Cameesa - The Blog

Jeff Howe has an interesting post about the limits of crowdsourcing.  In it, he sights how the crowdsourced news site Digg is experiencing another user revolt because the site has removed 80 some nefarious user accounts.  Digg works by allowing users to vote for news stories, and displaying the most popular ones.  The offending accounts are accused of attempting to game the service by automating the voting process.

There is a high perceived value in having a story with many votes, as it will be seen by a large number of people.  Enterprising deviants will obviously try to find ways to promote specific stories because it gives them a sense of control over the media and free press for whomever they choose.  It’s like a value added service almost.

This exposes a key flaw in online voting based crowdsourcing: the ability for minority control.  The values of crowdsourcing espouse democracy and wide-range group thought.  However, on the internet one person can appear as many by writing programs to manage multiple user accounts.  How do you combat this?

First, we need to examine to value of an anonymous online vote, or “digg” as it’s called.  If I digg something, what does that actually mean?  Ideally, a digg should be a reflection of my tastes.  I would have read the story, found it useful, and “dugg” it to say to the world: “I endorse this”.  But the ideal scenario breaks down because of the anonymity of the internet.  On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.  So digging a story really says nothing about the real life you.

The value of a digg is therefore worth the amount of time it takes you to click the “digg this” button.  But what if you could write a program to do that?  The value of a digg then approaches nothing.  Therefore, the challenge for the Digg team, and anyone in voting based crowdsourcing, is to encourage users to care about their reputation.  It is the only way to give currency to a digg and meaning to the system.

Instead of trying to give currency to a virtual object (a digg), why not just use REAL currency to allow people to signal their intentions?  That is what we are doing with Cameesa.  We realize that an online vote has little value, due to anonymity and inherent gaming, and believe that true group opinions are best taken online with crowdfunding.