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Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: bytemaster on July 23, 2014, 07:08:24 pm

Title: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 23, 2014, 07:08:24 pm
One of our major challenges is making voting easy for the average person who doesn't have time to follow 101 different delegates.  For this reason we are going to make voting even easier:  you can delegate your selection of delegates to a single delegate.   How it works is this:

1) Every delegate may optionally specify a slate ID as part of their public data.  This slate ID identifies up to 101 delegates supported by that delegate.
2) Every user can select one or more delegates to approve of
3) The wallet will automatically combine the public slates of the delegates that user approves of to produce their votes.

Benefits:
1) More people voting with the same slate ID increases privacy
2) The default wallet can hard-code the developers own account as the default recommendation
3) Delegates are now competing not just on pay-rate, but also on how well balanced their selected slates are.
4) Users still have to transact to update their votes so they don't give up control of their votes, they merely have auto-recomendation.
5) More similar slates reduce block chain bloat.
6) Lobbying to become a delegate can now be focused toward existing delegates for endorsement. 
7) We can enable "down votes" that simply remove delegates from the "recommended set"

This is no more centralized than the current system and in-fact, encourages decentralization because delegates compete on making solid recommendations that include other delegates. 

With this in place there is no need to charge extra for not voting.
Title: Re: DDPOS - Delegated Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: xeroc on July 23, 2014, 08:29:52 pm
Awesome idea ... reminds me of nxt leasing .. but even better
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bitmeat on July 23, 2014, 08:38:35 pm
Fantastic! Now I'll be able to define my rules and automatically make recommendations in my tool, then people can just pick me if they think my tool is doing the right thing.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: cass on July 23, 2014, 08:41:55 pm
 +5% great
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Shentist on July 23, 2014, 08:46:30 pm
the weak point in ripple you see, is the "cartel" of old friends, for new people are impossible to get in. will this slate ID not decrease the chance for newcomers to get one of the 101 delegate seats?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 23, 2014, 08:49:09 pm
the weak point in ripple you see, is the "cartel" of old friends, for new people are impossible to get in. will this slate ID not decrease the chance for newcomers to get one of the 101 delegate seats?

Users still have to cast the ballots and can "filter" the recommendations.   So this is not the same as Ripple where the users have no say.  We are just helping the users express their say by automating a process that would occur naturally outside the system.   Ie:  if you cannot stop it from happening then you should at least control how it happens.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 23, 2014, 09:16:33 pm
Do I have to approve the legate to use his selection or I can click and see his recommendations
?
If I can check without necessary approving him beforehand great!

Now, on the topic if great slate pickers make great delegates – sound like different jobs to me so,
3) Delegates are now competing not just on pay-rate, but also on how well balanced their selected slates are.

I might use one delegates recommendation and not even consider him himself for inclusion.

Anyone can produce a slate of delegates.
You browse before you buy.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: wackou on July 23, 2014, 09:34:40 pm
Excellent idea!! This is a great step towards "fixing" voter apathy, as I can imagine not so far away in the future that some delegates will be known for advancing network security, some for marketing, some for charity, and some other for diversity. People would definitely be more aware and willing to check one of those boxes (where each box would be a known delegate for his recommendations):

Code: [Select]
[ ] 100% network security
[ ] 100% marketing
[ ] 100% charity
[ ] 50% network, 50% marketing
[ ] 33% network, 33% marketing, 33% charity
etc.

than choosing a full slate of delegates.

bytemaster, the speed at which you find solutions to problems you encounter on the go is really impressive, first tapos, then dpos, now rdpos, and not even a year has gone by... hats off to you!
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: GaltReport on July 23, 2014, 09:40:44 pm
 +5% +5% +5%
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: liondani on July 23, 2014, 10:11:47 pm
...it sounds good !
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: BTSdac on July 24, 2014, 12:05:09 am
Hello bytemaster
1.common user vote a round ,this round include 101 delegates , it mean this user vote the 101 delegates in this round
2. the delegate that miss block in this round cannot get the voting , or get the reduced voting
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: 8bit on July 24, 2014, 12:22:10 am
Can I delegate my vote to non-delegates? Building a quality slate seems like a good way to convince the community that you're dedicated to bitshares.

Can I have votes that I personally make take priority over those I delegate my votes to? So for example, I vote for 5 people, and then subscribe to a slate of 101 people. Will the system vote for my 5, and then bump out 5 of the 101 randos I just signed up for?

Can I 'block' delegates? So, for example, I subscribe to a slate containing the delegate doucheBagKyle, but I have doucheBagKyle blocked, so I don't vote for him even though I just subscribed to a slate containing him.

If yes to the above, can people make slates that block people, rather than vote for them?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: CLains on July 24, 2014, 12:28:34 am
Very interesting proposal! I'll need to think some more about this. Btw,

Quote from: Sergio Lerner
The only way to give a theoretical solution to the mining centralization problem is by forcing miners to use real identities, and people vote/trust on those. This is because with anonymous mining all miners could be controlled by a single party. Having real identities implies legal liabilities and users trust, which in turn implies centralization (institutions, pool, companies) to reduce personal risks and provide higher trust. So it's a paradox. Decentralization looks more like Ripple paradigm than Bitcoin paradigm.

Do we still have this guy around here? I'd love to see him comment on some of these things.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: gamey on July 24, 2014, 12:38:15 am
It is like political parties.  I can't see anyone seriously argue this doesn't increase centralization.

The guy who mentioned Ripple is off base, but that is the criticism we are going to see.  This definitely has upsides, but meh.

Giving it a different name (RDPOS) isn't a good idea.  You guys had problems with the weird BitShares X branding.  Now we'll have RDPOS and DPOS.  Explaining how RDPOS improves anything will not be an easy sale.  In fact, "recommended" psychologically frames the whole process negatively in terms of what crypto people are wanting.

The basic problem is that the motivations of stake holders are not the same for Delegates.  Delegates are in it to profit off transaction fees by being elected.  Users are in it to profit of appreciation or the burn rate.  Delegates aren't necessarily looking after users.

Delegates will provide a self-serving slate that end-users will not easily be able to discern.  In addition, we may end up with a lot of nastiness. "Such and such was removed off slate GOOD GUYS for petty reason #4923".  It just won't look good.  You are centralizing things on different levels, allowing more gamification of the system.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: arkanaprotego on July 24, 2014, 12:41:03 am
What happened to the idea of having automatic votes based on past performance as default?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: AdamBLevine on July 24, 2014, 12:42:38 am
So long as the incumbents can't insulate themselves, I like the idea. 

I wrote about a proposed system I called Politik that is essentially delegated democracy
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/http-labshumintis-politik-
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 01:02:34 am
What happened to the idea of having automatic votes based on past performance as default?

Light weight nodes have no means of independently verifying past performance and even evil nodes can appear to be performing well.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: santaclause102 on July 24, 2014, 01:23:16 am
One of our major challenges is making voting easy for the average person who doesn't have time to follow 101 different delegates.  For this reason we are going to make voting even easier:  you can delegate your selection of delegates to a single delegate.   How it works is this:

1) Every delegate may optionally specify a slate ID as part of their public data.  This slate ID identifies up to 101 delegates supported by that delegate.
2) Every user can select one or more delegates to approve of
3) The wallet will automatically combine the public slates of the delegates that user approves of to produce their votes.

