[Pre-Proposal] DashBoost - Funding Small Projects By Sub-DAO

[Pasta]

Don't get me wrong I really like this proposal but it seems centralized and undemocratic. Since we're working with a courtroom metaphor have you considered having a jury of dash holding volunteers with one of your judges acting as the qualified and vetted foreman? That way you could have a large pool, majority voting and a natural recruiting ground for judges/foremen. Something to think about perhaps.

Right so the problem is getting enough people to volunteer to do this. If you see below, it is setup in such a form that there are 2 people who both come to a fully independent decision and then another person who looks at both of their decisions and reasons and all other information and then makes their own decision. If they are all in agreement it either passes or fails, if there is a dispute then they all come together and talk it out. A little of that information is either slightly misleading or redacted so don't read too much into that, it does need to be edited but that is the general flow. I think with this kind of setup it is pretty good.

 

[charlieb]

Right so the problem is getting enough people to volunteer to do this. If you see below, it is setup in such a form that there are 2 people who both come to a fully independent decision and then another person who looks at both of their decisions and reasons and all other information and then makes their own decision. If they are all in agreement it either passes or fails, if there is a dispute then they all come together and talk it out. A little of that information is either slightly misleading or redacted so don't read too much into that, it does need to be edited but that is the general flow. I think with this kind of setup it is pretty good.

I guess I did assume that it'd be easy to find 50 or so people to be jurors which may indeed not be the case. I think it'd be very interesting work but maybe I'm a little twisted. The setup you show it very sensible and practical but it's still three appointees making a decision. Personally I have no problem with that but philosophically it doesn't agree with the ethos of dash as I understand it. Practicality usually overcomes philosophy and for good reason.

 

[Pasta]

I guess I did assume that it'd be easy to find 50 or so people to be jurors which may indeed not be the case. I think it'd be very interesting work but maybe in a little twisted. The setup you show it very sensible and practical but it's still three appointees making a decision. Personally I have no problem with that but philosophically it doesn't agree with the ethos if dash as I understand it. Practicality usually overcomes philosophy and for good reason.

I will talk to my dev about implementing a system to give feedback directly on a reviewer, too much negative feedback and they'll be let go.

 

[feedbands]

This is indeed an interesting proposal.

The new consortium of reviewers would become the gatekeepers to low value proposals. Whereas such proposals were previously voted on by the thousands, they are now voted on by a small group for convenience. With a limited amount of Dash, perhaps some microproposals would get approved and others not. In a perfect implementation of this system, the proposals that add value get in, and the fraudulent ones never get through. But suppose the fraudster decided to pay the judge?

• What assurances do we have that judges are acting in the best interest of the Network? In my life I have witnessed small city councils just as corrupt as any senate or congress. Corruption seems to be never too far behind the gatekeeper.
• How can the council's decisions be audited and/or overruled by the larger community? What are the safeguards here?
• How might conflicts of interest or instances of corruption be addressed if and when they do arise?
• How are the gatekeepers selected, by whom and based on what merit?
• How might a gatekeeper's term come to an end if they were found to be acting with impropriety?
• How long would such a judge be a judge for? Are there term limits?

These are just some questions that come to mind. I like this idea, and feel it serves a need. But ultimately, these issues may arise. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Concentrating power into the hands of the few is not a decision the community should make lightly or rush into. Maybe it all starts off great... but over time these issues arise. Eventually people may seek out these positions with the intention to exploit for profit. Just look at politics for evidence of how common this phenomenon is. How can effective safeguards be established?

Is there room for a model in which this service is provided, but the full weight of the network can also bear down on any proposal at any moment to deliver a binding decision more powerful than the sub committee?

 

[Pasta]

This is indeed an interesting proposal.

The new consortium of reviewers would become the gatekeepers to low value proposals. Whereas such proposals were previously voted on by the thousands, they are now voted on by a small group for convenience. With a limited amount of Dash, perhaps some microproposals would get approved and others not. In a perfect implementation of this system, the proposals that add value get in, and the fraudulent ones never get through. But suppose the fraudster decided to pay the judge?

• What assurances do we have that judges are acting in the best interest of the Network? In my life I have witnessed small city councils just as corrupt as any senate or congress. Corruption seems to be never too far behind the gatekeeper.
• How can the council's decisions be audited and/or overruled by the larger community? What are the safeguards here?
• How might conflicts of interest or instances of corruption be addressed if and when they do arise?
• How are the gatekeepers selected, by whom and based on what merit?
• How might a gatekeeper's term come to an end if they were found to be acting with impropriety?
• How long would such a judge be a judge for? Are there term limits?

These are just some questions that come to mind. I like this idea, and feel it serves a need. But ultimately, these issues may arise. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Concentrating power into the hands of the few is not a decision the community should make lightly or rush into. Maybe it all starts off great... but over time these issues arise. Eventually people may seek out these positions with the intention to exploit for profit. Just look at politics for evidence of how common this phenomenon is. How can effective safeguards be established?

Is there room for a model in which this service is provided, but the full weight of the network can also bear down on any proposal at any moment to deliver a binding decision more powerful than the sub committee?

You make really great points. Thank you greatly for your feedback. I am going to respond to each point in order, most of these I have thought of, a few are new, but I believe all have a suitable answer
0 - "Fraudster pays judge." I believe this is mitigated primarily by the fact you have 3 different members who would all have to be bribed. However, that is not impossible. As such, I just messaged my dev and informed him we must implement a feature where the picked reviewers are random. As such, you would have to bribe 3 random people, hope they accept, and then get past the final layer of my admin sniffing nose, which btw will be reviewing every single petition thoroughly. In addition, the team I will be compiling will have to weigh the decision. I have a large focus on hiring high quality people, they have to make the decision and realize "I am currently getting paid to do this... If I get caught I lose all my reputation and this steady income." But those three could still make that decision. In additional addition, if the poll is negative it will not be funded. I think this is definitely something that we will have to address in this plan. If you have any ideas please hit me up.
1 - "Assure Best Interest" At this point in time, I want all reviewers to preferably be MNOs. I believe this is important as they realize just the same as when voting on traditional proposals that these investments will affect the value of dash and as such, if they make good decisions then the price of their million dollar investment also goes up. I believe another key factor to making sure that the reviewers make good decisions will be that all decisions are public, both their initial independent decision and their final decision after talking with the others. The final decision will be paired with a detailed paper explaining why they made the decision they did. You will be able to comment on petitions, vote on petitions (1 Dash = 1 Vote) and report/give negative feedback on a reviewer. If you give good enough reasons or if enough people ask for it that person will be dismissed. Even while a petition is in progress, anyone can comment and vote on it and give their feedback. If it comes to a point, which I hope it never does, that DashBoost isn't listening to community feedback the DAO is always able to pull the plug. This gives everyone in the organization the incentive to make sure that we are following what is best for the network.
2 - "Auditable/Overrulable" Right, so it should be easily audit-able as all information will be completely public and all in one place. I will continue to work with my dev to make sure all the information is super easily view-able public transparent and the like to make sure that if someone wants to look into where the funds are going they can. In regards to being able to be overruled, on the scale of an individual petition, the easiest would be having an overwhelming majority of 'NO' votes in the poll. In such a case, it would either not pass in the first place or if it did pass and then those votes came in once it's funding would get cut off. Most of these petitions will be 75+% paid at completion not on initial pass. Again comments etc talking to me on discord about it stuff like that. If we don't take that feedback and don't supply a good enough reason why not then the ultimate step is to defund us at the treasury level. And trust me, I don't want that to happen so I will do everything possible to follow in the community's wishes.
3 - "Conflict of Interests" There will be systems in place to insure a reviewer can not easily put in a petition without us finding out. If for example however a reviewer's buddy puts it in on the reviewers behalf, again that falls into the category of we have 3 independent reviewers + myself and other trusted admins for a reason. Chances are that person just donated a few hundred dollars. In the case that we find out that one of our reviewers has been attempting to judge a petition not based on it's merit but based on the fact he or she is connected to it he or she will be h̶u̶n̶g̶ h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶d̶ b̶u̶r̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶k̶e̶ dismissed withholding all pending pay. There will also be a publicized post on the forum detailing our findings and what we have done to prevent this from happening in the future and any other relevant information. We will also directly tell key people like TaoOfSatoshi about it so he may do what he wishes. I feel that these procedures would stop it but if you have any ideas I will gladly take them into account.
4 - "How Reviewers Chosen?" As of this point in time, an interested person is to contact me with their reasoning as to why they believe they should be on the team. Major pluses in my book are being a MNO being well known and active in discord or having previous experience somewhat related like the old PEC (Proposal Evaluation Committee(which by the way, we might start back up if we have enough hands)) in the future there will be a section of the site where someone can submit a resume asking to be added on the team. We will effectively treat that as a petition with 0 funding. As such it will be public if it passes or not and why.
5 - "How will they be fired?" I see that there will be two routes of dismissal. Honorary dismissal and dishonorable dismissal. In the case of an Honorary/normal dismissal they will get their final paycheck, we will say thank you so much for helping out, cry a little, and then part our ways. In the case of a dishonorable dismissal, any unpaid balances they have earned will be withheld, and our findings will be publicized as well as how we will fix this issue insuring no more inappropriate actions happen in the future.
6 - "Term limits?" As of this point in time I do not image term limits being a necessity. If they are needed or the community adamantly want term limits we will gladly add them. I believe having the option to receive negative feedback and be dismissed is more important and productive than having term limits. I am open to this as a possibility I just don't see the plus side of it at this point in time.
Final - "binding decision more powerful than committee" The poll is a great place to look for this solution. If the poll is negative we WILL NOT directly fund it. If we really like it, but the community still says no for what ever reason, we might escrow it putting it directly to the treasury's vote. But we will NOT fund it directly without a positive yes poll.

