Pre-Proposal Discussion: Jury Duty

But kot, DASH's voting system was born from the assumption (at least I understood it this way) that the many investors were intelligent enough to make their decisions, enough to protect their investment.

This new path DASH is taking seems to be heading towards a completelly different direction: "you are not smart enough: ergo you need to be protected by a corrupt commitee".

In my opinion DASH's problem nowadays lies on too many stupid proposals being made, by clueless people. We should tweak this: the source of proposals (and not the decision making procedure, because there is no problem with the decision makers, at all).

Why don't we demand, for example, that a proposal should only be possible with the previous approval from a Masternode address signature? That would create an initial "filter", because only if the proposer has previously convinced one of the Masternode owners (thus, at least coherence would be expected from the proposal) will his proposal be available for full discussion and voting.

edit: proposals SHOULD be interesting enough to attract VOTES. ABSTENTIONS should be considered the NORMAL state of things (and it should not be seen as a lack of participation from MS owners). IF THE PROPOSAL IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH as to attract enough votes, than this is the proposer's problem, and not a lack of participation problem. Investors do not need to be forced to consider STUPID proposals.

I confess I can barely read this forum anymore, with some of the ideas being posted recently here (just like I can barely visit that BTCtalk forum), because some people are creating a circus alike to the politicians' circus: it might feel awesome for then to be in this parliament like place.... but these same stupid people are not even Masternode owners, I am sure...

edit 2: oaxaca, after I re-read this post I was affraid you might think I am attacking you. Not at all. Please understand that I respect and admire you, and I know that you are a great and important member of this community, always contributing with great ideas and efforts.

My problem is with the many ideas that invaded this community after the voting mechanism was brought to life. Those ideas are very similar to those of the the gramscianism that nowadays reign in the country where I live, and that makes me feel really sick.
 
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kot said:
In my opinion the idea is god (we are even working on similar idea in the core team).
The major concern here is the fact that not all of MN owners is an experienced VC, PM or delivery manager (they usually have specific type of skills, knowledge and experience need to assess project proposals - and this people need also help of experienced IT architects). Let's assume that people from all professions are MN owners. Therefore it would be extremely hard to e.g. graphical designer, professional hokey player or a farmer to properly understand the details of every sophisticated IT proposal and make an assessment whether it is good or not.
I think that it should be rather a team of "consultants", who serve as advisers to the MN owners and share analysis and recommendations about project proposals.

raganius - I agree that our main direction should be CASH (with all implications). Newertheless we should not let ourselves to waste the money.
Click to expand...


It's not really up to the network to decide whether someone has a good enough understanding of a point to make decisions on it and creating "official" advisory boards to assist with that is a really bad idea imho, there's a potential gain from influence on those boards and the greater the gain the greater the pressure of influence. As far as I can see being able to attach a reference link to a vote, say a link to a forum post or research paper, would do the same thing but with no "official" channel to influence.
 
I agree with raganius on the point that MN owners should not be punished in any way if they don't explicitly cast their vote. Abstain is strong enough if you read it like "I'm fine where we already are, just deliver what was already approved". There should be economic incentive to do the right things, not economic punishment for doing nothing.

But I disagree with any "filter" idea based on roles, the economic "filter" (the fee of 5 DASH) is enough imo. If there are too many proposals with too little info they simply won't get enough votes. We have internet filter here in Russia "to protect children" which actually blocks anything (so called) government doesn't like. Any committee or whatever they will call themselves should have no right/way to filter or block anything. They should have just the same vote as anyone in the community. All they should be able to do is to do some analysis and create some reports etc. And then it's MN owners' choice either to listen to them or not, it's MN owners' funds sitting in collateral not the funds of some fancy committee.

TL;DR;
Economic incentive is the king.
 
UdjinM6 said:
...
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THIS
icon_thumbsup.gif
:smile:
 
raganius - this is just my opinion and proposition - it is not written in stone nor decided :). I guess you are getting a little too emotional about this. There is no reason to suspect anyone for corruption nor to assume that people are stupid or extremely smart (people are simply different). We are building this entire environment and economy together. We should consider different options and make it working for everyone (not only for those who understand every single detail of sophisticated IT proposal).

I believe I have proposed exactly the same solution as UdjinM6: "I think that it should be rather a team of "consultants", who serve as advisers to the MN owners and share analysis and recommendations about project proposals.". It does not force anyone to make a decision but provides additional input to make a good decision. Relying on attractiveness of the proposal might not be the best way to approve the project. Projects my be presented in a very attractive way but they could not bring any value (I know very well how it works - I have seen many of this kind of presentations in my daily job).
 
kot said:
raganius - this is just my opinion and proposition - it is not written in stone nor decided :). I guess you are getting a little too emotional about this. There is no reason to suspect anyone for corruption nor to assume that people are stupid or extremely smart (people are simply different). We are building this entire environment and economy together. We should consider different options and make it working for everyone (not only for those who understand every single detail of sophisticated IT proposal).

