[Proposal] Defining An Ethos For The NNS

Governance
102

Doesn’t that mean that only node operators get a vote? Shouldn’t dapp developers and end users be enfranchised? Personally I believe that dfinity should be focused on end users, including people who have never run a server in their lives and who might not want to, for good environmental reasons.

Also, a hard fork model intrinsically means that development is slow whereas Dfinity can and does sustain a much higher release tempo than “node operator is god” chains can achieve. Now, if you think that a blockchain already delivers most or all of its technical goals you may see this slowness as a feature, not a bug. Personally I feel as if the goal of Dfinity is to provide ordinary users with a first class experience of participating in a decentralized world and that needs a higher release tempo.

To be sure, not all relationships have worked themselves out. At the moment node operators have contribute hardware and technical competence and are rewarded financially. More interesting to me is the kind of relationships that develop between end users and the dapps they are involved in. What does the relationship between a dapp developer and end users look like? What will data ownership look like? I think there will be a myriad of solutions attuned to different use cases. I can see “voting with one’s feet” as having a much bigger role with end users and their data than with node operators, TBH.

103

Hi @aiv
many thanks for the quick discussion earlier, which clarified a few things for me on this proposal. This was very helpful!

For completeness I also summarise my personal feedback here (not necessarily representing the view of DFINITY).

Establishing a set of guiding principles on what we want to achieve with the NNS makes a lot sense for me. I see some overlap with goals for assessing governance changes which we had proposed earlier, but your list is broader. I also liked concrete examples which you gave: E.g. every proposal requires at least a week of dedicated syndication with the community before it should be submitted.

You suggest to submit these principles as a motion proposal in order to confirm/get the buy-in of the community. I am not sure if this is required as this is not related to a suggested change of the NNS protocol.

In any case, as discussed, we can take this further within the governance working group.

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104

Hey, anyone following this comment of mine, please see the edit I just added to it.

105

I don’t know if a proposal is needed to define NNS, voters stand for NNS itself, the idea of ​​voter will change. Maybe we can make a constitution and put them in it. If a proposal is really needed, please initiate each part individually, in my case I will only vote yes for proposals that I fully agree with

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106

Yeah this proposal is just to start the process, each thing added would be it’s own proposal. The stuff provided is just rough example.

107

Instead of trying to figure out what is Ethos, ethical etc, it is better and faster to demonstrate a very specific automated trustworthy process of voting.

Subjective points of view of what is decentralized, oligarchy, anarchy, democracy etc are not going to be solved through NNS.

Voting should not be adopt or reject only.
Should be also report a spam proposal.

108

Good suggestion. Ideally, a good proposal should just advance one idea and have all the necessary context so that the proposal is entirely self-sufficient and self-evident.

Too many proposals are badly written with unnecessary side statements (often in the form of sweeping characterization of something or over-editorialization) that not only distract voters, but also unnecessarily raise the bar for voters to agree in its entirety.

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109

Since I have some experience with this, I’ll add some color. It is all well and good to only have one purpose, but politics is the art of the possible. Let’s take 80970(voter-based rewards) as an example. Here is the deliberation thread: ReProposal: Spam Prevention - Convert from system-based rewards to voter based rewards

The first mention of any kind of voter-based rewards system actually occurred on April 17th in another thread seeking to address spam with an ‘accept’ threshold: Proposal to restrict rewards qualification to a threshold - #30 by skilesare. By the time we get to the end of this thread I’ve just about resolved that it is a no go and the only way forward is to reset weights back to 1. So I propose it and get roundly rejected: Internet Computer Network Status. Later in July DFINITY would make this proposal again and it would pass(Way forward on spam - Proposal for tactical fix).

Later, DFINITY specifically mentioned that they wanted a comprehensive solution to the problem(I can’t find this quote at the moment, but I think it was in their reasoning for voting against 56801).

So…I did some more thinking and on May 9th I suggested a comprehensive solution. It included the initial text of what became 80970 as well as the advertising spam proposal(ultimately rejected), resetting proposal costs, and affirming a resolution about the value of following in liquid democracy. One person said they didn’t like the affirmation…so I took it out. DFINITY did an analysis and it all kind of died. This is also the first time that there was ever any mention of using the ‘abandoned ICP’ for something else because @bjoernek was expressing concerns that spam could be incentived by the fact that lower inflation was possible, so I made a suggestion of putting the inflation into the community fund if that was an issue. (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 - #13 by skilesare)

There was a bunch of kerfuffle at the end about this and I guess we should have seen the issues that would arise out of 80970.

