Display Governance Proposals by Default in the NNS dApp

[wpb]

Proposal

This proposal is asking Dfinity to make a few simple modifications to the NNS dApp in order to make it less likely that people are tricked into voting Yes for a governance proposal that is disguised as a routine business proposal (see Figures 1 and 2 below). The modifications are listed below in order of decreasing importance.

All changes are in reference to the Voting tab in the NNS dApp (see Figures 3 and 4 below):

1. For the Topics filter, check the Governance topic and uncheck all other topics by default.
2. For the Topics filter, remember the boxes that were selected by the user the last time they used the Voting tab.
3. For the “Hide “Open” proposals where all your neurons have voted on are ineligible to vote” option, default to selecting the check box.

Background

Most people who vote manually on NNS proposals become aware of new governance proposals because they receive push notifications from the Telegram, Twitter, or OpenChat proposals bots. They typically go the the NNS looking to vote on Governance proposals. Yet they are currently exposed to many other proposal Topics that are generally regarded as routine business. It becomes confusing to know at a glance which proposals are Governance and which are not Governance.

Two governance proposals were recently submitted (56592 and 56591) yesterday that were presented like routine subnet update proposals. They were submitted by a neuron ID that has been submitting spam proposals (the neuron owner is unknown). Many people, including a prominent public known neuron, voted Yes for one of these spam proposals and cast over 6% of total voting power.

It can be easily understood why people were tricked into voting for that proposal thinking it was routine business. It required close examination to know it was spam. When you are used to seeing those types of proposals in the NNS dApp and they look like valid routine business, it seems reasonable to vote for it. Perhaps a better way to display those routine business proposals is to filter them out by default so people have to intentionally select them when they really want to explore non Governance topics. That way the mental framework for people seeking to vote on Governance proposals is that they are looking at Governance proposals by default.

Alternatives Considered

I think the changes requested in this proposal are probably easy for Dfinity to make, but if they are not then I would be happy with a compromise. Item 1 is my most preferred change. I’d really like to see items 2 and 3 as well, but it’s ok if they are not implemented or they are implemented at a later date.

Action Requested

• If you believe the changes outlined in this Proposal should be implemented, then please vote Yes.
• Otherwise, vote No.

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The information below this line will not be posted in the NNS proposal.

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Discussion Lead

Deliberation on this proposal topic will be lead by Wenzel Bartlett (@wpb)

Motivation

I am motivated to make this proposal for 2 basic reasons:

1. I have been wanting to see these changes for a while and now have an example demonstrating why it is an important change for our governance system.
2. This proposal is intended to demonstrate a simple crowdfunding model for governance proposals (details below) that will hopefully benefit the IC community and the proposer.

I want to submit this proposal because I think it will pass and is an improvement to the user experience for voting on governance proposals. However, I will only submit it after raising the funds necessary to cover the proposal reject fee of 10 ICP. While the proposal reject fee is refundable to me as the proposer if it passes, it is not going to be refundable to the people who crowdfund the proposal. The fee will remain locked in my 8 year neuron. Hence, if I am successful at submitting a proposal that passes for a change that I believe is important, then I will also benefit from that proposal because I will keep the proposal reject fee. Hopefully this experiment turns out to be a positive model for how to maximize the incentives offered by the current governance system.

Crowdfunding

This proposal will be submitted to the NNS if the proposal reject fee of 10 ICP can be raised by way of crowdfunding. If you believe this proposal should be submitted to the NNS, then please consider donating to the account ID listed below. This neuron is my personal neuron that I have used to submit all my governance proposals plus a few proposals for other people in the community. No matter how much ICP is raised for this proposal, all of it will be used to top up the neuron. This neuron has an 8 year dissolve delay and is not dissolving.

AccountID: 10517e297382fd13abf9a1d05ab35b67a6875e26462d881d87418206094e4b84
NeuronID: 12008772471346176261

Supporting Figures

Figure 1: Proposal 56592, which is a Governance proposal intentionally made to look like a Subnet Management proposal

Figure 2: Proposal 56273, which is the real Subnet Management proposal

Figure 3: The top of the Voting tab in the NNS dApp showing the Topics filter button

Figure 4: The default selections of Topics in the filter

[justmythoughts]

I’ve been wanting this for awhile. Unchecking all those boxes every time I go into the NNS is pretty annoying.

I don’t think we should only care about governance proposals, but at the very least an “unselect all” or “select one” button would allow us to click less each time we log in to vote.

[Zane]

Would also be cool of the filter menu didn’t automatically close when you click “clear”, I know its a minor thing but its annoying.

[justmythoughts]

Some of these changes might be better suited as feature requests for DFINITY rather than as individual governance proposals. I guess it’s up to you all where you want to draw the line.

