding its industrial and military prowess, not saving the planet. Neither country is particularly introspective and both lack the humility required for sustained change.

But would a collection of small voluntary communities do any better? The same hubris might certainly affect them as well. But one advantage they would have is a ratings criterion that measures their own participation in world affairs. Communities will be able to rate themselves and each other on common issues. As we’ve discussed, treaties between communities will be possible and even confederations of communities. Alongside individual introspection, community introspection will be an important value and lead to continuous improvement. The ratings system would act as an important virtuous feedback loop on the general community system. Our goal would be to prevent communities from becoming rigid and ossified in the face of obvious reform (like the US).

Community Building Tools

As part of the ratings system we plan to have a "community building" feature to get people together for group projects, discussion, activism, etc. Someone, perhaps on a public node, would kick things off by proposing a community to work on X. Other users would join and begin collaborating. Our trust features can be used to filter out those who don't meet certain criteria or only allow those who do. An important part of community building will be debate, especially as it relates to the creation of bylaws and policymaking.

There are a number of existing tools in the community-building space. A few well known ones include:

• Mighty Networks
• Hivebrite
• Circle

Some key features of community building tools include:

1. User Profiles
2. Discussion forums
3. Messaging & notifications
4. Content sharing
5. Groups and sub-communities
6. Moderation tools
7. User engagement metrics
8. Event management
9. Integration with 3rd party tools (social media, CRM, analytics, etc)
10. Customization of look n feel, layout, etc.
11. Mobile access
12. Gamification -- badges, points, rewards, etc.