Market:Observatory

Welcome to the WikiDeal observatories home page. Observatories are where the WikiDeal community watches and documents a field, rather than running deals in it. They are intended as citizen observatories: participatory, volunteer-run, and open to anyone. This page explains the concept and lists the observatories, each with its own page.

What is a WikiDeal observatory?

A WikiDeal observatory is intended to be a citizen observatory: a participatory, volunteer-run working space where anyone can help watch a subject that matters to the community. Observatories are unlimited in number: what counts is not a fixed count, but the willingness of contributors to watch a subject seriously, following the logic of one observatory per subject.

Observatories are intended as bases for decision making within WikiDeal: their findings would feed community debates, open calls and, for the more complex decisions, community votes.

Inputs and outputs

The envisaged inputs of an observatory are community contributions and continuous monitoring of the field. The outputs an observatory aims at producing are the classic artefacts of the genre:

published studies and comparative analyses;
watch reports (regular reviews of how the field evolves);
alerts on strategic developments;
datasets that others can reuse;
recommendations feeding decision making and open calls.

Moderation: the karma model

Observatories are intended to follow Slashdot-style karma moderation: debates and comments earn karma through reader ratings, and the contributors with the best karma obtain the right to select the topics submitted for publication. This mechanism is documented on the Participatory Observatories innovation page, which remains the reference for the model.

Early warnings and whistleblowing

Beyond reliable information, observatories are intended to play an early-warning role: raising alerts against any mechanism that would re-privatize the platform, weaken trust, or undermine the approach of a global marketplace owned, run and sustained by its users. A dedicated Whistleblowing observatory is envisaged for the early detection and prevention of abuse, and for the protection and support of whistleblowers.

Observatories and open calls

Some open calls may point to an observatory, whose findings would then feed or follow up the call. For now this connection is simply left open: no formal binding is defined.

The observatories (open list)

The list below is open and unlimited: new observatories can be created whenever contributors want to watch a new subject. All the observatories listed here are under construction and not yet active.

Potential Partners: organizations WikiDeal could cooperate with rather than compete against.
Community Migrations: existing groups and platforms that could migrate to WikiDeal.
Karma Market & Time Banking: time banking networks and Karma token exchanges.
Whistleblowing: early detection and prevention of abuse, protection and support of whistleblowers at every step.
Competition & Cooperation: platforms sharing some of WikiDeal's characteristics: where to cooperate, where to differentiate, where to learn.
Wiki Platforms: platforms using Wikimedia-style governance. Note: currently a section of the Competition & Cooperation observatory, listed separately because it may grow into an observatory of its own.
Planned Obsolescence: obsolescence risks and practices.
Online Community Moderation: moderation practices across online communities.
Fundraising Awareness & Competition: the fundraising landscape and its practices.
Clauses & Contracts: contract clauses, their evolution and their maturity.
...and any new observatory the community decides to open.

Other observatory ideas are already sketched elsewhere on the wiki, for example a Smart Contract Observatory (see Blockchains), a free legal watch (see Free Online Legal Services) and the thematic Living Labs.