A Well Thought Out Governance Model for POB - Let's Start The POB Engine, I Am Putting in Some Fuel
Enough has been said about the silence and stillness the community is experiencing lately. Posts are being made everyday by the people who believe in this project highlight the current situation. So I choose not to say anything about it and Here is a solution I am proposing instead, to move things forward in a logical manner.
Please bear with me, this has gone longer than I expected but I ensure you that it will end up with something actionable.
First of all concluding from the current state of affairs and also some of the @proofofbrainio's recent discussions. It's evident that he is not in a capacity to run this full time or part time even and he is willing to make this a self sufficient, community run tribe. Also he has said that he is considerate of the long term success of POB and he surrenders the ‘proofofbrainio’ (not literally) and pob fund for community to utilize as they see fit to operate and grow this project.
On similar lines a self sustainable governance model had already been introduced - ARCHON Governance and Multi-Signature - The key to POB decentralization and governance - by @amr008
Which I believe is the ultimate governance system POB must aim for. But provided our present lightning speed towards the community growth and the amount of efforts, resources and coordination it requires, I think it would take years to implement one.
So This Post outlines something easy and logical we can start with now to break this linear indecisiveness. It will also lay down the basic guidelines for community participation in POB governance and how we can propose and decide in an organized and efficient way.
A Basic Structure To POB Governance
Proposals
Any member can submit a proposal by creating a post in POB community with a relevant specific tag.
Proposals can be of Following types
#pob-management
This can include proposals
- regarding planning and strategic decisions of the tribe.
- To introduce/suggest new initiatives for growth. Or to introduce new projects within the tribe.
- to define SMART Goals and Objectives of the tribe - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound
- To review the initiatives/projects/decisions/goals; measure their performance and recommend the necessary changes or future course of action.
Examples
- Introduction of curation initiative POBelus - Solutions Not Problems - By @calumam
- A proposal regarding termination of an existing policy
- A proposal to introduce changes in the current governance
#pob-policy
policies are the implementation framework and guidelines about various plans/decisions/initiatives/workings of the tribe that lay down how our tribe should operate. And to automate the routine day to day activities required to run it efficiently. The primary goal of a policy is to standardize a process and to make it easy to execute for anyone by referring to some pre defined guidelines.
Examples
- A Policy Regarding Downvoting Guidelines - Announcement of My Intent to File a Future Proposal Regarding ‘Rules for Downvoting’ in the Proof-of-Brain Tribe - introduced by @trostparadox
- This part of the post you are reading right now is a policy to streamline POB proposals.
- A policy stating the guidelines to execute POBleus : Cooperative Curation
FAQ's
Why do we need two types of proposals?
Not just two, we might require more which can be introduced as per need basis. The motive is to implement a basic categorization and to have a clear idea if management decisions that get introduced are being carried forward. #pob-management proposals will define what is to be done and why and how it is gonna be executed whereas #pob-policy proposals will be the guiding lights to various management proposals and their implementation.
Can anyone create a proposal?
Yes, since the community is still in early phase, there is a lack of people who can/will actively participate in core governance. And hence its not desirable to restrict this to a few community members. Irrelevant and lousy proposals, that defy the basic prescribed structure and intent of proposals can always be discouraged with warnings and downvotes
Voting On Proposals
The simple solution for this I have come up with is Giving the top 20 stakeholders an equal right to vote. This is a number that Hive blockchain is already using i.e providing top 20 validator nodes an opportunity to validate most blocks.
Why This?
To ensure the growth of community in right direction, it is important that proposals that are in the best interest of the community only get passed. And it wouldn't be illogical to assume that people who have most staked in this project would want to succeed it more than anyone else.
Why only top 20 stakeholders and not 10 or 50
For Representation - Top 20 stakers amount to 63% of the total stake as of now, which is a fair amount of representation of the whole community (whales and non whales alike)
For Unhalted Governance - This number is neither too many nor too less. During a given period of time even if the majority of the individuals get inactive or don't cast their votes. Still it wouldn't stop the proposals to pass. And will ensure that it is still a consensus of at least a few people.