 

[Pasta]

Edited initial post to clarify that if a poll is negative (defined as being less than 40% positive/more than 60% negative) the petition will never be funded by DashBoost. We may either escrow the project and put it to the treasury or refer it to GreenCandle but it will never be directly funded by DashBoost with a negative poll. Or we will completely abandon it.

 

[Pasta]

Added section MVP in initial post to show that the reviewer system will only be used if needed and that DashBoost will not start using a reviewer system.

MVP
Everything outlined above is based upon community involvement being similar to what I expect it to be. Based on feedback and other factors such as community voting/ commenting involvement the final product may change.
The MVP(Minimum Viable Product) will be guaranteed finalized at the end of February, probably earlier. The MVP will contain, the ability to submit a petition with a fee, the ability to verify ownership of an address, the ability to comment on a petition, the ability to vote on a petition and other small features such as filtering and editing. As long as community involvement remains high, a petition will pass or fail based upon the voting exclusively. In the case that community involvement drops too low to keep fair voting, the reviewer system will be activated. In such a case, the system surrounding reviewers and how to keep them fair outlined in other sections and comments will be used. If the reviewer system is activated, the network will still have the opportunity to vote no and block the petition regardless of what the reviewers say. In the case that the MVP works and solves the problem, we will keep it nice and simple and using the voting mechanism.

 

[charlieb]

Added section MVP in initial post to show that the reviewer system will only be used if needed and that DashBoost will not start using a reviewer system.

