The Respect Game: A Revolutionary Framework for Community Growth

Introduction

The Respect Game is an elegant onchain social game that grows communities and makes governance fair, fun, and naturally scalable. Through an elegant consensus process, it helps communities unlock the collective wisdom of their members while ensuring contributors are recognized and rewarded for creating public goods.

At its heart, the Respect Game is a simple process. Participants gather in small groups to share their work, collaborate to evaluate each other's contributions, and build reputation through consensus. This human-centered design combines with onchain attestations and soulbound Respect tokens to create a naturally scalable system for democratic coordination, impact evaluation, and collective decision-making.

Any community or organization can play the Respect Game to enjoy its profound benefits and unleash the power of voluntary collaboration. From local cooperatives to global DAOs, it provides the foundation for a new kind of democratic coordination - one that scales naturally like the branches of a tree while ensuring the value created benefits those who contribute.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Why Play the Respect Game?
• Who Can Benefit from the Respect Game?
• What are the Benefits of the Respect Game?
• How to Play the Respect Game
• Game Rules & Instructions
• Example: Optimism Fractal
• Foundation for Fractal Democracy
• Getting Started
• Join Respect Game Events
• Play With Your Community

Why Play the Respect Game?

The Respect Game offers a flexible framework for measuring contributions and evaluating impact in any context - from simple collaborative games to sophisticated organizational missions. Whether structured as casual group activities or formal evaluation systems, it helps communities recognize and reward valuable work.

This innovative consensus game offers immense benefits for individuals and communities alike. Its elegant gameplay provides immediate advantages while revealing deeper value over time. Let's explore some examples of who can benefit from the Respect Game, what advantages it provides, and the simple rules that make the game both profoundly helpful and fun.

Who Can Benefit from the Respect Game?

The Respect Game can help any community or organization achieve any kind of goals or purpose. You'll find some example use cases below.

What are the Benefits of the Respect Game?

The Respect Game creates profound benefits for any group looking to work better together or simply share fun experiences. Here are some high-level advantages:

The more you engage with the Respect Game, the more benefits you'll discover and the better you'll understand how it could empower you, your organization, or your communities. You can explore more detailed explanations of the benefits in the sections below or in this article. Keep reading to learn how to play and discover more!

How to Play the Respect Game

The Respect Game follows a simple yet powerful format that can be customized for any community's needs. The core process is elegantly simple, starting with a central question or prompt that guides evaluation.

For instance, a software team might ask "What did you build this week?" while an art collective could focus on "What did you create that moved people?” and a local cooperative could ask “What did you recently do to help our community?”

Once you or your community has chosen the focus, here's how the game works:

Game Rules & Instructions

1. Forming Groups
• Participants gather in small groups of three to six people
• Groups are randomly assigned to ensure fairness and fresh perspectives
• The game can accommodate any number of total participants through its fractal structure
2. Sharing Contributions
• Each participant gets up to 4 minutes to share their recent work
• Contributions relate to the game prompt or mission
• Everyone has equal opportunity to be heard
3. Evaluation Process
• Group discusses everyone's contributions openly
• Participants collaborate to rank contributions based on impact
• Rankings go from most impactful (Level 6) to least impactful (Level 1)
4. Reaching Consensus
• At least 2/3 of the group must agree on rankings
• Discussion continues until consensus is reached
• Process ensures fair consideration of all views
5. Recording Results
• When consensus is reached, rankings are recorded onchain
• Participants earn Respect tokens based on their level
• Creates permanent onchain record of contributions
6. Respect Distribution
• Respect tokens are distributed using a Fibonacci-like sequence
• Each higher level earns about 60% more Respect than the previous
• Promotes community engagement, healthy competition, and fair recognition of contributions
7. Regular Participation
• Game can be played weekly, monthly, or on any schedule
• Consistent participation builds reputation over time
• Communities can adjust frequency based on their needs

That's it! The rules are simple yet flexible, allowing each community to tailor the game to their unique needs and preferences. You can start enjoying the benefits immediately, but the true magic unfolds over time as you play consistently. With repeated participation, you'll witness the profound advantages emerge and transform your community!

Example: Optimism Fractal

At Optimism Fractal, participants answer the question "What did you do to grow Optimism?" This focuses the game on growing the Optimism Superchain, which is scaling the values and technology of Ethereum.

To experience Optimism Fractal’s implementation of the Respect Game that showcases its potential, you can join Optimism Fractal's biweekly events, see their core intents for a detailed breakdown of Optimism Fractal's game rules, and watch our videos of each event.

While the Respect Game has flourished at Optimism Fractal events with hundreds of games played for over a year, this is just the beginning. The game's versatility allows it to be adapted for any purpose, goal, community, or organization.

Foundation for Fractal Democracy

The Respect Game is at the heart of Fractal Democracy- a revolutionary governance system system that makes collective decision-making both natural and rewarding while enabling genuine democratic scaling. The game's power comes from breaking large-scale coordination into human-sized groups where authentic evaluation can occur.

Each week, participants join randomly assigned breakout rooms of 3-6 people, ensuring fresh perspectives while maintaining meaningful discussion. Group members take turns sharing their recent contributions, then collaborate to reach consensus on rankings. Following the Fibonacci sequence, each level earns approximately 60% more Respect than the next - from 55 tokens for first place to 5 tokens for sixth place. This creates natural incentives for valuable contribution while enabling sophisticated democratic processes.

The resulting Respect tokens form an essential primitive for fractal governance - a soulbound reputation system that enables democratic coordination based on peer-recognized merit rather than wealth or arbitrary metrics. By distributing influence through consistent community evaluation, Respect provides a credibly neutral foundation that helps communities resist both plutocratic capture and the limitations of simple one-person-one-vote systems.

You can explore complete implementation details in our Respect Game guide or experience it firsthand at weekly community events. You can also explore protocol specifications for an implementation of fractal democracy via Respect Games at OptimismFractal.com/details. Feel free to reach out in our communication channels to see how you can benefit from the Respect Game.

Getting Started

The best way to understand the Respect Game's potential is to experience it firsthand:

Join Respect Game Events

You can join our weekly events to get a feel for the game and participate in Respect Games. This provides an excellent way to get started whether you're an experienced builder in Optimism or new to the ecosystem.

• Join Eden Fractal and Optimism Fractal weekly events on Thursdays at 17 UTC
• RSVP on our events calendar to receive invites and reminders
• Meet experienced players who can answer your questions
• See how the game evaluates contributions to Optimism
• Watch recordings and see timestamps if you can't attend live
• Learn from a community that's been playing for many months

Play With Your Community

You can try playing with your friends, family, community, or business organization to get a feel for how the Respect Game can create benefits in your unique situation.

• Gather your team or friends for a simple session
• Choose a prompt that resonates with your group
• Use our intuitive apps to make gameplay seamless:
• Fractalgram for live community events
• Respect.games platform for flexible participation
• Begin building your community's reputation system
• Keep it simple at first and evolve as you learn