Benefits:
1) More people voting with the same slate ID increases privacy
2) The default wallet can hard-code the developers own account as the default recommendation
3) Delegates are now competing not just on pay-rate, but also on how well balanced their selected slates are.
4) Users still have to transact to update their votes so they don't give up control of their votes, they merely have auto-recomendation.
5) More similar slates reduce block chain bloat.
6) Lobbying to become a delegate can now be focused toward existing delegates for endorsement. 
7) We can enable "down votes" that simply remove delegates from the "recommended set"

This is no more centralized than the current system and in-fact, encourages decentralization because delegates compete on making solid recommendations that include other delegates. 

With this in place there is no need to charge extra for not voting.
This is just great!!  +5%

The big structural benefit I see is that it makes use of the social net the delegates now have to form.
The discussion has shown that the byzantine's general's problem is not completely solvable. Economies of scale and uneven distribution of stake lead to centralized systems. The general has to trust the few miners/frogers/delegates even if they are (well) incentivized to be honest.
What is added with your suggestion to the overall system is "social control" if you will: Delegates have to know each other. And the pressure to be honest is much stronger than before, because all delegates have to know each other and are not good delegates if they miss judge.
In other words, further specialization: It takes the judging work away from the shareholder and gives it to specialized delegates. Delegates specialized on this can make far greater due diligence than shareholders ever could! They can get to know the delegates in person etc...

One thought I had: There could be statistics about the quality of a slate of delegates (up time etc.). But that can be very misleading because the general trustworthyness apart from all technical parameters can not be measured. And this is equally important.

There could be statistics though that say something about how different two slates are. The more different the better because it reduces risk (in case it is possible to vote for more than one slate).

Can I select only one slate from one delegate? I think it would reduce the potential for catastrophy if shareholders can vote for more than one slate. For example: I vote for 2 slates, then 50% of the votes are distributed among delegates from slate one and 50% of the votes are distributed among delegates from slate two. This makes the system less vunerable to misjudgements of single delegates.

Are delegates compensated extra if people select their slate? I think that would make sense.

Quote
7) We can enable "down votes" that simply remove delegates from the "recommended set"
That means I can say I wanna vote for slate 1 except delegate 13 on that list?

Quote
5) More similar slates reduce block chain bloat.
How?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: BTSdac on July 24, 2014, 01:31:26 am
What happened to the idea of having automatic votes based on past performance as default?

Light weight nodes have no means of independently verifying past performance and even evil nodes can appear to be performing well.
Light weight nodes can just vote a round, a around include 101 delegates, the delegate who miss produce block in this round can not get the voting.
1.if a delegate cannot produce block in a round ,he cannot get the voting, so encourage delegate use high hardware ,high speed network , no power off  7*24 hour
2.a round was included in chain , so it also can reduce the bloat of chain.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 01:33:03 am
Quote
Quote
7) We can enable "down votes" that simply remove delegates from the "recommended set"
That means I can say I wanna vote for slate 1 except delegate 13 on that list?

Yes.

A delegate slate is 303 bytes, a slate ID is an 8 byte hash of those 303 bytes.  The fewer unique combinations of delegates the fewer 303 byte hashes.


Your wallet will allow you to "follow" as many delegates / non-delegates as you like and will combine the slates of all delegates, rank the delegates with the votes from those you are following and then select the top 101.    A delegate approved by the most others is most likely to be included in the top of your list.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: BTSdac on July 24, 2014, 01:42:03 am
Quote
Quote
7) We can enable "down votes" that simply remove delegates from the "recommended set"
That means I can say I wanna vote for slate 1 except delegate 13 on that list?

Yes.

A delegate slate is 303 bytes, a slate ID is an 8 byte hash of those 303 bytes.  The fewer unique combinations of delegates the fewer 303 byte hashes.


Your wallet will allow you to "follow" as many delegates / non-delegates as you like and will combine the slates of all delegates, rank the delegates with the votes from those you are following and then select the top 101.    A delegate approved by the most others is most likely to be included in the top of your list.
vote a slate directly or clients of user according to the slate select the delegates to vote
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 01:46:27 am
Client picks their own slate, they just use the recommendation of other users (and delegates) to do it.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: BTSdac on July 24, 2014, 01:55:35 am
Client picks their own slate, they just use the recommendation of other users (and delegates) to do it.
1.  if every translation with 101 voting, does it will increase size of block.
and how to reduce the bloat of chain
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: santaclause102 on July 24, 2014, 01:59:18 am
Quote
Giving it a different name (RDPOS) isn't a good idea.  You guys had problems with the weird BitShares X branding.  Now we'll have RDPOS and DPOS.  Explaining how RDPOS improves anything will not be an easy sale.  In fact, "recommended" psychologically frames the whole process negatively in terms of what crypto people are wanting.
totally agree marketing wise. Just leave the name DPOS.

Quote
The basic problem is that the motivations of stake holders are not the same for Delegates.  Delegates are in it to profit off transaction fees by being elected.  Users are in it to profit of appreciation or the burn rate.  Delegates aren't necessarily looking after users.
That is a general problem whenever you delegate something that is not really solvable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem You can only try to optimize incentives. Gamey, where do you see potential for optimizing incentives and where do you think incentives (incentives that are trying to align the interests of the two different groups like shareholders have the right to vote)

Writing the above, wouldn't it be possible to mimic corporate incentive structures: Executives are getting paid with shares but can only sell the shares after a few years. Also the pay (with good incentive strucures) is decoupled from the development of the business sector.  Practically that would mean: Delegats are paid in bts x that have a time lock of say half a year which incentivizes to act in the long term interest of the system + it they get less bts x in case the overall bitcoin market developes well. The latter can prob. not be hard coded.

Quote
Delegates will provide a self-serving slate that end-users will not easily be able to discern.  In addition, we may end up with a lot of nastiness. "Such and such was removed off slate GOOD GUYS for petty reason #4923".  It just won't look good.  You are centralizing things on different levels, allowing more gamification of the system.
Interesting comment! Well worth thinking about. Summary:
- delegates can provide self serving slates. I think that would be easily obvious. And if he creates a lot of names that are not obviously his name but operated by him. All those strangers would not be very trustworty anyway.
- "Such and such was removed off slate GOOD GUYS for petty reason #4923" <- needs un-emotional discussion style, true!
- "gamification" (ways to game the system) - in which way?

Having read gamey's good post I think the biggest problem is the principle agent problem: If shareholders do not invest in informing themselves, it would be possible for delegates to collude. Problem before: Lack of information and potential in-activeness of shareholders -> Problem now: Principle agent problem: Information imbalance (delegates and slate selectors have a lot if internal information) and personal relations between delegates, that will form to a certain degree, increases the possibility of corruption. Overall I still think it is a good suggestion that brings more positives than negatives.

How would the compensation model for "slating" look like?

