Increase Proposal Rejection Cost

It is done now, 600 ICP. Only few hours needed to achieve the goal.
Another, smaller whale (39k), has contributed for the difference (209 ICP)
To a rough calculation, this will gain 460 ICP for a 209 spending. Over 100% return.
Let’s work wisely from there now.
I am amaze, but not surprise, how easy it was to do.

2 Likes

I want to acknowledge the points you make here @coteclaude. It’s evident to me now that increasing the spam proposal cost to 10 ICP is not an effective spam deterrent. Furthermore, any additional increase would only serve to further harm the average stakeholder. I clearly made bad assumptions about what people would be willing to do to increase their rewards.

Speaking to others, it was pointed out that one benefit of the increased proposal rejection cost is that these spam proposals will result in 600+ ICP being burned over the next 30 days. It would be nice to know how the community feels about keeping the 10 ICP rejection cost if it results in more ICP being burned while spam proposals are still being submitted.

Your numbers might hold up. I trust that you’ve run the numbers and the yield to vote on spam proposals could be substantial for a whale under the current parameters.

That said, as an ICP holder myself, I don’t want to spend my time looking at spam. It’s that simple. Time is my/our most precious asset. I don’t want to deploy my most valuable assets looking at unprofessionally written and often pointless spam proposals. Yes, by voting on those proposals (regardless of Yes/No), I will also get extra return, but that’s not important to me, like, at all.

In crypto, people often get carried away when the yield numbers are stacked up. I find that at best a self-fulfilling prophecy and at worst a sad sad situation. Out of the 24 hours that we’re blessed with, it’s not hard to differentiate which hours are spent on value-adding activities where I’m actually making a contribution to advancing a technology innovation or building something larger than myself.

If you want that extra return, go for it and cast your votes to support all the spams.

I want to create value for my constituency. Earning some extra yield while taxing my fellow ICP members collectively (in terms of time wasted) is irresponsible and not something I want to be part of.

2 Likes

@zire I guess you have missed my first part of the post.

I did not. I’m aware you’re against spam.

I was a CFO in my past life and built financial modeling for a living. While I admire many IC members’ spirited effort in calculating whale’s return in this whole spam thing to essentially drive home the notion that - this spamming is a financially sound effort for a whale, I also roll my eyes as I don’t think whale’s return should be a top priority for this community. Whales do whatever it is that whales do. I don’t fantasize what is the next mansion that Gates will buy or whatever discount he may receive for buying a large piece of land in Montana.

IC is for developers to change the world and here we are, talking at length about how much a whale can get if it were to vote on many spam proposals that have nothing to do with the underlying technology.

2 Likes

I think a combination of spam proposal filtering using randomly picked neurons and fixed weekly rewards as proposed here: Community Discussion: Revise Governance Voting Rewards to Fix Proposal Spamming Rewards Exploit is the best way to fix this issue.

1 Like

In the past year the average price for submitting a proposal has been around 40-80$, so while I agree 1 ICP was too low for the current price in my opinion 10ICP is too high, it should have been set to a fixed value in cycles not higher than 100$

2 Likes

How is the average stakeholder harmed if the proposal reject cost is increased further?

I’m not saying yet that I think this should happen, but the idea coupled with @ysyms current crowdfunding success does stimulate thought…

Why not increase the proposal reject fee to 30 ICP or higher? Who does it harm given that it is expected to be a temporary solution as we wait a few months for implementation of a more permanent solution?

I think it only harms the profits of the few whales who are willing to fund it. So why not make it more expensive for these few whales? Why not create a crowdfunding rug pull opportunity for @ysyms? If he did walk away, it wouldn’t be with ICP from the average investor because they are not the ones funding it. In fact, the average investor can’t afford to fund it because the cost already outweighs the gain for the average investor.

If @ysyms executes the plan they created, then several things will happen:

  1. everyone who is currently participating in governance proposals gets higher rewards
  2. everyone who is not currently participating in governance proposals can still start increasing their rewards by starting to vote.
  3. the whales who funded the effort will get slightly less return than they did when the proposal reject cost was only 1 ICP and @ysyms was willing to fund it himself.

If @ysyms rugs, then only the whales who funded the crowdfund will loose.

If you increase the proposal reject fee, then you create fewer spam proposals with the funds already collected. It will require additional crowdfund to keep it going. Whales will continue to bear the cost of the crowdfund while everyone benefits from execution of the plan and the risk of rug only goes up. If there is no further crowdfunding effort, then you can decrease the proposal reject fee after the funds run dry.

@ysyms is an enterprising young high school student (self proclaimed) who has already raised $10,000. Why not give him the opportunity to raise $30,000 from the whales? If he succeed, then why not up the ante to $50,000 or $250,000. At some point the cost to the whales is too much and the risk of rug is too great. Only the whales who fund these shenanigans would be hurt, but if @ysyms maintains integrity and executes the plan then everyone wins (except decreasing profits for the funding whales).

