Pre-Proposal - Visual Identity

[Triptolemoose]

I think it would be a great advertising opportunity to open up the logo to a public competition. Let's say, a $50K prize with the condition that the winner must get super majority. It would highlight the strength of dash's governance, that you can't just walk in and make changes.

I'm not entirely sure about the mechanics but perhaps utilize a non-free sms vote to determine who goes into the final proposal.

Michael Tharp is ex partner Lippincott, I'm not sure if a $50k contest will attract the same calibre of work. Core did choose a different path for the rebrand via Ogylvy, and the money that they spent is already gone. Imagine the chaos if we only had the one O&M logo to vote on. We can thank Drako for organising this other option as well as convincing Michael to do this work without any guarantee of payment.

That said, the masternode network would still have to vote on a $50k proposal just to get the competition funding, so if this is something you are interested in organising, nothing stops you from stumping up the 5 Dash for it.

Re: SMS voting.
Free and non-free SMS doesn't work. A guy once told me he wins $15k talent competitions by buying a ton of prepay phones and hammering in votes at $1 each. I guess this works because regular people simply don't want to part with money to place a vote. Not to mention competing coins may use their communities to land us with something terrible as a logo as well as reclaim the $50k spent to exploit the voting mech.

 

[Triptolemoose]

Let's not forget that T&C had the privilege of seeing O&Ms entry before all MNOs. They are the ones that made this a two horse race.

O&M had the privilege of a lot of time to work on their effort, as well as a ton of resources with guaranteed payment regardless of the outcome.

T&C did it off their own back with no guaranteed payment, they understood what Dash is about, and they definitely won the voting by a country mile with 250+ votes above O&M. Their logo is undoubtedly the winner in this THREE horse race (original logo, OM, and TC).

 

[demo]

Demo says that because the old logo was not voted in, in his opinion, the new T&C logo also doesn't need to be voted in. I'd considering agreeing with this to some degree if it wasn't a budget decision.
However, because we will be paying for the rights to use the T&C logo, it really needs to hit the 10% supermajority to receive funding, as that's how the funding works in Dash.

No I didnt said that. What I said is that the T&C logo was voted and reached majority (but not supermajority), while the old logo was not voted at all !!! So, in my humble opinion, T&C logo is more legitimated to become the DASH logo. At least until someone puts the old logo into a vote so that we can compare its vote results to the results of the T&C logo. This is my personal sense of justice, but of course the community has not decided this as a rule yet.

I agree with you that a decision that asks money from the budget system should require some kind of supermajority, but what kind of supermajority should be required? Isnt a 10% supermajority too much, for a trivial issue like the Dash logo? Shouldnt the supermajority be proportional to the seriousnes of the subject, or to the amount of the money requested?

The kind of supermajority that should be required, is a set of governance decisions that should be made. But whatever government decision the community takes, it is very important to be a solid decision that does not depend on the temporary wishes of the respective core team.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

I agree with you that a budget decision requires supermajority, but what kind of supermajority it requires? Is the 10% suppermajority appropriate, for a somehow trivial issue like the Dash logo?
The kind of supermajority that is required, is yet another governance decision that should be made.
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...age-user-so-uninvolved.8940/page-2#post-94323

The current situation is quite clear. The governance system has been compromised by MNOs putting too much trust in Core. It begs the question, "who is driving this bus?". If Core is allowed to have such discretion then it seems to me, claims of centralization have merit. It means, at some point in the future, if the state of Dash Core Group is put into jeopardy, then dash as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization might struggle to make decisions for itself.

The process is more important than individual outcomes. Without a solid decentralized process, there is likely to be big problems ahead.

 

[demo]

The current situation is quite clear. The governance system has been compromised by MNOs putting too much trust in Core. It begs the question, "who is driving this bus?". If Core is allowed to have such discretion then it seems to me, claims of centralization have merit. It means, at some point in the future, if the state of Dash Core Group is put into jeopardy, then dash as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization might struggle to make decisions for itself.

