You may also want to check out the rest of http://potlatch.net as well if you are interested in GiftEconomy issues.
Inspired by OpenCulture, a GiftWiki allows users to make donations to Wiki authors.
As a Wiki experiment we could play with toy-money.
After some experience, we may easily switch to PayPal or Google:Amazon+Honor+System enhancements. Of course smart Wiki entrepreneurs could skip phases 1,2.
With toy-money, this is essentially a rating system. Maybe even with real money, it's still a rating system, although with bigger bite.
Should the authors' earnings be hidden or published? If they are made public, positive feedback loops will likely come into the picture so that it may become difficult for newcomers to "break through" and get exposure.
Let's have a look into Google:Fairtunes, a real donation-based paying system for musicians. They leave the option to the donor, if being listed or not. "Without loss of generality" listing options for money sources and targets could be build into the GiftWiki. Thus the donors and the artists decide their listing mode. Example for
It's kind of a voting system, where the users "vote with their dollars" and so we could perhaps build on WikiVoting implementations (with some additional work).
1000$ toy-money to the first Wiki pioneer who realizes it!
One thing that a GiftWiki may need is a way to determine AuthorshipCredit for the various contributions.
Contributors: FridemarPache, SunirShah
I was a bit interested in the WxWidgets? experiments with 'bounties', an attempt to induce developers to add specific features that a user wanted to faster. It did not seem to work and a cursory review implied that the $100-$200 range was just too low to be adequately attractive.
I've also been discussing a Competitive approach that is code named RosenThal? and have asked someone who is much more aware of this approach than I am to write up a bit of the learning from that environment since I am considering resurrecting it as a way of helping the UniversityOfWaterloo? Co-op program.
Linked thoughts that I may eventually flesh out:
-- HansWobbe