To Attract More Buying And Distribution of POB token - Since Top 20 stakers will have a major say in governance. With progress more people would want to increase their stake by buying to take part in decision making which will also help distributing substantial stake into more holders and increasing the token value.
I have tweaked this number to even less - top 10 stakers - for proposals involving fundamental and major financial decisions (more on this later)
Characteristics of New Governance
- Proposals should be made to induce some action or change in how the community operates.
Suggestions are not proposals, suggestions only talk about what our community should do very vaguely.
Results of a contest, Our opinions about If POB will float or drown aren't proposals either - A proposal should be able to explain what it is meant for, how it helps the community, how it can be implemented including the resources required and ways to procure them
- Proposals can be about implementing something new, extending something already implemented, terminating something, to automate or standardize a process, or about making any relevant changes that you can explain will help the tribe.
- A tag #pob-propasal must be used along with #pob-managemnt or #pob-policy
- Only other tags that can be used are - NEOXIAN, PALNET, ARCHON, POB, PROOFOFBRAIN, CTP. Governance of POB is a community matter and the content should be limited to community. Tags such as GEMS and OCD should be avoided as this content is of no interest to their subscribers.
- Proposals must be posted in POB community using proofofbrain.io frontend
- Every eligible community member can vote only once
- Its an individual choice of the member to participate in voting or not
- Vote can be casted by commenting on a proposal in bold with the following 👇 and then sharing your views
Yes - To agree and willing to pass the proposal
Yes if, Otherwise No - To agree and willing to pass with certain conditions (changing, adding, removing a point or points in the proposal) that you think can't be neglected or left for future improvement
No - To disagree and not willing to pass the proposal - Votes can be made on a proposal for seven days (until the payout)
- A proposal maker should mention all the top 20 stakers (eligible voters)
- The proposal maker must edit and announce the status of proposal after seven days. By including this at the end of proposal 👇
Status - Proposed/Passed/Discarded/Undecided
Decision Method - Simple Majority/Special Majority/Alternate Method
Total Votes Casted - xx/20
Yes - yy/xx
No - nn/xx
Decision Making
I propose three ways of deciding on any proposal.
Simple Majority
To be used for proposals that
- do not require any Cost in POB
- require a total ongoing delegation of 200 POB or less from pob fund
- require a monthly expenditure of 50 POB or less from pob fund
A proposal is deemed to be passed with simple majority if 50% of the total casted votes are a 'Yes' at the end of 7 days. Or as soon as a proposal receives a total of 10 Yes
Special Majority
To be used for proposals that -
- involve changes in the basic organizational structure (For example introducing a new governance modal is a major decision so I am putting this proposal under 'special majority')
- require an ongoing delegation of >200<=1000 POB (between 200 till 1k POB)
- require a monthly expenditure of >50<=250 POB (between 50 till 250 POB)
A proposal is deemed to be passed with special majority if 66% of the total casted votes are a 'Yes' at the end of 7 days. Or as soon as a proposal receives a total of 13 Yes
Alternate Method
To be used for proposals that -
- are about issuing more tokens, distributing ownership, compensatory hiring etc.
- require a delegation of >1000 POB
- require a monthly expenditure of >250 POB
Only Top 10 stakers are allowed to vote in Alternate method and a proposal is deemed passed if it gets 70% of the total casted votes to be 'Yes' at the end of 7 days. Or as soon as a proposal recieves 7 'Yes'
FAQ's
Why not DPoS?
While DPos will be the ultimate solution when we have a hundered proposals coming every month. As this system will have scalability issues. But right now we have no means of deciding on something even on DPoS and its implementation. Moreover DPoS is not desirable at this early stage when a lot of stake is concentrated with top 5 investors. It might lead to decisions influenced by a single investor at times or towards just the interest of investors. Which is not transparent and fends off the community and hinders community growth.
But I am invested More, Why my vote shouldn't have a weight?
