Social Consensus Protocol

General

The Social Consensus protocol is a framework that determines the value of each user's contribution to the Waivlength network. The rewards that users can receive are proportional to their rating determined by the protocol. The metrics that get interpreted by the algorithm will be made publicly known, however the scoring and ranking system will not be made visible or stored by the platform.

Protocol

The protocol will have many metrics from different categories taken into consideration for ranking users. These include:

• Engagement

• Activity

• Staking and Balance of WAIV

Each of these categories will carry different weightings and will be separated distinctly. Each category will have a further breakdown of metrics that make up the user’s final score. Once finalised, this breakdown will be transparent to users.

Rewards

Rewards distributed from the social consensus protocol will take the form of WAIV & ALGO.

A commentary on the Social Consensus Protocol

We are aware of the challenges that surround the idea of a social consensus protocol. People may argue that it may oppress the voices of the minorities, penalise those for expressing opposing opinions or force people to conform to a certain viewpoint or set of behaviours. This will not happen.

What a social consensus protocol does is incentivise users to rate the content they see accurately. As research has shown, when reviewers are vetted and paid to review products, their opinions are usually a stronger indication of quality. This shows that with the right incentive structure, accurate ratings and reviews are possible. Without any incentive to review honestly, users tend to express negative reviews more often and more extremely, with little reason to contribute positive reviews.

Interestingly, despite the current lack of incentive for honest online ratings and reviews, Podium’s report on online reviews shows that 93% of American consumers say that online reviews have an impact on their purchasing decisions. 91% of 18-34 year old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Star rating is the number one factor used by users to judge businesses.

It’s clear there is a substantial disconnect between the objective quality of information that online user ratings actually convey and the extent to which consumers trust them as indicators of objective quality. Within a social media platform, one could expect the same to hold true.

In the attention economy that we now live in, many people have tried to grow their followings on social's in the hope of reaching influencer status and monetising their reach. The issue here is that this is not a true indicator of influence. Perceived influence can be bought with several methods. This may include purchasing followers outright, and using automated bots to manipulate the numbers and engagements.

A social consensus protocol can provide a fairer weighting on influence based on a number of different metrics, not just the number of followers or members in a group they have. By factoring in ratings and engagements, social scale of community members, length of time on the platform etc. it can create an environment where there are wise influencers which are highly respected and centred towards the truth.

Ultimately, it will help to bring the power back in the hands of the community and can help to create a collaborative ecosystem that is centred towards fair appraisal.