Ideas and Initiatives Development Protocol

     Basic Function of the Ecosystem:

A blockchain based ideas/initiatives development protocol (IDP) provides an efficient and accessible platform that facilitates the development of projects. An IDP has the potential to play a significant role in the future economy. Anyone can pose an idea or initiative to the ecosystem, which can then be critiqued and improved upon by independent actors globally. There are many different forms that this can take, and many different ways to incentivise participation.

     Basic Function of the Protocol:

When an idea is posed, anyone can critique and/or improve upon it, these changes will only be implemented if a majority consensus of participating individuals believe the change to be beneficial. At the outset of a project, changes will be confirmed/denied by the initiator, as this person is the only involved party at the time. Persons who contribute to the idea are given weighted voting rights which correspond to the magnitude of their contributions. There will be an inbuilt communication system so that contributors may align efforts more efficiently. In effect, one may propose an underdeveloped yet nascent idea, and have a community of participating individuals emerge, eventually creating a distributed ecosystem of development that advances based on consensus decision-making.

     Proposal Priority:

Due to the fact that popular ideas may receive many contributions, there must be a well designed proposal priority solution. All proposals will be readily viewable, though the order in which they appear will depend on the following 2 principles:

• digital identity systems will enable the protocol to give priority to proposals based upon the author’s reputation. Three main factors will contribute to this reputation: qualification, peer review and past experience. For example; if a financial services protocol is undergoing development, a proposal submitted by someone who has a masters in economics, has been independently verified to be competent by peers, and has a history of experience in banking would be given priority over proposals offered by less qualified individuals
• an inbuilt, publicly available voting system will also influence proposal priority based upon both vote quantity and the ratio between positive/negative votes. This system ensures that anyone can contribute (despite potential lack of digital reputation) so long as their contributions are useful. For example, a proposal with 100 positive votes vs 5 negative votes from the public sphere would rank higher in priority than one with a lower volume of votes and a less favourable voting ratio.
  It is likely that insignificant contributions will never be reviewed, thus there will be a programmable time frame after which they are automatically erased.
  
  
       Participation Weighting and Voting Rights:

As has been mentioned, participating individuals will be granted weighted voting rights based upon the magnitude of their contributions. These will most likely be determined by a publicly viewable peer review system in which participants rank the magnitude of contributions as they occur. This process must be openly viewable to all participants, as each system actor would be naturally incentivised to underrate peer contributions. By making this process public, participants who undervalue peer contributions will likely receive similar treatment; hence incentivising universal fairness in contribution magnitude scaling. The overall contribution percentage for any given individual will determine the weight of this persons vote. There may be the need to place a maximum limit on vote weighting. There must also be a means of measuring the activity levels of a participating individual due the fact that a consensus is required to implement changes. If participating individuals become inactive, the consensus decision making process must remain intact. Methods of weighting the magnitude of initial idea creation will need to be further explored and will vary from project to project. Additionally, the initiator of an idea or project may choose (from the outset) to have ultimate authority over public ecosystem decisions (or at least a high % vote weighting) to ensure that the initiative eventuates in accordance with the creators original vision. Outside of the basic participant consensus mode of development, project initiators may choose any given set of developmental parameters to suit the varying needs of each project.

     Communication Platform:

There must be an inbuilt communications platform with both public and private variations. The public variant facilitates a broader discussion of ideas and initiatives, and provides an openly available, non-exclusive means of collaboration and contribution. The private variation will only be available to participating individuals involved in a particular project. This is necessary as it enables coordination between significant contributors to achieve maximum efficiency. Contributors may send text messages, arrange conference calls, or even potentially unite in the physical world to advance the development of an idea.

     Financial Incentives:

Patenting: if desired, there will be an inbuilt patenting system in which particular ideas are patented from the outset, and all updates are automatically included in the patent. Patent ownership will be distributed among contributors based upon the weight of their contributions, which is determined by the aforementioned magnitude weighting system. If an idea approaches completion, and an offer is made to purchase the rights to this idea; a consensus of participants is required to either accept or deny this offer. The proceeds will be distributed among contributors based upon percentage patent ownership. A consensus in excess of 50% will likely be required for such a decision (e.g. 75% consensus may be required for patent sale).

