I have to warn that this is a work in progress and the authentication issue seems so massive that someone please alert the friendly trollls
mmm. as you might have guessed the system for direct voting relies on the vote-challenge-confirmation scheme used by many web based services ie. You get an email that says that "somebody (propably you) voted on these and these issues with your account and to confirm this you have to reply something to this message". As to the question of if this an adequate level of security will propably remain an disputable issue always, but will not propably crash the whole system due to the fact that people who feel that direct voting is not reliable can choose to view only the indirect votes, which are authenticated by cryptographically strong methods such as GnuPG.
The dual voting (direct+indirect) system provides improved reliability and flexibility for The Consumerium Exchange at the same time. Due to the dual voting system the exchange is less susceptible to distortion. It is propably better left unknown how people value these different votes on each issue or in general because it provides the intrigue and safety of not-knowing
This permits several factions to develop and align behind different views, and for those who choose a faction or a point of view defined by a faction on one issue, it permits buy or not decisions to be made clearly. Without this facility, there will be less "green light" and "red light" clarity, and more "yellow light" ambiguity.
The Consumerium Exchange does not necessarily determine whether the "red light" or "green light" goes off. In fact only those cases where a "yellow light" (caution) goes off, should really require anyone to read anything. --142.177.X.X
- Actually i think that The Consumerium Exchange _is_ what turns on and off the lights if you desire such a simple interface. Let me explain. Suppose there are three different levels of Boycott (avoid, boycott, strong boycott) and three levels of Endorsement (support, buy, strong buy) that the Campaign management chooses from. Then the algo for figuring which light out of the spectrum appears would roughly be the following:
- Give "weights" to each level. say -1,-2,-3 and 1,2,3
- Multiply the votes for each Campaign with the weight the campaign has set
- Divide the result with the total amount of votes in the Campaigns on this product
- Voila. We have a number that can be converted into a shade of light on your favourite spectrum
- This process will of course get a lot more complicated in practice due to that one has to take a stand on how to trust direct and indirect votes and further on how to trust different classes of direct votes and then there is of course the selective exclusion of votes that also affects the algo... -Juxo 17:14 Oct 1, 2003 (EEST)
Strange idea on turning the exchange into a casino:
- A bet. This is an actual monetary bet that over a certain period of time, a certain company, product, industry will not violate the norms, or will improve, or will never be red-lighted etc. Unlike a stock, option or bond purchase, this is a direct bet on the company's good behaviour, like a bail bond. If there is no problem with that product, company or industry, then the bet pays off with a modest return, similar to a bond - 5-10% above inflation perhaps. If there IS a problem, the value of the bet drops very drastically, becoming worthless if the product, company or industry does something to get itself fully red-lighted for the entire span of time of the bet.
- By keeping the bets visible here, we make the conflicts of interest visible too, rather than hidden as people move money in the background (which they will anyway). It's also clear who has the most to lose if a company is about to lose status, and, more of the debate will become visible, and more of it can thus be passed on to the company or stockholders, whose interests are exactly aligned with the bet-maker
- The money held in trust funds the whole Consumerium process and rollout, since it can be invested in various ways - ideally in ethical investing funds or sustainable forest product funds or something. This may require a backer or insurer to cover catastropic losses. No investment in any one company should be allowed for risk management purposes.