A good moral of this one was that, as you say, having too many issues in one proposal makes it even harder to discuss them.

When 80970 did initially come back up, I only included the one point about switching to a voter-based system. But, as politics is the art of the possible, significant participants suggested that we should reset the weights to 20 for governance and that we should track the ICP that wasn’t minted. As one was a previous approval of the network and one was a simple variable, it didn’t seem like much of an add to get something across the finish line that a broad set of people had indicated support for. So even the best intentions can lead to things getting muddled.

Put another way…you can have one idea…a good one…and then someone comes along and says…“I like your idea, but only if we also have X” and now you have a problem. What is X? Is it material? Will others think it is material even if it isn’t?

I think it takes discipline and there may be structure to how these things emerge out working groups that help with this.

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110

Part of the chaos you’re describing is due to the lack of any ability to debate proposals based on principles held by the NNS.

No one in knows what we agree on, so we can only share individual opinions.

@Arthur misunderstood my Ethos proposal and was 100% against it, he even made a 20 minute podcast on the topic. Then after 10 minutes of talking to me later that afternoon, he got what I was going for and was 100% in favor of the concept.

This isn’t policy, rules, limitation, morals, or laws. It’s basically just of template of what the community currently has known census on, so that we can all get an accurate sense of what to expect when building on the network and investing in the token.

When the Ethos changes or is violated, it’s a signal that either a principle is not working or a special interest is impacting the direction of the NNS (either for better or worse). It just makes shifts in purpose and usage of the NNS easier to detect, which is a good thing.

Most principles will be super basic, boring, and obvious, like “decentralization”, and “being inclusive”. This way, it’s not just my opinion to say that the NNS should be decentralized and inclusive, the Ethos would make those statements objective.

Also, if a project is concerned about that fact that the NNS could remove their canister, I can try to ease their concern by saying something like, “Oh don’t worry, the NNS is highly unlikely to censor anything except [insert principle agreed on by the NNS here]” and not just be making stuff up.

Or if someone is worried about tokenomic changes happening, so they don’t feel safe locking a neuron for the full 8 years, and I say, “don’t worry, the NNS will only make tokenomic changes as long as [insert principle].”

Without some type of written text ratified by NNS consensus, which describes some type of descriptions, goals, and/or defining aspects of the NNS, we basically lack any fundamental tools for effectively talking about our own network. Like, what even is it?

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111

Perhaps you could tell us what you said in that 10 minutes to convince him, or @Arthur could tell us what he had misunderstood about your suggestion, because it remains very unclear to me reading your posts how the idea of a written Ethos is helpful.
I have previously mentioned the problem with content guidelines. Let us look at something more abstract like ‘decentralization’. Everybody in crypto believes in decentralization. Dfinity believes in decentralization. The IC community believes in decentralization. But is the IC decentralized? No. Would putting up a banner saying, “We are committed to decentralization” help? I don’t see how.
Look at the proposal for a Treasury. It would help decentralization by bringing grant giving power to the NNS and setting up a future where independent experts could make code changes that are now the monopoly of Dfinity. On the other hand, it tampers with tokenomics, and one guiding principle should also be not to tamper too much with tokenomics. I am among those who believe there has been too much fiddling with tokenomics. Modulating maturity, bringing in tiny APYs for short term staking and so on. What do we do when two principles collide in this way? In the case of the Treasury, my impulse is that it is important enough to warrant one extra tweak, but I can see why someone else would have an opposed view based equally on principle. Most difficult decisions involve a conflict between two or more laudable abstract principles.
The United Nations has a prominent banner called a universal declaration of human rights or something like that. And Saudi Arabia often sits on UN human rights panels. Something similar will inevitably play out on the IC. Putting up a constitution made of abstract principles is in my opinion pointless. Putting up a constitution with concrete plans like content policies could be actively harmful. Okay, I think I said one thing here that hasn’t been said before, but now I believe I have expressed myself fully on the subject.

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112

I just wanted to let you know that everything you say resonates with me. Thank you for your participation in this conversation.

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113

So it seems you believe the NNS should never be defined in any tangible way, and a treasury would lead to centralization.

Thanks for contributing your opinions.

You cannot be right, because you don’t have the authority to speak to what the NNS has consensus on. Any opinions I have also can’t be right.

We literally cannot even make progress in this conversation because there’s no shared foundation or objective definitions we can root our arguments in.