I believe I have proposed exactly the same solution as UdjinM6: "I think that it should be rather a team of "consultants", who serve as advisers to the MN owners and share analysis and recommendations about project proposals.". It does not force anyone to make a decision but provides additional input to make a good decision. Relying on attractiveness of the proposal might not be the best way to approve the project. Projects my be presented in a very attractive way but they could not bring any value (I know very well how it works - I have seen many of this kind of presentations in my daily job).
Click to expand...

Well, if that's only that, it's fine for me, as long as these "consultants" are not funded with salaries from the "public" DASH blockchain budget.... they could even do a great service for the community... but charging fees directly from those who decide to receive their enlightening advisement services :wink:
 
I'm with UdjinM6 and raganius, this whole "committee" idea stinks of unneeded bureaucracy. The whole point behind master nodes was that as a group, people will generally make choices to protect their interests, so economic incentives are enough. We have begun to see a shift in philosophy from the core team from "masternodes owers are free to make their choices" to "we know best," especially after some earmarked budgets have not passed.

It is a mistake to try and direct masternode owners, everything you want to achieve through these "advisers" or "committee's" can be achieved though dialogue and open proposal discussion and without trying to force "desired" outcomes. I think this is the wrong attitude to take. You will end up alienating masternode owners in the long run, giving our critics ammunition vis a vis centralization, and finally, this goes against everything crypto stands for as far as I am concerned.

I hope the core team realizes this is a mistake and backtracks on this bad idea.

Pablo.
 
raganius said:
Well, if that's only that, it's fine for me, as long as these "consultants" are not funded with salaries from the "public" DASH blockchain budget.... they could even do a great service for the community... but charging fees directly from those who decide to receive their enlightening advisement services :wink:
Click to expand...
I guess, walking this path - it would be up to those who decide to pay for the consulting or not :)

fible1 - it is not any shift in core team philosophy - please make no wrong assumptions on this. It is the community member kot discussing the topic with other community members. I have the same right to express my opinion as any other person.
About alienating MN owners - you are making wrong assumption again. I would see this consulting/assessment service as a public service and results would be available for everyone.

This is an idea taken from the experience. I do not know if we are ready for it or not. I am quite sure that investors pay a lot of money for consultants and analysts not by mistake.
 
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kot I think that the main point of these "advisers" would be to align masternode voters to certain interests, in this case the core team's as that is most likely where the "adviser" pool will come from. Lets assume though that these "advisers" are drawn from a general pool, they will still be under heavy pressure from vested interests, making it very hard for them to be unbiased.

You make the comparison to business consultants, but that is hardly the same thing. When I hire a consultant. me and the consultant have the same interests, to reach my personal goals, while masternode owners will have conflicting goals and the "advisers" will necessarily align with one group or another and hold a powerful influence over newbie voters. There is really no "right" or "wrong" way to vote, and any attempt to "lead" the voting process is suspect.

Finally, I am not commenting on your observations per se, Evan expressed on Bitcointalk that he is interested in tooling the voting system more thoroughly than we originally thought. Also please consider the last budget change from Public Awareness the core team did unilaterally and only after a long discussion did bother to get approval for, so there is some basis for me saying that we need to be careful as to how we retool the budget system and what MN voters rights and responsibilities are; as well as those of the core team and project proponents.

I hope you don't think I'm being hostile in any way, I've been told my writing comes across that way. It's just a uniquely bad idea, these "advisers" have the mandate of leading voter opinion; which is dangerous as they are subject to vested interests.

:)

Pablo.
 
No worries - I do not consider you being hostile at all. I really appreciate different opinions and different points of view.
Only when we have different opinions and propositions, we could find the best solution for us. If we would all have the same opinion, it would be a disaster (no progress) :).

Going back to the topic. I can see no difference between hiring consultant by Dash MN owner and hiring consultant by an external investor.
I can even give you a good example of the problem, we discuss here: https://www.dashwhale.org/p/dash-debit-card

This proposal contais:
- 4 sentences with some unclear promises

What is missing in the proposal:
- project plan
- timelines and project duration
- scale of the project (e.g. geographical location)
- real goals of the project
- benefits for Dash (I can see only benefits for the company)
- impact (how many cards were issued so far, how many transactions are handled per day/month, number of transactions etc)
- how Dash card will be promoted

Considering the number of votes for the proposal, do you really think that it will be a good investment and smart decision? Are these investors consciously protect their money?
 
