DFINITY Foundation’s vote on Governance proposal #80970 (“Spam proposal”) and #86639 ("Temperature Check")

These are all great questions @Accumulating.icp . Thank you for taking time to write them down.

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I suppose “manufacturing opportunistic scenarios” is a more accurate characterization.

Thanks Diego,

It’s a very late hour here so please excuse me if I’m not very clear or if I’m a bit too blunt.

Things I expected Dfinity to address and raise concerns about…Maybe even offer disclaimers before voting YES:

  • the entire concept of “abandoned ICP”.
  • the mention of using “abandoned ICP” for anything else other than it’s intended purpose - rewards.
  • tracking “abandoned ICP” - I get academic curiosity but we could’ve determined the amounts retrospectively and it would have been way less problematic.
  • the treasury proposal in its entirety as it links to a forum post that is providing a lot of details on what the proposers have in mind for it.*
  • the obvious correlation between the spam prevention proposal and the treasury proposal
  • Are links in a proposal not considered part of the proposal?
    *What is Dfinity’s stance on the links in the treasury proposal?
    *What is Dfinity’s stance on the idea proposed in the forum post linked by the treasury proposal which put forward the notion of using “abandoned ICP” to fund the incorporation and operations of a not for profit foundation?

I was disappointed to see DFINITY voting YES for both proposals without anyone batting a eye at all the points above.

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AMEN, @AndraGeorgescu . I think if we had communicated BEFORE voting, it would have avoided some heart ache.

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Our stance was only what the “temperature check” proposal asked:

Yes, we would like to continue the conversation in the open. We do not want to be the ones who shut the conversation down. If proposal said “what do you think of this NNS treasury idea?” we would have voted NO.

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Yes, the spam proposal both disincentivizes reward spam, and reduces inflation. However it’s opened a third avenue, by the tracking of unminted rewards, for others to suggest to use the (and i say this out of irony) “abandoned” ICP for the purpose of a treasury, and in fact it was even alluded to in the proposal itself.

So does this imply the agenda is only relevant if it will affect network capabilities?

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Yes, i think its clear that proposal #2 (NNS Treasury) can be built on proposal #1 (Spam)… but I also think NNS treasury does not need spam proposal to exist.

Nor did we think that Spam proposal would create a “check mate” scenario where we (the IC community) painted ourselves into a corner where we needed to do some half-baked NNS treasury idea.

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I appreciate the honest response here, and the overall response in general. I can understand where the bottleneck comes from here, but I’m glad the team will be working to reprioritize issues like this.

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Not so much that it was a checkmate scenario, but it was an opportunistic scenario that created a convenient “out” for where the NNS treasury would get its funding from.

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This is a hard one, but perhaps not for the obvious reasons. I will speak for myself (not DFINITY, since DFINITY only judges the proposals themselves). I realize I may be in the minority here, but you did ask for my frank opinion:

  1. I know @dfisher personally (the author of the NNS proposal). I also know @skilesare (author of the spam proposal). I believe they want the best for the IC and ecosystem.

  2. I saw some people on socials say (as you have), “These people really wanted an NNS treasury… so they created an idea to reduce spam to make it palatable to the community.

  3. I do not see any foul in someone submitting proposals that are complementary because I believe I have agency, just like community has agency to decide. I can like one and not another. I believe community can equally choose. I also don’t find anything wrong with people thinking about idea X and being inspired by it to have idea Y.

  4. I know some people found NNS treasury distasteful, but I take a more objective opinion of “I don’t think that works” and move on. I try to treat all the ideas with same intellectual openness and frankness.

  5. Do I think authors were trying to fool me (as a voter) into going in a certain direction? No, I do not. They openly discussed their intent and biases. I was able to see and choose. I think that is fair play, even when I disagree.

Am I a foolish man? Perhaps @Accumulating.icp . I am a man who sold most of his ETH in the lowest of the bear market 2018, so clearly I am no genius, but I will at least be honest.

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The proposal states as follows:

This proposal is a Temperature Check of the NNS governing body to better understand if there is general support for the NNS Treasury idea that has been in deliberation in several locations including Twitter and the forum.

It says that the treasury proposal wants to see if there is support for the treasury idea that has been deliberated on twitter and in that particular forum post. It is not as vague as you imply. It specifically links to what treasury idea they mean.