MVP
Everything outlined above is based upon community involvement being similar to what I expect it to be. Based on feedback and other factors such as community voting/ commenting involvement the final product may change.
The MVP(Minimum Viable Product) will be guaranteed finalized at the end of February, probably earlier. The MVP will contain, the ability to submit a petition with a fee, the ability to verify ownership of an address, the ability to comment on a petition, the ability to vote on a petition and other small features such as filtering and editing. As long as community involvement remains high, a petition will pass or fail based upon the voting exclusively. In the case that community involvement drops too low to keep fair voting, the reviewer system will be activated. In such a case, the system surrounding reviewers and how to keep them fair outlined in other sections and comments will be used. If the reviewer system is activated, the network will still have the opportunity to vote no and block the petition regardless of what the reviewers say. In the case that the MVP works and solves the problem, we will keep it nice and simple and using the voting mechanism.

It seems like you're developing what may be the final product before you submit a proposal. Why not submit a proposal to make the MVP you describe and if features need to be added then submit further proposals?

 

[Pasta]

It seems like you're developing what may be the final product before you submit a proposal. Why not submit a proposal to make the MVP you describe and if features need to be added then submit further proposals?

The MVP needs to be developed in such a way that it can easily be expanded to this full product I am envisioning. Changes to the final product will change the back end of the MVP. As such I want to clarify with the community what will be best for the end product so we may prepare for that in our development of the MVP.

 

[Plateglassarmour]

I like the structure you are laying out, and it's clear you've put a lot of thought in to running it properly.

My main concern at this point is that people arguing for perfection before a MVP can be launched will stall the project indefinitely.

I certainly encourage you to think about the ultimate structure, but I think getting a MVP out the door in the next couple of months is just as important.

So long as you're clear that it is a framework to be expanded upon in the future, I have high hopes for the masternodes to see the sense in passing it.

 

[Pasta]

I like the structure you are laying out, and it's clear you've put a lot of thought in to running it properly.

My main concern at this point is that people arguing for perfection before a MVP can be launched will stall the project indefinitely.

I certainly encourage you to think about the ultimate structure, but I think getting a MVP out the door in the next couple of months is just as important.

So long as you're clear that it is a framework to be expanded upon in the future, I have high hopes for the masternodes to see the sense in passing it.

Hi @Plateglassarmour, thanks for your feedback. I plan on having an emphasis on the proposal detailing how the first month of development will all be based around getting the MVP finalized, the second will be making it look better and adding key features like filtering and other quality of life features. The third month we will take a look at the data collected and figure out what the best path will be going forward.
Thanks for your feedback again.

 

[djcrypto]

Hey @Pasta ,

Have you considered what @coingun suggested and just have a minimum stake required to vote?
Maybe 5 Dash is required to have 1 vote or something along those lines.
This would eliminate the potential for bribery and all the variables of having volunteers, etc.

 

[Pasta]

Hey @Pasta ,

Have you considered what @coingun suggested and just have a minimum stake required to vote?
Maybe 5 Dash is required to have 1 vote or something along those lines.
This would eliminate the potential for bribery and all the variables of having volunteers, etc.

Hi @djcrypto I have been in a lot of talks with coingun, might have something I can announce publicly soon, but the minimum stake will likely be 1 Dash. For the first two months, the reviewer system will not be operational. We hope that there will be enough community involvement in order to maintain this voting only setup. However, we fear we might have too many petitions to keep community members involved. We could solve this by raising the fee, however this is something I wish to avoid as I feel it stifles innovation. I hope that the poll/voting system will suite the community well, however we are also prepared to introduce other systems in order to keep funding small proposals and keep innovation high.

 

[Ftoole]

It is going too cost 240 bucks to review a proposal why not set that as the fee for the petitioner then reviewing potential projects don’t affect the funds that can be used for projects. Cause at 50 a proposal some one could spam you and then cost 190 bucks each that could be spent on good projects.

 

[Pasta]

It is going too cost 240 bucks to review a proposal why not set that as the fee for the petitioner then reviewing potential projects don’t affect the funds that can be used for projects. Cause at 50 a proposal some one could spam you and then cost 190 bucks each that could be spent on good projects.

