Hey @krzysztofzelazko. I really appreciate that you shared your opinion here and hope we can spark further discussion and improvements on the registration and maintenance process for known neurons.
I actually really appreciate how active you are in NNS governance. There are a couple of things that you often do that I don’t understand and wish you would do differently, but I respect that you are actively involved and are seeking advancement of decentralization of NNS governance.
It’s not clear to me why you submit Register Known Neuron proposals for other organizations without their input or consent. It started with OpenChat and GeekFactory and has continued recently with GoldDAO, NeuronPool, and Open Internet Foundation. In most cases it has worked out ok since the teams behind these known neurons intended to create the register known neuron proposal themselves, but it still seems like those teams should be allowed to create their proposals themselves or at least have input on the naming, summary, and payload that is included in the proposals. I actually have experience submitting these proposals for other known neurons myself. I did it for cycle_dao (which is now Arthur’s Neuron) and the first Motion to register ICDevs.org. However, in those cases I was in discussion with the teams and offered to provide them with support, but they provided the content. That feels like a more appropriate way of handling it. Hence, I have a hard time understanding the logic behind submitting these proposals for teams without first having their permission.
I’ll also admit that I am struggling with wrapping my head around what appears to be your automated voting YES on technical proposals while also applying to receive a grant intended to incentivize active technical reviews for those very same proposal topics. I know a lot of people in the ICP ecosystem have normalized pencil whipping votes and automated voting YES or NO on technical topics and I know it is a lot of work to actually review these proposals and there has previously been no incentive to treat them in any other way. Hence, I think it is perfectly natural to take this automated voting (or pencil whipping) approach when you have the skills. In fact, you have been successful at voting on a handful of proposals over the last year that are missed when DFINITY or Node Providers have initiated proposals on technical topics and then DFINITY failed to actually vote on them. This is rare, but it happens. People who only follow DFINITY miss voting rewards in those situations, but you don’t…so I do understand and appreciate your tactics. However, if ICP Hub Poland is a recipient of the Grants for Voting Neurons, then I hope you will change this automated voting (or pencil whipping) tactic and actually perform a technical review as intended with the grant program. I believe this is what you said you would do in your application, so I have a lot of hope for your success.
I also recognize that it is easy for me to have high expectations when it comes to reviews and independent voting on technical proposals. I saw the need to cultivate a team of developers for this purpose over a year ago and asked for grant funding to pay for this work. I feel like we have been very successful and I’ve been impressed watch the CodeGov team develop this capability, first with IC-OS Version Election, then with System Canister Management. We are now also actively reviewing Subnet Management, Participant Management, and Node Admin to gain experience. There is no doubt in my mind that the only way the community will get actively involved in these reviews is to have incentives that attract talent and skill. It is real work and nobody should be expected to do that work for free. The fact that there have been no incentives for most people in the past means that we can’t really expect for anyone to have put in any significant technical work to arrive at their voting tactics.
Things seem to be changing with this new grant program and I really hope it is successful. Because of the funding, talent and skill will take interest and eventually we should end up with a community of reviewers that people can trust to vote in a decentralized way on technical NNS proposal topics. I want to push everyone who participates as reviewers, and everyone in the NNS community, to start having higher expectations regarding what it means to be a reliable Known Neuron Followee option for technical topics. Hopefully it will not be just about always voting, but will become about always voting in an educated and informed way. This takes a long time do cultivate in the community and I have concerns that the grant program is under funded. We should be supporting all applicants instead of making folks who have expressed an interest in this work compete for limited funds.
I do think you are in a good position to be able to serve the ICP community as a reviewer for Subnet Management, Participant Management, and Node Admin proposal topics since you have been around for such a long time and you know how this governance system works. So please know that I am your fan and I want you to be successful in ways that continue to advance long term improvements of decentralization of the internet computer. I simply don’t agree with some of your past tactics and hope that you will consider changing some of them in the future, especially if you become more properly incentivized for the role.
By the way, it’s not just you. Many others in the ICP ecosystem feel it is acceptable to automate voting on NNS topics. Taggr does this today by voting NO for all proposals other than Governance, SNS & Neurons Fund, IC-OS Version Election, and Network Economics. For those proposals the Taggr vote is cast according to the majority vote on a poll for each proposal. The first draft of the WaterNeuron white paper called for automatic NO voting on all NNS proposals. Fortunately, they actually implemented a tactic where all NNS proposals are replicated in the WTN SNS and the WTN neuron owners get to vote on how the large WTN neurons will vote. Other known neurons such as NeuronPool, ICP Hub Poland, Rakeoff.io seem to be following you (or vice versa) at this time. This culture of accepting automated voting on proposals that actually change the protocol is a dangerous precedent in my opinion. If it continues, then we will become lax in our protection of the protocol and eventually harm can be done. I’m just hoping to heighten awareness of this issue to get people to think about how it affects the protocol long term. It becomes a lot more relevant when there are actual incentives to perform technical reviews, and eventually with changes such as periodic confirmation of neuron followees. Basically, if we want decentralization, then we need to reconsider how and why we vote on technical proposals.