Goodmorning Manu, thanks for taking the time to gather your thoughts & contribute to this conversation! I think you raised some great questions & edge cases that I think should rightfully be explored further.
I believe if multiple Named Neurons vote on behalf of a Neuron, the “fee” deducted from the Named Neurons rewards should be split amongst them - to my knowledge, the followee system adheres to the consensus of the Named Neurons followed.
In the instance a Named Neuron doesn’t utilize the voting power at all: I don’t think they should be rewarded.
While thinking about this however, it’s making me start to believe the Named Neuron system as a whole needs an overhaul. What happens in the instance you follow 3 Named Neurons, 2 vote, and 1 does not? Does the Neuron vote or abstain?
This is also a good point - in the instance a Named Neuron follows DFINITY, for example, on technical topics, while an individual chooses to follow the Named Neuron on those topics, I believe the rewards should go directly to the executing voting party. This avoids scenarios in which true voting parties would be “snubbed” of their rewards due to receiving a fraction of a fraction of voting rewards.
And to add to these details, how this incentive would be distributed to the followed neuron :
would it be added to its own stake, making it not liquid ?
Or would it be transferred to any chosen address, making it potentially liquid, allowing more flexibility ?
It sounds like a meaningless detail, but by this I am thinking of promoting optionality, decentralization and democracy. Here is why : in the second case, people could spontaneously create co-managed neurons and share the fees during the whole time of co-governing, and even create democratic neurons with a potential turnover within their members due to elections etc, without having to sacrifice any fees.
But in the first case, (if it has to go to the neuron’s staking), people could not co-manage named neurons with an incentive. We would only incentivize individuals neurons. But from my experience, a co-organized neuron is a very powerful tool for decentralization. Codegov and Synapse are very good example of organizations successfully joining forces to allow more decentralization.
I envisioned it accruing as maturity for the Named Neuron, although adding it directly to the stake is also an interesting concept that could make more sense than accruing as a potentially liquid reward.
This would contribute to the Named Neurons voting power; while passively rewarding them through personal rewards. In the instance the Named Neuron wants to “claim” this maturity, they have to disburse the neuron - yet they simultaneously lose the Named Neuron.
Ok, so it would be designed for named neurons managed by individuals rather than by groups, except if transitivity allow to reward C when A follows B and B follows C as you wisely justified it.
You could be right yes. Anyway, partial or complete, transitivity is clearly necessary. I think that B should be rewarded if it votes before C, but not rewarded if it just followed C. It would create the good environnement for decentralized co-managed neurons.
Even if you are right, I still think that is better than following someone I don’t really trust.
In sum, your current proposal just makes the following story: You get my voting power, and I should pay you for that.
I have a better suggestion: The NNS should set up an Automatic Voting button so that I can vote by myself with sufficiently low cost and without any need for following someone I don’t really trust. For instance: An Automatic Voting “Rejection” Button.
If the names neuron got people to follow then they deserve their money. For example there are senators that write bills and senators that just vote. They all make same amount of money.
With multiple neurons it should be split among neurons that voted in the direction your vote went.
Dfinity, ICA, Synapse, CodeGov, and perhaps ICDevs all cast their votes by following multiple voting members. Technically, only one of up to 15 Followee neurons that are configured for these neurons actually triggers the entire liquid democracy aligned to their follower maps.
I’ve never observed it happen (which would be quite difficult) with regard to Synapse and GodeGov, but it is possible for one of the individual Followee neurons to actually follow another neuron that is not known to be aligned with the known neuron. Timed just right, the vote that triggers liquid democracy might not be one of the Followees for the known neuron.
There is also a significant fraction of follower neurons that follow more than one of the known neurons. The amount of liquid democracy that is triggered by a known neuron is different depending on which known neuron votes first and whether the votes of the known neurons are Yes or No (yes requires >50% while No requires >=50% in order for a neuron with Followers to vote).
Interesting piece of trivia…CodeGov and Synapse.vote (NEW) are both controlled using the Manage Neuron proposal topic and they have no known private key. It’s not possible for these neurons to ever disburse ICP because that capability is intentionally excluded from control parameters of the Manage Neuron proposal topic. However, they can spawn neurons from maturity and assign a new principle ID as part of that process.
I like the idea of this proposal, which would go a long way to incentivizing people to get involved in NNS governance.
However, NNS has 13 governance topics, and the vast majority of neurons only vote on a limited number of topics (Governance and SNS), with most of the others following DFINITY. this is actually quite risky, and the IC chain is still heavily reliant on DFINITY for proper functioning.
