We recognize that these in-depth breakdowns of trībs may seem overly academic, gratuitous, and slow-moving. This divergence from the typical "break things and ask questions later" esque gold rush of the space is intentional. As outlined in the initial post, this blog will reduce in complexity over time, but the epistemological foundation must be made with care in order to build a structure of utility and magnificence. Shall we begin?
First, we have independent agents. These "users" are the key element to any social/organizational online gathering. The initial iteration of technical tooling for these agents (in regard to organization) is the idea of DAO, with which you should be familiar. But, as you may know, the term has been bastardized, and many prominent projects don't meet the criteria for what a "DAO" is supposed to be. We see the "DAO" as a technical superstructure that provides runway for automated federation, not the organization itself. As introduced previously, trībs is an Onchain Organization (O.O), and with this distinction comes the need for a framework of knowledge ecology. As described by Yogesh Malhotra, Ph.D:
"The knowledge ecology of organizational systems goes beyond the emphasis on information, to account for action, performance and adaptation of self-regulatory systems”. [1]
Web3, at its core, is about using information systems for designing organizations (or applications) as self-adaptive systems. An important element to this self-adaptive nature is not only distributed technology but also "radical discontinuous change," which is the chaos of a fast-paced knowledge firehose. We can even model these "wicked" environments in terms of niche, as fashion itself is incredibly fast paced and moving faster as we continue to integrate technologies into its social and economic aspects [1].
As discussed in the previous post, trībs seeks to be a web3 enabled Web 3.0 (semantic web) knowledge garden. In practice this is considered a Knowledge Ecology that encompasses knowledge management and its own Information Ecology, which we will discuss later. Knowledge Ecology goes beyond the bounds of just pure epistemology into an action-oriented framework for federation of information. A good mental model to clarify would be that information ecology is gas as knowledge is an engine that "consumes" this fuel to propel the agent forward.
Moreover, in order for this shift from data -> information -> knowledge to exist, web3 needed to be created as it enables trusted gamification for dynamic self-adaption. How we wield this tool is important, and trībs takes a deliberate approach to the matter. This method of self-federation to shape and recognize emergent behavior is "the hallmark of intrinsic motivators and self-control that are essential for realizing true human involvement in endowing information with relevance and purpose, and most importantly in converting knowledge into action and performance." [1]
This is a key distinction, and rather than simply become a repository for information, this information must be acted on to provide greater insight in the conversion to knowledge. In this fast-paced deluge of information, federated regulation from agents can mechanize the distinction between right, wrong, and/or useless information via consensus models based on information contextualization. This act of social collaboration through consensus also has an element of competition, and these incentives fuse to promote the health of the ecosystem as a whole along with agent reputation.
"Just as natural ecologies thrive based on species diversity, knowledge ecology thrives on diversity of knowledge." [1]
So, in order for Knowledge Ecology to exist, we return to Information Ecology as the precursor for this finality. It is simply the information environment of an organization and the "interdependent social, cultural, political subsystems that shape the creation, flow and use of information in the organization." As we already touched, this is extended by the action-oriented framework of Knowledge Ecology.
trībs' Information Ecology is a multi-space framework for cognitive augmentation that works from a top-down and bottom-up propagation. Below is a modified version of the framework from Knowledge Gardens, in which there are three tiers of information space. First, at the base is the collective federation. This is the directive of linking information resources to create topic maps and ontologies that define the navigation of information resources [2]. Next is a refinement, a filter into the group level. These groups are topic specific, which are defined as a trīb. This can be about a brand, aesthetic movement, etc. For now, they will be under admin approval only in alpha, but in the future their creation will be self-federated. This distinction is important because we seek not to have useless or dead nodes like some subreddits. The last tier in this pyramid is information resources tied to each engaged agent. Users have the ability to post what they find interesting and/or specific data with which they are associated for cryptocurrency awards. Moreover, they can group information into private collections for consumption.
https://knowledgegardens.wordpress.com/augmenting-cognition-a-multi-space-model/
The goal of this multi-space model is to serve as a working memory that can be modified as the collective intelligence. Tim O'Reilly describes this as:
“If an essential part of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence, turning the web into a kind of global brain, the blogosphere is the equivalent of constant mental chatter in the forebrain, the voice we hear in all of our heads. It may not reflect the deep structure of the brain, which is often unconscious, but is instead the equivalent of conscious thought. And as a reflection of conscious thought and attention, the blogosphere has begun to have a powerful effect.”
Below is a revised image from the Knowledge Gardens Blog that we adapted to trībs:
