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Vouch

github.com

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Re: Vouch

#371

Post by jcattle »

zbentley wrote: post #118
zozbot234 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub needs to implement eBay-like feedback for contributors. With not only reputation scores, but explanatory comments like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA++++++++++++ VERY GOOD CONTRIBUTIONS AND EASY TO WORK WITH. WOULD DEFINITELY MERGE THEIR WORK AGAIN!"

I know this is a joke, but pretending for a moment that it isn’t: this would immediately result in the rep system being gamed the same way it is on eBay: scam sellers can purchase feedback on cheap or self-shipping auctions and then pivot into defrauding people on high-dollar sales before being banned, rinse, and repeat.

Let's also see the differences: On github you can always see the interactions. On ebay, once a sale has been made, you have no idea what happens next. On Github you always have all the artifacts of where the reputation comes from.

Re: Vouch

#372

Post by phantomathkg »

andai wrote: post #139

It should just be $1 to submit PR. If PR is good, maintainer refunds you ;) I noticed the same thing in communication. Communication is now so frictionless, that almost all the communication I receive is low quality. If it cost more to communicate, the quality would increase. But the value of low quality communication is not zero: it is actively harmful, because it eats your time.

This means someone with tons of money can spam anyone repo, while the lower income people cannot raise as many PR or speak as much as the filthy rich.

Re: Vouch

#373

Post by jcattle »

Loughla wrote: post #90
zozbot234 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub needs to implement eBay-like feedback for contributors. With not only reputation scores, but explanatory comments like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA++++++++++++ VERY GOOD CONTRIBUTIONS AND EASY TO WORK WITH. WOULD DEFINITELY MERGE THEIR WORK AGAIN!"

The ones I've never understood are: Prompt payment. Great buyer. I can't check out unless I pay. How is that feedback?

On auctions, you do not have to provide a payment method to bid. So once you won an auction you still have to pay the agreed price. Only after the buyer paid, does the seller get the shipment address. Depending on the buyer this can take longer or shorter (or won't happen at all).

Re: Vouch

#374

Post by bjt »

jcattle wrote: post #369

Just a thought: Around the world, most* online classifieds pages have site-wide ways to provide feedback on interactions. Ebay has stars, Germanys Kleinanzeigen has :) :| :( etc etc. Maybe something like this could be useful for open source collaboration as well? *with the notable exception of craigslist

I had a similar thought, but I think there's a key difference here.

Traditional karma scores, star counts, etc, are mostly just counters. I can see that a bunch of people upvoted, but these days it's very easy for most of those votes to come from bots or spam farms.

The important difference that I see with Vouch is not just that I'm incrementing a counter when I vouch for you, but that I am publicly telling the world "you can trust this person". And if you turn out to be untrustworthy, that will cost me something in a much more meaningful way than if some Github project that I starred turns out to be untrustworthy. If my reputation stands to suffer from being careless in what I vouch for, then I have a stronger incentive to verify your trustworthiness before I vouch for you, AND I have an ongoing incentive to discourage you from abusing the trust you've been given.

Re: Vouch

#375

Post by nl »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #365
nl wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but your average developer doesn't have a lot of agency in if the US invades another country in order to increase the value of the coin they got for having a PR merged. But with crypto they do. See for example all the BAGS coins that get created for random opensource projects and the behavior that occurs because of that.

The average developer also doesn't have a lot of agency with respect to how major chains like Ethereum are run either, but they can use them. Creating your own chain just because you can rather than because you actually have a reason to implement the technology in a different way than anybody else should be disfavored and viewed with suspicion.

I'm talking about your own coin, not chain.

ERC20 tokens are part of Ethereum (and yes I realise there are also non ETH based tokens and that the gas cost of Eth makes them attractive etc etc)

Re: Vouch

#376

Post by lejalv »

geysersam wrote: post #361
andai wrote: post #139

It should just be $1 to submit PR. If PR is good, maintainer refunds you ;) I noticed the same thing in communication. Communication is now so frictionless, that almost all the communication I receive is low quality. If it cost more to communicate, the quality would increase. But the value of low quality communication is not zero: it is actively harmful, because it eats your time.