@diegop should the community ask for everything they want to the level of UI updates as governance proposals? What does DFINITY want? It seems like there’s a less expensive and less time confusing way to submit user feedback to DFINITY for small changes like this.

I know @peterparker is pretty active and takes feedback from the community back to the NNS Dapp team.

[kusiyo]

There is a simple solution: The voting decision should be changeable before the close of the proposal, i.e., everyone should be able to change his vote before the proposal is closed.

[wpb]

I made that proposal (38985) back in January and the governing body approved it. Dfinity is working on implementation.

[kusiyo]

Very good. Then if you find a disguised proposal, you can just submit a new proposal to tell everyone about it so that everyone can change his vote before the proposal voting is closed. So, the problem now is that the cost of submitting a new proposal may be too high that even if you find such a disguised proposal, you may not want to submit such a new proposal.

[kusiyo]

But if there are enough rewards for adopted proposals, then you may really want to submit such a warning proposal.

[kusiyo]

Rewarding good proposals also solves the problem of Crowdfunding: in my opinion, Crowdfunding is a very dangerous way of submitting good proposals and should be limited in the IC community, whether the proposal is submitted by @wpb or @ysyms or anyone else.

[peterparker]

I of course already spotted the proposal even before you pinged me . It sounds definitely reasonable to me.

The second suggestion though might just need a bit more context. There is a big difference between “remember the boxes that were selected within a session” and “remember the boxes that were selected across login”. The first one is relatively easy, the second one would need lots of work. Needless to say, if the goal is a quick win, the first is better .

About your comment @justmythoughts “Unchecking all those boxes…” we actually discussed this within the team too. We also though it would have been a nice add-ons but gave focus to other tasks. We are currently working on rewriting “Accounts” and “Neurons” and we’ve got quite some work still to do until ready.

[justmythoughts]

Looking forward to seeing the new Neurons and Accounts pages

[wpb]

I don’t think a warning proposal is needed. Word would spread fast and people would change their vote accordingly.

[wpb]

Would you please clarify why you think crowdfunding a proposal is a problem and why it is dangerous. It seems like a reasonable approach to help the proposer decide if they should or should not submit their proposal as well as a way to help benefit the proposer for putting time and effort into the proposal. I’m curious to hear more about what you are thinking.

[kusiyo]

I disagree with you. I think a warning proposal may be very useful. This forum, OpenChat, and other platforms are not essentially formal parts of the NNS. You cannot simply suppose that everyone participating in IC governance will or should depend on any such informal platform forever. From a longterm viewpoint, only the NNS itself should be the core platform for any formal communications about IC governance.

[Zane]

The NNS isn’t meant to discuss proposals

[kusiyo]

It seems that everyone respects you and trusts you so much nowadays, but I don’t think this is a very good thing in the long run, especially from the viewpoint of the blockchain world with the slogan “Don’t Trust, Verify”. Remember the ICProposal Rug Pull, and today the victims are still trying hard to find the suspect in OpenChat: Internet Computer Content Validation Bootstrap. The suspect was a very famous YouTuber and many Chinese IC investors had really trusted him so much for a long time, and then he initiated the ICProposal crowdfunding and even planned to create a Chinese neuron followee like ICPMN and Cycledao.xyz for the convenience of Chinese ICP investors. It is a sad story, and I think it hurts the reputation of ICP badly in the Chinese IC community.

[kusiyo]

Maybe it should be. This forum is not onchain and thus cannot be a place for any formal final discussion about IC governance, and the NNS is a natural place for such formal discussion. In fact, IC proposal is already a very good way of governance communication. You just should understand the ways of communication in a totally different way.

[wpb]

I have decided to not pursue this proposal due to lack of crowdfunding to support the proposal. All donations have been refunded to the sending accounts. Thank you. The crowdfunding mechanism was helpful to determine that the proposal does not have broad support.

[coteclaude]

The only way to know if you had support or not, is by proposing and voting, not by the lack of crowdfunding. This is a great example how the proposal to higher the rejection cost to 10 was and is very bad. All accounts holders with 500, or 100 ICP cannot start giving few ICP on all proposals they find interesting. They would loose more then they are rewarded. The conclusion you made that your proposal did not had support is very subjective and can be very misleading.
Now, who will propose to revert back the 10 ICP to 1? Catch 22…

[wpb]

As the proposer, I am the one who gets to decide if I will move forward with this proposal. I chose to use the crowdfunding approach to be my litmus test. I think the higher proposal rejection fee worked exactly as intended in this case. This proposal was not solid enough to pursue. You are welcome to pick it up from here and carry the torch. I have a different proposal in mind at this time, which I just submitted for deliberation.