I think how to incentivize named neurons to vote qualitatively for all topics is something that must be considered before implementing a reward system
You are wrong. If you only follow DFINITY, you’ll lose some voting rewards.
The named neurons get those followers’s voting power, which is already a big compensation.
If a named neuron thinks that this compensation is not enough, it can just delist itself.
I don’t like the idea of taking part of the rewards from the followees. Maybe everyone should be able to configure the topics they actively vote on and what commissions they charge for delegating their vote to them, just like in many other protocols? We live in different countries and it is difficult to give an ideal % of commission that would be satisfactory for all of us.
Looking for a one-size-fits-all solution seems too centralized.
I would like to hear from someone with financial expertise as to whether or not this could require licensing in some countries in the future. I can see a situation arise here where the named neuron could be seen as a service provider, automating your voting and in return receiving compensation for the service. Some jurisdictions may see this as business or possibly even banking practice which may require licenses to then be maintained. Additional cost to neurons for any licenses that had to be maintained would then increase ICP sell pressure would it not?
Now that it’s back on the table, we should start working towards it. I fully support the idea but think it could use some refinements.
This is just off the top of my head, so it needs further thought. I like the concept of 1% of followee rewards going to the Named Neuron it follows. However, I’d cap it so that the 1% doesn’t exceed the amount the Named Neuron actually has locked, perhaps linking it to voting power, as that would more accurately reflect the skin in the game Named Neurons hold.
For example, I want to avoid situations where a named neuron has staked 10 ICP but is receiving full 1% rewards from followees who have staked 10K+ ICP. To ensure fairness, the reward from a single followee should be capped at 1% of the rewards the named neuron receives.
A named neuron should also have a minimum voting power to be eligible for rewards, e.g., at least 20,000 voting power (preferably more).
Synapse and CodeGov have been two of the most active participants in NNS governance for the last 3.5 and 2 years, respectively, with considerable effort being put into making sure our vote is credible and reliable. We do not pencil whip our votes and we always vote with our own convictions in ways that we believe is in the long term best interest of the internet computer. Both of these known neurons intentionally have 1-2 ICP staked and almost all of the Followees for these neurons are using neurons with somewhere around 1-10 ICP staked. We do this because the size of our own private investments are not relevant to the contributions we make for ICP governance. An incentive for performing work for the protocol should not be capped based on how wealthy the individual or organization is already.
I just want to say that I really appreciate the effort both Synapse and CodeGov have put in, and I truly believe you deserve to be rewarded. That’s why I would support it.
That said, when you trust someone to vote on your behalf, you want to be sure there’s economic security and that the named neuron will always vote in the best interest of the ecosystem.
I believe Synapse and CodeGov have the ecosystem’s best interests at heart, but things can change. Something that starts with good intentions can sometimes take a turn for the worse…
Thank you for the compliments toward Synapse and CodeGov. Hopefully my comments on this topic don’t sound unappreciative. I have a lot of respect for your opinion.
The absolute amount of ICP that is staked by a known neuron is not a measure of skin in the game and higher stakes does not guarantee that they will act in the best interest of the ecosystem. We currently have known neurons with high stakes that are literally auto voting when proposals are first submitted. I have a hard time believing that they are making decisions that are more in line with the best interest of the ecosystem than those of us who are intentional about making informed decisions. I have no idea how much ICP is staked by any one individual who is part of Synapse or CodeGov, but I can tell you that we have talent that includes venture capitalists, defi enthusiasts, project founders, full time web2 developers, governance enthusiasts, and twitter influencers. They range from the super rich to people living paycheck to paycheck. I have absolutely no doubt that they each bring valuable contributions to these organizations and it has nothing to do with their wealth, which has never even been part of the conversation for us. A lot of money to one person can be very little money to the next person. Yet each person will still put in the work and make decisions that are in the long term best interest of the IC. We each come from different perspectives on what skin in the game really means. Of course, everyone is free to offer their own opinions about how to best structure an incentive program. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t want to limit what a working neuron can achieve by putting a glass ceiling on their effort based on their public wealth.
I can certainly appreciate your viewpoints. Maybe some compromises can be made, or maybe not, I will let others pitch in.
Either way, I will support the reward program. Perhaps it’s not yet time to base it on staked ICP, but it’s definitely something I would like to see in the long run.
If you have a named neuron and people following you it should be because you already have a vested interest in the protocols success. You already have more power because these people trust and follow you.
I dont want people making businesses out of getting followers to scrape fees. 1% is huge.
Be kind to your non-technical long term investors. Dont scrape them for additional fees they never agreed to when they signed up.
If dfinity wants to give grants to people who are more qualified to review technical proposals out of treasury funds i dont have a problem with that.
