A BitShares Constitution?

[Mysto]

I think I will write a personal constitution that is not binding on anyone nor the BitShares project so that people know what my values are. 

I don't think BitShares needs a constitution other than the code as adopted by delegates.

Constitutions need to be amended (times change and we can't predict what will happen in the future). The way I see it is we start out with a constitution then shareholders can amend it to fit their needs. I would hate some "set in stone", unchangeable constitution.

[luckybit]

I think I will write a personal constitution that is not binding on anyone nor the BitShares project so that people know what my values are. 

I don't think BitShares needs a constitution other than the code as adopted by delegates.

An honor code is probably what you want to agree to. It's actually common in colleges to sign something like that and it works well.

Gift networks typically have to work on the honor system. So a personal constitution might be the honor code but since all of us might have a slightly different honor code at least until we know how the honor system is going to work it might be a good idea to just come up with a personal code which we constantly update as we figure it out.

So 1.0 might be significantly different from 2.0.

Reference 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_honor_code

[xeroc]

I think I will write a personal constitution that is not binding on anyone nor the BitShares project so that people know what my values are. 

I don't think BitShares needs a constitution other than the code as adopted by delegates.

Glad to hear it. 

and we can have a community honoring BMs constitution  (just kidding)

[matt608]

I think I will write a personal constitution that is not binding on anyone nor the BitShares project so that people know what my values are. 

I don't think BitShares needs a constitution other than the code as adopted by delegates.

Glad to hear it. 

[toast]

The BTS blockchain is used to secure one consensus measure: percent ownership. The only purpose of a "constitution" is to define an initial social consensus to let stakeholders self-select into it. BTS ownership is already well-defined but its goals are not clear yet. Once a DAC is being traded, the will of its majority stakeholders can change and that will change the actions of the DAC. You can choose to still claim there's a constitution to help explain what the expected behavior of the DAC is based on its current shareholders, but the technology does not recognize it.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10879.0

[toast]

The only purpose of a "constitution" is to define an initial social consensus to let stakeholders self-select into it. BTS ownership is already well-defined but its goals are not clear yet. Once a DAC is being traded, the will of its majority stakeholders can change and that will change the actions of the DAC. You can choose to still claim there's a constitution to help explain what the expected behavior of the DAC is based on its current shareholders, but the technology does not recognize it.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10879.0

[bytemaster]

I think I will write a personal constitution that is not binding on anyone nor the BitShares project so that people know what my values are. 

I don't think BitShares needs a constitution other than the code as adopted by delegates.

[Brent.Allsop]

Having the ability to change the dilution rate with some established process that is deemed "hard but not impossible" is what is needed.

 

So is a 95% consensus sufficiently hard enough?  That is the initial thinking in the first camp on this issue:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/160/2

If it is, lets continue building consensus around this proposal.

[Brent.Allsop]

@Brent.Allsop:  Please explain the Registration form. Why is "Legal Middle Name" the only required field, and not, say, "Nickname"?

Sorry, yet another issue that needs to be fixed in this mere prototype.

There are two types of *s.  Red ones, always required, and black *s, only required for any financial operations, which is all future proposed stuff, so can just be ignored.  If there is no *, it is not required, ever.

I'll get started fixing that.

[Mysto]

Having the ability to change the dilution rate with some established process that is deemed "hard but not impossible" is what is needed.

 

[onceuponatime]

@Brent.Allsop:  Please explain the Registration form. Why is "Legal Middle Name" the only required field, and not, say, "Nickname"?

[Brent.Allsop]

And we need to be able to dynamically change what we are proposing in an efficient and easy way, which will ensure everyone is still on board, until we get things at least near unanimous, so we don’t lose anyone.

This is the tricky part, at least for me. Could you please explain in plain language how exactly it could work?

Yes, this is the specific part that Canonizer.com does, and it should be integrated with the rest of the vote DAC systems, as you describe.  No need to duplicate effort.

And I love the algorithmic voting and such ideas LuckyBit is proposing.  Yes, I am the founder of Canonizer.com, and it would be great to either interface Canonizer.com into something you are proposing.  Send me an e-mail and help me better understand the details of your great ideas.

