The Gidah.com Token Network was built for many reasons, but one of the primary reasons it exists is to increase the value of information exchanged over the internet. In short--we're ending SPAM completely and forever.
EditInformation Insurance
SPAM is a menace. It clogs up the internet, drags down the value of forums and blogs, and most importantly wastes the time of everyone--especially those who moderate or administer information exchanges.
The reason SPAM is such a menace is because the information shared in SPAM is valueless to most people. Rarely, a SPAM will find someone who finds value in the message, but generally speaking SPAM is valueless. The only way to solve the SPAM problem is to create a tool that can be used to insure that any information you receive has value. This is the essence of Information Insurance.
The Gidah.com Token Network allows developers to create software that implements Information Insurance. Implementing this scenario will increase the value of information exchanged.
Here's how forums operate today:
Forums exist to exchange valuable information. Unfortunately, spammers and other folks often contribute posts that are valueless: they are off-topic, poorly worded, inappropriate, obscene or whatever the moderator deems to be worthless. Although forum operators want the public to contribute to the forum, ideally everyone would contribute valuable information. Sadly, that doesn't happen.
The reason it doesn't happen is because there is no way for a moderator to know the value of a post until he has to spend the time to read it. By the time he figures out it's valueless, he's already wasted his time--time which can't be recovered.
EditImplemented
With the Gidah.com Token Network this problem ends overnight! Here's how the Information Insurance scenario plays out in the new, and improved forum:
A forum user wishes to post an article to the forum. He carefully crafts his article and prepares to post it to the forum. When he goes to hit the post button he sees that the forum requires him to insure that the value of his post is adequate for the forum. To do this, he must post a $0.50 token with his article.
When the moderator receives the post he reads through it and determines the value included in the text. If he is satisfied with the value of the post he lets it be posted to the forum and that's the end of it.
If, however, he reads through the post and realizes that it's spam, is off-topic, or does not have the value he expects it to have, he redeems the $0.50 token and gets a small payment for the moment he spent moderating.
Think about that for a minute, as there's myriad ways this could go. The token requirement can be for any value -- the moderator determines it. For highly scientific sites where the expectation is peer-reviewed quality, the token requirement could be $50. Or, it could be much lower.
The benefit here is that the higher you go, the more likely you will receive high-quality information. Of course you'll have to decide where the limit is because you don't want to discourage posting. The lower you go, the more posts you'll get, but they'll be generally lower in value--since you expect that by setting the price low.
The super benefit here is that you will no longer have valueless information. Nobody will risk real money to post spam. But if they do risk real money to post something you know that at least they think it's valuable information. It's information insurance!
For sites that aren't moderated by a person, but have a community ranking, there's another exciting feature about the Token Network called Token Locking.
Suppose in the same scenario above there is a community ranking system. When the user posts his article the token is immediately Locked. From that moment until the expiration date of the token, the community ranks the article posted. At the end of the ranking period if the article receives a high enough score, the token is ignored and allowed to expire. But if the article receives a low score, the token is redeemed and the forum generates a little revenue (and the article automatically removed from the site!)
We now have completely automated, peer-reviewed spam removal for our forums. And, the forum generates a little revenue from time to time when someone posts a low-rated article! This revenue could eventually replace those pesky advertisements...but that's a different story.