Public Investment: if desired, a project may allow the public to contribute financially, and receive a percentage ownership of the project in return. These contributions may be allocated to contributor wages and/or potential capital requirements (e.g. supercomputing). Funds will likely be held in escrow, a consensus amongst both investors and contributors will be required to access these funds. These investments may become increasingly attractive as the value of intellectual property grows **.

Donations: there will also be a donation system which enables financial contributions from public persons. These contributions may be distributed among participants based upon the weight of their contributions. Alternative donation allocation methods may also be utilised. This form of financing will mostly be relevant for non-profit projects.

Payment for Solutions: one may assign a task to the system, and financially (or otherwise) incentivise persons to complete this task. The way in which this is enacted will vary from project to project, some will simply reward an individual person for solving an issue, in other cases the reward may be distributed amongst contributors based upon the extent of their contributions. Rewards may not always exist in terms of currency, one may offer other forms of value as rewards for completing tasks.

      Legal Requirements:

All legal parameters (patent ownership etc.) will be coded into the protocol, the development of sound legal structure will be a major hurdle in development. All participating individuals will have to agree to strict terms and conditions, legal conditions must be black and white else substantial inefficiencies will occur in legal disputes.

      From Public to Private:

Development Stage: if an ideas development ecosystem has grown to a point of high efficiency, and/or contributors wish to make further developments in private, a consensus of individuals may vote to remove the project from the public sphere. Often times this will not be wise as the public ecosystem will typically develop more rapidly, however, some circumstances may require this decision to be made. In such a case, only existing contributors may view and improve upon the project. A consensus among existing members will have the power to give viewership/improvement-proposal permission to a non-contributor if this person is considered likely to add value to the project.

Production Stage: at this stage, privatisation and/or production may occur in a variety of ways. A protocol developed by one of these groups may be purchased and put into use by a private firm. Alternatively, in the case of the development of projects such as an autonomous organisation protocol, this may be enacted by simply putting it into action in the public sphere. In any case, the IDP provides a platform where public/private ideas, public/private human resources and public/private capital may interact to produce desired results.

      Forks:

Forks in IDP projects are likely to occur. This may occur for legitimate reasons (e.g. a minority group of contributors may wish to steer development in a different direction to that which has been chosen by the majority consensus), or fraudulent/illegitimate reasons (e.g. whereby a non-contributor copies an idea with hopes to outpace the public ecosystem for personal benefit). This is an area that would require meticulous legal attention.

Permissioned Forks:
There must be clearly defined conditions under which a legitimate fork may occur, as well as clearly defined project ownership rights attributed to the original contributors. A statistically relevant percentage of participants would be required to enact a minor fork legally (e.g. 20%). This is to ensure the legitimacy of a fork, otherwise a non-participant may offer a minor contribution for the sole purpose of gaining access to fork the project. Additionally, the contribution weighting of original developers must be transferred to the forked project. This will be represented by percentage project ownership, not voting rights. Original contributors must not have voting power on forked projects else they may intentionally sabotage development. Significant consideration will be required to determine the exact legal parameters for these situations to ensure fork participants do not intentionally collude to overweight future developments, minimising the percentage ownership of original contributors. Multiple issues arise when considering the sale of forked projects, I have not yet created exact solutions, but nonetheless, forks will have to adhere to rigorous sale-eligibility requirements (will potentially require an independent 3rd party tribunal, dispute resolution team and original project involvement etc.).

Illegitimate Forks: and plagiarism are another major concern for such a project. These practices are illegal, and thus perpetrators will be subject to legal ramifications if proven guilty. The improved accountability that will exist in the era of digital identity will help to minimise these issues. Any contact between a person and a project (including viewing) must be recorded so that plagiarism can be proven more easily. Furthermore, it would (in many cases) be unwise to attempt to plagiarise and compete with public development privately due to the efficiency of IDP development. This area requires further consideration and development from more experienced and qualified individuals than I.

      Revenue Generation for Active Staffing

Due to the dynamic and complex nature of the IDP, active personnel would be required to ensure maximum operational efficiency of the protocol (developers, dispute resolution, legal advisors etc.). Therefore the protocol must generate revenue to pay wages. This may be achieved through any or all of the following methods. The IDP may assume a small percentage ownership of all patented projects developed on the protocol; in such a case, the IDP would receive funding as a result of the generation of value on the protocol. Additionally, the IDP may implement a regressive tax on capital contributions. There would need to be a relatively low maximum placed on taxation quantity (per contribution) to avoid dis-incentivising potential contributors. Furthermore, persons will be able to donate to the IDP. Persons will also be able to tip assistants directly if their service is valued. This is not an exhaustive list of potential means of capital generation.

Reasons for the Development of an Initiatives Development Protocol

      Hypothetical Applications:

Decentralised organisation protocols - may replace existing institutions/corporations in the long term as they have the potential to operate more efficiently. Centralised business structures are the only immediately viable solution to unite the factors of production as they are the only available institution with the organisational capacity to do so. A well designed blockchain based enterprise organisation protocol has the power to make some existing institutions/corporations redundant, as they may provide the same functional purpose, though with more benefits to both producers and consumers. A simple example of improved efficiency: there is no centralised authority taking profit from the function of the system, this excess capital may be used to lower prices and/or increase wages of participating individuals. These systems may be more dynamic and develop more quickly than existing organisations, and may be able to respond more quickly to changes in consumer demand. The aforementioned statements are not justified within this text as the purpose of this text is not to explain the benefits of decentralised organisation. The value of an IDP in the development of these organisational protocols is highly significant as existing institutions are not incentivised to facilitate their creation. An IDP provides an efficient alternative that may be used to create these systems.

Academia - this protocol will provide a wide range of benefits in academia, the following list identifies a few of these benefits, alongside a few protocol parameters. The following list is incomplete and underdeveloped:

• more efficient means of peer reviewing and achieving academic consensus
• publishers may set viewer/contribution permission requirements (e.g. all persons may view, and only persons with a given set of qualifications and experience may contribute/critique)
• efficient means of organising intellectual and capital resources, like-minded persons with either similar or dissonant perspectives may easily collaborate, debate, and exchange/combine resources to further advance understanding in a given field
• has the potential to further encourage collaboration as opposed to competition in academia, whereby a multitude of institutions may work together on a single project whilst still being attributed the full weight of their contributions. Though not infallibly so, institutions are incentivised to participate due to the greater developmental efficiency of this system, if one were working on a project that was also being developed on the IDP, the combined efforts of IDP contributors would likely exceed those of any single institution - henceforth incentivising participation to retain relevance. (Assuming widespread pervasion of the platform)
• provides a more viable means of crowdfunding research from both public and private entities
• potential to provide global access to academic resources, which will naturally accelerate development due to the engagement of formerly unengaged intellectual resources.

Employment Opportunities - This system would provide opportunities for both employers and job-seekers. Employers may simply streamline the job application process by placing a job offer as an initiative on the platform with desired participation requirements (e.g. geographical location, qualification, experience), to ensure that only qualified applications are received. Furthermore, employers may pose a task that job-seekers must complete to gauge the utility of persons to the company. These tasks may be arbitrary, intellectual or genuinely useful to the company. On the other hand, it would provide a new means of proving worth for job-seekers. University qualifications are not always sufficient, this protocol provides an efficient means for job-seekers to prove utility in real world scenarios. Companies with insufficient resources to perform required tasks may financially incentivise ecosystem participants to complete them. This may be done by either posing a task to the public ecosystem and issuing a financial reward for it’s completion, or by using the ecosystem to connect with individuals/organisations capable of completing such tasks.
In the latter scenario, an escrow payment system combined with a trusted digital identity assessment would be necessary to ensure security and fairness for both parties. As a result of these potential use cases, the IDP would provide a hub of opportunity for freelance professionals.
Another means by which employment may occur on the IDP is in that private firms may offer employment to talented contributors. This can be done by simply observing project developers with specific talents and observing past contributions, or may be enacted following the purchase of a patented project. In the latter case, a private firm may choose to employ key contributors to continue to develop and manage the project into the future.

