I was first just providing ideas on how the problem could be solved, mainly arguing why I strongly suggest not to lift the current restrictions on generic proposal (that they cannot target SNS canisters).
In the end, after some people were for and others against the idea, I proposed that we should revisit this before committing to it.
(sorry for the late reply, I was on holidays. It seemed that you both agreed on how to understand this by now, but I thought it doesn’t hurt to clarify explicitly).
Congratulations @Lorimer and team. It’s really cool that you guys were able to submit this Register Known Neuron proposal by passing a Neuron Management proposal using the same neuron ID that you are registering. It’s not a trivial task given that the D-QUORUM neuron has 15 Followees for the Neuron Management proposal topic. It’s a pretty cool demonstration of decentralized decision making using neuron management proposals.
I still find it unfortunate that you decided to set the NNS governance canister as the controller of this neuron. The NNS cannot and should not control any neuron in this way. I believe this detail of your proposal and your neuron configuration is a bad precedent. Even though it is impossible for the NNS to control this neuron today, I will vote to reject this proposal because this detail goes against my core principles for NNS governance.
Otherwise, I am very excited about what you all have decided to do. We need other known neurons in the NNS that are controlled by multiple like minded people who commit to voting on NNS proposals with a specific cause. It is especially important and exciting that you plan to monitor and follow people who are committed to voting reliably on technical proposal topics. This part of how you have decided to operate is great for decentralization. Thank you for stepping up into this role.
Hey @Lorimer would you please confirm that I understand the Followee configuration of the D-QUORUM neuron correctly?
Topic
Followee 1
Followee 2
Followee 3
0 - UNSPECIFIED
DFINITY
1 - NEURON MANAGEMENT
15 Founders
2 - EXCHANGE RATE
DFINITY
3 - NETWORK ECONOMICS
DFINITY
4 - GOVERNANCE
DFINITY
5 - NODE ADMIN
DFINITY
CodeGov
Aviate Labs
6 - PARTICIPANT MANAGEMENT
DFINITY
CodeGov
Aviate Labs
7 - SUBNET MANAGEMENT
DFINITY
CodeGov
Lorimer
8 - NETWORK CANISTER MANAGEMENT
DFINITY
9 - KYC
DFINITY
10 - NODE PROVIDER REWARDS
DFINITY
11 - depricated
DFINITY
12 - IC OS VERSION DEPLOYMENT
DFINITY
13 - IC OS VERSION ELECTION
DFINITY
CodeGov
Zenith Code
14 - SNS AND COMMUNITY FUND
DFINITY
15 - API BOUNDARY NODE MANAGEMENT
DFINITY
16 - SUBNET RENTAL
DFINITY
17 - PROTOCOL CANISTER MANAGEMENT
DFINITY
CodeGov
WaterNeuron
18 - SERVICE NERVOUS SYSTEM MANAGEMENT
DFINITY
I understood the intent of D-QUORUM to be that you want to advance decentralization of the NNS. How is that accomplished if you follow DFINITY exclusively on the Governance and the SNS & Neuron’s Fund proposal topics instead of following the founding members of the D-QUORUM neuron?
Also, if there are people and organizations that you intentionally follow on technical topics such as IC-OS Version Election, Protocol Canister Management, Subnet Management, Node Admin, and Participant Management because they were selected and funded by the rules created by DFINITY to receive the Grants for Voting Neurons, then why would you also include DFINITY as a Followee for those same topics. That seems counter to the decentralization goals of the grant program.
This isn’t a question about whether or not DFINITY is a credible or reliable Followee option for these topics. They are certainly a good choice. I’m asking why you think it’s a good idea to include DFINITY in your Followees when the whole point of the grant program and your decision to start a new known neuron is to advance decentralization. The D-QUORUM name that was selected by the founding members is supposed to be a cute abbreviation for decentralized quorum, but given that DFINITY is the primary followee for every topic it almost seems like D-QUORUM actually stands for DFINITY quorum. It doesn’t really make sense to me that we need another neuron that is essentially DFINITY that is packaged in another know neuron name. It would be nice to hear form some of the founding members of D-QUORUM why you think the current neuron configuration helps advance decentralization.
