I wrote this three years ago, and I'd still like to see something like it implemented. Now we've got Bitcoin, implementing it might be much easier; I'd love to see a bitcoin bbs/forum that uses these ideas to reward thoughtful, high-quality discussion (replace "email list" everywhere below with "discussion forum" and I think it all still works):
I was listening to "The Ethics of Liberty" yesterday, and it got me thinking about email lists.
Most email discussion lists seem to suffer from a Tragedy of the Commons-- there's not a whole lot of motivation for people posting their opinions to think twice about spouting off, or going on and on and on, or otherwise polluting the list with stuff that the subscribers to the list might consider junk.
There are a couple of solutions to these kinds of problems. You can try to set up some kind of policing system, with trusted moderators given the power to bless posts, ban people, etc. You need really thick-skinned, generous-hearted, even-tempered moderators for that to work.
A solution that works in the real world that hasn't been tried for the email mailing list problem (as far as I know) is some kind of economic system, where the common resource is given a value and anybody wanting to use the resource must pay rent (which is then used to maintain the resource).
So, here's a thumbnail sketch of how this might work for an email mailing list:
Create an artificial currency. If you have enough of this currency, you're allowed to post messages to the list. Longer posts cost more than shorter posts.
Everybody starts with some amount of this currency. Everybody is allowed to use it themselves, give it away, or sell it (for real money!) to people who want to use it to post messages.
Every message posted includes ways of:
- Tagging the message as "Worthwhile" --> transfers currency from your account to the poster's account.
- Tagging the message as "Waste of my Time" --> transfers currency from poster's account to the common pool of currency.
The amount of currency in the system is tied to the desired message traffic. We all have a limited attention span; basically, the trick will be to create an artificial economy so that the people who contribute positively are encouraged to contribute more, and people who "pollute" are punished.
Currency goes into the system every day (again, based on desired message traffic per day). Some is assigned to new people signing up for the list, and the rest evenly distributed to everybody already on the list.
"Lurkers" on the list could either hoard their currency, offer to sell it, or give it away to people from whom they want to hear more.