The process is more important than individual outcomes. Without a solid decentralized process, there is likely to be big problems ahead.

Of course you are also right.
When we asked about the reduction of the proposal fee, or about adaptive proposal fees, the decision was considered negative by the core team because it didnt pass the supermajority. While at the same time, the status quo (5 dash proposal fee) was not voted a all !!!

So I agree with you.
It is not fair for some decisions who passed the majority but not the supermajority, the core team to consider them legitimate, while for some other decisions not to apply the same.

Dash community certainly needs a solid decentralized process, that will not change upon the will of the core team.

 

[Triptolemoose]

Of course you are also right.
When we asked about the reduction of the proposal fee, or about adaptive proposal fees, the decision was considered negative by the core team because it didnt pass the supermajority. While at the same time, the status quo (5 dash proposal fee) was not voted a all !!!

So I agree with you.
It is not fair for some decisions who passed the majority but not the supermajority, the core team to consider them legitimate, while for some other decisions not to apply the same.

Dash community certainly needs a solid decentralized process, that will not change upon the will of the core team.

My thoughts are as follows.

The fact that core set this up in the way they did, and the MNOs chose to vote according to the directives of core, this makes it legitimate.

If MNO were genuinely unhappy with the way the governance was being used, then surely they would have voted to defund core.

However, core's own proposals were all funded by clear supermajority, this means the MNOs have full confidence in core and can see why this vote was structured as it was.

The decentralisation process in the Dash DAO is still fine imo.

 

[demo]

The decentralisation process in the Dash DAO is still fine imo.

Or maybe there is no decentralisation at all, and the vast majority of the masternodes is still controlled by a few individuals of the core team. Anyway....

In any case, the masternode operators obviously will not defund the core team for a trivial issue like the Dash logo, but this does not mean that they are happy whenever the core team arbitrarily changes the governance rules.

 

[Nuancer]

Of course you are also right.
When we asked about the reduction of the proposal fee, or about adaptive proposal fees, the decision was considered negative by the core team because it didnt pass the supermajority. While at the same time, the status quo (5 dash proposal fee) was not voted a all !!!

So I agree with you.
It is not fair for some decisions who passed the majority but not the supermajority, the core team to consider them legitimate, while for some other decisions not to apply the same.

Dash community certainly needs a solid decentralized process, that will not change upon the will of the core team.

Wow, thanks for bringing up this inconsistency. I have been advocating for lower/adaptive proposal fees for awhile now, having noticed that small but effective proposals are no longer being submitted and are crowded out by the 5 Dash requirement. Seeing that both of the proposals regarding proposal fees were passed in favor of doing something (based on a simple majority), this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

 

[Triptolemoose]

Or maybe there is no decentralisation at all, and the vast majority of the masternodes is still controlled by a few individuals of the core team. Anyway....

In any case, the masternode operators obviously will not defund the core team for a trivial issue like the Dash logo, but this does not mean that they are happy whenever the core team arbitrarily changes the governance rules.

I guess it means Core cannot be expected to make everyone happy all of the time, but as long as we are pointing in the right direction most of the time, progress is being made.

In any regard, if core hold the vast majority of masternodes (which seems not the case), they can be expected to act in their own self interest and do what they perceive as being best for dash. And conversely, if they do not hold a lot of masternodes, how would the network know that they are acting in our best interest.

Note. I wouldn't push for core staff to disclose their dash holdings, as it's sounding very similar to what reporting we get from public companies.

The best we can do currently, is let the community hold core to account and allow scrutiny and free discussions, and let the results speak for themselves.

In this case, I believe we are still heading in the right direction with the evolved logo and branding. Let's see where it leads us, hopefully into something that is more palatable by the mainstream.