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fible1 said:
kot ...Lets assume though that these "advisers" are drawn from a general pool, they will still be under heavy pressure from vested interests, making it very hard for them to be unbiased.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I don't see it. How would "vested interests" influence randomly selected MN owners? These "jurors" would discuss proposals in and amongst themselves. Their final report would be available for MN owners to read if they want or to ignore if they want.
 
kot said:
No worries - I do not consider you being hostile at all. I really appreciate different opinions and different points of view.
Only when we have different opinions and propositions, we could find the best solution for us. If we would all have the same opinion, it would be a disaster (no progress) :).

Going back to the topic. I can see no difference between hiring consultant by Dash MN owner and hiring consultant by an external investor.
I can even give you a good example of the problem, we discuss here: https://www.dashwhale.org/p/dash-debit-card

This proposal contais:
- 4 sentences with some unclear promises

What is missing in the proposal:
- project plan
- timelines and project duration
- scale of the project (e.g. geographical location)
- real goals of the project
- benefits for Dash (I can see only benefits for the company)
- impact (how many cards were issued so far, how many transactions are handled per day/month, number of transactions etc)
- how Dash card will be promoted

Considering the number of votes for the proposal, do you really think that it will be a good investment and smart decision? Are these investors consciously protect their money?
Click to expand...

Valid point but the way a proposal is presented is only part of it. That one for example, if a beautifully presented proposal from a team of industry experts is dragging on forever then a less favoured competing proposal deserves support, at the very least it will say to the others that they need to show some progress or risk losing funds.
 
kot said:
No worries - I do not consider you being hostile at all. I really appreciate different opinions and different points of view.
Only when we have different opinions and propositions, we could find the best solution for us. If we would all have the same opinion, it would be a disaster (no progress) :).

Going back to the topic. I can see no difference between hiring consultant by Dash MN owner and hiring consultant by an external investor.
I can even give you a good example of the problem, we discuss here: https://www.dashwhale.org/p/dash-debit-card

This proposal contais:
- 4 sentences with some unclear promises

What is missing in the proposal:
- project plan
- timelines and project duration
- scale of the project (e.g. geographical location)
- real goals of the project
- benefits for Dash (I can see only benefits for the company)
- impact (how many cards were issued so far, how many transactions are handled per day/month, number of transactions etc)
- how Dash card will be promoted

Considering the number of votes for the proposal, do you really think that it will be a good investment and smart decision? Are these investors consciously protect their money?
Click to expand...

i think we should leave the discussion of the dash debit card to its own thread.
 
fible1 said:
I'm with UdjinM6 and raganius, this whole "committee" idea stinks of unneeded bureaucracy. The whole point behind master nodes was that as a group, people will generally make choices to protect their interests, so economic incentives are enough. We have begun to see a shift in philosophy from the core team from "masternodes owers are free to make their choices" to "we know best," especially after some earmarked budgets have not passed.

It is a mistake to try and direct masternode owners, everything you want to achieve through these "advisers" or "committee's" can be achieved though dialogue and open proposal discussion and without trying to force "desired" outcomes. I think this is the wrong attitude to take. You will end up alienating masternode owners in the long run, giving our critics ammunition vis a vis centralization, and finally, this goes against everything crypto stands for as far as I am concerned.

I hope the core team realizes this is a mistake and backtracks on this bad idea.

Pablo.
Click to expand...
 
oaxaca said:
Sorry, but I don't see it. How would "vested interests" influence randomly selected MN owners? These "jurors" would discuss proposals in and amongst themselves. Their final report would be available for MN owners to read if they want or to ignore if they want.
Click to expand...
I would not see them as randomly selected MN owners. I would rather see these consultants as a separate "service" - people competent in this type of work (not randomly selected person).
However the idea of random selection seems to be attractive too (in some parts)
I do not have a ready-to-use solution - it is rather a brainstorming for me :)
 
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I don't support this proposal as-is, but the discussion it is generating is valuable, and very much related to the discussion in my earlier topic, what is DASH's governance model? https://dashtalk.org/threads/poll-what-is-dashs-governance-model.8510/

It doesn't have to be only about the relationship between the development team and the masternode operators. It is also the masternode operators' relationship with other masternode operators, and with all other users of DASH. At this point there is really very little in the way of masternode operators from taking off and implementing their own governance model. Can we form a network consensus about under which minimum conditions a budget proposal should be considered? Currently, the only thing that stands in the way of anybody creating a proposal is 5 DASH. Is there something we can suggest to change at the protocol level to make it easier to filter out frivolous proposals? And if not at the protocol level, is there something or a set of principles we can establish as a masternode network consensus that operators can reference to make their voting decisions easier? How do successful businesses in the real world address this type of problem?
 
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