Again, this is temporary as we wait for the issue to be addressed by proposal 55641 (or some other alternative). If anyone else has a genuine proposal they want to submit, it should have value at 10 ICP, 30 ICP, or higher just like it does at 1 ICP. The cost is only a cost if the proposal is rejected. The proposer is responsible for presenting something to the NNS that has a high probability of success, so the higher proposal reject fee only serves to ensure that the proposer is doing their due diligence to ensure there is low risk of rejection.

Borrowing from @ysyms crowdfunding idea, what is wrong with genuine community proposals getting funded by the whales? A higher proposal reject fee might actually incentivize more people to make genuine proposals because they get to keep the fee if it is an accepted proposal. Perhaps these same whales would be more than happy to fund a genuine community proposal if they know it is likely to be passed instead of guaranteed rejection. Every person who wants to make a proposal for some topic they believe in could include a proposal funding address during deliberation on the forum. If it is funded, then perhaps it is a valid proposal that should be submitted to the NNS.

This post is really just a stream of consciousness for me right now. I’m not saying the proposal reject fee should be increased at this time, but I don’t think the idea should be rejected before giving it more thought. There could be a lot more benefit than we’ve considered so far.

So the right to speak is only given to those who can afford it? The temporary solutions become permanent really quickly.

First we start out with 1 to 10 ICPs ( still promising “it’s a temporary fix”)…that doesn’t work, so now let’s make it 30 (“it’s a a temporary fix”) with the added promise that if 30 doesn’t work, let’s make it 100 (“it’s still a temporary fix”).

If we believe that non-active participants should be penalized in favor of active participants, isn’t that exactly what is happening?

The real issue that increasing the governance proposal score created an imbalance that the astute are exploiting. We should readily admit that that (increasing the governance proposal score) was a mistake IF we did not want to penalize non-active participants.

2 Likes

10 ICP is already too high for ICDevs to submit regular proposals for active debate. We are raiding funds already: Proposal to temporarily reduce governance proposal weight to 1

But maybe it is a new fundraising avenue!

1 Like

I agree, we should all beware of temporary changes, moving away from the gold standard was supposed to be a temporary thing too, we all know how that turned out.

NNS Proposal = Right to Speak
@mparikh
Is it that simple? Is it the purpose of the NNS proposal to give everyone a voice that they cannot express unless they submit a proposal?

Interestingly, @skilesare has already started a new proposal discussion to remove proposal weights and guess how he is trying to fund it? Crowdsourcing. I wonder how difficult it will be for him to fund that proposal. If the proposal rejection fee were 30 ICP, I wonder if he would have a more difficult time raising the funds for him to submit that proposal.

I would argue that the utility of NNS proposals is not simple free speech. I would also argue that higher proposal reject fees do not prevent good proposal from getting submitted to the NNS.

Purely subjective on my part. I think $160 - $250 is a reasonable rejection cost that will cause more proposers to seek community support before submitting to the NNS. I do not think $600+ Would do anything more than prevent people from trying all together.

1 Like

We are killing the democracy. Really. And we are making the IC look like suffering of an earthquake

I was strongly against the increasing of rejection fees, because :

  • it would kill the spontaneity of little bags to submit proposals : what about a little genius, without money who would have a brilliant idea, what about Ramanujan ?
  • more importantly, we don’t see that with a so called « short term solution » waiting for a long term solution, we are also creating a long term problem : each time we are making a modification, we are creating instability, notably in investors’ confidence. Each time, we lose some investors’ confidence, because each such modification makes some investors feel : « this blockchain is unstable, they change networks economics a lot, I don’t know what will look like the tokenomics even one week after I invested in ». For instance, to whoever who would say « we don’t care about investors, icp is for dev and enthusiasts etc », I am a fanatic of this blockchain, however, I am starting to be afraid by the happening direction : I am wondering « where will be the ICP in 6 months with such a rhythm of such proposals ? » and whereas I have already been almost all in ICP, I have started to slow down. What about the average investor who does not even read the white paper ?

By ignoring the butterfly effect of these modifications, we are threatening the integrity of the whole blockchain. We brought some modification very - too - soon to ICP, the inefficiency of this modification is being proven, and rather than learn the lesson, we are considering an iteration. Where is the limit ? Why 30 icp rather than 60, 90, 120 ? Rather than saying « maybe we should remove the difference of weight », we think about going to iterate the last inefficient modification to make it finally efficient. But it will never be. Let us think about the poor dev, the genius dev. I am a researcher, and some of the most brilliant spirits I met were poor people. And even a genius won’t take his chance to lose 10 icp, because he can’t afford because even the most brilliant idea is not assured to be accepted, because it is a democracy where everybody vote. Must I remind that a brilliant idea is not necessary recognized as a brilliant idea ? What about the scientists we wanted to burn when they said that the planet earth was round rather than flat ? And about the fact that 10 icp today have the same value that 1 icp in may 2021, Dfinity never said « the rejection fees will be 1 icp as long as 1 icp will be equal to 200 dollars ». We were not supposed to do such maths.

