Should budgets allow for irrevocable contracts?

[TroyDASH]

Up to this point I have been dissatisfied in the sense that the developers appear to be moving forward with a certain implementation without the DASH community having sufficiently discussed this. I feel that a poll is needed so we can get a sense of where we stand on this budget issue. There has already been some scattered discussion in a few places, but please use this thread as an opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of the various approaches to the challenges in the budget system.

From my perspective, the bottom line is we want people to be able to trust that the DASH network will always distribute payments for multi-month budgets unless there is a *very* good reason not to, and this is most conducive to the third poll option. Thoughts?

 

[David]

Asked and answered...the masternodes overwhelmingly voted in favor.

 

[ericsammons]

I have a big issue with truly irrevocable contracts, but it looks like 12.1 will go forward with them (and it was voted in fairly). I do wish that some of the developers had addressed this concern when it was first raised, but obviously most MNs didn't mind the concern being ignored.

That being said, when the irrevocable contracts option is implemented, I'll be very, very hesitant to vote "Yes" on any of such proposals, as I fear they would be ripe for exploitation (or even just legitimate random things coming up that would necessitate cancelling them). It will be interesting to see how easily they will pass going forward, as they will require a higher threshold for passage.

 

[David]

I have a big issue with truly irrevocable contracts, but it looks like 12.1 will go forward with them (and it was voted in fairly). I do wish that some of the developers had addressed this concern when it was first raised, but obviously most MNs didn't mind the concern being ignored.

That being said, when the irrevocable contracts option is implemented, I'll be very, very hesitant to vote "Yes" on any of such proposals, as I fear they would be ripe for exploitation (or even just legitimate random things coming up that would necessitate cancelling them). It will be interesting to see how easily they will pass going forward, as they will require a higher threshold for passage.

I could be wrong but I doubt that Evan ignored that concern. Granted that he didn't reply to it directly but I don't think that means he ignored it. Let's just see what 12.1 brings?

 

[ericsammons]

I could be wrong but I doubt that Evan ignored that concern. Granted that he didn't reply to it directly but I don't think that means he ignored it. Let's just see what 12.1 brings?

Perhaps you are right, but I think it would have been appropriate to address it publicly when the concerns were raised, to let us know the concern was at least noted (of course, he was not obligated to, since the vote passed anyway).

Further, in one way I hope it is NOT included in 12.1, since that isn't what was voted on. It seems to me that it should be implemented exactly how it was proposed and voted on; otherwise, what is the point of the vote? (Does that make sense?)

 

[David]

I definitely would have liked to see it addressed as well. I have issues with stuff being irrevocable add well!

 

[TroyDASH]

Asked and answered...the masternodes overwhelmingly voted in favor.

No they didn't. The thing that was voted on was two things rolled into one, where one of them was a reimbursement that literally everyone agreed on. Then in the proposal Evan was like oh yeah btw also vote for this if you support my irrevocable contracts. That's BS.


Edit: see below, yes I am exaggerating. But the point still stands

 

[David]

No they didn't. The thing that was voted on was two things rolled into one, where one of them was a reimbursement that literally everyone agreed on. Then in the proposal Evan was like oh yeah btw also vote for this if you support my irrevocable contracts. That's BS.

See below:

December Transform PR Activity
Proposal For Next Contract

As a decentralized autonomous organization we need to be able to work with outside vendors reliably, so when the network makes a decision to fund a contract, we need to be able to support that decision in an irrevocable way. I believe the budget system failed us and it needs to be altered slightly to support this type of arrangement in the future.

Here are my suggestions for the budget system:

Proposals:

Ordinary one-time or month-to-month proposals will continue to function as they presently do; votes can be changed at any time, which will move these proposals up or down the payment queue (or even disapprove them altogether). These can be thought of as month-to-month contracts, which require ongoing review in order to keep supporting.

Contracts:

These will be an extended version of a proposal, with a minimum voting period of 30 days. During this period of time, an actual, legally binding contract between the vendor (promisor) and a network representative (promisee) should be evaluated. The promisee can be any legal entity which will act as the networks representative (legal firm, foundation, natural person, etc).

After the voting period (minimum of 30 days) has expired, any contracts which have been approved by the necessary number of votes will be paid until their expiration. Contracts, due to their legally binding nature, will be given priority for funding in the new budget system. Regular proposals will be funded by the system after funding is given to contracts.

I propose that the new contract system have a significantly higher voting threshold than ordinary proposals:

3-month contracts must be voted on by at least 20% of the masternode network.
6-month contracts must be voted on by at least 33% of the masternode network.
12-month contracts must be voted on by at least 51% of the masternode network.