May be you are invested more, you might have even bought tokens and took on a very high risk investment. You might have created basic demand for the token by pooling your hard earned money. but at first, to be honest, it would be hard to determine if you are invested more. Because some are invested with money. Other with their earnings, time and efforts. A few are invested the most; with their money, time as well as efforts. What I want to point out is that - Just Investing money doesn't do the trick neither does just building community. They need to coexist together. if you have invested $20-$30k, but want to sit back and sip red whine for the next five years or do things that only help your investment grow, I am sorry your vote shouldn't have a weight.
Why Alternate Method of Decision Making considers top 10 and not top 5 highest POB stakers?
Though logically the ability to take major financial decisions should be with people having majority stake i.e top 5 as of now representing around 45% stake in POB. But doesn't matter however hard we try there is no absolute end to human bias. Considering the current situation with POB distribution, the top 5 stakers would steer the decisions more in interest of majority stakeholders, while next five will steer the decisions more in interest of distribution to minority stake holders. Creating a balance. And hence giving the voting power to top 10 stakers is the right choice.
Why you should care and vote a Yes for this governance model?
Easy to implement - As you can see it only requires posts and comments to operate. Something everyone here already does. And it doesn't require any special attention to moderate as some of the top 20 stackers will be reading all proposals and can always point out anything that is not how it should be. Though it will require some moderation as our community grows and its governance develop. But we can start without it.
Both Fast & Slow - A proposal can be passed or discarded even in a day if it receives the max required number of 'Yes' or 'No'. And decision making slows down for 7 days if there are not enough people to vote.
Stuctured & Efficient Need of The Hour - The reason why I chose to include answers to a lot of Why's. To give it a relevant structure and not a brainless foundation. It provides the basic structure to decision making that our tribe desperately needs.
Decentralized with central control - The major fundamental and financial decisions remain under the control of top 10 stakers and fund account holder in the end, until pob-funds get developed into multi signatory.
Disclaimer
This is a raw governance model for a kickstart. Though it is well thought out but it won't be possible to plan and lay out every minute detail here and now. We will need relevant guidelines or Policies in place about all the aspects presented in this post.
For example -
- A comprehensive policy about proposals and their structure and format
- A policy about voting and moderation of votes
- A policy about concluding a proposal, arriving at a decision and its announcement, defined relevant space to store it and refer to.
- etc.
And since this post is meant to introduce this governance model, I have only mentioned here most important points about various topics, that can accelerate the decision making until we refine this and develop into a concrete governance model. I have some ideas in mind to develop this further. Let's pass this and start being decisive.
All kinds of feedback is welcomed.
How This Gets Implemented
if @proofofbrainio agrees to operate the community account and use pob fund as per any proposals passed using this system
And if this proposal gets passed with a Special Majority i.e 66% of the total votes casted are a 'Yes'. (Votes to be casted by top 20 POB stakers)
Tagging the Top 20 POB stakers as of now
@proofofbrainio @onealfa.pob @richardcrill @leprechaun @trostparadox @jeffjagoe @scholaris.pob @frot @botvotes @calumam @amr008 @vempromundo.pob @faireye @oldmans @ezrider @lucylin @successfull @dwayne16 @interpretation @xyba.pob
How To Vote
Comment With a
Yes - to pass this proposal
Yes if, Otherwise No - to pass with certain conditions (changes to a point or points in the proposal) that you believe are non negotiable.
No - to not pass and discard this proposal
Results
Date Proposed - 05/07/2021
Status - Proposed
Decision Method - Special Majority
Total Votes Casted -
Yes -
No -
I'll give this a good read tomorrow, my brain is too fried tonight to digest it properly. My first instinct is to say: I dislike DPoS and the idea of a proposal system that is based around a few stakeholders at the top doesn't seem right. But there aren't many alternatives.
Sure it is definitely something to be read with a clear mind. Have a good night and sleep. I’ll be waiting. ;)
That is the tricky bit isn't it? Yeah dpos is always the same bullshit...
@lucylin - feel free to expound on this and suggest alternatives!
From a quick look it sounds reasonable and im happy to have a vote.
But are you able to say more about proofofbrainio? why is the account unable to participate?
