Hello.
This is an interesting idea, but I worry about the database's resilience in the face of adversarial action.
While using a more personally identifiable account, like a PayPal account, as a means of admittance is a step in the right direction, I'd imagine that it would still be relatively easy to create sockpuppets which could then amass credibility in banal topics and spend it to manipulate more contested ones.
If the database were to grow to the size and prevalence of Wikipedia, for example, then one might see manipulation for political gain during elections, or misinformation campaigns run by nation states.
Obviously, this does not preclude the usefulness of such a database in 99% of cases, but I feel that one of the best uses of a probability-weighted knowledgebase is to gather information on things that suffer from a miasma of controversy and special interests.
In a public system, perhaps a means by which one could choose to allocate some of the tax dollars they pay towards such a project?
It would mean a loss of funds elsewhere, if we are to avoid rasing taxes/spending less money, but might achieve some of what a kickstarter-like process might offer.
I think these are pretty good, if not somewhat intrusive strategies to mitigate the problems that concern me. Kudos!
It wasn't a typo; disregarding manipulation, weighted contributions in murky circumstances might produce behavior similar to that of a prediction market, which would be better behavior than a system like Wikipedia exhibits under similar circumstances.
In a similar vein, perhaps adding monetary incentive -- or, more likely, giving users the ability to provide a monetary incentive -- to add correct information to a topic would be another good mechanism to encourage good behavior.