There is Always an Underlying

*Everything* that a human does or perceives has some underlying value attached to it. But the value one person attaches to a good, action, condition, or event will nearly always be different from the value others attach; otherwise there would be no commerce. This holds true regardless of the currency or unit of measure for that value, though commerce is increased when two or more people agree on a common currency for that value.

In Wikipedia, for example, the value of a page is dictated by how well the content meets reader expectations. These expectations are set by the page title and by the context surrounding the page. This context includes not only the content of referring pages, but also the cultural expectations and previously-held assumptions and beliefs of the readers themselves. This entire mass of context and expectations forms a comprehensive underlying foundation of value that is highly resistant to manipulation. The value of a page is tied tightly to this foundation by Wikipedia's process of continual monitoring, editing, and outright deletion of pages that do not meet expectations. (If you don't believe this, try creating a bogus Wikipedia page, or vandalizing an existing page, then observe the results.) But Wikipedia has a flaw; when you edit a page, you are editing the "official" version -- the last edit wins. There is no review or workflow process that would catch your vandalism before it is published. This leads to erroneous information being published in the encyclopedia for a short period of time, and disputes after the fact as the content is cleaned up (follow the "discussion" and "history" links at the top of any Wikipedia page to see examples of this.)

A WikiMarket works the same way as Wikipedia, but has the added tool of using weighted voting (market prices) to select the current "official" version of a page. In a WikiMarket, any edits you make are not published until the version you created rises in price to become the highest-priced version of the page; the market as a whole must concur that your edits were valid before they become "official". Most of the disputes that occur today in Wikipedia would be worked out before the new version is published, by market pricing activity.