In the spirit of specilization, should be "slate selectors" do only the slating job and not run a delegate themselves? On the other hand, slate selectors will be good judges only if they can run a delegate themselves... 
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: donkeypong on July 24, 2014, 02:01:58 am
Good! We needed something a little more automatic, I think. This will be easier for most folks to follow.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 02:04:04 am
This is just a simple automated system for making recomendations and not full delegation of authority.   You can "follow" anyone and votes are only cast when *YOU* make a transaction. 
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: donkeypong on July 24, 2014, 02:05:35 am
A happy medium that isn't too cumbersome for average people and doesn't lend itself to too much criticism for being automatic? Sounds perfect.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Agent86 on July 24, 2014, 02:19:24 am
It is like political parties.  I can't see anyone seriously argue this doesn't increase centralization.

The guy who mentioned Ripple is off base, but that is the criticism we are going to see.  This definitely has upsides, but meh.

Giving it a different name (RDPOS) isn't a good idea.  You guys had problems with the weird BitShares X branding.  Now we'll have RDPOS and DPOS.  Explaining how RDPOS improves anything will not be an easy sale.  In fact, "recommended" psychologically frames the whole process negatively in terms of what crypto people are wanting.

The basic problem is that the motivations of stake holders are not the same for Delegates.  Delegates are in it to profit off transaction fees by being elected.  Users are in it to profit of appreciation or the burn rate.  Delegates aren't necessarily looking after users.

Delegates will provide a self-serving slate that end-users will not easily be able to discern.  In addition, we may end up with a lot of nastiness. "Such and such was removed off slate GOOD GUYS for petty reason #4923".  It just won't look good.  You are centralizing things on different levels, allowing more gamification of the system.
+5% +5%
"RDPOS" is not a good idea.   I don't know if I have the energy to argue about it anymore though.

What specifically is the flaw in approval voting that is bothering you so much??  Give people a chance and some time, this is new to everyone and is just released.   Why not wait until we have a working windows wallet before declaring shareholders too lazy to vote?  Not everyone will drop what they're doing and download a buggy client to participate on day 1.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 02:44:17 am
Not saying there is a flaw in approval voting.... I am just saying that the number of times I have been asked "who should I vote for" by "non technical" people is high enough that I can already see that recommendation systems will form with or without official support.   

Everything I am suggesting here is done without any modifications to the blockchain and without any hard forks. 

I agree we will not rename it to RDPOS... because at the core it is still DPOS.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 02:52:15 am
Right now the network is vulnerable to takeover by just 9% stake.    I am being asked by everyone "who should I vote for" and the change is simple and easy to implement. In fact, it is already done.   

In the mean time I am also working on the BitUSD system..... however, BitUSD depends upon a very secure network and so it is good to get a solid foundation for that.

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: gamey on July 24, 2014, 03:12:24 am
This is just great!!  +5%

The big structural benefit I see is that it makes use of the social net the delegates now have to form.
The discussion has shown that the byzantine's general's problem is not completely solvable. Economies of scale and uneven distribution of stake lead to centralized systems. The general has to trust the few miners/frogers/delegates even if they are (well) incentivized to be honest.
What is added with your suggestion to the overall system is "social control" if you will: Delegates have to know each other. And the pressure to be honest is much stronger than before, because all delegates have to know each other and are not good delegates if they miss judge.
In other words, further specialization: It takes the judging work away from the shareholder and gives it to specialized delegates. Delegates specialized on this can make far greater due diligence than shareholders ever could! They can get to know the delegates in person etc...


Social net ?  Why is that good ? The basic problem here is there is this assumption that delegates have the network's long term interest at heart.  Which is somewhat true, but maximizing the number of fellow friendly delegates is going to outweigh that.  Much like miners in POW, there is no reason delegates necessarily care about the network's long term health.  We assume they will, but there is no requirement to have a large stake to be a delegate.  Delegates will first and foremost be profiteers (nothing wrong with that) and their slate selection will most likely reflect this.

There will be lots of backdoor dealing and crap that will leave a bad taste.   

Are politics better with political parties ?  Maybe they are....

As far as the technical reasons, I won't begin to comment as I'm sure BM+team have it figured out so I can't weigh that in.

If BM goes with this though, do not rename it to RDPOS...  Just leave it as DPOS and consider this a feature.

It also means that people will be required to become part of slates and deal with all that, instead of giving that time/effort directly back to improving the network.  More time will be spent glad handing in PMs etc. 

edit - ok ok ok.. I popped off a bit before reading all the responses.  I see that the slates are additive etc.  This will greatly mitigate my concerns.  I would like to see it implemented in a UI.  If you can add slates to each other, then that goes a long ways.  I mean, it is kinda obvious it should be like that, but ... one never knows.

edit-2
Quote
Interesting comment! Well worth thinking about. Summary:
- delegates can provide self serving slates. I think that would be easily obvious. And if he creates a lot of names that are not obviously his name but operated by him. All those strangers would not be very trustworty anyway.
- "Such and such was removed off slate GOOD GUYS for petty reason #4923" <- needs un-emotional discussion style, true!
- "gamification" (ways to game the system) - in which way?

It won't necessarily be obvious they are self-serving.  If we can't tell who is self-serving individually, then how will you tell that the least trustworthy 50% of a slate aren't just put in there for reasons unbeknownst to us ?

It isn't so much the discussion style, as just how parties/cliques play out.  Mud slinging, negative campaigning, etc.

Gamification - The more options you give a system, the more gaming will be done.  Now we have this extra layer between the voter and the delegate.  I could probably sit here and come up with a dozen scenarios that previously could not have happened.  Granted, a lot would not be the most plausible, but I'm sure I could come up with some decent ones.  Look at how the electoral college screws things up in the US !

Edit 4 - If you do allow readily additive slates, then I think slates  will be sufficiently randomized that most blockchain space savings will be lost.  So I'm not sure what to think there..  I assume there would also be negative slates ?  Oh my.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Agent86 on July 24, 2014, 03:33:27 am
I think not knowing who to vote for is not the reason for low participation; I suspect it's people haven't even got the wallet yet or imported private keys.   People with a huge stake are not attacking the chain.

With RDPOS I can already see the horsetrading between delegates:  You add me to your slate and I'll add you to mine, I'll only add you to my slate if you help me fund my "pet project" etc... 

Anyone is free to make recommendations or publish a list but encouraging people to vote blindly for a list they haven't looked at doesn't help.  There are other ways of making the process easy.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 03:35:34 am
I think not knowing who to vote for is not the reason for low participation; I suspect it's people haven't even got the wallet yet or imported private keys.   People with a huge stake are not attacking the chain.

With RDPOS I can already see the horsetrading between delegates:  You add me to your slate and I'll add you to mine, I'll only add you to my slate if you help me fund my "pet project" etc... 

Anyone is free to make recommendations or publish a list but encouraging people to vote blindly for a list they haven't looked at doesn't help.  There are other ways of making the process easy.

Think of it more as following twitter feeds... and all users publish slates, not just delegate.s
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: toast on July 24, 2014, 03:38:26 am
It is inevitable because it requires no changes to the blockchain but I agree turning it on by default might be premature

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Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: gamey on July 24, 2014, 03:41:49 am
You're also going to have negative campaigning now.  Previously having a negative campaign against person would have limited benefits, so it wasn't likely that we would see much of it.  Now with a slate, it all at once becomes a tactic that has a lot more strength behind it and so I would expect that we see it once delegate slots become competitive.

For example-
My group of 10 guys, only 7 are making it as delegates.  Well...  maybe being a halfway decent tactician, I decide it makes more sense to have those 3 guys negatively campaign against the delegates sitting on the edge approval.

