wiggleverse/wiggleverse-ecomm-content
2
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Actions Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

docs: maker strategy — OHM grounding, per-item provenance, trust-model shape

Browse Source 
- Add an Open Human Model grounding note near the top: all principles rest
  on the OHM dictionary (trust/consent/reputation/harm/recourse/value/agency/
  dignity); the RFC is canonical on conflict; link to rfc.wiggleverse.org/p/ohm.
- §7: new 'Per-item provenance' subsection — provenance attaches per-item
  (Original / Original+components / Resale–fellow-Maker / Resale–third-party),
  self-attested + audited + buyer-facing, with trust-surface eligibility keyed
  to it. Resolves the per-maker-vs-per-item question.
- Backlog #1 (trust & safety): upgraded from open question to spec-ready stub
  — records the decided shape (originating edge, no-pay invites, decayed/capped
  reputation flow-up, positive reinforcement, low-visible-score-not-expulsion,
  inviter authority + platform floor) and marks the reputation *engine* as
  OHM-guided work.
- Backlog #8: narrowed to the open making-vs-reselling line + enforcement.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Ben Stull
2026-06-15 05:27:55 -07:00
parent de64348fbf
commit f32c8abaa0
1 changed files with 27 additions and 2 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files
docs/maker-platform-strategy.md
+27 -2
View File
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
A working memo distilling the thinking so far. It serves makers in general, but launches into one dense community first (the *beachhead*, §2/§5). The aim is to keep two doors open — a paid consultancy that's real today, and an option on a larger network play — without over-committing to the second before the evidence justifies it.
> **Grounded in the Open Human Model.** Every principle in this memo — *trust, consent, reputation, harm, recourse, value, agency, dignity* — is meant to rest on the shared definitions in the [**Open Human Model (OHM)**](https://rfc.wiggleverse.org/p/ohm/c/default/), Wiggleverse's version-controlled dictionary for the words that systems acting on behalf of humans turn on. Where this memo and an OHM RFC disagree, **the RFC is canonical**; where a load-bearing concept here isn't yet defined in OHM, defining it is itself OHM work (not license to coin a local meaning). The reputation/trust model below is the first place this bites — see §10 backlog #1.
---
## 1. The lens: stock moats vs. flow moats
@@ -220,6 +222,22 @@ Verification sits at the boundary between the commodity layer and the moat layer
**Sequencing:** do *not* launch with peer verification. Verify makers yourself early (few enough for manual review, and you *need* to establish the root set). Enable peer verification once roots exist and volume makes manual review the bottleneck. Verification is now load-bearing in four places (referrals, Curated-By, buyer feed, agent feed), so throughput is a real growth governor — design the scaling path (tiered verification, community vouching as signal, provenance-documentation standards) early.
### Per-item provenance: the catalog's originality layer
Verification answers a question about the *maker* (is this a real maker of original work?); provenance answers it about the *item* (is *this product* their original work?). A real maker's catalog is mixed — a potter sells their pots **and** resells pottery tools — and that is fine. What matters is that the buyer, and the trust surfaces, can always tell which is which. So every catalog item carries a **provenance classification** (metadata, like the cross-maker component layer below), **self-attested** by the maker, **audited** by the trust machinery, and **shown to the buyer**:
- **Original** — the maker's own original art or craft (the pots). Purchased raw materials and supplies (clay, glaze, blanks) are inputs to *making*, not other-sourced components — a pot thrown from bought clay is original.
- **Original + components (composite / kit)** — primarily the maker's work but incorporating identifiable parts from others; attributes each contributor (in-network Maker Y, or flagged where out-of-network). The kit / "partial" case, reusing the cross-maker component-metadata layer below.
- **Resale — fellow Maker** — reselling another in-network maker's original item; provenance still traces to the true maker. (This is Curated-By / consignment expressed as a catalog item.)
