Agora & reputation systems

In the last article, we covered the interoperation thesis of Boundless: Synapse. Read that article first for important context.

Boundless Agora, designing a society

We at Boundless believe there's tremendous untapped potential in a community invested in creating real social organization online. Online relationships are often shallow due to a natural incentive structure which encourages surface-level relationships. But the internet gives us the unique opportunity to design an incentive structure specifically geared toward creating real connection and meaningful depth in people's interactions with each other.

Examples of how we intend to architect connection

Problem

It's easy to run away from online relationships, creating a lack of accountability, as people change their usernames or have multiple usernames.

Solution

We ask people to commit to a single name within Agora.

Problem

People have a lack of accountability for their digital deeds as they don't have to live with those they hurt.

Solutions

Become a society that celebrates relationships
- Every society has its values and culture, we need to become a society that treasures the depths of connections between people by creating accolades individuals can add to their user profile for maintaining connection with sub communities within Agora.
Create a currency earned through the depth of connection with others.
- Our sub-community system will encourage users to form connections with other users in small groups, rewarding them with a currency if they maintain connections.
  - In detail, new users will be given a lump sum of currency for those who help onboard them. But that currency is held in reserve for 60 days to encourage those who onboard them to onboard and keep them connected successfully for those 60 days. Those who onboard them place something of a bet with their own currency. And if that bet pans out, then double the amount of currency is brought back to them. But that bet only pans out if the new user integrates properly with the community.

These are simple examples of how we intend to architect community by creating specific and intentional social structures. Some of these concepts may lead to problematic relationships. But there's no doubt we need to test each solution at scale to see which are beneficial and which are not.

Boundless: Synapse will not support people moving reputation currencies between Poleis to avoid global moderation systems.*

Synapse & Agora

Together we must strive to invent a new form of human social organization and society online. Doing so will encourage interoperators to join Agora and hopefully, one day, draw in entire ecosystems which will create community using our toolbox.

Whitepaper summary

Boundless believes that augmented reality will create a sense of personal connection online that will begin a process in which society increasingly migrates to virtual spaces.

If that indeed is the case, and if the same incentive structures are at work in this next evolution of the internet, we risk a world in which the same sorts of companies who have proven themselves untrustworthy with our data and with our rights will control us in a world they explicitly desire to dominate.

In order to prevent a world in which a few corporations dominate these increasingly important spaces, Boundless is creating a tool which allows users to be in control over a packet of data which can be used to change virtual experience ecosystems without losing what they hold most dear, their connections with other people and their avatar and items (in certain cases).

Ultimately, this will break the lock-in power of the network effect that social companies use to keep people locked into a single experience, allowing users to gain control over the future of online connection.

* There are other variations of this safeguard that we may implement instead.