The idea is that the sponsor would receive “long-term cred”. For each time period—say, each week—that the agreement is in effect, there would be an edge from the contributor’s epoch node for that week to the sponsor. Thus, if a contribution made during some week is later found to be more valuable, more cred will flow from that contribution through the epoch node to the sponsor.
We’ve generally tried to focus on creating sources of value at contributions rather than contributors. This makes it easier to dispassionately discuss and adjust valuations. There has been some discussion of boosting people directly, but we’ve usually found that the intent can be accomplished by “refactoring” the boost into boosting a new node that flows cred to the person. Certainly open to more discussion here, though.