- **Resale — third-party / not original** — out-of-network commercial goods, tools, or supplies (the resold pottery tools). Honest, allowed, and clearly *not* original.
Two rules ride on the classification:
- **Buyer transparency is the point.** Every item shows its provenance badge — the consumer-facing expression of the moat: not merely "this maker is verified," but "this *item* is original / partly original / a resale / not original (and contains these makers' work)." It is the precise anti-Etsy signal — you always know what you're buying — and it *appreciates* as AI-generated and drop-shipped fakes proliferate.
- **Trust-surface eligibility keys off it, per item.** Only **original** and **original-+-(in-network)-components** items are surfaced as the maker's original work in Curated-By / buyer feed / agent feed. A **fellow-Maker resale** may surface *attributed to the true maker* (that *is* Curated-By). **Third-party resale never enters a trust surface** — surfacing it would launder non-original goods through a trusted face (the Etsy-pollution failure mode, from the inside). A composite that contains any non-original component is flagged as such wherever it appears.
The hard, still-open part is the **line between making and reselling** — finishing, assembling, and kitting sit in between (the standard to write, §10 backlog #8): purchased supplies don't taint "original," but assembling mostly-third-party parts isn't original either. Misclassifying a resale as "original" is a provenance lie → a verification-revocation trigger (trust & safety, §10 backlog #1). Self-attestation makes classifying cheap; the sampling audit plus buyer reporting make gaming it risky.
### Non-maker referrers: the verified taste-maker tier (Phase 2)
Any website can join as a *referrer* — a taste-maker/curator (a hobby YouTuber, blogger, podcaster) who isn't a maker but has audience and taste. Financially low-risk (pay-on-conversion, no custody, no MoR, no inventory). The risk is to the **verification moat**, handled by the *same tiering as makers*:
@@ -332,7 +350,14 @@ Two makers justify a thoughtful, portable data model. They do not justify a plat
This memo is deep on the architectural/strategic axes (money flow, network mechanics, moat theory, consent) and thin on several operational ones that matter as much or more. The gaps cluster on the un-fun, operational side — which is usually where ventures actually die. Each below is a separate future session. Rough priority order; recommended next is #1.
1. **Trust & safety / maker accountability (post-verification) — highest priority, moat-critical.** Verification is currently only an *entry* gate; the doc is silent on what happens when a *verified* maker behaves badly afterward. Commitment commerce makes this the signature failure mode: taking money before delivery means "verified maker collects pre-orders/deposits and ghosts" is the structurally most-likely scam, not an edge case. The money-flow stance solved the *financial* exposure (maker is MoR) but not the *reputational* one — a verified maker scamming buyers detonates the verification guarantee the whole moat rests on. Needs: verification-revocation triggers and process; a buyer-harm/dispute framework; a buyer-protection stance (mediate? warn? nothing?); how revocation propagates through the peer-verification graph (slashing the voucher); non-delivery handling given you're deliberately not in the flow.
1. **Trust & safety / maker accountability (post-verification) — shape decided this session; reputation *engine* is OHM-guided work.** Verification is only an *entry* gate; the question is what happens when a maker behaves badly afterward. Commitment commerce makes this the signature failure mode — "verified maker collects pre-orders/deposits and ghosts" is the structurally most-likely scam, not an edge case — and the money-flow stance solved the *financial* exposure (maker is MoR) but not the *reputational* one, which is the one the moat rests on. **The shape we settled:**
- **Originating edge.** Every maker enters by invitation = a vouch they make original art or craft, rooted in a staff-verified seed set — a permanent graph topology (the membership gate starts invitation-only and loosens over time, §7).
- **Inviting doesn't pay** — the incentive is the commercial relationship, never a bounty (which would manufacture Sybil incentives).
- **Reputation flows up the originating edge** — transitive but **decayed (a per-hop coefficient) and hop-capped**, so impact is strong next to the misbehavior (a prompt-to-act for whoever can act) and negligible by ~6 degrees out. Framed as **positive reinforcement** (earn/grow standing), not punishment.