That was the oath of office that all founding members of D-QUORUM committed to in order to be allowed to join the D-QUORUM neuron. This is focused on the preferences indicated by the NNS. In what way has the NNS indicated a preference for DFINITY to be the followee for each of the proposal topics?
It’s easy to point to the Grants for Voting Neurons to understand what is intended by “preferences indicated by the NNS” for the other Followees you have selected, but DFINITY was not a nominee for those grants. As far as I know, there has never been any kind of NNS proposal that designates DFINITY as a preferred choice for any specific topic. It’s kind of silly to even think of it in those terms since DFINITY invented the NNS and set themselves as the default Followee for All Topics at genesis (which was a necessary decision). In fact, all momentum and all evidence I have observed from folks at DFINITY is that they want decentralization to occur and they want other people and organizations to become credible contributors to the NNS. The oath taken by founding members of D-QUORUM doesn’t seem to be a commitment to following DFINITY, so why do you want to follow DFINITY so heavily?
@krzysztofzelazko@tiago89@sat@marc0olo@dostro@Zane@Roman@radudaniel@ilbert and the other D-QUORUM founding members (who I can’t tag due to forum tag limits), I would be very interested in knowing why you think it is important to set DFINITY as a Followee to all of these proposal topics. Is that really what you think it best for the D-QUORUM neuron? Shouldn’t you at least set only the D-QUORUM founding members as the Followees for the Governance and SNS & Neuron’s Fund topics and/or remove DFINITY from the technical topics where there are other Followees that are receiving grants? I recognize that it doesn’t matter what I think is best for D-QUORUM, but I haven’t heard anything publicly from any founding member other than Alex. I’d be interested in learning what you think.
Hey @wpb, yes you’ve understood this part correctly.
I’m sure we’ll eventually see D-QUORUM have a followee in each of the 15 slots available for each topic. Responsible decentralisation takes time. It’s not up to me or any of the other co-founders who D-QUORUM follows (that’s the point). It’s up to the NNS. This has already been covered, and the NNS has voted for the D-QUORUM known neuron on these terms.
It sounds like there are some assumptions built into your question, such as your pre-occupation with the Governance and SNS & Neuron’s Fund proposals. Also bear in mind that the D-QUORUM co-founders haven’t put themselves forward in the way you describe. The NNS doesn’t yet have another entity that reliably goes in-depth on these topics. This is unlikely to happen until there’s funding. Discussions have started internally regarding finding ways to stake significantly more ICP into the D-QUORUM neuron, such that voting rewards can be disbursed by the NNS (the D-QUORUM neuron controller) to followees. If we can get to this stage, I’m confident that there will be a means to both
fund in-depth reviews on these topics, and
follow those reviewers (who provide a reliable and responsible service).
I’ll keep you updated, but bear in mind there will be many steps to this process, and it’s unlikely to happen soon.
These elections were intended to increase the number of reliable voting neurons (in addition to DFINITY, not to replace DFINITY). As stated, the idea is to maximise decentralisation of the D-QUORUM neuron itself. By providing such a neuron, the idea is to deliver an alternative means of decentralising the NNS. This has all been covered.
Note that the NNS could vote to remove DFINITY as a followee on any topic at any point (as explained in the D-QUORUM neuron description). However, the logic behind such an action would almost certainly be backwards. It would be worth pointing out the things that can go wrong with such an approach, and why the idea is to increase the D-QUORUM quorum, not diminish it. It’s not just a ‘cute’ name.
Synapse is a good neuron to compare against as a case study
Synapse follows the two grant recipients, CodeGov and Aviate Labs (2 followees). One of these followees failed to vote in both cases. As a result Synapse failed to vote, resulting in voting rewards lost for all Synapse followers.
