Principles

There are many things we simply have to do. However, these principles serve as guiding ideals. Use these principles to understand how we design, develop, and operate PrizeForge.

Pluralism

Open communities cannot be exclusive of the sub-communities that respect everyone's independent interests. Pursue your own interests but do not act against others' interests. This is a simple principle when interests are completely non-overlapping or highly aligned. Is can however be more complex when:

• There is some exclusive consensus fundamental to the work output, such as an RFC for a standard
• There are exclusive, finite resources creating coupling between interests that depend on those resources
• Interests that had been incidentally aligned begin to go their separate ways

To realize this goal, we can create independence where outcomes are not exclusive, and we can create equity when cooperation & independence must be balanced. The opposite of pluralism is to create winner-take-all situations where all become bound to a singular outcome even though that outcome no longer serves the interests of many sub-communities.

Proportionate Representation

Our commitment must be to ensure that contributor's funds encourage in the kind of creation that each contributor wants. We do not erase the intent of the contributor merely because their enrollments are large or small or participating alongside those with greater influence or numbers. All contributors should always have a mark on the outcome. Those who carry more of the weight should leave a bigger mark.

Valid argument may convince other contributors to support broader or enabling objectives or those that earn their sympathy. Better ideas may win in a marketplace for decisions to produce what will benefit us. Delegation also naturally broadens interests because there is no such thing as a perfect agent and because cooperation inherently biases towards actions that benefit the many. However, we do not take from one to give to the other except what one finds natural to give through their own motivation.

Consultative Expertise

We all deserve representation, but that does not mean we have the skills and knowledge to understand the problems we want solved or to plan the broader strategies around them. However, those with expertise are inherently less numerous and can't accurately represent the interests of contributors who might delegate to them. The cooperation between those represented and those with the expertise must be a two-way street.

Creators tend to have more expertise while contributors need representation. Experienced users tend to understand problems well while not necessarily being the most efficient at solving them. This creates a lot of need for people in the middle who can both understand and communicate about the subjects at hand, being closer to those represented but more knowledgeable than the average user. We will strive to connect the right people so that the two-way street is rewarding, engaging, and effective for all.

Binding Signaling

Whenever we advertise our willingness to cooperate, this solicits bids to cooperate from others. If we did not fulfill what we advertised, other users would have been entrained into an attempt to cooperate with us without receiving our share of contribution. If the benefits of the cooperative effort include substantial shared benefits that are received unconditionally, we would be able to grow our own benefit by deceiving other users with our insincere bids to cooperate.

Once a user advertises cooperative willingness and other users are encouraged to join your effort, that user is restricted from retracting their bid to cooperate. We only allow withdrawing ones cooperative bids in specific circumstances and conditions that protect the signaling integrity so that all users may trust each other in making further bids.