 

[Triptolemoose]

Wow, thanks for bringing up this inconsistency. I have been advocating for lower/adaptive proposal fees for awhile now, having noticed that small but effective proposals are no longer being submitted and are crowded out by the 5 Dash requirement. Seeing that both of the proposals regarding proposal fees were passed in favor of doing something (based on a simple majority), this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Has this result been discussed with anyone at core. It could be possible that something is already underway but they wish to get a provisional patent before announcing anything.

With ideas such as these, I believe it is best to PM core to feel out where things are heading and to get advice before putting forward for a vote. Was this done?

 

[JGCMiner]

Wow, thanks for bringing up this inconsistency. I have been advocating for lower/adaptive proposal fees for awhile now, having noticed that small but effective proposals are no longer being submitted and are crowded out by the 5 Dash requirement. Seeing that both of the proposals regarding proposal fees were passed in favor of doing something (based on a simple majority), this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

I don’t think it makes any sense to go back in time and look at other decision proposals and evaluate them on the basis of a simple majority as MNOs may not have voted in the same way if they had this information upfront.

The proper way to do this is to put whatever issue back up for a vote and declare the rules and the reasoning in the description like Core did for the logo vote. (By the way, part of the reason the logo vote was a simple majority was because there were 3 options. You might find more resistance from MNOs in trying to apply those rules to a binary decision.)

Oh, and don’t forget that we funded DashBoost specifically to solve the problem of the “high” proposal fee. I believe that platform is in live beta.

 

[fernando]

What an intense discussion we've had!

As almost everyone knows, Tharp & Clark proposal clearly won. I hope we can all rally behind the new logo, leave our differences behing and act as one. This is the power of our governance system. We discuss, we vote, we keep moving forward.

I know some people have complained about us changing the rules and not requiring this proposal to get 10% net vote approval. However, I want to insist in the fact that we are using a binary funding tool for something it is not designed for. In this vote we had three options: keep old logo, use Ogilvy's or use Tharp&Clark's. The two change proposal were at a disadvantage because they would get the no votes of the other change one plus the no votes of the ones that preferred not to make changes. Because of that you need to convince more than 50% of people just to be net positive. That combined with the 20% participation requirement make for a pretty strong case that most of the network desired this outcome.

As for timing, Michael and Chris are now working to deliver a final version of the logo in the next few days. They want to see what feedback they can include in their design without losing the essence. Please, don't make rushed decisions about ordering merchandise or branding stuff until you see the final version. It will be very similar, but there could be some small tweaks.

After that is out, we'll keep working on the design guide and the applications for a few weeks so we can have a fully developed proposal by late April or early May. I'm really eager for those meetings and seeing the results of everything that is being prepared. I'm sure we'll have Michael and Chris around for a long time and this exercise will live for years to come.

Finally, I would like to thank Ogilvy for their work. I know many people did not like what they brought, but many others did. They deserve some credit for taking risks, even if they didn't play out. Their team is really passionate about Dash and hopefully they will also be around doing other stuff.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

The vote wasn't split 50-50 as it's entirely possible some masternodes voted yes on both proposals. Prove me wrong.

 

[alex-ru]

I hope that Tharp & Clark will try to take into account some of remarks and suggestions that was publish here on Forum and in Discord chat during discussions...
(it'll be great if somebody will place all good ideas in one "reporting" document)

 

[GrandMasterDash]

I would be tempted to submit my own design but I'm sure it would get rejected simply because I'm an argumentative little shit. But here goes anyway from someone that isn't a graphic designer...

The fastest animals on earth are birds (Falcon, Eagle etc). They represents one of our top features, Instant Send. Thus I present to you a three-birds logo encased in a shield. The shield represents trust and is also used by Dash Force News. The three birds represent the three layers of dash; mining, masternodes and DAPI.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

O&M 346 + 739 + 121 = 1206
T&C 772 + 504 + 3 = 1359

The above is the final tally of votes; yes, no, abstain.

(Someone please submit cross-table facts.. @demo ?)

