I have a cool idea for making contributions to the REPDEV Network rather attractive, but there seems to be a missing general component: A system that keeps track of all contributions for REPDEV.
The basic idea is that everything you do for REPDEV will be eventually rewarded by reputation once the reputation economy really takes off. In that case, early and important contributions will be worth a lot (perhaps even millions of $). But these early contributions need to be tracked somehow, so that reputation can be allocated appropriately.
In the best case, there would be a database of all contributions for REPDEV and everyone could browse that database in an easy and informative manner. So, everyone using QP will be able to give the early REPDEV contributors appropriate esteem, which will then translate into reputation incomes, once the system really takes off. Ideally, this would be a decentralized system that is immune to manipulation. The only problem is that such a system doesn’t seem to exist, yet.
There are partial solutions, though:
- Contributions of code (and texts) can be tracked by version control systems like Git, for example on GitHub.
- Donations/investments in cryptocurrencies are stored in blockchains. If the identity of the donor and the recipient are public, then the transaction can be verified by anyone by looking it up in the blockchain.
- Posts and edits in forums, blogs, and wikis are stored in their respective databases, but these databases can be manipulated by admins with access to these databases.
- The NSA knows everything anyway, but retrieving data from that agency is a bit hard
Tracking more informal contributions like conversations is harder. In theory, they could be recorded, but doing that would be quite awkward.
In any case, tracking all the different contributions across various different media is cumbersome, so this method won’t be actually used a lot for reputation allocation. Having one single “contribution portal” would be much preferable form the point of the user. Ideally with the option to allocate reputation on that portal. Perhaps even with default values for reputation allocation 
Such a contribution portal should ideally run on a decentralized web (via SAFE Network or via Ethereum) that is manipulation resistant.
But how will the supposed contributions be actually entered and verified? The simplest answer is that an admin enters all actions by the contributors manually. That doesn’t scale well. It would be better to let the supporters enter their actions and contributions on their own, if they want to be recognized for them. Then they could add evidence (web links, or documents for example) for that action to give them more credibility. Others could then verify the entered action or check the validity of the provided evidence. The system could then assign entered actions a “verification score” based on verification from others and based on the existence and the checks on provided evidence.
Such an action verification system could be used in many other areas, too. For example, it could be used by insurances or lawyers.
The problem is that creating such a system is about as difficult as creating an implementation of QP. It would be a serious web application in its own right!
So, we would need to use something else in the meanwhile. I’m quite open to suggestions. What kind of systems are trustworthy enough while being affordable (of course, we could use the help of notaries for really important stuff, but that would be very bothersome and not cheap at all)?