This is just one example...
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bitbro on July 24, 2014, 03:42:21 am
Delegates are our politicians; slates are our political parties........... ...


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Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 03:46:04 am
Delegates are our politicians; slates are our political parties........... ...


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Unfortunately so...  the primary thing I want to have everyone consider is this:

1) Whether we support a particular system (parties) or not... they will form
2) If we make it hard to join/use/combine parties by attempt to "stomp it out" then the organized minority will vastly outmaneuver the disorganized majority.

If you cannot beat it (political parties) then do as much as possible to embrace and extend the concepts in a controlled manner.   

People want to avoid thinking and want to trust others.  They will seek this out or abstain... abstaining is worse than allowing them to at-least defer to someone they trust easily.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bitbro on July 24, 2014, 03:54:40 am
One slate will dominate in the long run, no? And won't this provide an impetus for others to hard fork and launch a new company?


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Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: maqifrnswa on July 24, 2014, 04:07:12 am
One slate will dominate in the long run, no? And won't this provide an impetus for others to hard fork and launch a new company?


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that's a good point

I guess it'll be like the board of directors of a corporation. The shareholders elect the board of directors, but the board of directors recommends their slate to the shareholders. Almost always, the shareholders go along with the slate - but every once and a while they hold a revolt.

I think a hard fork to launch a new company won't be as successful as putting together enough votes to get elected. Because if you can't get enough votes to get elected, how do you think you can build enough support behind your new company? but you're right, I don't know if it will consolidate into a oligarchy or not.

I guess it'll be more like the web of trust. well connected individuals will be on the most slates and have the highest chance of being elected while high-value loners won't be able to push their own through as easily.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Agent86 on July 24, 2014, 05:00:59 am
I don't think "political parties" are at all inevitable with pure approval voting; I don't see the incentives for them.

Voting for delegates should be easy because delegates have a VERY simple and verifiable job.  It's not rocket science; vote for a bunch of people who come across as trustworthy and if you pick a bad one it's no big deal as it will soon be apparent.

We are complicating things because we are overpaying delegates.  There is no reason to give fees for things like registering an asset to the delegate that processed that block.  Delegates should be paid a fair amount for the service provided.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 05:05:09 am
I don't think "political parties" are at all inevitable with pure approval voting; I don't see the incentives for them.

Voting for delegates should be easy because delegates have a VERY simple and verifiable job.  It's not rocket science; vote for a bunch of people who come across as trustworthy and if you pick a bad one it's no big deal as it will soon be apparent.

We are complicating things because we are overpaying delegates.  There is no reason to give fees for things like registering an asset to the delegate that processed that block.  Delegates should be paid a fair amount for the service provided.

You are not thinking 4th dimensionally....

(http://mattmccormick.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/tumblr_lishpiSM8O1qgubxao1_1280.png)
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Shentist on July 24, 2014, 05:31:46 am
1. at the moment i choose some delegates with little fees, but honestly i don't know i 5% or 100% is required to operate the delegate. maybe you can add how much fees this delegate will earn with his fee structure in 1 month or so. then maybe everyone could see if 100% or 5% is required or are 100% delegates just greedy.

2. why not force the network user to vote?

"at the moment you picked zero delegates. please be aware that to pick  trustworthy delegates are an importent job to secure the network. your transaction will be delate for x time as long as you are not voting"

something like that?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: liondani on July 24, 2014, 07:02:48 am
What happened to the idea of having automatic votes based on past performance as default?

Light weight nodes have no means of independently verifying past performance and even evil nodes can appear to be performing well.

Could this proposal be included with yours in parallel?

You said that one of the biggest challenge is to make voting easy for the average user , and you are absolutely right...  I will add to that,  that a big challenge also is to make the average user  to vote in the first place!  Of course with your suggestion the percentage of voters will increase dramatically, but always there will exist a percentage of users that will never vote. So my proposal is this:

As long as the user has not voted yet, their client should by default automatic vote the most popular slate id* of delegates or at least a default slate id that is focused more on  network security than on any other aspect (charity, marketing, etc.) until of course they pick up manual  one by them self!


* or better, to pick up randomly a slate id that is on top x%  of the slate popularity list
   so for example if x=30 and the differend slate ids are 1000 we know that all users that didn't' vote
   have picked up by default one of the best first 300 slate ids
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: santaclause102 on July 24, 2014, 01:20:32 pm
Quote
Gamification - The more options you give a system, the more gaming will be done.  Now we have this extra layer between the voter and the delegate.  I could probably sit here and come up with a dozen scenarios that previously could not have happened.  Granted, a lot would not be the most plausible, but I'm sure I could come up with some decent ones.  Look at how the electoral college screws things up in the US !

Dont think that the electoral college is a good analogy. The analogy I thought of is shareholders = shareholders, slate selectors = directors, delegates = executives. Differences: Shareholders do not directly select executives which is possible with RDPOS. With RDPS it is not a yes or no decision for the delegates/executives. With RDPOS there are many slates you can select or you dont have to select a slate at all and vote for 101 delegates (only at 101 approved delegates you vote has the full effect) of your own choice or just a few you know personally. Then all the different votes are proportionally weighted as opposed to the electoral college where a relative majority approves a canditate. The executives/directors analogy is also not perfect as shareholders here only vote with yes or no on one proposed slate of directors and dont vote at all for the executives.
With RDPOS there is also no http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate

What ways to game the system could you come up with?

Delegates are our politicians; slates are our political parties........... ...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Unfortunately so...  the primary thing I want to have everyone consider is this:
1) Whether we support a particular system (parties) or not... they will form
2) If we make it hard to join/use/combine parties by attempt to "stomp it out" then the organized minority will vastly outmaneuver the disorganized majority.
If you cannot beat it (political parties) then do as much as possible to embrace and extend the concepts in a controlled manner.   
People want to avoid thinking and want to trust others.  They will seek this out or abstain... abstaining is worse than allowing them to at-least defer to someone they trust easily.
+5% absolutely realistic. People are minimizing effort and maximizing benefit /effect. Maximizing their positive influence on the system as they are interested in it's success as they are shareholders. And minimizing effort by trusting others, delegating effort, appreciating specialization.

Quote
I guess it'll be like the board of directors of a corporation. The shareholders elect the board of directors, but the board of directors recommends their slate to the shareholders. Almost always, the shareholders go along with the slate - but every once and a while they hold a revolt.
As far as I remember executives suggest the director slate? Could be wrong though.

Quote
I don't think "political parties" are at all inevitable with pure approval voting; I don't see the incentives for them.

Voting for delegates should be easy because delegates have a VERY simple and verifiable job.  It's not rocket science; vote for a bunch of people who come across as trustworthy and if you pick a bad one it's no big deal as it will soon be apparent.
The problem is that unless you approve 101 delegates you have not used your full voting power. The shareholder has to decide whether it is better to vote only for those he knows are good delegates or whether he should vote for a slate that has been suggested by a trusted delegate. The latter might make sense because a bad player can only be voted out effectively if everyone uses his full voting power.

Quote
We are complicating things because we are overpaying delegates.  There is no reason to give fees for things like registering an asset to the delegate that processed that block.  Delegates should be paid a fair amount for the service provided.

