A Potential Permanent Solution to NNS Spam Proposals

Governance
, , ,
1

There’s been a lot of discussion on Spam Proposals already - so I think it’s safe to assume we’re all aware of the issue. (If you aren’t up to date, here is the original “proposal” that spurred this one forward. Wenzel does a great job highlighting the history & issues with spam proposals.)

With that being said, I personally don’t believe that indefinitely scaling the price to participate in governance is the way to go. Simultaneously, I didn’t want to come up empty handed, while saying “this doesn’t work”, so I’d like to propose an (potentially controversial) alternative to the 100ICP reject cost.

A Permanent Solution to NNS’ Spam Proposals

  1. Create a new proposal type “Identifying Spam Proposals”

  2. Create a 24 hour grace period for proposals, in which maturity is not distributed.

  3. Create a functionality within the NNS to only distribute maturity for a proposal under the conditions;
    i) an “Identifying Spam Proposal” was not submit for the proposal in question within the grace period.
    ii) The “Identifying Spam Proposal” submit during the grace period was rejected, signifying it is in fact not a spam proposal.

  4. In the instance an “Identifying Spam Proposal” is accepted (signifying it is in fact spam), the Proposal is ignored during the Maturity Distribution period.

The idea behind this is that in the instance there is a spam proposal, there is a 24 hour grace period in which maturity is not dispersed, allowing participants of the NNS to identify the proposal, and submit an “Identifying Spam Proposal”. Upon the submission of the “Identifying Spam Proposal”, maturity is further withheld until a consensus is reached. If NNS Participants come to an agreement, that a proposal is in-fact spam - the corresponding maturity would be burnt. Alternatively, if a proposal is found to be incorrectly reported via “Identifying Spam Proposals” , and is voted to not be spam, the corresponding maturity is disbursed to its neurons.

EDIT: Thinking back, I think it’d also be beneficial to implement a strike system. If a neuron submits x proposals that are identified as “Spam Proposals”, it loses its ability to submit proposals. This would address “repeat offenders”, as the original idea only addresses the rewards aspect. I’d also like to add that @MillionMiles idea to implement a viewing threshold, of say 5% of voting power, would simultaneously address the NNS UI Spam, while this addresses rewards.

I believe this is a potential solution, but it will require some fine tuning to get correct. Additionally, it would require a fair bit of dev work to be done - which we can’t expect DFINITY to handle all the time. If you’re interested in developing this idea further, please feel free to give some feedback on this forum, or reach out to me via twitter @accumulating.icp

4 Likes
2

Thank you for getting involved and offering your thoughts on a solution. I think it’s an interesting idea.

Perhaps in #4 it would be best to ignore the proposal instead of burning the rewards it represented. If you burn those rewards, then people are not likely to vote to call it spam since that will hurt them financially. I don’t see anything wrong with delaying all rewards by a day to enable your idea.

I like the strike system idea.

2 Likes
3

I don’t think it’s a good idea to let people to identify whether it’s a spam proposal. This is neither reliable(peoples has different standard on spam proposal) nor operational(many peoples will ignore or no motivations to do this)

Please see my solution raised on Proposal to Mitigate NNS Advertisement Spam - a Temporary Solution

1 Like
4

@MillionMiles If a system like this is implemented, I think it would be pretty easy to create a standardized “Spam Proposal” Criteria List. Additionally, I don’t think peoples opinions as to what a spam proposal is differs to much. The general consensus I’ve gotten while talking to people is that a “Spam Proposal” is created solely for the purpose of crowding/spamming the NNS, pushing information / advertisements, or inflating rewards. In other words, proposals that do not truly contribute to governance of the IC in a meaningful way.

However, I would agree there needs to be an incentive to identify Spam Proposals, as it costs both ICP & Time to make a proposal. I think a good start is reducing/eliminating the fee to create “Identifying Spam Proposals”, however it could argued that you could then just spam “Identifying Spam Proposals” to delay rewards. Although, I believe there’s also solutions to this - start by removing “Identifying Spam Proposals” as a default viewed topic. From there, the majority of the fix is already implemented. If a vote is not voted upon within the NNS, it is ignored. This would just have to be altered to fit “Identifying Proposal Periods” 24hour timeframe (which I doubt would be too large of a task, given it’s built into the NNS).