Hi @Ftoole thanks for your feedback. We are planning to set the fee at $200 initially with the potential of changing that up or down in the future. For the first two months, this system will be completely voting based. At that point, we will look at all the data we have collected and introduce the potential of reviewers if needed. Hopefully it will not be needed. Based on community feedback and the data we receive after two months, we will either propose keeping the system as is, introducing the reviewers as advisory (similar to PEC), or introducing the reviewers with the ability of a reviewer consensus being able to stop something from receiving funding as well as community voting able to stop something from receiving funding.

 

[rion]

Nice proposal. You've put a lot of thought and work in already. I proposed something very similar a while back. People raised some of the same concerns about centralization and bureaucracy. Ultimately I abandoned that proposal and shifted my efforts to try to bootstrap a local (Utah-specific) sub-DAO (what I call a cooperative). I'm currently nursing that along unfunded.

I will promote your proposal to MNOs I know. I'd take @GrandMasterDash's advice seriously and try to put some boundaries around your scope, geographic and/or otherwise.

Either way, let's collaborate on tooling where it makes sense. I'll be building similar open-source software tools along the way.

-Rion

 

[Pasta]

Nice proposal. You've put a lot of thought and work in already. I proposed something very similar a while back. People raised some of the same concerns about centralization and bureaucracy. Ultimately I abandoned that proposal and shifted my efforts to try to bootstrap a local (Utah-specific) sub-DAO (what I call a cooperative). I'm currently nursing that along unfunded.

I will promote your proposal to MNOs I know. I'd take @GrandMasterDash's advice seriously and try to put some boundaries around your scope, geographic and/or otherwise.

Either way, let's collaborate on tooling where it makes sense. I'll be building similar open-source software tools along the way.

-Rion

Thanks for your feedback. My team and I have recently been redoing this proposal with all the feedback in mind and plan to push it live soon. I'll make sure to keep in touch with you in regards to tools and the like. I have a good dev team I'm working with so if you need anything just message me on discord

 

[Martin Rue]

In principle I support the idea because I had the very same one

Here's a link to the proposal: https://www.dashcentral.org/p/grassroots-crowdfunding-system

It's now called DashRoots, and we've been developing the system since a little after the proposal failed to gain enough support to pass. We're developing the system with our own money, and we'll come back to the treasury once we can demonstrate value to the network, which I think is fair.

While on the surface our ideas are similar, DashRoots will remain a more open platform, where a proposal can pass so long as there are some people willing to support it. Perhaps your idea will evolve more towards a review / approval system to help inform bigger budget decisions, which is equally as valuable.

I've just posted an update on our progress on the project blog, for anyone that's interested: https://blog.dashroots.fund/2018/01/04/project-update

 

[Green Candle]

Great discussion here and we would like to add a few things for full transparency. Firstly Rion we didn't realize you may have been the one that did get this grass roots type effort going perhaps before or after Martin Rue, so to Martin and Rion thank you very much for that ground work. Regardless of who started it we think the discussion is healthy and we also think it aligns well with the goals of GreenCandle to allow the community to feel comfortable moving forward with proposals, that even if they result in failure, will not result in funds being left unspent or uncreated in the Dash eco-system.

After first scoping out the GreenCandle - GrantCenter one of our director's made contact with Martin Rue over twitter and unfortunately the logistics never worked out for Martin and our director to sit down and hash out seeing if Martin and his team could build the Grant Center. Fast forward a few weeks and we began discussions with Pasta and his team about them being open to us combing their idea's with our Grant Center ideas and working on this together.

At GreenCandle we want to draw a line in the sand in terms of simplicity and we are passionate about taking complex ideas and projects and removing the complexity and narrowing in on the benefits. It was after our initial discovery and due diligence meetings that we were able to arrive at a place where we felt comfortable that Pasta and his team could pull off our vision and that some of their ideas actually extended our original goals. On the other hand some of them we found to complicate the formula so we have asked for them to be removed from the MVP.