Once these minimum voting thresholds are met, contracts will be considered “passed” if at least 51% of the votes cast are “yes” votes.

USD/Dash Denomination:

All contracts and proposals shall be denominated in Dash, unless the proposer is doing business directly with our foundation, which will carry a USD balance.

Eventually we wish to add native USD support to the budget system, which will allow a contractor to get an exact amount of Dash that can be converted to USD without the contractor carrying the market risk while the work is ongoing.

V12.1 - budget-system proposal

To establish network support for the above proposed, I’ve added a proposal to the system “budget-system”. Please feel free to ask questions here about the proposed changes, I’ll answer as many of them as possible.

I’ve also submitted the proposal for a payout of 50 DASH. If successful I’ll be reimbursed for the creation of 10x proposal, which each cost 5 DASH a piece to submit to the network. To see all proposals that have ever been submitted you can use dash ninja,https://dashninja.pl/budgets.html.

If you support the idea and my reimbursement, please use the command (“vote-many a54a4fc99dde45b6841465c1cdb7b8f5ce4e6059c0086524ed26183f2b91f6dd yes”).

What’s Next?

During the time Transform PR was an active contract, they did fantastic work for us. I would really like to work with them again after we have irrevocable contracts, which will be available in 12.1. Transform PR has provided us with the plan they were going to use from March through May, which I have posted in order to give the community an idea of what our future work with them (if approved after 12.1) would look like.

Creating and fully testing a new version of the software will take about six months. The good news, however, is that while we’re working on 12.1, we also have a separate development team led by Andy Freer doing work on Dash Evolution. Because of this, 12.1 shouldn’t delay the release of Dash Evolution. We are right on schedule.

Best,

Evan Duffield
Last edited: Feb 8, 2016

I believe you have it backwards, Troy.

In Evan's proposal, 434 words were dedicated to discussing the new budget system, including contracts; 48 words were dedicated to asking for a 50 DASH reimbursement. I'm pretty sure that masternode owners knew what they were voting for...

 

[TroyDASH]

See below:



I believe you have it backwards, Troy.

In Evan's proposal, 434 words were dedicated to discussing the new budget system, including contracts; 48 words were dedicated to asking for a 50 DASH reimbursement. I'm pretty sure that masternode owners knew what they were voting for...

Ok yes I might be exaggerating...
But my point is, the budget proposal payed out 50 DASH for a completely non-controversial purpose. I am not convinced that the outcome of the vote would have been the same if it was only to vote on having *irrevocable* contracts instead of also reimbursing Evan for something unrelated that he obviously deserved reimbursement for. From the discussion in the thread it seemed to me that irrevocable contracts are not nearly as overwhelmingly supported as the vote represented. If it turns out I'm wrong and the DASH community really does support it, then fine, I'll be okay with it. But I don't like the way it seems to me that it hasn't been hashed out. Don't people think that the network needs to have *some* way to cancel a multi-month budget in the event that the contracted person is obviously not delivering, or is dead or for whatever very good reason?

Also, the vote at the time there was only one proposal which was Evan's. Nearly everyone agrees that something needed to be done so that what happened with Transform-PR doesn't happen again, and Evan put forward a proposal which would prevent the problem. And I even agree that maybe having this would be better than what we have now. But we don't have to jump on the very first thing without talking about other ways to prevent the problem. If we later run into a problem where the network is locked into a contract that really needs to be ended, then it might take a lot more work later to fix it than to just slow down and plan out for these scenarios right now, or at least establish that the community agrees that the solution the devs are putting forward is the right one. We really don't want a situation where people form a "contract" with the DASH network under the pretense that it is irrevocable and then we end up having to change the system back to something not as rigid. If we're doing this, we need to be absolutely sure.

 

[raganius]

Should budgets allow for irrevocable contracts?
Never, IMO.

I agree that some budgets could be made more difficult to initially approve, and to defund once approved.

 

[TheDashGuy]

Should budgets allow for irrevocable contracts?
Never, IMO.

I agree that some budgets could be made more difficult to initially approve, and to defund once approved.

We're going to learn alot when the first real scammers comes through with a year long budget and the core team has to go full oligarchy on them and just manually kick them out regardless what our "contracts" do....

I guess it will be nice to see Terpin make a comeback, or try to, after this goes down...

I hope we don't make too many errors along the way but I'm done berating everyone with my opinions these days. So that will be all.

 

[TroyDASH]

We're going to learn alot when the first real scammers comes through with a year long budget and the core team has to go full oligarchy on them and just manually kick them out regardless what our "contracts" do....

