Operational parameters for the reaction system: reaction vocabulary, weighting between anonymous and registered, gaming resistance, and the connection to Sybil resistance broadly.
Why this matters
Entry 015 establishes the principle that Journal and Register entries surface reader reactions. The system's operational parameters determine whether the resulting signal is useful or noisy.
The risks are well-known: reaction stuffing, brigading, ratio-baiting, and the same Sybil dynamics that affect any low-friction engagement mechanic (G-004). The parameters need to be set so that the signal is robust enough to inform founder decisions without becoming a gameification distraction.
Sub-questions
- Vocabulary. What are the reaction primitives? Binary (+1 / -1)? Ternary (support / neutral / concern)? Tagged ("important to me", "needs clarification", "wrong")? Each adds expressiveness at the cost of increased ambiguity in aggregation.
- Weighting. How are anonymous reactions weighted relative to registered reactions? Equal? Anonymous reactions counted but displayed separately? Registered reactions weighted by Power once Power exists?
- Per-IP / per-session limits. What rate-limiting applies to anonymous reactions to bound stuffing without harming legitimate diverse-IP traffic (e.g., shared offices, mobile users, school networks)?
- Visibility of own reaction. Can a reader see their own reaction count back? Can registered users see their reaction history across entries?
- Reversal. Can reactions be retracted? Within a time window? At any time? Permanently destructive or counter-decremented?
- Display. Do counts appear on the entry, on the index, both? Are totals shown or only aggregate sentiment ("mostly support")? Does display itself bias subsequent reactions (anchoring)?
- Connection to credits. Does giving a reaction earn the registered user any pre-launch credit (G-037)? If yes, this turns reactions into a farming target.
Related
- Entry 005 — Contributor sovereignty (sets the value frame for treating reaction data as belonging to the reactor)
- Entry 015 — The decision this entry depends on
- G-004 — Sybil resistance (the broader Tier 1 question this folds into)
- G-034 — Voting mechanism parameters (parallel design space; reactions are not voting but the gaming-resistance toolkit overlaps)
- G-037 — Pre-launch credit accrual (specifically the question of whether reactions are a qualifying earning action)