# SourceCred Protocol

**URL:** <https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/sourcecred-protocol/500>\
**Category:** The CredSperiment\
**Tags:** 📦artifact\
**Created:** [December 27, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/sourcecred-protocol/500 "2019-12-27T21:53:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![burrrata](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/discourse.sourcecred.io/burrrata/32/135_2.png) [@burrrata](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/u/burrrata)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/sourcecred-protocol/500/3 "2019-12-27T23:04:05Z")

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# Threads that somewhat answer the question: “What is Cred?”

[https://sourcecred.io/cred/](https://sourcecred.io/cred/)

> [@A Gentle Introduction to Cred](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/a-gentle-introduction-to-cred/20):
>
> SourceCred, as the name might suggest, is all about attributing cred. Cred is a metric that describes every contribution and contributor in a project, giving a sense of how important they were. For example, forum posts (like this one) can earn cred. If this post earns 5 cred, and another post earns 10 cred, then that other post is considered twice as important as this one. (Note: SourceCred doesn’t load posts from this forum yet.) The contributions are arranged in a [graph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_(discrete_mathematics)), where contributions …

> [@Cred/Grain Dynamics](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/cred-grain-dynamics/277/2):
>
> [An Overview of Grain](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/an-overview-of-grain/147): an initial overview of Grain. While this Grain design is an open design space, this sets the foundation for many of the resulting conversations around Cred/Grain dynamics

> [@CredSperiment System Overview](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/credsperiment-system-overview/182):
>
> Disclaimer: This content is outdated. Please see [SourceCred in 5 minutes](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/sourcecred-in-5-minutes/466) for the latest overview of the CredSperiment. This post describes the initial design of the CredSperiment, as envisioned in August 2019. Since then, the system has changed materially. Please view this document as a piece of history in SourceCred’s evolution, but not an up-to-date view of how SourceCred operates. The CredSperiment creates a game in which people are rewarded for contributing to SourceCred, based on Source…

> [@SourceCred in 5 minutes](https://discourse.sourcecred.io/t/sourcecred-in-5-minutes/466):
>
> What is SourceCred? SourceCred is a reputation protocol for open collaboration. At a basic level, SourceCred tracks the contributions that are made to a community project. It does this by assigning each contribution and contributor a score, called “Cred”, based on the contributions’ value to the project. You can think of SourceCred as turning community collaboration into a game. To earn high Cred scores you need to make contributions that the community values. SourceCred itself is dogfooding S…

[https://github.com/sourcecred/pm/blob/master/overview.md](https://github.com/sourcecred/pm/blob/master/overview.md)

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