So, I am very inconfortable with what I am feeling like a frenzy of modifications, whereas I am an early fan. I don’t say that ICP must not be changed, but with parsimony. I think we should give some space to the ICP currently. Really. Let us slow down. Because by saying that the increasing of rejection cost would be a short term solution before finding a long term one, we did not see that it could also bring some long term problems. And by not seeing this, we are ready to repeat the mistake.

6 Likes

I want to know why 27 and 28 can openly violate the resolution in the previous proposal not to vote on the governance proposal? Does the proposed decision not bind the foundation? In addition, if this proposal is approved, I hope to raise 10icp in our community to form a garbage proposal. The purpose is to tell you that this solution is absurd.

Agreed - The more we increase the rejection cost, the more we centralize control over who can submit to the NNS (based off of the existing voting power and influence of the submitter).

Let’s forget spam for a second.

Why is @ysyms able to submit proposals? → because he was crowdfunded by whales.
Why is @wpb able to submit proposals? → because he was an early investor, has enormous influence in the community, and I would assume ICMaxis is sitting on a pile of ICP.

Many others, even @skilesare has highlighted the reject cost is making him think twice about submitting proposals. And he should…why should ICDevs have to choose between spending 10 ICP to fund an independent developer bounty vs. a governance proposal? There’s a good chance his proposal gets rejected, as it took over 3 times just to be recognized as a known neuron, vs. one time for Cycle Dao and Maxis.

If anything, this successful crowdfunding effort shows that we have reached step one in the unintended consequences of this proposal passing that I mentioned here.

This only highlights the importance of the community supporting proposals that have allowed for adequate time to receive and address critical feedback, think about edge cases scenarios, and iterate upon those flaws → not proposals that in a rush or have a deadline (to push out a fix).

There were many great ideas being discussed and finalized as a result of the leadership that @wpb and @Kyle_Langham showed in organizing the community, but now many of these ideas will not be submitted to the NNS due to the increased proposal reject cost.

I think everyone was 100% well intentioned in moving as quick to ideate and vote as they did, and I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I hope this is a learning point going forward.

2 Likes

I think these are all bad assumptions. I don’t believe @wpb is in any better position than myself or anyone else who started investing at Genesis when ICP was $600

2 Likes

Totally fair, and I apologize if these assumptions are off base.

@Kyle_Langham Do you have any data on how much voting power each of the big independently named organizations/neurons hold? (Maxis, Cycle Dao, ICDevs).

If those organizations want to volunteer that information in the spirit of transparency, that would be great as well.

1 Like
  • To clarify, I am not an early investor. I learned about ICP the week before the genesis launch. I think I’m much closer to being a shrimp in the ecosystem than I am to being a whale, but I suppose that is relative.
  • Also to be clear, my proposals are my proposals and are funded by me. They are not ICP Maximalist Network proposals and are not funded by that organization.
  • Yes, but he is also taking the crowdfunding approach…which I think is reasonable. If you have a good proposal, I don’t see anything wrong with getting a group together to fund it. Also, it is only a cost if it is rejected. So submit something that has a low probability of being rejected and share the risk with others. I’m sure there are whales that would be happy to fund a proposal that has a chance of passing. Perhaps not the one that @skileshare is submitting since this one is to remove proposal weights, but there are many proposals that will be able to move forward even with high proposal reject cost because whales would be happy to fund them.

@skileshare ran into a whale (or a group of whales) in the community that believed he did not deserve to be a named neuron because of past relationships and activities. I have no idea if there was validity to those arguments, but a very small percentage of the voting power was participating in governance proposals at the time. Hence a small group of whales were able to successfully block the ICDevs nomination two times. It wasn’t until proposal weights were implemented before ICDevs was approved. It happened because proposal weights incentivized a lot more people to participate in governance. There was finally enough voting power that no one group or person was able to control the vote outcome. Dfinity was also in a position where they could vote with their own convictions without casting absolute majority. They voted in favor of the ICDevs proposal, but they didn’t need to in order for it to pass. It was already going to pass. The irony is that proposal weights has brought so much improvement to the decentralization of IC governance, yet removing proposal weights is identified as a solution to the problem with spam. Yes it created a spam problem, but there are so many better ways to solve this problem than giving up on proposal weights. Proposal weights has moved us much closer to decentralization.

1 Like

I believe this information has been volunteered in various locations previously. It can be observed by watching the vote results of any given proposal using the information available for each proposal on the dashboard.

ICPMN + cycledao + ICDevs = 11.3% when ICDevs and cycledao were following ICPMN
They are no longer following ICPMN.

ICPMN = 2% when we vote before ICDevs and cycledao
ICDevs = 1.85% when they vote before ICPMN and cycledao
cycledao = 4-5% when they vote before ICPMN and ICDevs. This data was from mid Feb and may have changed. There haven’t been any recent examples of cycledao voting first.

There are a lot of neurons who follow multiples of these three public neurons. Hence, those neurons don’t cast votes until their Followees reach Absolute Majority as defined by NNS governance.

3 Likes