Actually about a year ago I was working on a project to help merge electronic tokens and 'reputation'. The idea was to reinforce contributions to the net and acknowledge them in a tangible manner The classic method of gauging respect has become more difficult as the growth of the net has resutlted in a surfeit of citizens who simply haven't learned the idea of contribution and net community, nor how to judge the level of respect that others have. We'd seed a certain # of tokens amongst FAQ maintainers, moderators, and those who are active in helping on lists and forums. A group would be chosen to help decide how to split up the seed tokens. This group would not be eligible for any tokens themselves (they'd be selected from those we felt were the most active, oddly they'd be earning old style respect, that is contributing their time in distributing tokens without being able to earn any.) Still under discussion was how to bring more tokens into the system. One was to continue to distribute tokens based on a standard for certain actions and further nominations as judged by the council (which would change membership itself over time.) The second was to have an actual foundation set up to accept contributions to be distributed to other net related non-profits. Thus for those who don't have the time or knowledge base to contribute to the net, they can actually contribute money to aid net-related groups. The tokens could be exchanged when people answer questions, as favors. Part of the money from the foundation would be to have gatherings which would 'cost' tokens, so those who have put in their time and labor could mix and listen to speakers, enjoy a nice dinner, etc. Anyway, just interesting to see the topic come up now in the Cypherpunk community. At the time, there were still some barriers between the objectives we were given by different people paying our own checks on the matter. Perhaps the idea of 'Friends of the Net' is now more pertinent. Feel free to drop me some email or cc back to the list. If enough people are interested, I'll look into the subject again. Jonathan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ..Jonathan Zamick Consensus Development Corporation.. ..<JonathanZ@consensus.com> 1563 Solano Ave, #355.. .. Berkeley, CA 94707-2116.. .. o510/559-1500 f510/559-1505.. ..Mosaic/WWW Home Page: .. .. Consensus Home Page ..