We also wanted to make a clear statement that in the manner of decentralization that if more then one option evolves for the distribution of the left over funds we intend to open up the ability to fund evenly between the potential projects. We decided to move forward with Pasta and his team because of the synergy that developed as we progressed through the due diligence process.

 

[Pasta]

I am very excited for these continued operations between DashBoost and GreenCandle. Thank you for sitting down with my team and refining both of our ideas into one project that now has a very solid scope and road map for the future. I cannot wait to see what 2018 holds.

 

[Pasta]

I am very excited to announce that DashBoost is now a full proposal launched under GreenCandle. View-able here. We have reworked how the system is going to work and are focused around building an MVP and then updating from there based on community feedback. As soon as it appears DashBoost will pass, our development team will start work immediately. I am very excited and will be available at all hours I can to answer questions. I highly suggest reading the proposal document and the technical specification. Thank you.

 

[Green Candle]

We are really excited to bring Dash Boost to the network in combination with the idea of the GreenCandle GrantCenter we have partnered with Pasta and his team to bring this idea to fruition.

This proposal can be found here: https://www.dashcentral.org/p/gc-dash-boost

If you have any questions please don't hesitate.

Also please watch the video

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Self-audited? - I hope all dash voting addresses will be public.

Will the source code and rights be handed over to Core so that we could replicate this elsewhere without GCs explicit consent? (perhaps not needed in the long term but to state this now would eliminate doubt in the future)

 

[Vedran Yoweri]

don't call yourself a sub-dao. it shows you're clueless.

 

[solarguy]

Two questions,

First, what constitutes a "small proposal"? $10,000 or less? $100,000 or less? A million? Is there a hard cut off?

Second, If I understand correctly, GreenCandle/DashBoost will take the volatility out of the equation by making sure the winning proposal owner gets the specified value (in US dollars), but paid in Dash. This is easy if the value of Dash goes up. Wooo Hooooo, we end up with extra money. But where does the extra value or buying power come from if the value of Dash goes down by 40%? I'm pretty sure you guys can't just run off and print extra Dash in the back room like our nice government friends.

Carry on, have fun, win!

 

[JZA]

Any updates on the MVP?

 

[Pasta]

Any updates on the MVP?

Hey JZA, we are working away. There is currently nothing which needs to be updated. We will do so we have a sufficient update. Thanks for your interest in this project!

 

[Santos Bermúdez Ruiz]

Hey guys great idea.

Think this is much needed, but I would love to hear more about the team behind this project and a more detailed budget. From which country will you be operating from?

Gpod luck

 

[Pasta]

Hey guys great idea.

Think this is much needed, but I would love to hear more about the team behind this project and a more detailed budget. From which country will you be operating from?

Gpod luck

Hey Santos, a detailed budget including all expenses will be released at some point near the start of March in our first monthly update. We are operated out of the United States primarily. Thanks for your interest in the project.

 

[demo]

Any person can register on DashBoost and verify ownership of a certain address. The balance of that address will correlate to a certain number of votes that the owner will receive and be able to use. The algorithm that decides how many votes a user will receive based on address will be linear (IE. 1 Dash = 1 Vote). Community Voting will primarily be used as a poll. However, if the poll is negative, it will NEVER be directly funded. In the early days of DashBoost the voting system be a simple majority vote.

can I delegate my vote?
For example I would like to hire as delegate @UdjinM6 for all proposals related to code development and @amanda_b_johnson for all proposals related to advertising , and let them vote on my behalf (I own one vote and a half).
Will delegation be implemented in your DashBoost system?

MILESTONES
February 28th
Have a functioning platform, which although not pretty does the basics of what the platform requires. This includes someone being able to submit a petition, and reviewers judging on them. Community members can view and comment on petitions.

I am looking forward seeing your prototype, and if delegation is not supported this will be my first proposal in your system.