D-QUORUM follows CodeGov, Aviate Labs, and DFINITY on this topic (3 followees). Given that two of these followees voted to adopt in both cases, D-QUORUM voted to adopt in both cases, resulting in no voting rewards lost for D-QUORUM followers.
There’s a common misconception that the more followees a neuron has, the less likely it is to vote. The idea behind this misconception is that the more followees there are, the more potential there is for some followees to not vote. This is the wrong way of looking at it. The more reliable followees a neuron has, the more likely it is that a high percentage of followees vote. If one neuron doesn’t vote when there are only 2 followees, 50% of the followees didn’t vote. If one neuron doesn’t vote when there are 10 followees, only 10% of the followees didn’t vote (which would be much less likely to block an overall vote). Think of it like the Swiss cheese effect, and why it’s better to have more layers of cheese (provided those layers of cheese are intentional about doing a good job).
Another element of D-QUORUM decentralisation that shouldn’t be overlooked is how followees are controlled. The 2 Synapse followees described above can be changed at any time by a small group of people (the members of Synapse). The 3 D-QUORUM followees can only be changed by NNS approval (unless the D-QUORUM founding committee break their commitment). Note that the NNS can remove the committee at any point if this ever becomes a concern, given that the NNS is the only true controller of the neuron.
I hope this satisfies the questions you’ve directed towards me, at least. Please note that you’ve been vocal about your reservations, which I respect. The NNS has observed those reservations, and voted with a large majority to adopt the D-QUORUM known neuron on the terms described.
It’s 100% up to the D-QUORUM Followees on the Neuron Management proposal topic to decide who to follow on every proposal topics. The NNS cannot perform this role.
I’d like to learn more about how D-QUORUM plans to accomplish this goal. Where do you anticipate the ICP funds to come from? It would be really cool if there were a source of funding for this purpose.
By adding DFINITY to every topic, you have moved D-QUORUM backward such that D-QUORUM is not much more than a DFINITY neuron with a new name. This was not the goal of the grants program.
This is false. The NNS cannot vote to remove DFINITY as a Followee for the D-QUORUM known neuron. Only the 15 founders who are configured as Followees for the Neuron Management proposal topics can perform this action.
This is a great example of why it is a bad idea for a decentralized neuron to configure a Followee that is not controlled by people in your organization unless you have a mechanism to cast a manual vote.
I’m not sure who you are getting this from, but it is clearly better to have more Followees as long as you can trust that they are committed to voting. That’s why I have always advocated for Synapse to have more voting members and why I prefer to have a large enough staff of reviewers for CodeGov that can ensure we reach consensus even if some of the reviewers need to go on vacation or get sick or anything else that makes them unavailable for a short period of time. When it comes to CodeGov, we have the backup plan in place to cast a manual vote in the event that we cannot reach consensus.
This is patently false. Synapse and D-QUORUM both have 12 and 15 Followees, respectively, for the Neuron Management proposal topic and the only way to change the configuration of either is by private proposals that can only be voted by these Followees. The NNS has no jurisdiction over the D-QUORUM Followee selection. When it comes to the oath of office that you asked everyone to sign in order for them to be founders of D-QUORUM, it explicitly calls out the Grants for Voting Neurons program and says nothing about DFINITY. It’s not clear to me how removing DFINITY from any specific proposal topic would be a violation of the oath of these founders based on the evidence that you have provided publicly.
This is also a false statement that is misleading to your potential followers. The NNS has no ability to remove the committee. That command does not exist in the NNS and there is no evidence that it ever will even if the NNS governance canister is set as the controller of the neuron. In fact, DFINITY has explicitly stated that this is not possible and they have no plans to make it possible.
Becoming a known neuron is typically very easy and impossible to stop no matter what the known neuron requestor claims on their proposal. The NNS typically embraces anyone who wants to become a known neuron.
Please refer to earlier comments which address each of your points and questions, at least the ones you’ve raised towards me personally. Thank you for your interest in D-QUORUM.
