A little known fact about Everipedia is that it initially launched on December 31st, 2014 out of a UCLA dorm room. Five years later, Everipedia counts over six million pages on its platform and has attracted over 15 million visitors in 2019 alone. As someone who started editing in mid-2016, it’s amazing to see how much we have grown and I am optimistic about where we are going. I have written numerous articles about Everipedia in the past, some highlighting the coolest pages on Everipedia with the culture roundup series and others showing what makes it unique through the Goldilocks Zone theory. Today, I want to expand in this effort by making suggestions on how to improve the IQ Network through editor guilds, voting pools, and pool tips.

Currently, pages on Everipedia are created and edited on the blockchain via the IQ network. How the IQ network works is that contributors stake IQ tokens in order to submit edits. If the community votes to approve the edit, then the editors are rewarded for their contributions and the voters are rewarded for governing the platform. If an edit is rejected, then the tokens of the editors and voters are locked for a period of time. In this system, contributors who submit edits have “skin in the game”, but it still heavily favors those who already have amassed IQ. In addition, the vast majority of IQ is not being utilized and is merely sitting unused in wallets or exchange accounts. In order to remedy this situation in a meaningful manner, I believe we should implement the editor guilds feature but with added components that are meant to improve participation and tokenomics.

What are Editor Guilds?

In July of this year, the Everipedia team posted an article announcing the intention to create editor guilds which allows people to delegate their IQ tokens to editors to vote on their behalf. By participating in this, those who stake their IQ in editor guilds are entitled to a proportion of the reward. The easiest way of conceptualizing editor guilds is by comparing it to representative democracy. Just in the same way we vote for representatives to act on behalf of us in government, an editor guild acts in the same manner in the Everipedia ecosystem. Also, another example of this is if you are familiar with how EOS block producer voting works, then editor guilds are akin to voting proxies; you are voting for a pool to edit on your behalf in the same manner that EOS holders are voting for pools to pick block producers on their behalf.

A few of my favorite points from the article are that although people own IQ tokens and want to support Everipedia, they simply do not have the time or desire to become a full-time contributor. Not only do Editor Guilds allow people to utilize their IQ tokens, but it creates a way for people to passively support Everipedia and have input in what kind of content they want to see based on the pools in which they delegate. Some examples of potential guilds in the future that people can be a part of including an Electric Forest guild to make/edit pages for people playing at that festival for that year or a Barstool guild edit the pages of Barstool Sports bloggers.

A painting of a craftsman guild during Medieval Times

From an editing standpoint, it offers contributors who are starting out a chance to earn additional IQ, a direction to what pages to make, and a community to interact with and get feedback from. Probably one of the most important dynamics that editor guilds add to Everipedia is that it gives people the opportunity to organize against accounts that may hold large amounts of IQ. By teaming up and pulling IQ together for a benevolent common interest, it creates a much more efficient way to curate the platform than it would be if individual accounts tried to coordinate with each other. In the future, I envision a number of communities and organizations become guilds to monitor and edit pages dealing with their respective areas of focus.

How Could We Improve Editor Guilds?

Although the editor guild system has not been fully rolled-out since the original article was first published, it’s fine because it gives the community more time to discuss how to best implement it. In this spirit of conversation, I would like to add a few more features to editor guilds that will make it more robust and active for both delegators and editors alike.

First, delegators in editor guilds should have the option of how long they want to stake their tokens for and rewards are split based on the length their tokens are staked. This idea was partially inspired by what Dan Larimer proposed for EOS governance a few months ago.

The easiest way to do this would be to split the pools into four options and the ratio of compensation is based on how long delegators decide to stake (lock) their IQ tokens for. The first and shortest option would be a 21-day staking period and the rewards are split 80/20 between the editor and delegator. The second option would be a 3-month staking period and the split would be 70/30. The third option would be a 6-month staking period and the split would be 60/40. Finally, the fourth and longest option would be a 1-year staking period and the rewards are split 50/50.

In theory, this editor guild voting pool model can be implemented on the second dApp of the IQ Network, PredIQt, as well. IQ holders can delegate their tokens to a pool that will make decisions in prediction markets on their behalf.

Some Pool Tips

The second proposal I want to advocate is for what I call pool tips; delegators in an Editor Guild can suggest pages to make or edit for any amount of IQ they see fit. For example, let’s say an artist wants his page updated but doesn’t have time to make the changes. They can join an editor guild and tip them to make the necessary changes. Every tip sent is locked in a smart contract until the edit is complete. If the tip is approved by the person who posted it, then the tip will be unlocked from the smart contract and distributed to the guild. If no one in the Guild completes the tip, then the tip will be returned to the owner after a 21-day period when the tip was posted. The main point of pool tips is to have a way to prioritize information and to incentivize guilds to make content.

Course of Action

These changes won’t be made overnight, but it's still vital for the community to discuss what the goals of Everipedia and the IQ Network are and how can we reach them. If our goal is to bring more people to participate in the Everipedia community, then editor guilds are the logical place to start. Yet, in order to implement editor guilds, a few more things need to be considered. First, a proper interface needs to be built and personally, I see it looking similar in format to what EOS Authority or Bloks.io have as their proxy voting portals.

Furthermore, it must be easy for future IQ holders to enter the system if they want to become delegators in editor guilds. I see this being solved in a number of ways. Currently, users on Coinbase and Binance can stake their Tezos right on the exchange without much work or any technical knowledge necessary. It would be the most ideal for potential IQ holders to attain IQ on either of those exchanges and vote directly on there. Another way we could do this is by partnering with an on-ramp service such as Uphold in a similar fashion as Brave Browser; users can go back and forth seamlessly between BAT and fiat via the Uphold platform and then vote on an Editor Guild voting page.

Conclusion

Everipedia has been in its decentralized form for almost a year and a half and Editor Guilds are a massive opportunity to increase participation and decrease token circulation. Delegators decide who to vote for and how long to stake for based on their preferences; this mechanism can be applied to PredIQt as well. In addition, members of an editor guild can suggest pages they want to be edited through the pool tips mechanism where an individual will send a tip to a pool for making/editing the page. There are several things that need to be addressed such as UI and attaining IQ tokens but solutions are out there and will be easier to solve as both the IQ and wider crypto ecosystem evolves.