And have you looked at alternatives to dpos, which always fails over time...
Thanks for your consideration 🙏
I don’t have a direct contact with account holder. But from what I could observe in some of his responses, he probably has other commitments to deal with outside of this . Though he has said to extend relevant support as required and be more active. Can’t say anything more.
I have pointed out the drawbacks of DPoS, and i don’t think it will desirable to implement it unless the POB stake is more uniformly distributed. Which would take at least a couple years.
So we have an year or two at least to think about an alternative or to improvise DPoS itself. This is meant to start a better way to start proposing such alternatives and working towards them.
I will have future comments. I like your approach. Unfortunately, I have been chasing around some issues on POB. I'll come back to this later this week. Thank you very much for making this write-up.
I am upvoting to reward the brainpower you put into this, and to maximize visibility and opportunity for folks to comment.
Like @calumam, I need some time to digest it.
Also, like @calumam and @frot have stated in the comments (and @lucylin and others elsewhere), DPoS has definite problems, especially with new tribes -- because it would be relatively easy for someone with a lot of HIVE Power to mount a hostile takeover of the new tribe.
As such, I am generally in favor of centralized control of a new tribe, with the 'decentralization' being every individual's choice to participate or not participate in the new tribe. As the tribe grows, then decentralization of governance begins to make more sense. Even then, though, I'm not sure DPoS is the answer.
However, I am in favor of decentralizing token-issuance (e.g. via some form of multi-sig shared control over the issuing account). The problem is, Hive-Engine does not currently support that -- the owner of the issuing account has full control (as @themarkymark has pointed out both on chain and on the POB Discord server).
Thanks for all the brainpower and effort you've put into this!
Thank you for giving this post the required exposure. 🙏
I agree 100%, and I have also voiced similar concerns regarding DPoS in the post regarding Archon Governance model that was introduced by 'amr008'.
I second your thoughts, it is desirable to run things more centralized in early phase. As most normal members can only clearly see what is directly affecting their self interest or interests of the members and initiatives they interact with. Rather than the community and its growth.
On the mark again, DPoS can make sense when POB has much wider and equanimous stake distribution and a significantly higher market cap. It would then prevent the possibility of an average joe to take over the governance. But yes, it would still run the risks of a takeover from someone who has a few hundred thousand dollars lying in his basin. So, even I am not sure if DPoS is the ultimate solution. But with many brilliant minds flocking here, I am hopeful that we will work something out or improvise the conventional DPoS into something customized for POB.
Here I am quoting the concerns as stated by @themarkymark in brief for everyone to see. Which are most genuine and sensitive and finding out a solution for them is inevitable -
I sincerely believe these concerns are valid and we need to deal with them on a priority to actually enable more transparency and decentralization.
But you along with a few others already own a substantial stake in POB even after knowing that communities are inherently centralized by their structure. And the value of your investment is floating at the whims of @proofofbrainio. Which in a way acts as a catalyst for new members and investors to trust the project.
But I am sure, all of major investors including you are holding your stakes with belief that he started this community with intentions to develop and grow, and not to destroy and tank it in the next few years.
POB token has neither inflated to $10 and nor it has that kind of liquidity. Moreover most of the POB in owner's account is staked, which will take a month to become liquid again. So I don't see a reason about why we should start doubting owner's intentions all of a sudden until we have a strong reason to do so.
This doesn't rules out the possibility of a POB crash though. But what I wanted to stress upon is, it's gonna take time to come up, execute and implement relevant solutions for these complex problems. And this proposal is meant to escalate solutions to such problems and arrive at a clear decision.
Secondly implementing a concrete governance system, will also make the owner accountable and test his intentions. For ex - if a proposal to execute multi signatory gets approved by consensus but the owner is unwilling to execute, it poses a red flag about the intentions of the owner.
But right now is there a clear decision about having a multi sign account? And if yes are any steps being taken to execute and implement it? Who is deciding? And who is watching the watchman?
From what I have witnessed, there isn’t any system to make clear decisions and carry them forward. There are just opinions, some in favour and others in not.