So I would like to reiterate on my original question: Did Dfinity consider the references as part of the proposal when assesing it? Was the information linked in the proposal considered in Dfinity’s decision-making process? After all it was explicitly specified that the links describe the idea.

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Yes it was. Our intent is simple: we voted to keep the conversation going. The links were seen as examples of the conversation.

We did NOT vote to approve a half-baked idea (which was not even in the proposal itself). No offense to the proposers, but idea is clearly still in progress.

Is it fair to say “You guys misunderstood the intent of the proposal”?

yes, @AndraGeorgescu I do think that would be reasonable. We voted how we interpreted it, which we explained.

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This claim is asinine and in bad faith. Clear evidence has been presented that the proposal was originally written months before any mention of an NNS treasury entered the public conversation. (Proposal to covert from system based reward to voter based reward; to implement an accept quorum mechanism; and to return the reject cost to 1 ICP) It was reraised at the urging of dfinity to combat a forthcoming problem with exchange rate proposals going away. The inclusion of a mention of a possible use was a last minute addition to placate a feeling that there would be RESISTANCE to lowering inflation. The proposal solves the problem it indicated it was trying to solve and provides broad benefit throughout the ecosystem via reduced inflation and reduced spam incentives.

You must also believe that I implemented the same mechanism in the Origyn governance canister in November of ‘21 to set up a grand plan to hatch an NNS treasury 12 months later.

If you still feel that the proposal was a scheme or underhanded please feel free to reach out to me and I’ll be happy to have a personal conversation with you.

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No offense Diego, but I’m not sure what conclusion this is supposed to draw. I stated that it was an opportunistic scenario, and you’ve started your rebuttal by crediting the proposers, and then went on to make a blank statement like #2 (I’m assuming to discredit me in some way?:sweat_smile::smiling_face_with_tear:). In regards to #3, I’d agree we’re all very capable, and competent enough to decide how we vote. However, on the NNS, that isn’t how it works, as a majority of voting power is delegated to Named Neurons, out of convenience, and to maximize rewards. So it doesn’t typically spark a true community-wide discussion, and the formation of opinions on proposals like you’ve mentioned - it comes down to what names neurons decide & agree with. I’d also agree that inspiration for proposals, from proposals, can be a great thing, but in this scenario, based off the fact that the treasury was mentioned in the spam proposal, it appears as though this was strategized, which feels almost ingenuine, if that makes sense? I strongly agree with #4, and hope we continue to have such a vocal, and evergrowing governance “table” going forward. In regards to #5, I agree with this, but it’s only applicable to those who follow the governance + forums. Which unfortunately only tends to be DFINITY, Developers, NN, and other dedicated governance participants (from what I see atleast, but to be fair I’ve got my fair share of forum catch-up to do). So if we wouldn’t have made such a big deal as we did about this scenario, most people wouldn’t have even known this proposal existed. However I think this just circles us right back into the decentralization of voting power issue though😅

I’d never call anyone so dedicated to the network foolish, and I hope you can appreciate the honesty in return❤️

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If you got a sense that I tried to discredit you, then that is bad writing on my part. I just addressed directly the accusations that one proposal was created in bad faith to further another. If you meant something different, then I am the one who misunderstood your question.

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I think that is very reasonable. To be honest, one take away I have is that I don’t think the “temperature check” really hit its intent because of many things you said. I frankly regret we (Dfinity) voted on it before communicating our intent, and I will certainly ask we think twice before voting on any more “temperature check” proposals.

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I think you are right in many ways.

This is where I think the proposers got “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

They linked to the forums because they wanted to be overt about their intent. Was that enough context for most voters? I’m not sure it was, despite their intent. Yet it was enough for the proposal’s scope to be called into question (should people interpret the proposal only or consider also the conversations linked?). No obvious answers everyone would agree to.

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I do appreciate it! Thank you. :nerd_face:

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I think it’s great that the proposal was originally written with the intent to purely address spam / potentially inflation.

However, surely you can see the conveniences in the situation;

  • The NNS proposal reduces inflation, and then starts to keep track of unminted ICP
  • A treasury is reccomended within the NNS proposal to use this tracked, unminted ICP towards a treasury
  • When inquired about what treasury funds would be used for, only projects that were affiliated with the proposing parties were named
  • Proposing parties are also in control of a large % of active, governance voting power, which would be responsible for the treasury

It’s just a scary look.

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I think this is a great start towards coming to as close to a community consensus as possible on the temperature checks via the NNS.

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