- **Consequence = a low, buyer-visible reputation score + loss of all network benefit (Curated-By, feed, referrals, agents) — not expulsion.** The maker keeps the storefront/tool, loses amplification, and wears a score buyers can act on (transparency as enforcement; keeps trust surfaces clean by construction). This is a *member in bad standing*, **not model "a"** — at launch every storefront holder was invited.
- **Inviter holds primary suspend/expel authority** over their sub-graph, with a **platform floor for active buyer harm** and a **governance appeal path** (#7); expulsion is the rare extreme. Misclassifying provenance is a trust violation (§7 per-item provenance).
**Still to flesh out — explicitly OHM-guided (handbook §4.4, [OHM](https://rfc.wiggleverse.org/p/ohm/c/default/)):** the reputation *system* itself — scoring, the coefficient/hop-cap values, how good standing accrues, display, benefit-gating thresholds, and how *harm* and *recourse* are operationalized — turns on OHM concepts (**reputation, trust, harm, recourse, value, dignity**); defer to the relevant RFCs and cite them, proposing them where undefined. Also still open from the original scope: verification-revocation triggers/process (non-delivery pattern, inauthentic goods, non-response), the buyer-harm/dispute framework, non-delivery handling given you're out of the flow (chargeback-via-maker-MoR + transparency, not guarantor), and false-report/collusion controls.
2. **Demand strategy / buyer-side go-to-market — the keystone, currently only *admitted* as a risk.** The doc names "demand is the unvalidated keystone" repeatedly but never attempts a plan; everything concrete is supply-side. Needs: a crisp *buyer-side* value proposition (why a buyer shows up and comes back, stated as its own thing); a first-100 / first-1,000-buyers plan; a content/community/SEO posture for the buyer side; and a §8 extension that tests buyer demand, not just supply. Naming the risk ≠ grappling with it.
@@ -346,7 +371,7 @@ This memo is deep on the architectural/strategic axes (money flow, network mecha
7. **Governance, concretely.** The non-profit's trust rests on governance that's been floated ("open governance / maker council") but never specified: who sets and changes verification standards, board/maker representation, and how disputes about *the network itself* resolve.
8. **Hybrid makers — original + resale in one catalog.** Membership gates on a vouch that the person makes *original* art or craft, but many real makers also *resell* (supplies, others' finished goods, curated retail) alongside their own work. Open: does verification/provenance attach per-*maker* (a membership property) or per-*item* (only original pieces are trust-surface-eligible)? The moat needs per-item provenance — surfacing a verified maker's *resold*, mass-produced, or drop-shipped goods in Curated-By / the buyer feed / the agent feed would launder non-original supply through a trusted face, rebuilding Etsy's pollution from the inside. Likely shape to pressure-test: the storefront *tool* serves the whole catalog, but only items the maker attests as their own original work are eligible for the trust surfaces — which then needs an honest line between *making* (incl. finishing/assembling components) and *reselling*, per-item provenance labeling, and an enforcement/audit hook (ties to #1 accountability). Interacts with the consignment/resale "avoid" fork (§7) and the no-walled-garden value rule (Appendix D).
8. **Hybrid makers — the making-vs-reselling line (standard).** *Direction set:* provenance attaches **per-item, not per-maker**, via a self-attested, buyer-facing catalog classification (Original / Original + components / Resale – fellow Maker / Resale – third-party), with trust-surface eligibility keyed to it — see §7 "Per-item provenance: the catalog's originality layer." *Still open:* the precise, **auditable line between making and reselling** — purchased supplies don't taint "original," but where exactly do finishing, assembling, and kitting fall? — plus the enforcement/audit hook (ties to #1 accountability) and the exact buyer-facing label wording. Interacts with the consignment/resale "avoid" fork (§7) and the no-walled-garden value rule (Appendix D).
---