5

Do you think the proposals for more reward raised by @ysyms are spam proposals?
As i know, many peoples think they are NOT spam proposals, they are good proposals for active voters, and of course, many others don’t think so.

I don’t like any solution that suppresses proposals, we just need to control the reach of spam proposals

6

Based on the fact that they typically do not contribute anything to the IC, and fall under the category of “inflating rewards” - yes they are a spam proposal. However his Named Neuron, and any other proposals that positively contribute, do not fall under that category.

How do you think these are “good proposals for active voters”? What do they contribute to the IC other than inflating your daily rewards? I would agree they’ve contributed by raising awareness to the spam proposal issue - but for the most part I don’t see value in a lot of the proposals. In fact, I’d argue his most recent Spam Proposal is solely for the purpose of expressing discontent with & attacking DFINITY.

I don’t see how proposals like these are positively contributing to governance in any manner, or why should be rewarded.

1 Like
7

Increase staker reward for active voters has a significant positive impact on ICP promoting. I think this is definitely positive for attracting more people to join IC.

Of course, my point of view is certainly not accepted by some people, but I want to emphasize that judging whether it is a spam proposal everyone has their own standards.

8

IC is at a very early stage and what we need most now is public participation, not stifling ideas :fist: Looking back at the early days of the Internet, it was the law of the jungle that created so many great Internet giants today

spam proposal like wild grass, without spam, we are only desert. no spam means nobody care.

NO SPAM, NO BRILLIANT

9

But even named neurons vote on these - so everyone gets rewards…? These proposals aren’t specific to benefiting a single category of voters, EVERYONES rewards are inflated. You’re just increasing the inflation rate of the network, when our deflationary mechanisms can’t keep up with it.

10

I’m all for discussions, ideas, and new things being built. However there’s a clear difference between a “proposal” like this for example, that addresses a problem, provides a solution, and opens the table for discussion - and proposals that are solely for the purpose of inflating rewards for personal gain, while bashing the ecosystem along the way.

11

No, the proposals raised by @ysyms can’t increase inflation, but re-allocated the reward

12

This is very true and I suppose I overlooked this. However, regardless, the proposals are still only being created for personal gain, to inflate YOUR rewards.

13

No problem, i just want to remind you: peoples has their own standard on spam proposal.

For your proposal, i don’t like the proposal be suppressed by peoples at the beginning. we can handle the spam proposal by others ways, like control the threshold to display.

1 Like
14

the reward are deserved for active participation NNS governance, i think.

15

Yeah I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one :sweat_smile: I don’t think people should be able to inflate personal rewards because they think “they deserve it more” than the next :sweat_smile:

However, I don’t think the threshold mechanism is a complete fix, as it doesn’t address the rewards aspect of the proposal. Regardless as to whether the proposal is Accepted, or Rejected - IF you vote, you still receive spam proposal rewards.

We need a fix that addresses;
i) Manipulated Rewards
ii) Spam within the NNS UI

Worth noting your proposal definitely addresses ii) though, so I don’t think you should abandon the idea - maybe just work to implement it with another.

1 Like
16

For i), only reward to the proposal voting which passed the threshold

17

As you’ve mentioned, people have different opinions as to what a “Spam Proposal” is. What happens in the instance there’s a group of named neurons who decide to vote yes to these proposals, managing to surpass the threshold, to be the only party to reap the reward? Based off your sentiment, it does not sound like an unlikely case - the goal for many is to maximize reward output.

18

From my opinion, If surpass the threshold that means it is not a spam proposal, this proposal should be reviewed by all neurons holder and to vote.

19

Exactly what I proposed with more details.

I want to add one more thing.
Since there would be a ban for the spam proposer, there should a temporary ban (like no rewards distribution for that day) to the voters who voted spam but eventually the proposal wasn’t a spam.

In that case the extra rewards should be distributed to the rest.

And of course every 6 months resetting the followees list.

2 Likes
20

Cost and rules are applied by the behaviour of a few and applied to all of us. We need to have all the active voters combat these few to vote because you will not fool the majority and the majority wins.

That is democracy and decentralization.

1 Like