I guess it will be nice to see Terpin make a comeback, or try to, after this goes down...

I hope we don't make too many errors along the way but I'm done berating everyone with my opinions these days. So that will be all.

There's learning the easy way and there's learning the hard way. I was hoping we could do it the easy way but it sounds like it might be too late. Is anyone who is actually *working on this feature in 12.1* willing to contribute to this discussion? Or is the development just going to continue without saying a word and then just dump 12.1 on the network?

 

[TheDashGuy]

There's learning the easy way and there's learning the hard way. I was hoping we could do it the easy way but it sounds like it might be too late. Is anyone who is actually *working on this feature in 12.1* willing to contribute to this discussion? Or is the development just going to continue without saying a word and then just dump 12.1 on the network?

We should just put it up to a vote of the masternodes, let them decide via simple question like "should we add irrevocable contracts to Dash budget system?"


edit: ignore my 1 vote for the first option, accident.

 

[timeless]

We were talking on slack about it and wouldn't it be good that multi-month proposals have monthly goals that get paid AFTER they show the community their progress instead of getting paid at the beginning of the month when nothing has been done yet?

edit:
Also there should be an option to vote down proposals so no irrevocable contracts. There should be a certain threshold of NO votes needed, like 2/3 or 3/4, so there still is a possibility to shut down proposals that don't deliver.

 

[TroyDASH]

We were talking on slack about it and wouldn't it be good that multi-month proposals have monthly goals that get paid AFTER they show the community their progress instead of getting paid at the beginning of the month when nothing has been done yet?

edit:
Also there should be an option to vote down proposals so no irrevocable contracts. There should be a certain threshold of NO votes needed, like 2/3 or 3/4, so there still is a possibility to shut down proposals that don't deliver.

Or, perhaps the budget could be defined such that it can choose its own thresholds in the protocol. So if the proposal owner wants a higher certainty that it won't be defunded, the budget proposal could opt for a higher initial threshold in exchange for a higher threshold to be defunded. Not sure whether it would be better to have the budgets be able to freely define those and just have the masternodes vote, or whether there would need to be some formula with a relationship between the initial threshold and the de-funding threshold.

 

[qwizzie]

Voted yes, but only a special type of budget that requires a higher threshold to initially approve
(which is part of update 12.1)

Hopefully this will also put an end to the political voting thats been going on (ppl voting no on a proposal not because they are against the proposal but because its competing with ppl's own proposals) and make people reconsider when and how they present proposals to the community
(meaning more pre-proposal discussion and not so thight startdates).

 

[GreyGhost]

I fail to grasp the idea of irrevocable contracts.

A rare genius pops-up. Submits a mind-boggling proposal for 2000 DASH a month, during the next 72 months. We vote it in, irrevocably. DASH gets to $1,000.00 so our genius's budget is now @ $2M a month. Even worse, the genius dies. His junkie nephew with a knack for guessing his passwords stole his laptop and now has the DASH wallet getting $2M each month but we can't revoke it?

Back to Earth. I am sure we can thought up less unlikely but similarly damaging scenarios.

_______________________
Since how to sue DAO question:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-sue-dao-stephen-palley
and yesterday's article on Ethereum in the Forbes of all places:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/frances...hereum-towards-a-new-bitsociety/#1d3de74b10a1
I started to enjoy thinking about all of this even more...

 

[qwizzie]

i see contracts as binding agreements that should only be granted to very well-trusted initiaters. in fact they should be so trustwearthy that they should have no problems with reaching the higher treshold in time .. assuming their contracts get enough discussion time. Unknown or less trusted party's should earn our trust by first doing one-time budget proposals and giving proper feedback to the community. Once trust has been established, they can move towards establishing contracts with the community....

thats my thoughts about it.

edit : i also suspect a lot of future multi-month budget propsals will end up getting introduced as one-time payments with each new superblock to avoid the higher tresholds.

 

[TroyDASH]

Forming contracts only with well trusted entities would make problems less likely but would not prevent them from occurring. Large companies are quite reputable yet they lose lawsuits all the time. Individuals even more so. And there's no way around death either.

 

[timeless]

But contracts are never irrevocable in real life. If one party doesn't uphold the agreement the contract is broken. You can then try to come to an agreement to end it and if that's not possible you can sue them but going down that road is opening a whole other can of worms as this is the internet with a worldwide community and companies.

Instead of asking if there should be irrevocable contract we should think about how to make contracts safe enough so developers aren't scared every month that it gets voted down but still have the option if there is broad agreement that something isn't working.