Comments on: Account metrics beyond the account balance

By: Guillaume Lebleu

Guillaume Lebleu — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:56:35 +0000

http://timebank.sfbace.org/

By: Molly

Molly — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:34:11 +0000

There's a San Francisco Time Bank? What's the website?

By: Jussi Rytkönen

Jussi Rytkönen — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:09:43 +0000

In most cases, yes, but the cross zero model does leave room for people who might try to scam the system (by build enough trust to take one big credit they never intend to pay back). But yea, there are many things you good look for to calculate the trustspace; total ammount of transactions probably being one of the most important ones.

Hmm, maybe i should study the protocol more, but i don't understand how is Ripple centralized or hierarchical? I agree it's quite complex for new users to understand at first, but this could be alleviated by good default setting (e.g. 20€ per friend trust limits).

By: Guillaume Lebleu

Guillaume Lebleu — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:09:38 +0000

What a painful name! but yes, it's a valuable metric that could be displayed on a profile page.

Note I'm not talking about credit limits here, as I think it is difficult to come up with a rule that will work w/o human input in all context. I see these metrics more as various "visualizations" that can help people make decisions about trading with or gifting someone.

By: Guillaume Lebleu

Guillaume Lebleu — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:02:04 +0000

The well-being of the society requires trade happening. Even if someone is able to manipulate how many times the cross zero, they still have contributed positively to society while minimizing risk by trading.

I like Ripple too, but as a payment routing protocol that alleviates the need for a hierarchical, centralized, known single path of settlement. On the other hand, I think that specifying credit limits for each of your friends seems unpractical. Most people in the real world seem to be quite happy to leave this to a credit intermediary.

By: Jussi Rytkönen

Jussi Rytkönen — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:13:53 +0000

I'm affraid that the "cross zero" model could be fairly easily manipulated, by making small transactions back and forth when a person is close to their own zero line. And anyway, why should those transaction be more wothfull than if, lets say, you make the same transactions when your own balance is bit more on the positive side? But the idea of a trustspace itself, is a great one.

Personally, i'm in favour of "personal currencies", such as the Ripple model. In those, your "trustspace" depends on how many of your friends trust your ability to pay back your personal currency, that you create each time you trade it for some service: http://blogit.helsinki.fi/aivomassaa/social_mon...

9 min video explaining Ripple: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySzqM5dpF7s

By: Tom Brown

Tom Brown — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:54:51 +0000

greco refers to a useful “reflux rate” metric for determining credit limits. it seems a slightly simpler measurement of credits earned per time interval would be helpful in some cases.