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114

I wish that were true. Some do, some just want to get rich. I have bumped into some very questionable motives among dapp developers which is why I do believe that something like a written ethos would be a good idea. It think it’s beneficial to have many different motives and perspectives present but it would be helpful to have a few fundamentals that we should be agreeing on.

Would a written ethos actually be actionable? If there were a kind of hypocratic oath for crypto, how would it be used?

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115

It would be an indicator. When it’s violated it gives a signal people should pay attention to.

If a group of neurons keep ignoring the Ethos, it means they are pushing for a change in the general consensus agreed upon by the NNS voters. It would be useful to know when this is happening.

Sometimes changes to the Ethos will be good and necessary, sometimes the Ethos not being followed could mean the NNS is in trouble and not healthy. Either way, it’s good to know.

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116

Really simple. Give the NNS the opportunity to signal how it intends to behave in the future. Ie:

Situations under which it intervene in canisters

Conditions under which it will change tokenomics

Etc.

For both if these I’d knee jerk to say never but Ethereum made the popular move of burning tx fees instead of giving them to stakers which is a good tokenomics change. We want to allow room for stuff like that.

Some cannisters could cause problems to the subnet they run on. We want to stop those. This has happened already.
We dont want creepy illegal content being hosted on the IC. So lets let potential uploaders know it will be taken down.

Lets define these limitations clearly so that we can put a stop to fears about the nns printing lots of new ICP. This is a legit fear potential investors have.
Lets indicate to app builders and content producers their software or content wont be interfered with.

The reason this has to go through the nns is this is the same process any of the concerned activities would go through. There is no need for enforcement as the neurons have indicated how they will behave in advance.

If one of the “ethe” are broken the nns can adopt a proposal to alter it for the future.

It makes things clearer to everyone but especially new entrants.

It also creates a starting place for all governance discussions.

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117

I want to print this and put it up on my wall. Well said!

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118

I haven’t weighed in much here, but I’ve had this on my mind for well over a year.

I’d recommend a pattern language as described in Christopher Alexander’s Timeless Way of Bulding

Working fine Patterns and anti-patters would be helpful in that we don’t have to ratify “the whole damn thing” to get any agreement.

An example of a pattern that we’ve successfully worked towards across ICDevs, Psychedelic, and the token working group is Namespaced Interfaces

You can read more about ICDev’s language project at https://icdevs.org/language_project/index.html and you can contribute at Icdevs_fleeksite/language_project at main · icdevs/Icdevs_fleeksite · GitHub

Each of @aiv ’s items on the list can be split I to one or more inter related patterns that can be debated and worked through individually. There will be overlap and interdependencies because that is how complex systems work. We have lots of trees(merkle), but a city is not a tree.

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119

My biggest hesitation on this ethos is the suggestion that we should not mess with the tokenomics. Some of the changes that will be required to achieve decentralization will likely have major tokenomic implications (Periodic Confirmation or Followees is an example). I would love to be wrong, but I’d like to see some examples of how decentralization occurs without affecting tokenomics. I currently think decentralization progress and tokenomics are deeply intertwined, so it makes me uncomfortable to develop a never change ethos.

Also, while the concern about printing ICP may be logical, I don’t think it is valid when you think about the mechanisms that are required. A Governance Motion proposal will not print ICP. DFINITY is the only named neuron that has the ability to pass code change proposal topics that can print money. They have the voting power, liquid democracy, and technical skills to do anything they want regardless of an ethos, but there is no reason to believe that they would do something harmful.

120

I actually don’t see this as changing tokenomics because the effect is recoverable and actionable by everyone. The rewards under optimal incentvization is equal and the change affects real action. There are a number things like this that I think are fine to move in small steps. Where people get mad is when you tell them their potential is x and then it becomes x-n with nothing they can do about it.

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121

Well we don’t have to ratify an Ethos that uniformly bans all tokenomic changes, that would be harmful as well and give up the advantage of upgradability. There’s no need to keep things as black and white as that.

What we want to do is figure out how to scope tokenomic changes. Once we agree on something that feels safe for the future of the protocol, we can explore the possibilities of the newly defined “safe space”.

For example, are we free to do anything as long as we never allow the current inflation schedule to be exceeded? Also, what if we just generally stated that, “We will not let new tokenomic changes break promises made to investors in the past, unless the security of the NNS is at risk of being compromised.”

This would mean we’d need to be very careful what new promises we make, because we’re controlling a network that keeps it’s word.

We owe investors some amount of assurance. I’ll trust the NNS community, IF THEY CAN I AGREE THAT IT IS SAFE TO TRUST THEM.