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Trust Model

Randy — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:48:48 GMT

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'''Status:''' Designed, '''not yet implemented'''. Hello World uses only MediaWiki's stock access-level ladder. The model below is the target for the <code>TrustGraph</code> extension in a later phase.

== Problem ==

Wikipedia-style reputation is '''earned''' through activity and admin discretion. There is no mechanism for an established user to '''invest''' their reputation in a newer user to fast-track them — even Stack Overflow's bonus on profile import is a one-time signal, not an ongoing stake.

We want a mechanism for trust transfer with '''skin in the game''': vouching should cost the voucher when it goes wrong, and reward them when it goes right.

== The hybrid model ==

Four layers stacked together:

=== 1. Earned floor (Wikipedia-style) ===

[[mw:Help:User_access_levels|Autoconfirmed gates]] remain the floor. New accounts can't bypass minimum account age and edit-count thresholds without a vouch. This is anti-Sybil insurance.

=== 2. Explicit vouching (Vouch-style) ===

A user with sufficient reputation can vouch for another user. A vouch grants the vouchee a permission advance — they can bypass some autoconfirmed gates immediately.

The vouching primitive itself is inspired by [https://github.com/mitchellh/vouch mitchellh/vouch], which was designed for OSS project trust management in the AI-generated-spam era.

=== 3. Stake-and-slash ===

Vouching locks up a fraction of the voucher's reputation. Two outcomes:

* '''Vouchee thrives''' (earns reputation organically through good contributions): the voucher's stake is returned '''with bonus'''. Vouching becomes a positive-sum action; vouchers are rewarded for picking well.
* '''Vouchee misbehaves''' (sanctioned via revert, block, or RevisionDelete): the voucher loses a fraction of their staked reputation. Vouching is costly when it goes wrong; encourages careful vouches.

Vouches can be revoked by the voucher (with a cooldown) and slashes cascade '''partially''', not totally, up the chain — so a long-distance vouch chain isn't catastrophic to top-of-graph users when a downstream vouchee misbehaves.

=== 4. Transitive propagation (EigenTrust-flavored) ===

Global reputation flows along the vouch graph with decay. A user's reputation is a weighted combination of their earned reputation and the flowed-in reputation from those who vouched for them. Decay prevents unbounded amplification through long chains.

The math is inspired by [https://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/eigentrust.pdf EigenTrust], but adapted to a vouching graph rather than a peer-to-peer transaction graph.

== Editor / oversighter tier ==

The top of the trust ladder — users with [[mw:Help:RevisionDelete|RevisionDelete]] and [[mw:Manual:RevisionDelete|suppression]] powers — is '''granted by admins''', not earned by stake. This is a deliberate capture-resistance measure: oversighter authority shouldn't be purchasable with reputation.

== Worked example ==

Alice has 1000 reputation. Bob is a new user.

# Alice vouches for Bob, staking 50 reputation. Alice now has 950 available + 50 staked-on-bob.
# Bob makes 20 good edits over a month, gaining 30 reputation organically.
# Alice's stake unlocks: she gets 50 back + a 10-rep bonus (for picking well). Alice now has 1010 available.

''Alternative path'': Bob spams. After 3 reverted edits, Bob is sanctioned. Alice loses 25 of her 50 staked (50% slash). Alice now has 975 available. A small fraction also propagates up to anyone who vouched for Alice.

== Implementation ==

Planned as the <code>TrustGraph</code> MediaWiki extension. Vouches stored as a custom data type; reputation accounting in dedicated tables; transitive propagation computed on a schedule via background job. Deferred from Hello World — see [[Roadmap]].

Roadmap

Randy — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:48:48 GMT

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== Hello World phase ==

Goal: a self-hosted Wikibase running at a real domain, populated with this project's own architectural decisions as a wikified table — demonstrating cell-as-wiki and schema-as-wiki on real project content from day one.

{| class="wikitable"
! Step
! Description
! Status
|-
| 1 || Scaffold repo layout + bootstrap docs || ✅ Done
|-
| 2 || <code>infra/docker-compose.yml</code> (Wikibase Suite) || ✅ Done
|-
| 3 || <code>infra/config/Extensions.php</code> (federation + CC0 + user groups) || ✅ Done
|-
| 4 || <code>seed/schema.yaml</code> + <code>seed/open-questions.tsv</code> || ✅ Done
|-
| 5 || <code>seed/pages/</code> (Main_Page, About, ...) || ⏳ In progress
|-
| 6 || <code>bots/seed_load.py</code> (idempotent seed loader) || ⏳ Pending
|-
| 7 || <code>infra/config/traefik-dynamic.yml</code> + deployment recipe || ✅ Done
|-
| 8 || User: provision VPS, register domain, first deploy || ⏳ User action
|}

== User actions blocking public deployment ==

* Register a domain
* Provision a VPS (≥ 4 GB RAM recommended for Elasticsearch + Blazegraph headroom)
* Point DNS at the VPS
* Set admin credentials in <code>infra/.env</code> on first boot

Steps 1–7 do not depend on these — they all run locally on Docker Compose.

