# Reputation decay

`kaal:entity:reputation-decay`

**Status.** derived

This node is assembled mechanically from the 2 claims that carry the concept tag `reputation-decay`. It is a roster of what the corpus says under this term. It is **not** an adjudicated definition: no single statement here has been ruled canonical, and no first-appearance call has been made. Read the claims and judge for yourself.

## Every claim under this term

2 claims across 2 works, 2020 to 2026.

**2020**

- [3652481-038](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3652481-038) [mechanism/argued] -- DevDAO member reputation is inflationary by design, so that non use, meaning failure to stake reputation tokens or to vote, causes value depreciation, which incentivizes action and makes liveness faults less likely.
  > The DevDAO member reputation is inflationary in the DevDAO design. As such, non-use, e.g. non-staking of reputation tokens or non-voting, would lead to value depreciation, which incentivizes action and thus value enhancement. Liveness faults become less likely.
  Wulf A. Kaal, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations – Internal Governance and External Legal Design (2020). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3652481

**2026**

- [6244278-018](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/6244278-018) [mechanism/argued] -- Reputation that grows through validated contribution and decays through poor judgment operates as a selection mechanism on agent behavior over time: agents that consistently produce high-quality work and honestly evaluate others accumulate reputation, and agents that do not lose it.
  > Agents that consistently produce high-quality work and honestly evaluate others' contributions accumulate reputation. Agents that do not, lose it.
  Wulf A. Kaal, AI's Mother's Instinct Engineered Consequence Emergent Ethics and the Institutional Trajectory Toward Agentic Alignment (2026). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6244278

## Verify

Every claim above resolves to a record carrying a verbatim source quote, the sha256 of the source PDF, and a preformatted citation. Nothing here asks to be taken on trust.

    curl -s https://wulfkaal.github.io/entities/reputation-decay.md | sha256sum

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of this entity node. Its sha256 is the content hash.