A '''voting model''' is a method for expressing and representing the desires of individual participants and an essential part of creating a ''scalable'' system of governance.  

For the Internet it allows the organization of decentralized data and the formation of a content ''ecosystem''. With the vast amount of generated data and content, a voting model is becomes essential (currently Google does most of the ranking of all the Internet's content resulting in a ''balkanization'' of its contents as everyone flocks to the highest ranked sites).  Hundreds of sites have experimented with various voting models (Slashdot, Advogato, Kiro5hin, etc.), but none have yet solved the problem well.  Borrowing from OccupyWallSt, some ideas ''twinkle'' (ThumbsUp) and some ''stinkle'' (down-vote).

''Hackers, trolls, marketers, and lobbyists will muck up any such thing such that often we'll want a human GateKeeper of some kind.''

The UserRanking solves that problem:  a egalitarian way of assigning authority.  As for a GateKeeper, we can rely on the shear magnitude of the Internet to obscure data, and the humans at the PeerToPeer network to secure their personal content.

''UserRanking is kind of an in-between level between egalitarian and GateKeeper. Each "level" has its upsides and downsides and an org may choose their level for a given info set based on which tradeoffs they want to accept.''

The idea of UserRanking is in the context of a CrowdSource''''''d information system. 

See ProbabilisticChooser for how to integrate '''voting''' into an egalitarian system of ''selection''.
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Please explain the purpose of a voting model. What difference does it make to the usefullness of some data if people vote about it? If I need some information, what I am interested in is, where is it and is it the data I need and how accurate is it? I know what I need.

* Do you really think you know what you need enough that no one else's knowledge (separate from yours) is relevant?
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See PangaiaProject, PerItemVoting, UserRanking