Small potatoes can eventually lead to big farmlands growing massive potatoes. I believe it is always good to start with Where and How we are then not to start at all.
Many thanks to you too for recognizing the efforts and brain I've put into this. And showing so much generosity and Kindness. 🙏
well said, sir..
Hi @trostparadox,
I put in one method which deals with decision making processes. Here you can read my comment down below where I link to the method. It may be of interest for you - I am very interested in innovative methods and that's why I take part in this dialogue.
Greetings to you
I am just a bystander and follow the discussion. You put a lot of effort and thought into your proposal. I cannot really judge it, so I won't. I lack the details and the knowledge.
Nevertheless I throw in an idea.
As voting is crucial to this platform and I am interested in alternative methods of how to come to conclusions/decisions, I would like to introduce you to a method which does not work with majority/preference method but with "lowest resistance value". It's actually a more complex process as it works first with questions instead of proposals (long or short).
The method I link you to is the final process in which a decision is to be made - there are two articles, I wrote about, here and here. At a final stage, it's a very good tool to come to consensus; you'll notice the difference, once you try it out in practice.
In case, you have questions or are interested, please let me know.
Cheers :)
Thank you for sharing this. I appreciate to for taking part in this discussion and putting forward relevant contribution to make this better.
I have read the consensus model proposed by you - 'The way of least resistance' - And It is indeed promising. Though I am not sure if it will be efficient and easy to make decisions on things that present a single option like a single proposal. But I can definitely see it working in some other ways i.e for proposals that put forward multiple choices and to further finetune decision making of a proposal when the concerns/suggestions around its specific aspects are addressed with multiple options. A lot of food for thought for sure.
This is a complete and relevant decision making process. And I thank you again for bringing this into my consideration. And making me learn this amazing process to better administration.
Hi and thank you for your response,
I would like you to give it a try and see if you can play with it when you work on the above topic/s. Reading is one thing, trying out another.
If you spend more time with this method, it will also change the proposals you make. Yes or no options, for example, are not given too early, but in the last instance, or not at all, because the process makes them superfluous. Single Options ... that is something to consider to give more than one, no? A single option contains several perspectives which one can reveal.
Beforehand, one formulates statements or proposals that are each evaluated on their own merits. So if you say it's about the feature "downvotes" then there would be, for example, three or four or five statements that are there and you give them your resistance values.
I had started a corresponding experiment on this and put up statements that addressed the issue. So consider them as experimental statements that had the intention to get acquainted with the method regarding a hot topic on the platform.
Thank you again for reading the articles, I appreciate it a lot.
I understand its practicablity, and i have already said it can be desirable at some places.
What I want to point out is that it not just about most efficient decision making, but also more simpler and easy to execute. To be honest what I proposed, I feel is still complex, but it couldn’t be avoided. I might simplify it further if it gets processed.
What if there are 20 different perspectives relevant to 20 voters. It can get cumbersome to conclude and introduces another layer of complexity and delay in decision making. I can think of at least 10 more such points. Like it also has a learning curve. It’s not something people are usually accustomed to like a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. And others.
So yes like everything, it comes with its share of positives and negatives. And it will need some thinking to determine if it would be helpful to POB and this proposal and the current situation of the tribe. It would need to answer a lot more why’s and why not’s specific to the tribe and its growth.
Also, please understand that experimenting it in POB for real is not under my authority or anyone else’s. I have presented something I came up with, its execution depends on the rest of the members and owner. I do not have a conrol over it.
For me , I will surely use this in my personal capacity whenever such a need will arise. And I will think about its use cases and might come up with its implementation relavent to the POB in future propasals, whenever this or some other governace system gets introduced.
At first glance, I told you I find it relevant and and it is a great food for thought. If you want to push it forward, I encourage you to come up with a more comprehensive and concrete implementation specific to POB and create a post. No one here stops anyone from presenting their views.
I hope I haven’t been a miser with my response this time 😛. And provided you an idea about other considerations that need to be addressed beforehand.
Thank You
Thank you, too.