What does it have to do with the delegate pay?

Quote
As long as the user has not voted yet, their client should by default automatic vote the most popular slate id* of delegates or at least a default slate id that is focused more on  network security than on any other aspect (charity, marketing, etc.) until of course they pick up manual  one by them self!
This is just randomly amplifying good or negative voting tendencies.

BM, what about automatically firing delegates? Is that implemented or still planed?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: CLains on July 24, 2014, 01:35:47 pm
Basically we got two unintended, inevitable consequences of DPOS:

1. People can delegate the job of voting to a slate.
2. Delegates can pay the individuals who vote for them.

We are now mitigating the risks these schemes pose.

Like Delulu I am most concerned about the Cynical Economy Threat: People will vote for delegates and slates that pay the most for individual votes (not via burn that appreciates everyone, but directly).
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bitmeat on July 24, 2014, 02:04:13 pm
Basically we got two unintended, inevitable consequences of DPOS:

1. People can delegate the job of voting to a slate.
2. Delegates can pay the individuals who vote for them.

We are now mitigating the risks these schemes pose.

Like Delulu I am most concerned about the Cynical Economy Threat: People will vote for delegates and slates that pay the most for individual votes (not via burn that appreciates everyone, but directly).

This is a case where negative voting "might" help. However I am still against it, since then people would be paying for negative votes.

That said - is it really possible to track who is voting for you?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 24, 2014, 03:27:21 pm
Like Delulu I am most concerned about the Cynical Economy Threat: People will vote for delegates and slates that pay the most for individual votes (not via burn that appreciates everyone, but directly).

I'm not too concerned about that. I know miners vote for Ghash.io for example, even to the point it threatens Bitcoin, but now that the people with the power are the shareholders, I don't think we'll see the same results.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Agent86 on July 24, 2014, 03:42:20 pm
Basically we got two unintended, inevitable consequences of DPOS:

1. People can delegate the job of voting to a slate.
2. Delegates can pay the individuals who vote for them.

We are now mitigating the risks these schemes pose.

Like Delulu I am most concerned about the Cynical Economy Threat: People will vote for delegates and slates that pay the most for individual votes (not via burn that appreciates everyone, but directly).
Clains, both of these "inevitable" consequences have already been addressed by using approval voting.
Approval voting removes the incentive for vote buying and it won't happen or be rewarded.
There is also no incentive for "political party slates"
Quote
We are complicating things because we are overpaying delegates.  There is no reason to give fees for things like registering an asset to the delegate that processed that block.  Delegates should be paid a fair amount for the service provided.

What does it have to do with the delegate pay?
Delegate pay is relevant because if it is excessive then voters have to balance voting for delegates they trust to perform the job of delegate (easy to do) vs. keeping track of how all the delegates spend money (hard to do)

Bytemaster, I honestly don't understand how one minute you're acting like people don't have time to evaluate delegates for the simple task of writing blocks, and the next minute you want to give delegates the additional power of spending all the profit.  If voters are lazy, don't force them scrutinize delegate spending!! KEEP IT SIMPLE.  Don't overcharge users for delegate profit!!  Our system is truly way cheaper than Bitcoin.  We want to encourage use of the system with low fees.   We could compete in 3rd world and micropayment applications.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, reinvestment through control of dilution and profit spending requires a separate class called "workers" where the "real money" goes and those people need 50%+ support.  A worker could even give prizes to the delegates with best uptime for the month.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 03:47:35 pm
I agree with you on the two classes with different thresholds of approval.   

The only tweak I would have is that you require 50% of "active shares" vs 50% of all shares.    Active means any share that is voting for someone.  Inactive are shares that don't vote for anyone.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Agent86 on July 24, 2014, 03:58:03 pm
I agree with you on the two classes with different thresholds of approval.   

The only tweak I would have is that you require 50% of "active shares" vs 50% of all shares.    Active means any share that is voting for someone.  Inactive are shares that don't vote for anyone.
I agree with you except for the definition of "active" shares.  Shares that have not moved in over 1 year (paid inactivity fee) are inactive and should be removed from all voting algorithms.  People who choose to abstain are voluntarily inactive.  Not voting for someone should not automatically disqualify your shares from the voting algorithm. The act of not voting is the way that one opposes all current candidates.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 24, 2014, 04:02:14 pm
Quote
1) Every delegate may optionally specify a slate ID as part of their public data.  This slate ID identifies up to 101 delegates supported by that delegate.
2) Every user can select one or more delegates to approve of
3) The wallet will automatically combine the public slates of the delegates that user approves of to produce their votes.

So it's possible to vote for a delegate you like but choose to completely ignore their slate?

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 24, 2014, 04:06:04 pm
Just an idea that delegates could be given more icons to make the selection process easier.

I multi-table online poker, so have to make a lot of quick decisions which I wouldn't be able to do just by looking at people's names. So the poker software takes the players statistics and colour codes them and gives them a few icons. With this system just looking at a few icons you can get a very accurate picture of a player and I imagine the same is true of a delegate. (If you want you can click through and see in more detail.)

So a delegate would choose/system a main icon for them such as a marketing icon, development icon, burning for shareholders icon, pay for votes icon, Charity icon, all rounder icon etc. (Depending where they directed their funds) 

Maybe an icon if they have verification of their identity. A video/web presentation icon.  Maybe an icon if they are currently endorsed by developers etc.  It looks like there are already performance icons which is good etc.



Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 04:45:18 pm
Just an idea that delegates could be given more icons to make the selection process easier.

I multi-table online poker, so have to make a lot of quick decisions which I wouldn't be able to do just by looking at people's names. So the poker software takes the players statistics and colour codes them and gives them a few icons. With this system just looking at a few icons you can get a very accurate picture of a player and I imagine the same is true of a delegate. (If you want you can click through and see in more detail.)

So a delegate would choose/system a main icon for them such as a marketing icon, development icon, burning for shareholders icon, pay for votes icon, Charity icon, all rounder icon etc. (Depending where they directed their funds) 

Maybe an icon if they have verification of their identity. A video/web presentation icon.  Maybe an icon if they are currently endorsed by developers etc.  It looks like there are already performance icons which is good etc.

That is very close to many of the ideas we have been thinking.   
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: CLains on July 24, 2014, 05:03:00 pm
Cynical Economy Threat: People will vote for delegates and slates that pay the most for individual votes (not via burn that appreciates everyone, but directly).
I'm not too concerned about that. I know miners vote for Ghash.io for example, even to the point it threatens Bitcoin, but now that the people with the power are the shareholders, I don't think we'll see the same results.
Approval voting removes the incentive for vote buying and it won't happen or be rewarded.

