The psychology of RetroPGF and how to build a better game

Carl Cervone argues that RetroPGF's rules and player dynamics need to be studied and redesigned, since Round 3 showed voters relying on "spray and pray" and on low-variance Lists. He proposes that badgeholders get scaffolding for voting strategies, that domain experts be encouraged to make Lists with pseudonymous or blind review, and that projects link their work artifacts so comparable metrics can be surfaced. He also suggests relative comparisons such as pairwise and setwise methods over absolute allocations. The article notes that RetroPGF 2's top project received 20 times the tokens of the median project, and that it is unclear which distribution curve the Collective wants.