Facilitate the Development of Complex, Non-Profit Initiatives - There are many initiatives that require capital, labour and organisation that do not provide the financial incentive required to come to fruition. This protocol would allow for the development of publicly desired passion projects; areas of work that are completed for the result of their completion and not as a means of generating financial reward. This protocol provides a platform on which likeminded persons may pool capital and intellectual resources together to achieve common goals. The public may also offer financial contributions which may be fairly and efficiently allocated. Funds may be held in an escrow system that requires consensus amongst both capital and developmental contributors for these funds to be released. These may be paid as wages, or used to satisfy capital requirements for development (supercomputing costs etc.). A potential example of such a project is in the development of a Governmental Organisation Protocol (on which I have written a brief, underdeveloped thesis). The theoretical elements underpinning the proposed system have the potential to offer enormous benefits to society, though it would require a sustained effort from many expert individuals create a truly viable solution. A project like this is far too enormous in scope for any independent individual or group to complete, and the required resources are unlikely to be provided by existing institutions. The IDP provides a platform where such ideas may be adopted by a global ecosystem of interested parties, and have the potential to develop rapidly. In effect, initiatives that are supported by experts and common persons alike have the potential to grow into dynamic, efficient, publicly funded developmental ecosystems capable of extraordinary results.

      Benefits:

Efficiency and Incentive - (in terms of business and markets) when one comes up with a great idea, they are incentivised to develop it either individually or in an independent group to ensure that they receive full remuneration for their creation. This is often an inefficient means of development. The collective intelligence and resources of a larger group should (theoretically) develop more rapidly and produce better results. At any given time, there are many different individuals/groups working on similar projects without communication or collaboration. It is likely that only few of these efforts will succeed due to the competitive nature of markets. In such a case, the resources consumed by all other development groups are wasted as their project is made redundant. This is a highly inefficient means of development. The introduction of an IDP provides platform on which these independent actors may collaborate whilst still being accredited the full weight of their contributions. Assuming widespread pervasion of the IDP, persons will be naturally incentivised to participate, as it is likely that IDP projects will accelerate more quickly than independent efforts. If one does not participate, ones efforts are likely to be made redundant without any contribution accreditation.

Ability to Provide Foundation, and let the Public Sector Complete - many great initiatives exist, though often times initiators lack the resources required to bring projects to fruition. The IDP provides a platform on which one may initiate development by proposing the basis of a project, and have the combined capital and intellectual resources of the ecosystem develop it into a valuable product. For the most part, the ecosystem will naturally tend toward the development of valuable/demanded projects. This is because projects that gain traction (participators and public/private capital) will be those that are deemed useful to the public sphere. Conversely, projects with little potential/viability will not be developed. In practice, anyone may propose an initiative to the IDP, and so long as it’s a genuinely valuable project, an autonomous global ecosystem of talent, intellect and capital may develop this idea into reality.

Global Access - the IDP would be freely accessible, providing opportunities to individuals globally. It has the potential to provide access to academic research and materials for those that would otherwise be unable to participate. It may provide an alternative means of generating income for those with minimal facilities. Anyone can access and assess material on the protocol, the only requirement for participation is that you provide some form of value. An enormous percentage of the world does not have access to any form of academia or enterprise opportunity, and as a result, a significant percentage of global talent and intellect is not utilised. The IDP has the potential to provide a platform that enables the utilisation of a significantly higher percentage of global intellectual resources. The benefits of this improved efficiency are enormous, not only do participants benefit themselves based on the value of their contributions, but the net increase in publicly desired project development has immense positive implications for the whole world.

I have not detailed the extent of use cases and potential that exists for such a protocol. The basic digital infrastructure could be optimised to provide alternative functions (e.g. securely financially incentivising problem solving by utilising escrow services and digital identity). I have not included all preconceived design parameters for sake of brevity. This text is to be considered underdeveloped and insufficient. The extent of design architecture provided is infinitesimally limited, and some of it may well be flawed. My intention in writing this text is simply to illustrate the potential of such a system and hopefully inspire others to consider developing an Ideas/Initiative Development Protocol. The reader is invited to critique any of the information provided, and furthermore encouraged to propose improvements to the system detailed.


For any additional information or enquiries, please email me at lewiesc@hotmail.com or leave a comment on this article. Thank you.