I still don't see how blockchain helps with distribution and what incentive would be to store huge loads of this type of data locally.
Ratings are important indeed, but blockchain doesn't make them not gameable. For this you need some working web of trust and oh how I wish we had one already (yes yes I know the technology is there and it 'works', but it must work like an e-mail works for an average user to really be popular, I want to be warned not to buy from given ebay seller because friend of my friend of my friend had a bad experience and because I assign high weight to this friend opinion, well that went OT a bit..). On torrent sites there's a thin web of trust of website owners moderators and then trusted uploaders, we could do so much better.
Not to make a separate post, small ask HN: any interesting active projects trying to build such user friendly distributed WoT?
In the context of something like the warez scene the ratings system can be read only to end users.
When releases are made to the decentralized torrent repository they are signed by the release group.
Whether or not a particular signer is an official member of The Scene is decided by consensus of The Scene. The web of trust is very small. Everyone involved is tech savvy, motivated, and already knows each other.
From time to time updates to the list of known groups and their keys may be posted, authenticated by a multisignature scheme.
Then clients can automatically discover who's trustworthy and filter on that. No technical skill or effort required of the general public.
Ratings are important indeed, but blockchain doesn't make them not gameable. For this you need some working web of trust and oh how I wish we had one already (yes yes I know the technology is there and it 'works', but it must work like an e-mail works for an average user to really be popular, I want to be warned not to buy from given ebay seller because friend of my friend of my friend had a bad experience and because I assign high weight to this friend opinion, well that went OT a bit..). On torrent sites there's a thin web of trust of website owners moderators and then trusted uploaders, we could do so much better.
Not to make a separate post, small ask HN: any interesting active projects trying to build such user friendly distributed WoT?