A Novel Framework for Reputation-Based Systems - a16z crypto

DAOs are open and permissionless, but still need new ways of determining who to trust, collaborate with, and reward.

Managing reputation information also requires publicly accessible data standards — agreed upon formats for, say, “what an attestation of a contribution looks like” or “how to formulate an on-chain record.” Structuring these inputs to reputation ensures interoperability, both (1) enabling people to meaningfully combine parts of their decentralized i... See more

In an interoperable world, a contributor's work to one community can be leveraged in another, as on-chain data and smart contracts are largely interoperable by default. Reputation is another currency coveted within a traditional corporation, and one that is often lost in the realm of purely individualized work. There is no standard for inter-organi... See more

That said, the platform may not have a clear sense of the contributions’ value, especially early on, so there needs to be a mechanism for experimentation and recalibration around token distribution.