As far as the Canonizer consensus building methodolodgy, it helps to start with what is the ultimate goal.  Rather than having 1000 individual posts, by 1000 individuals, The goal is to have a concise, quantitative, hierarchical representation of what everyone is currently thinking, with the fewest possible camps, with the most people in each.  The focus always being for each camp, what would it take to convert you to another camp.  In other words, what kind of experimental results would falsify your theory, and convert you.  Or what would another POV have to give up, to get you on board.  Then you work on doing those experiments, continually reducing the number of camps, till there is a unanimous consensus.

Any One person starts the survey by putting up the purpose or goals of the survey topic in the root or top camp, then they create the first sub camp describing what they think they currently want/believe/predict.  Then when others come, they assume what is there now, is the yet to be completed consensus of the crowd.  You can assume you are an expert, and are the first participator that has justification for a new and better way than what is there now.  So you propose changing things accordingly.  Proposed changes go into review for 1 week, and if no supporters of the camp objects, your changes go live, ensuring unanimous consensus of all camp supporters.

If someone does object, you can start the negotiation process to find a way to state things that everyone agrees with.  If this is not possible, you can keep what you agree on (usually the most important issues) in a supper camp, and push the disagreeable issues into supporting sub camps.

If one person is objecting to a change everyone else wants to make, everyone else can threaten to fork and jump to the new camp, leaving the lone objector in a camp that will then be filtered out by most people.  Keeping as much consensus as possible motivates people to work as hard as possible finding creative ways to keep the consensus.

There is much more than this, and if you see problems, we have likely also solved those.  So just keep asking questions, if you still see other issues.

For those that don't yet know, I've started a survey topic for the single issue of BTS dilution here:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/160

And I've created a camp expressing what I believe.  If your camp is already there, you just cast your vote by joining the camp, possibly improving it if you want.  Otherwise, if your view isn't there yet, you start a new camp so others that agree can find you and help.

[Brent.Allsop]

I am in strong favor of controlled by a law or constitution that should be stable as possible as it can be, instead of relying on so called "trusted" people who have more power than others and harness the power to implement "better and flexible" policy.
I actually don't trust the "trusted" authoritative people.

Exactly the problem.  Canonizer.com solves this problem by giving people the ability to choose their own preferred canonization algorithm, on the side bar.  In other words, YOU select the people you most trust, and measure the consensus according to that, while comparing that to popular, or any other type of consensus.  It may turn out to be something like 75% of your selected experts think we should dilute Bitshares by X amount for Y purpose.

Nothing is censored on the way in, but individuals can prioritize, or censor things as they choose, on the way out.

[CoinHoarder]

I am in strong favor of controlled by a law or constitution that should be stable as possible as it can be, instead of relying on so called "trusted" people who have more power than others and harness the power to implement "better and flexible" policy.
I actually don't trust the "trusted" authoritative people.

The past update that introduced dilution and played with the incentives of AGS/PTS was not cool, as is reflected in the market. I agree with the merger, but it was not cool of BM to include dilution in the fine print of the merger or change the social contract of AGS/PTS. The community had already spoken out against dilution and there was obviously a large part of the community that didn't want it. Dilution is not necessary for development and marketing. Look at how far Bitcoin has come and its dilution goes 100% to people whom secure the block chain no strings attached.

More community feedback should of been received before moving forward with those plans. A constitution is needed as it will make it so that it is necessary to heed the community feedback of BTS stakeholders, as you will be needing 70% of their approval to make the changes. I don't think anyone expects it to be very detailed, but it should contain the Bitshares social contract and a clause for BTS dilution.

[amencon]

On the other hand who will trust a constitution after our recent moves?  We have already proven the ability to turn on a dime and issue new BTS as necessary.   In the free market there are no rules except survival of the fittest and most flexible.

Who would trust such a constitution is not the only issue as it seems that you guys don't want to be hamstrung by promises for the future.

Even if you did get people to trust such a constitution and then had to diverge from it based on unforseen circumstances, I think having the constitution in place would end up doing more harm than good at that point.

I feel like this constitution idea is an appeal to calm investors in the short term, but isn't a viable solution long term considering how "agile" BitShares is.

BM himself is stating that nothing is certain and can change at any time in the future.  While the certainty of a constitution feels comforting I think it's more honest to continue without it or anything similar.