Or just don't refund it. Most people want to make contributions to open source, and everyone can afford $1. Exceptions can be made for very active contributors.

In fact, we can use an automated schedule: first PR - if rejected, 5€ are drawn from the contributor’s account, then 4€, 3€, etc (plug in your favourite decreasing function, round to 0€ when sufficiently close).

But, crucially, if accepted, the contributor gets to draw 5€ from the repository’s fund of failed PRs (if it is there), so that first bona fide contributors are incentiviced to contribute. Nobody gets to profit from failed PRs except successful new contributors. Virtuous cycle, does not appeal to the individual self-interest of repo maintainers.

One thing I am unsure of is whether fly-by AI contributions are typically made with for-free AI or there's already a hidden cost to them. This expected cost of machine-driven contribution is a factor to take into account when coming up with the upside/downside of first PR.

PS. this is a Gedankenexperiment, I am not sure what introducing monetary rewards / penalties would do to the social dynamics, but trying with small amounts may teach us something.

Re: Vouch

#377

Post by dncnmcdougall »

Hi, thank you for putting in the work to share and manage this. Having read the commands I noted that there are only two options available: vouched and not, with denounced being a harder not vouches. I was wondering if it would help to separate this into three levels: vouched (positive), not vouched (neutral) and denounced (negative)? Then a project could allow PRs from 'not vouvhed' contributers, but have the option of denouncing them. This would leave the communities open to new contributions, while giving a way to reject bad actors. Then vouched users could have extra privileges. Perhaps authority to denounce, or merge. Although those are already gates by contribution rights on the underlying forge.

So is there value in a three state system, rather than a 2 state?

Re: Vouch

#378

Post by collingreen »

phantomathkg wrote: post #372
andai wrote: post #139

It should just be $1 to submit PR. If PR is good, maintainer refunds you ;) I noticed the same thing in communication. Communication is now so frictionless, that almost all the communication I receive is low quality. If it cost more to communicate, the quality would increase. But the value of low quality communication is not zero: it is actively harmful, because it eats your time.

This means someone with tons of money can spam anyone repo, while the lower income people cannot raise as many PR or speak as much as the filthy rich.

Which is true now as well, but at least the cost is more than zero

Re: Vouch

#379

Post by johnnyanmac »

phantomathkg wrote: post #372
andai wrote: post #139

It should just be $1 to submit PR. If PR is good, maintainer refunds you ;) I noticed the same thing in communication. Communication is now so frictionless, that almost all the communication I receive is low quality. If it cost more to communicate, the quality would increase. But the value of low quality communication is not zero: it is actively harmful, because it eats your time.

This means someone with tons of money can spam anyone repo, while the lower income people cannot raise as many PR or speak as much as the filthy rich.

The incentives are way off too. Now you have a financial incentive as a maintainter to throw out normally well meaning PR's as "bad".

Re: Vouch

#380

Post by Fnoord »

strken wrote: post #276
Fnoord wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a privileged solution. And a stupid one, too. Because $1 is worth a lot more for someone in India, than someone in USA. If you want to implement this more fairly, you'd be looking at something like GDP or BBP plus geolock. Streaming services perfected this mechanism already.

This might be by design. Almost anyone writing software professionally at a level beyond junior is getting paid enough that $1 isn't a significant expense, whether in India or elsewhere. Some projects will be willing to throw collaboration and inclusivity out the window if it means cutting their PR spam by 90% and only reducing their pool of available professional contributors by 5%.

Students don't have a lot of money to burn here. They're borrowing money to study. You'll miss out on them. However, you're unlikely to notice. I mean, there is no control group in such experiment.
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