Category Archives: transparent

This is a post I wrote on Jan 31, 2010.  I am pinning it on the top of the blog today (Sunday May 9, 2010) because it is such an important feature of Kachingle and one that some users/readers may have missed.

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I have been thinking about our company motto being “transparent and fair”.

Transparent because all financial transactions are visible to everyone – it is a form of outsourced auditing which we have invented and implemented.  Everyone, not only our Kachinglers and Sites, can see every single payment from a Kachingler to a Site.  This means that it can be proven that the monies have properly changed hands because the money a Kachingler paid had better show up on both sides of the transaction – the list of payments made by that Kachingler (the total of which must add up to their $5), and the list of payments received by a Site (which must add up to the total payments received by all of their Kachinglers).  

Of course Kachinglers can choose any Display Name ranging from their real name, to a different name on each site, to anonymous.  However the Kachingle system assigns a unique externally generated transaction number to all payments such that every Kachingler can clearly identify each of their payments, even if there are multiple payments from people with the same Display Name (including anonymous).

We believe transparency is not only important so that Kachinglers can see how much money Sites are making, but so that both sides, Kachinglers and Sites, can be assured that the monies are being properly distributed.

A side effect of being transparent is that Kachingle itself does not need to hire expensive auditors to verify the proper financial behavior!  The Kachinglers & Sites can prove it themselves.  (The Sites have a minor  limitation that their Kachinglers with the same Display Name are not bullet-proof on their side but are on the Kachingler side.)  Although this crowdsourced auditing has always been part of the Kachingle vision, it is especially important in light of the Kiva scandal.

Transparency is the new black.

A quick guide to the maxims of new media
30 Jan, 2010
Mark Coddington

“Transparency is the new objectivity.”

Where it came from: The phrase was originated by technology philosopher David Weinberger, who first said it in a lecture in Toronto on Oct. 23, 2008. He further defined the idea and put the phrase to writing in a July 19, 2009, post at his blog.

What it means: When Weinberger first said the phrase, he followed it with the statement, “We are not going to trust objectivity unless we can see the discussion that lead to it.” In his July post, Weinberger fleshed this idea out further, arguing that transparency is the modus operandi in a linked medium like the web, where we can easily see (and expect to see) someone’s connections, sources and influences. Transparency, he said, has subsumed objectivity: “Anyone who claims objectivity should be willing to back that assertion up by letting us look at sources, disagreements, and the personal assumptions and values supposedly bracketed out of the report.” The phrase picked up quite a bit of use in fall 2009 as a principle in the discussions over news media outlets’ social media policies.

Fair because the distribution of each Kachingler’s Pay-In is an algorithm which is a proxy for value received by that particular Kachingler – so it is fair for each person based on their unique behavior.

The distribution algorithm is predicated on the Kachingler adding a Site (by clicking once on that Site’s Medallion) and thereafter based on their number of daily visits to that Site.  Each Site’s allocation is proportionate to the usage by that Kachingler.

So if a Kachingler visits Site A every day of their month, and Site B every other day, Site A receives 2/3 of that Kachingler’s Pay-In and Site B receives 1/3.  Fairness is also all about the value perceived and delivered to the Kachingler, not an arbitrary value set by the producer.

By the way, some of you may be aware that the FTC has ruled on the issue of companies paying bloggers to blog positively about their products (the problem occurs if the blogger does not reveal this).  Kachingling for corporations could be the solution.  With Kachingle companies can still pay bloggers…but it’s transparent that they are paying them!