Anyone want to walk me through this? I don't understand it, le why
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: gamey on July 24, 2014, 05:25:59 pm

Dont think that the electoral college is a good analogy. The analogy I thought of is shareholders = shareholders, slate selectors = directors, delegates = executives. Differences: Shareholders do not directly select executives which is possible with RDPOS. With RDPS it is not a yes or no decision for the delegates/executives. With RDPOS there are many slates you can select or you dont have to select a slate at all and vote for 101 delegates (only at 101 approved delegates you vote has the full effect) of your own choice or just a few you know personally. Then all the different votes are proportionally weighted as opposed to the electoral college where a relative majority approves a canditate. The executives/directors analogy is also not perfect as shareholders here only vote with yes or no on one proposed slate of directors and dont vote at all for the executives.
With RDPOS there is also no http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate

What ways to game the system could you come up with?
I agree electoral college isn't a good analogy, it wasn't meant to be, but it is something where a middle layer of voting screws up things in a really profound way.  The electoral college is useless and far from what it was intended to do.  It effectively disenfranchises whole states.  There is no way the founding fathers saw it coming.  I'd really need to think about the details etc and how it relates to say whether it is more accurate as an analogy.

By gaming the system, I mean horse-trading and backroom deals.  Things that are not intended by the original system, but will come into play.  The system meaning not just underlying voting system, but the whole system of people involved.  The psychology, things said, voter, etc.


Quote from: delulo
+5% absolutely realistic. People are minimizing effort and maximizing benefit /effect. Maximizing their positive influence on the system as they are interested in it's success as they are shareholders. And minimizing effort by trusting others, delegating effort, appreciating specialization.
It does not follow for me that we are maximizing positive influence.  You could just as well be maximizing negative influence, or neutral influence at the cost of lost positive influence.

Quote
I don't think "political parties" are at all inevitable with pure approval voting; I don't see the incentives for them.

Voting for delegates should be easy because delegates have a VERY simple and verifiable job.  It's not rocket science; vote for a bunch of people who come across as trustworthy and if you pick a bad one it's no big deal as it will soon be apparent.

+5% - I think we may have political parties, but they'll be smaller groups and thus less powerful.  A slate of 101 delegates gives a lot of power to just imbed randomly on various websites.


I think we are far better waiting for more organic solutions to form around this.  Websites dedicated to these things, where they can imbed the URL for each individual.  In fact it seems plausible you could create a website that votes for slates without any of this RDPOS.  If there is a need (and there is), the market will find it.  What you don't need is the ability for people to embed slates all over the places and have teams of people pushing them on every relevant website.  Spamming forums, etc.  That is what you are enabling more than incentivizing voting.

We're also giving people something to complain about.   Political parties, centralization, yadda yadda.  It is just not a good marketing move.

I don't want to be so negative, but for some reason this idea really really bugs me.  I will try my best to read all the responses and see if I can come up with a better way.  I realize that a lot of this has to be balanced with technical requirements which I don't fully understand, but shrug.. Maybe we can figure something out.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 24, 2014, 05:45:55 pm
Cynical Economy Threat: People will vote for delegates and slates that pay the most for individual votes (not via burn that appreciates everyone, but directly).
I'm not too concerned about that. I know miners vote for Ghash.io for example, even to the point it threatens Bitcoin, but now that the people with the power are the shareholders, I don't think we'll see the same results.

Anyone want to walk me through this? I don't understand it, le why

Miners are more like employees & shareholders are owners.

You can tempt employees with better incentives & wages and they will have a limited concern with how it effects the underlying company. Whereas you'd have to provide really amazing incentives to tempt shareholders to accept deals that threaten their larger underlying investment, so much so that it I imagine in theory, it should essentially work out the same cost for an attacker as just buying the shares. 

Also with DPOS there's no advantage to big pools or centralisation of delegates, with mining it provides more consistency (finding blocks more frequently) so pools get get bigger without even needing to offer amazing incentives etc.
Edit: Oops centralisation of delegates would make the system cheaper to run so there is an advantage.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: santaclause102 on July 24, 2014, 07:08:29 pm
Delegate pay is relevant because if it is excessive then voters have to balance voting for delegates they trust to perform the job of delegate (easy to do) vs. keeping track of how all the delegates spend money (hard to do)
That is a good argument. But a seperate issue from the OP suggestion because the due diligence work didn't (overall) become (much) less. 

Apart from the RDPOS vs DPOS question:
Pro seperating workers and delegates: It is easier for people to make a decision because they dont have to weigh the two different qualities.
Contra seperation: Shareholders then have to vote on two issues. 

Agent, have a look at https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=5868.msg82124#msg82124
+
Quote
The problem is that unless you approve 101 delegates you have not used your full voting power. The shareholder has to decide whether it is better to vote only for those he knows are good delegates or whether he should vote for a slate that has been suggested by a trusted delegate. The latter might make sense because a bad player can only be voted out effectively if everyone uses his full voting power.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: gamey on July 24, 2014, 07:23:51 pm

Another problem that I don't think anyone has brought up, is you can have infinite slates that are roughly equivalent.  In fact, if I was clever and wanted to win, I'd make up 10 different slates with different marketing angles.  The union of those slates would be all me all day.

There is an example of gaming in its purest form.  Now how do we do enough due diligence to make sure such a thing doesn't happen?

There are assumptions in here that this is similar to meatspace situations where there is a cost to creating a slate has a cost.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 24, 2014, 07:27:04 pm

Another problem that I don't think anyone has brought up, is you can have infinite slates that are roughly equivalent.  In fact, if I was clever and wanted to win, I'd make up 10 different slates with different marketing angles.  The union of those slates would be all me all day.

There is an example of gaming in its purest form.  Now how do we do enough due diligence to make sure such a thing doesn't happen?

There are assumptions in here that this is similar to meatspace situations where there is a cost to creating a slate has a cost.

One slate per account... user interface doesn't change much from what we have today.  You follow people not slates.  You would have to convince people to use the recommendations of all your sock puppets.   In reality what would happen is people would simply follow their friends and well known people in the industry. 
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: gamey on July 24, 2014, 09:44:55 pm

Another problem that I don't think anyone has brought up, is you can have infinite slates that are roughly equivalent.  In fact, if I was clever and wanted to win, I'd make up 10 different slates with different marketing angles.  The union of those slates would be all me all day.

There is an example of gaming in its purest form.  Now how do we do enough due diligence to make sure such a thing doesn't happen?

There are assumptions in here that this is similar to meatspace situations where there is a cost to creating a slate has a cost.

One slate per account... user interface doesn't change much from what we have today.  You follow people not slates.  You would have to convince people to use the recommendations of all your sock puppets.   In reality what would happen is people would simply follow their friends and well known people in the industry.

I didn't read the OP close enough, so now I am understanding it a bit better...

I agree about people typically following friends or people in the industry, but you can still game things and create sock puppet type delegates and completely detach your real motivations.  That is the nature of the crypto world.  Having combinations of slates available and encouraged is absolutely key.

By making combination of slates readily accessible you dilute the power of individual slates enough to decentralize. There will be a lot of negativity involved with this system and things we do not wish to see or be involved with. 

The main problem is not simply how do you get people to vote, but how do you get them to toggle on 101 people in a meaningful manner.  Sigh, I guess  this is probably the best way to enforce network security even if I hate all the negative crap that seems inevitable.  good job.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: liondani on July 24, 2014, 10:40:19 pm
(RDPOS, Recommend DPOS)

We shouldn't name  "Recommend Delegate Proof Of Stake" : RDPOS to hard to remember and to many consonants, less vowels ...

I recommend to pick one of them:  ReDPOSReD.POSREDPOSRED.POS
from "Recommend Delegate Proof Of Stake"




PS It looks perfect next to your red avatar bytemaster!

