# S4_skill_exchange — Independent Grading

Scored on substance only. Six dimensions, 1-10 each.

## Recommendation R1
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Tightly organized around one thesis (make circulation the rational default) with each mechanism — asymmetric friction, demand-tracked rates, relational memory, arbitrage gating, reserve/floor — feeding that thesis without contradiction.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 9/10 — Explicitly closes the relabeling loophole, the flood-via-spike loophole, distinguishes good-faith debtors from free-riders, and protects against pricing out the needy; few blind spots.
3. Implementability: 7/10 — Mechanisms are actionable but the per-spike "brief review" gating and recipient confirmation add operational load it underplays, and several knobs lack concrete starting values.
4. Mechanism grounding: 6/10 — Uses qualitative levers ("gentle discount," "slow mild decay," "cap how fast rates move") and names the right dials but gives almost no numbers, unlike a rate band or percentage.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 9/10 — Directly engages hoarders (soft band/discount/decay), deficit-drifters (no-penalty recovery window + reserve grants), over-rewarded floods (narrow demand-targeted throttle), plus an essential-access floor and open appeal for fairness under stress.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — Monthly monitoring of four named signals with explicit, reversible loosen-frictions-if-participation-dips logic that targets the death-spiral while avoiding driving members off.
TOTAL: 49/60

## Recommendation R2
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Clean "flow not stock" frame with three leaks mapped to three matched fixes (demurrage+soft cap, deficit floor+grace, tapered supply/demand multipliers) plus visibility and legitimacy layers.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 8/10 — Anticipates flood-migration to the next-easiest service and frictionless re-entry, but is lighter than R1/R4 on collusion and on gaming the per-service first-hours boundary.
3. Implementability: 9/10 — Highly buildable: a dashboard, a fixed review cadence, member-set dials, and the marginal-hours taper are all concrete and operationally modest.
4. Mechanism grounding: 9/10 — Best-grounded: +/-20-hour band, ~2%/month demurrage above band, ~20-hour deficit floor, taper triggering when supply exceeds ~2x unmet demand — specific, defensible starting values.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 8/10 — Covers all three member types with no-stigma deficits and starting grants, but lacks an explicit essential-help floor for the poorest, so fairness-under-stress protection is slightly thinner than R1/R4.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 7/10 — Conservative starting thresholds and ongoing loophole tracking show horizon awareness, but no named leading-indicator set or explicit early-intervention trigger for the spiral itself.
TOTAL: 50/60

## Recommendation R3
1. Structural coherence: 8/10 — Coherent shared logic (credit must move, reward tracks usefulness, extremes self-correct) with need multiplier, demurrage, per-category cap, dashboard, and a sensible "decline what doesn't fit" boundary.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 7/10 — Guards against lock-out-loses-members and adds a per-member category cap to make flooding self-defeating, but doesn't address flood-migration or relabeling as squarely as R1/R2.
3. Implementability: 8/10 — Concrete and buildable; the per-category banking cap and slow recompute cadence are easy to operate, though "several times a typical month" is left fuzzy.
4. Mechanism grounding: 8/10 — Names a 0.5x-2x rate band and few-percent monthly demurrage with monthly/quarterly recompute; solid, though deficit and cap magnitudes stay qualitative.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 8/10 — Engages all three types and adds an anti-coercion clause protecting dependent members, but the equity floor is a starting grant rather than an ongoing essential-access guarantee.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 6/10 — Strong on self-correcting dynamics and "a locked-out member is a lost member," but offers no monitoring cadence or explicit spiral-detection trigger.
TOTAL: 45/60

## Recommendation R4
1. Structural coherence: 9/10 — Well-integrated around keep-credit-moving / keep-give-and-take-broad, pairing service repricing, soft balance band, reciprocity memory, visibility, and early spiral intervention.
2. Failure-mode anticipation: 9/10 — Strongest here: per-category earning cap, guards explicitly against members ganging up to freeze someone out, forgiveness path so one bad stretch isn't permanent, and distinguishes can't-give from won't-give.
3. Implementability: 8/10 — Mostly concrete, but the "published effort+demand schedule" implies a manual calibration body, and per-request organizer/peer sign-off below the floor adds operational friction.
4. Mechanism grounding: 7/10 — Gives a concrete -10 to +15 band and per-category caps but leans on a "periodically reviewed schedule" of effort/demand rather than a numeric rate band or decay rate.
5. Stakeholder/equity fit: 9/10 — Fullest equity design: essential-help standing allowance regardless of balance, community pool funding hardship and newcomers, anti-collusion safeguard, and graded standing for fairness under stress.
6. Threshold/time-horizon awareness: 9/10 — Most explicit on the death-spiral: names self-reinforcing decline, "don't wait for collapse," tracks leading signals monthly, and prescribes early intervention (boost scarce rates, recruit, giving drive) while leverage remains.
TOTAL: 51/60

## Comparison and Ranking

All four converge on the same core diagnosis — credit must circulate, reward must track real demand, both balance extremes need soft correction — which makes the contest one of execution. R4 wins on equity and spiral-timing: it alone names the death-spiral's self-reinforcing logic, prescribes acting before collapse, and pairs the richest hardship/anti-collusion safeguards. R2 is the most operationally grounded, supplying concrete starting numbers (band, demurrage, taper trigger) that the others mostly omit, but is thinner on the essential-access floor and explicit spiral triggers. R1 matches R4 on equity and closes the most loopholes (relabeling, spike-flooding) but stays vaguer on numbers. R3 is sound and adds a useful per-category cap, yet lacks any monitoring cadence or spiral-detection trigger, leaving it the weakest on time-horizon.

Best-to-worst: R4 > R2 > R1 > R3.

Adopt: R4 — strongest combination of failure-mode coverage, equity protection, and the threshold/early-intervention awareness the spiral problem most demands; pair it with R2's concrete starting parameters for calibration.
