Challenges
We know that building a distributed oracle like DeCartography has many challenges, including withstanding various hacks, not being dominated by a simple majority, and having a skewed community of contributors (crowd workers).
We have been building DeCartography publicly since Jun 24-26, 2022 and are designing it while seeking input from the broader community. Here are some of the challenges and solutions we are particularly aware of.
Prevention of tampering
Coordinated hacks (collusion) are a significant risk to open rating systems, and in order for DeCartography's social graph to be effective, such attempts must be countered. Currently, the program is taking multiple steps to reduce the likelihood of such manipulation.
All cloud workers will be required to sign in with Gitcoin Passport. (The Beta version uses Google sign-in.) This is an integration of multiple 1 person, 1 ID protocols, which will allow the operators to guarantee 1Person, 1ID. These standards are in place to prevent the creation of large numbers of fake or disguised crowdworker accounts that could be used for fraudulent evaluations.
Second, DeCartography is not structured to adopt answers supported by a majority, as is the case with many engagement-based ranking systems. Instead, it will use Peer-Prediction-Method. (Not implemented in the beta version) For a person's answer to have a significant impact, people in different clusters must also agree.
Academic research suggests that such bridging-based ranking will help identify healthier, higher quality content and reduce the risk of elevating polarizing content.
Those with a track record of quality contributions to responses will have a higher Common Sense Score, while newer accounts that do not yet have a track record of responses will have a lower Common Sense Score; the compensation DeCartography pays for end-user work is determined according to this "Common Sense." Feedback? Ideas?
We welcome your feedback on these and other risks and challenges, as well as ideas for addressing them; please contact us via DM at @DeCartography.