PS2 RED       
1. In China and many other Asian cultures, it is the color of happiness.
2.Since the French Revolution, the red flag has been the symbolic color of revolution
3.In the 20th century, red was the color of Revolution; it was the color of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and of the Chinese Revolution of 1949, and later of the Cultural Revolution
4.Red is the color that most attracts attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red)

RED=REVOLUTION=ReDPOS="Recommend Delegate Proof Of Stake"
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 25, 2014, 03:55:17 am
Ok I can see the need for something like this now that I'm thinking of voting myself.

I like to keep a portion of my stuff in cold storage & I don't want to have to access my funds just to change my vote every few weeks. Voting for a few people I really trust that maintain good slates passes the burden to my favourite delegates to actively police the system and as a result I'd only have to get involved in an ermegency. (Also it's unlikely an avg. shareholder can be expected to form an opinion on more than +-15 candidates I would guess.)

Though I agree with Gamey that from a marketing perspective it 'feels' like a negative. (Also enjoying reading your thoughts Gamey on how it could change the incentives.)

Personally I'd like to be able to actively change votes of BTSX I have in cold storage but it doesn't seem like that would be technically possible.


Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Agent86 on July 25, 2014, 04:08:53 am
Ok I can see the need for something like this now that I'm thinking of voting myself.

I like to keep a portion of my stuff in cold storage & I don't want to have to access my funds just to change my vote every few weeks. Voting for a few people I really trust that maintain good slates passes the burden to my favourite delegates to actively police the system and as a result I'd only have to get involved in an ermegency. (Also it's unlikely an avg. shareholder can be expected to form an opinion on more than +-15 candidates I would guess.)

Though I agree with Gamey that from a marketing perspective it 'feels' like a negative. (Also enjoying reading your thoughts Gamey on how it could change the incentives.)

Personally I'd like to be able to actively change votes of BTSX I have in cold storage but it doesn't seem like that would be technically possible.
Empirical, you are not understanding the proposal.  You still can't change your votes without making a transaction.  You vote for a particular slate but if the person whose slate you chose changes their preferred slate, the slate you voted for does not automatically update.  You would have to vote again.

If the proposal allowed you to just defer your voting to someone else and let them vote on your behalf it would be an even worse idea than it is already.

Edit: sorry I don't mean to be short.  I think I'm just feeling frustrated and wish I had a little more control over some of these decisions.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 25, 2014, 04:14:34 am
Ok I can see the need for something like this now that I'm thinking of voting myself.

I like to keep a portion of my stuff in cold storage & I don't want to have to access my funds just to change my vote every few weeks. Voting for a few people I really trust that maintain good slates passes the burden to my favourite delegates to actively police the system and as a result I'd only have to get involved in an ermegency. (Also it's unlikely an avg. shareholder can be expected to form an opinion on more than +-15 candidates I would guess.)

Though I agree with Gamey that from a marketing perspective it 'feels' like a negative. (Also enjoying reading your thoughts Gamey on how it could change the incentives.)

Personally I'd like to be able to actively change votes of BTSX I have in cold storage but it doesn't seem like that would be technically possible.
Empirical, you are not understanding the proposal.  You still can't change your votes without making a transaction.  You vote for a particular slate but if the person whose slate you chose changes their preferred slate, the slate you voted for does not automatically update.  You would have to vote again.

If the proposal allowed you to just defer your voting to someone else and let them vote on your behalf it would be an even worse idea than it is already.

If I vote for you 'Agent86 delegate' & you have 'Gamey delegate' on your slate & Gamey turns out to be bad so you remove him from your slate, because I voted for you doesn't it mean that my shares also stop voting for Gamey? If so that is good. Or have I misunderstood?

Edit: oh ok if it is like you're saying I have misunderstood
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Agent86 on July 25, 2014, 04:20:46 am
If I vote for you 'Agent86 delegate' & you have 'Gamey delegate' on your slate & Gamey turns out to be bad so you remove him from your slate, because I voted for you doesn't it mean that my shares also stop voting for Gamey? If so that is good. Or have I misunderstood?

Edit: oh ok if it is like you're saying I have misunderstood
No your shares wouldn't stop voting for Gamey in that scenario.  It wouldn't be good to implement it the way you are thinking.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 25, 2014, 04:29:25 am
If I vote for you 'Agent86 delegate' & you have 'Gamey delegate' on your slate & Gamey turns out to be bad so you remove him from your slate, because I voted for you doesn't it mean that my shares also stop voting for Gamey? If so that is good. Or have I misunderstood?

Edit: oh ok if it is like you're saying I have misunderstood
No your shares wouldn't stop voting for Gamey in that scenario.  It wouldn't be good to implement it the way you are thinking.

Ok what do you think of this. Having a table of selection criteria that you can select from and then the system votes for the 101 delegates that most fit those criteria?

Edit: What I mean is, it seems that RDPOS is just trying to simplify the process of electing a good group of delegates. But obviously this introduces a whole group of new potentially bad incentives into the system. If you could select criteria (performance and other) on a checklist and then have the system select delegates. It seems that would be a solution to simplifying selection of delegates you like without having to deal with the potential issues of RDPOS as it is now.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: gamey on July 25, 2014, 05:01:38 am
If I vote for you 'Agent86 delegate' & you have 'Gamey delegate' on your slate & Gamey turns out to be bad so you remove him from your slate, because I voted for you doesn't it mean that my shares also stop voting for Gamey? If so that is good. Or have I misunderstood?

Edit: oh ok if it is like you're saying I have misunderstood
No your shares wouldn't stop voting for Gamey in that scenario.  It wouldn't be good to implement it the way you are thinking.

Ok what do you think of this. Having a table of selection criteria that you can select from and then the system votes for the 101 delegates that most fit those criteria?

If you run a full client that isn't "thin" then my understanding is you could have a slate created solely on empirical metrics.  I think there would also be some advanced option/fork that lets you weigh slates.  Having 2 orthogonal (lol college) slates seems like it would cut down bs candidates.  There would still be a non-deterministic element in the wallet to suggest the winner of ties etc.  I dunno.. neat stuff. 

Lol @ me being example bad guy.  How'd people figure it out ?!
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Pheonike on July 25, 2014, 08:15:55 am

Instead of having pre-made slates by the delegates, why can't we make our own slates. I would like a system where I can can pick and choose from a select group of categories and have my client randomly pick delegates who fit that criteria on a time cycle bases. For example I should be able to have ten votes that I want use with following criteria

1) burn rate % range
2) charity %
3) Investment %
4) Time cycle in days
5) Missed blocks

and some other criteria. Of course I can manually change the votes at any time I want.

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: liondani on July 25, 2014, 08:37:37 am

Instead of having pre-made slates by the delegates, why can't we make our own slates. I would like a system where I can can pick and choose from a select group of categories and have my client randomly pick delegates who fit that criteria on a time cycle bases. For example I should be able to have ten votes that I want use with following criteria

1) burn rate % range
2) charity %
3) Investment %
4) Time cycle in days
5) Missed blocks

and some other criteria. Of course I can manually change the votes at any time I want.


how would the system identify 2) & 3) ?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Pheonike on July 25, 2014, 08:51:51 am
They would have to be options that the delegate is also given a chance to select and broadcast in as well.l
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 25, 2014, 10:14:27 am
Lol @ me being example bad guy.  How'd people figure it out ?!