== Post-Hello-World phases ==

;Phase A — <code>CellHistory</code> extension
:Custom MediaWiki extension surfacing per-statement edit history as a first-class UI. The principal engineering investment of this project — it's the gap between Wikibase and our "every cell is a wiki" requirement.

;Phase B — Bots and export
:<code>bots/wikidata_sync.py</code> (curated import/export with Wikidata) and <code>bots/export_mirror.py</code> (scheduled wiki → markdown mirror for offline / GitHub-search discoverability).

;Phase C — <code>TrustGraph</code> extension
:Stake-and-slash vouching system per [[Trust Model]]. Weeks of work; meaningfully more complex than <code>CellHistory</code>.

;Phase D — Oversight policy
:Document the appeal process for RevisionDelete and suppression; establish the audit trail; train initial oversighters.

;Phase E — Federation hardening
:Scheduled RDF dump publishing; SPARQL endpoint hardening; QuickStatements push-to-Wikidata workflow for notable facts.

;Phase F — User's specific site (Goal ii)
:The particular wikified-database site the user originally intended, implemented on the now-mature infrastructure.

;Phase G — Adoption packaging (Goal i)
:Turn <code>infra/</code> + <code>extensions/</code> + <code>bots/</code> + <code>seed/</code> into a forkable deployment template other organizations can adopt with minimal setup.

The full decision log is maintained as wikified data — see the [[Special:WhatLinksHere/Item:Q_class_decision|Architectural decision]] class page once the seed loader has populated the data.

Main Page

Randy — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:48:48 GMT

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	~~<strong>MediaWiki has been installed.</strong>~~		__NOTOC__

	~~Consult~~ the [https://www.~~mediawiki~~.org/~~wiki~~/~~Special~~:~~MyLanguage~~/~~Help~~:~~Contents User's Guide~~] for ~~information on using~~ the ~~wiki software~~.		<div style="border:1px solid #aaa;background:#f8f9fa;padding:0.5em 1em;margin-bottom:1em;font-size:95%;">
			'''Independent project — no Wikimedia affiliation.''' wikicells is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the [https://wikimediafoundation.org/ Wikimedia Foundation], [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [https://www.wikidata.org/ Wikidata], [https://www.wikiba.se/ Wikibase], or [https://www.mediawiki.org/ MediaWiki]. This site runs the open-source MediaWiki and Wikibase software and federates with Wikidata for technical interoperability; conformance to their standards is not a claim of affiliation. "Wikipedia," "Wikimedia," and "Wikidata" are trademarks of the Wikimedia Foundation.
			</div>

	== ~~Getting started~~ ==		Welcome to '''wikicells''' — a community-edited Creative Commons database where every cell and every column is itself a wiki.
	* [~~https://www~~.~~mediawiki~~.~~org/wiki/Special~~:~~MyLanguage/Manual~~:~~Configuration_settings Configuration settings list~~]
	* [https://~~www.mediawiki~~.org/~~wiki~~/~~Special:MyLanguage~~/~~Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ~~]		This is the reference deployment of [https://github.com/CommVent/wikicells wikicells], an open-source infrastructure that any organization can use to host similar wikified-database sites.
	* [https://~~lists.wikimedia~~.org/~~postorius~~/~~lists~~/~~mediawiki~~-~~announce~~.~~lists~~.~~wikimedia~~.~~org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]~~
	* [https://www.~~mediawiki~~.org/~~wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language~~]		== Start here ==
	* [https://www.~~mediawiki~~.org/wiki/~~Special~~:~~MyLanguage~~/~~Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]~~
			* [[About]] — what this project is and why it exists
			* [[Architecture]] — the stack, the data model, the federation posture
			* [[Roadmap]] — what's built, what's next
			* [[Trust Model]] — how reputation works (designed; not yet implemented)
			* [[Open Questions]] — the project's own decision log, hosted here as a wikified table (the first one)

			== Contributing ==

			Anyone can read. Editing requires a free account. New accounts can edit immediately; some actions are gated by [[mw:Help:User_access_levels\|automatic promotion]] (autoconfirmed after 4 days and 10 edits; extended-confirmed after 30 days and 500 edits). Higher tiers are granted by admins.

			Structured data on this site is licensed [https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ CC0]. Long-form prose is licensed [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ CC-BY-SA-4.0]. By editing you agree to release your contributions under these terms.

			== Federation ==

			This site federates with [https://www.wikidata.org/ Wikidata]. Properties defined there (like [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P31 P31 "instance of"]) can be used directly on local items, and notable facts curated here can flow back upstream.

			== Query the data ==

			The SPARQL endpoint is at <code>https://<TBD-wdqs-host>/sparql</code>; the query UI is at the root of that hostname.