I have linked three of the articles that could be used as suggestions for future decision-making processes. In my opinion, everything that could be interesting for POB or other activities is contained in these. It's not something that many people have heard of and so when I first learned about the method it motivated me to experiment with it too. When an occasion presents itself, as it did here, I have drawn attention to it. I don't think I would make another more detailed proposal for POB, beyond that.
I had conversations like this two years ago and even then they said they didn't want to waste time. But I think today, as I did then, that this method can basically be a shortener of a decision-making process. Some people have made suggestions that could be dealt with in this way.
Play with it, apply it if it fascinates you too, as it does me. If not, it's okay.
Greetings
I am indeed fascinated by everything new that interests me and makes sense. And this isn’t an exception. But Its application to POB for me still remains a subject to further think and brainstorm. I am grateful to you for taking your time to draw my attention and other’s to this and to engage in the conversation here for a better outcome. This is a new learning for me and I will put it to use and experiment in my capacity. Thank you for sharing the resources to refer to.
Greetings and Best Wishes to You Too
Keep Hiving & Engaging & Showering Love
Thank you, you are very welcome :)
I appreciate your considerations.
Good wishes to you, too <3
I finally got a chance to read your prior articles about "low resistance" governance.
It reminds me of the U.S. Constitution and many aspects of our U.S. system of governance.
One of the things I sometimes point out to my students is that the U.S. system is intentionally non-democratic.
Democracy, in its raw form, simply means that 51% can oppress and subjugate the remaining 49%.
The makeup of the U.S. Senate, both in representation and in their self-adopted 'rules' (e.g. allowing 41% to filibuster and thus stop legislation favored by 59%) are meant to defend the minority viewpoint.
The net effect is that, in the U.S., the simple majority is able to rule relatively unfettered until such time as they try to do something that is overwhelming opposed by the minority. However, this has been undermined in recent years by the Senate relaxing the 'cost' of the filibuster. A few decades ago, a filibuster required at least one Senator be speaking (i.e. 'holding the floor') for the duration of the filibuster. This meant that filibusters were limited to issues with "Very High Resistance" by the minority.
However, when that 'cost' was eliminated and the filibuster became 'easy', the minority party began invoking it for anything and everything they disagreed with. The net result was that the majority party began eliminating the scope of the filibuster. The Democratic-led Senate in 2013 removed the filibuster from judicial confirmations. Then the Republican-led Senate in 2017 removed the filibuster from Supreme Court confirmations.
This brings up the issue of gaming the system. I haven't thought this all the way through, but my gut instinct is that "low resistance" governance can be gamed, especially if other people's votes are known in advance. If I simply wait until I am the last voter, I can calculate what my relative votes need to be on all options in order to make sure my preferred option is chosen.
On a somewhat different note, I am a fan of Single Transferable Vote, because it generally does a good job of achieving genuine consensus. However, even that can be gamed (especially if other voters' votes are known or can be predicted beforehand).
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I finally got a chance to read this all the way through.
You've done an excellent job with this!
I didn't cast a vote for the proposal for two reasons:
Nevertheless, I like a lot of what you've described here.
The top-20 equal-vote concept has a lot of merit. As you aptly pointed out:
However, this could potentially be gamed with alt accounts -- would need some safeguards to guard against that.
I also like the concept of having different types of proposals and different approval thresholds for different types of proposals.
Thanks for taking your time to scrutinise it in detail.
I understand everyone for not voting. I lacked in my homework in first place 😬. I wrote it with a perspective as if no prior decision making format was available. I should have been more considerate.
I agree, it can be gamed, though most of such activity can be traced and checked up to an extent with some efforts. As anyone making to the top 20 out of the blue would attract some eyes.
Having different approval thresholds, I feel, is optimal because it provides a say in the major financial decisions to more financially invested members. Appropriately serving their interests and other’s.
I am sure not many have read it with enough patience yet. I still believe this will be a better structure than current governance.
It’s free to use, reiterate in full or parts by anyone. if you or anyone else would like to use any of these recommendations to implement or get further opinion, please go ahead.
Thanks again for presenting your viewpoint 🙏