1. To interpret these numbers correctly, we must first disregard all invalid votes. An invalid vote is when a masternode votes for one proposal but not on the other, because otherwise the facts are missing and unknown on the other side. The sum of votes for T&C is 153 votes more than O&M. Thus, at minimum, there were 153 invalid votes. Fact, there can only be 1206 valid votes or less.
   
   
2. Next, we must disregard all masternodes that voted Yes on both proposals, which is not immediately clear from the summary results.
   
   
3. Given the requirement to vote on both proposals, the number of Yes votes on one side must equal the sum of No votes plus Abstain votes on the other side (remember, two Yes votes from a masternode are, in fact, invalid).

Given the above third rule, we can see:

1. 346 != 504 + 3
   
   A discrepancy of 161. Being there are only 3 Abstain, I assume T&C received many invalid No votes.
   
   
2. 772 != 739 + 121
   
   A discrepancy of 88, with a large potential margin of error on all counts (yes, no, abstain)

In conclusion, there are at least 161 invalid votes, which may or may not of affected the outcome.

 

[JOL]

we can have a fully developed proposal by late April or early May

Let vote on this. If i well understand, if no vote, it's mean we stay with the same logo as today ?

try to take into account some of remarks and suggestions that was publish here on Forum and in Discord chat during discussions...

T&C + remaks and suggestions = Actual logo without any reprinting all materials

 

[JOL]

From my point of view, we have time to do something beter than what are the option today.

Actual logo + T&C logo tweak + O&M logo tweak + comunity logo : With new pannel test by 1, 2 or 3 diferents companys. Then we have no more doubts about that.

Because at this time we have no prouved about T&C hes the good one for mass adoption. We just know than MNO love this one more base on them personnals feelings.

it is better to spend money again and again on this point sooner than to make a mistake that will be more difficult to shrink later on

To be clear the only logo i personnaly love is the old Darkcoin. My chose can only base on what is more eficient for mass adoption. And i need prouf (data), what a proposal owner can said is only value as juge and party.

 

[demo]

I know some people have complained about us changing the rules and not requiring this proposal to get 10% net vote approval. However, I want to insist in the fact that we are using a binary funding tool for something it is not designed for. In this vote we had three options: keep old logo, use Ogilvy's or use Tharp&Clark's. The two change proposal were at a disadvantage because they would get the no votes of the other change one plus the no votes of the ones that preferred not to make changes. Because of that you need to convince more than 50% of people just to be net positive. That combined with the 20% participation requirement make for a pretty strong case that most of the network desired this outcome.

There is a much better and solid way to solve this, by far better than the destruction of the rules you choosed as a "solution".

Initally you should vote for the decision method, before creating the poll. Ask first the MNOs how they want the logo issue to be resolved: by supermajority? by simple majority? or just the most loved poll option? Then create a second poll, put all logos side by side, and extract the result based on the previous decision. (the result of the second poll depends on the result of the first poll, so they are interdependant polls )

You may also do all the above in a single poll, if you allow people to cast a double vote. A double vote is when everyone votes in the form (decision method, prefered logo). Vote examples: (supermajority,T&C) , (most loved option, old logo), (simple majority, Oglivy).

Of course in order for supermajority to be selected as a method, the supermajority of the voters should agree with it. Or in order for simple majority to be selected, the simple majority should agree with it. Or in order the most loved poll option to be the selection method, this method should be the most loved one. The aforementioned rationality is formally expressed by the bold rule.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Indeed. From now on, on every governance proposal, I am going to vote against it by default unless it is clearly stated what the terms are. Time limits should also be required because, as we saw with the 2MB block increase, it could go back years and yet we're expected to uphold it.

Just to add salt, it wasn't even a governance proposal, it was a proposal to pay O&M for the re-brand.

Tbh, I'm totally disappointed and exhausted how this has been handled. Dash's governance is under attack and it appears the majority don't see it or care enough.