Architecture

Randy — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:48:47 GMT

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== Stack ==

{| class="wikitable"
! Layer
! Component
|-
| Wiki + structured data
| MediaWiki + Wikibase extension
|-
| Database
| MariaDB 10.11
|-
| Search
| Elasticsearch
|-
| Query service
| Blazegraph (Wikibase Query Service)
|-
| TLS termination
| Traefik + Let's Encrypt
|-
| Container orchestration
| Docker Compose
|}

Based on the upstream [https://github.com/wmde/wikibase-release-pipeline Wikibase Suite] release pipeline.

== Data model ==

A row in a wikified table is a Wikibase '''item''' (Q-ID).<br>
A column is a Wikibase '''property''' (P-ID), defined globally and reused across tables.<br>
A cell is a '''statement''' on an item using a property — and statements carry their own revision history through the item's revision log.

A "table" is then a set of items sharing a common schema (a set of properties). Membership can be declared via "instance of" statements ([https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P31 Wikidata P31]) or recovered by SPARQL queries against the schema.

== Why Wikibase ==

It is the only mature open-source platform that natively combines:

* Structured data with statement-level granularity, qualifiers, and references
* Properties as wiki entities with their own revision history (schema-as-wiki)
* Full revision history per entity
* Battle-tested permissions: autoconfirmed → reviewer → admin → oversighter, with [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:RevisionDelete RevisionDelete] and suppression
* First-class Wikidata federation

Alternatives surveyed — Semantic MediaWiki, the Cargo extension, Wiki.js, [https://www.dolthub.com/ Dolt] with a custom frontend — each lacked at least one of these, with the closest alternative requiring months of build work to reach parity.

== Federation ==

[https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase/Federation Federated Properties] is enabled. Local items reference Wikidata Q-IDs via [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P31 P31] (instance-of) and other Wikidata properties directly, without re-defining them locally.

Federated SPARQL queries can join local data against Wikidata in a single query. Structured data is CC0 so it can flow back to Wikidata frictionlessly via [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:QuickStatements QuickStatements] or curated bots.

== Cell-level history UX gap ==

Wikibase stores statement-level history — every statement change is part of an item revision — but does not ship a UI for "show me the history of this single cell." Closing that gap is the principal engineering investment after Hello World, planned as the <code>CellHistory</code> MediaWiki extension.

== Trust model ==

Deferred from Hello World. Hello World uses only MediaWiki's stock access-level ladder. The designed stake-and-slash vouching system is documented in [[Trust Model]] and will be implemented as the <code>TrustGraph</code> extension in a later phase.

About

Randy — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:48:47 GMT

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<div style="border:1px solid #aaa;background:#f8f9fa;padding:0.5em 1em;margin-bottom:1em;font-size:95%;">
'''Independent project — no Wikimedia affiliation.''' wikicells is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the [https://wikimediafoundation.org/ Wikimedia Foundation], [https://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [https://www.wikidata.org/ Wikidata], [https://www.wikiba.se/ Wikibase], or [https://www.mediawiki.org/ MediaWiki]. References and comparisons to those projects on this page identify the open-source software being deployed (Wikibase, MediaWiki) or describe design influences and technical interoperability (federating with Wikidata, following MediaWiki conventions); conformance to their standards is not a claim of affiliation. "Wikipedia," "Wikimedia," and "Wikidata" are trademarks of the Wikimedia Foundation.
</div>

== Mission ==

'''wikicells''' is open-source infrastructure for community-edited Creative Commons databases. It exists to answer one question: ''what if Wikipedia's contribution model applied to spreadsheet rows and column definitions, not just article prose?''

== Why this exists ==

A wiki gives you community-edited prose with full revision history, attribution, and Wikipedia-style permissions (including redaction of harmful content). A spreadsheet gives you rows and columns. Most open-source platforms do one or the other — none do both at cell-level granularity.

The closest existing platform is [https://www.wikidata.org/ Wikidata] (built on Wikibase), which models the world as items with statements: every fact is a structured assertion, every assertion has revision history, every property is itself a wiki entity. This project takes that model and packages it so any organization can deploy a similar Creative Commons resource with minimal effort.

== Two goals ==

# '''Build the infrastructure''' so that other organizations can spin up similar wikified-database sites.
# '''Use that infrastructure''' to host the project's own documentation (the site you're reading) and a specific target site (details forthcoming).

== Values ==

* '''Give back to the commons.''' Structured data is licensed [https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ CC0] so it flows frictionlessly to Wikidata and other open repositories.
* '''Be open and interoperable.''' [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase/Federation Federated Properties] with Wikidata are enabled from day one. RDF dumps and a SPARQL endpoint are public.
* '''Encourage others to do the same.''' Infrastructure is open-source. Deployment is reproducible. The project itself models the patterns it advocates.

== Status ==

Pre-Hello-World. See [[Roadmap]].

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wikicells - Recent changes [en]

Trust Model

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Architecture

About

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