No you're looking at it wrong, anybody could turn out to be bad, but you were someone I could definitely see myself & others voting for right now, so you're the good example guy  ;D  :P

As for the other stuff, I'll watch from the sidelines a bit, I need to get up to speed with how voting technically works right now & also what it is possible to implement etc.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: santaclause102 on July 25, 2014, 11:31:37 am
Quote
With this in place there is no need to charge extra for not voting.
Charging for not voting or psychologically better giving those an advantage that vote could still have a positive effect.
Thoughts?
Pro: more participation in voting means it is harder for "bad stake" to get and stay in the top 101.
Con: those that don't want to vote do not see the benefit in voting in the first place and might make unqualified votes then. They might just vote for one random delegate to get the benefit.   
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 25, 2014, 12:10:11 pm
Quote
With this in place there is no need to charge extra for not voting.
Charging for not voting or psychologically better giving those an advantage that vote could still have a positive effect.
Thoughts?
Pro: more participation in voting means it is harder for "bad stake" to get and stay in the top 101.
Con: those that don't want to vote do not see the benefit in voting in the first place and might make unqualified votes then. They might just vote for one random delegate to get the benefit.

Yeah I agree, if there's no measurable individual advantage to voting, apathy may be a problem.
I think I read somewhere that NXT only has 30% forging participation and they have some big whales.
I doubt we could expect more than 25% of the BTSX stake to vote and much less actively vote.

Does DPOS currently automatically remove approval from delegates that are not technically performing well?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 25, 2014, 12:58:25 pm
We don't do automatic voting at this point in time.  The consensus algorithm cannot automatically bump people who do not produce because it could lead to a potential attack vector.

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: GaltReport on July 25, 2014, 03:42:59 pm
Just a thought on penalizing people who don't vote...Keeping mind that I am no expert on this stuff by any means. I barely get it in many ways....BUT i would say that I think someone needs to focus a lot on the usability of the system for it's intended purpose by it's intended USERS

How much thought, time, energy do the expected USERS of the system want to put into VOTING?  Is that why they are using the system so they can spend time evaluating DELEGATES and voting for them?  I don't think so.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in the myriad of interesting and sometimes marginally more beneficial ways to do something and forget about how we encourage adoption and continued use of the system. 

Speaking for myself, I am for the Keep It Simple System as much as possible.  I don't want to spend much if any time voting for delegates....but I do want the system to be safe and secure.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: liondani on July 25, 2014, 03:53:25 pm
+1%
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bytemaster on July 25, 2014, 03:54:41 pm
Just a thought on penalizing people who don't vote...Keeping mind that I am no expert on this stuff by any means. I barely get it in many ways....BUT i would say that I think someone needs to focus a lot on the usability of the system for it's intended purpose by it's intended USERS

How much thought, time, energy do the expected USERS of the system want to put into VOTING?  Is that why they are using the system so they can spend time evaluating DELEGATES and voting for them?  I don't think so.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in the myriad of interesting and sometimes marginally more beneficial ways to do something and forget about how we encourage adoption and continued use of the system. 

Speaking for myself, I am for the Keep It Simple System as much as possible.  I don't want to spend much if any time voting for delegates....but I do want the system to be safe and secure.

Exactly!
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Pheonike on July 25, 2014, 04:11:00 pm

Is there a limit to how many approvals and people can make?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 25, 2014, 04:28:01 pm
Just a thought on penalizing people who don't vote...Keeping mind that I am no expert on this stuff by any means. I barely get it in many ways....BUT i would say that I think someone needs to focus a lot on the usability of the system for it's intended purpose by it's intended USERS

How much thought, time, energy do the expected USERS of the system want to put into VOTING?  Is that why they are using the system so they can spend time evaluating DELEGATES and voting for them?  I don't think so.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in the myriad of interesting and sometimes marginally more beneficial ways to do something and forget about how we encourage adoption and continued use of the system. 

Speaking for myself, I am for the Keep It Simple System as much as possible.  I don't want to spend much if any time voting for delegates....but I do want the system to be safe and secure.

 +5% OK yes that makes sense. I would only want inactivity fees if the system was/becoming really insecure as a way to incentivise people to vote.

2) The default wallet can hard-code the developers own account as the default recommendation

I like something simple like that. Wouldn't the developers slate of delegates end up getting enough approval power that if the developer was compromised the system could be insecure? (What about giving delegates a smaller slate with a maximum of of 5-10 people?)

Otherwise I like the general idea. I see now the whole voting thing is not something most end users will necessarily want to participate in. They just want to use the thing and know that it is secure.

Edit:
I barely get it in many ways....
That's exactly how I feel  :)


Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: luckybit on July 25, 2014, 04:46:05 pm
One of our major challenges is making voting easy for the average person who doesn't have time to follow 101 different delegates.  For this reason we are going to make voting even easier:  you can delegate your selection of delegates to a single delegate.   How it works is this:

1) Every delegate may optionally specify a slate ID as part of their public data.  This slate ID identifies up to 101 delegates supported by that delegate.
2) Every user can select one or more delegates to approve of
3) The wallet will automatically combine the public slates of the delegates that user approves of to produce their votes.

Benefits:
1) More people voting with the same slate ID increases privacy
2) The default wallet can hard-code the developers own account as the default recommendation
3) Delegates are now competing not just on pay-rate, but also on how well balanced their selected slates are.
4) Users still have to transact to update their votes so they don't give up control of their votes, they merely have auto-recomendation.
5) More similar slates reduce block chain bloat.
6) Lobbying to become a delegate can now be focused toward existing delegates for endorsement. 
7) We can enable "down votes" that simply remove delegates from the "recommended set"

This is no more centralized than the current system and in-fact, encourages decentralization because delegates compete on making solid recommendations that include other delegates. 

With this in place there is no need to charge extra for not voting.

This almost resembles a web of trust.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: luckybit on July 25, 2014, 04:46:57 pm
Just a thought on penalizing people who don't vote...Keeping mind that I am no expert on this stuff by any means. I barely get it in many ways....BUT i would say that I think someone needs to focus a lot on the usability of the system for it's intended purpose by it's intended USERS

How much thought, time, energy do the expected USERS of the system want to put into VOTING?  Is that why they are using the system so they can spend time evaluating DELEGATES and voting for them?  I don't think so.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in the myriad of interesting and sometimes marginally more beneficial ways to do something and forget about how we encourage adoption and continued use of the system. 

Speaking for myself, I am for the Keep It Simple System as much as possible.  I don't want to spend much if any time voting for delegates....but I do want the system to be safe and secure.

Why not reward people for voting?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: GaltReport on July 25, 2014, 04:57:37 pm
Just a thought on penalizing people who don't vote...Keeping mind that I am no expert on this stuff by any means. I barely get it in many ways....BUT i would say that I think someone needs to focus a lot on the usability of the system for it's intended purpose by it's intended USERS

How much thought, time, energy do the expected USERS of the system want to put into VOTING?  Is that why they are using the system so they can spend time evaluating DELEGATES and voting for them?  I don't think so.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in the myriad of interesting and sometimes marginally more beneficial ways to do something and forget about how we encourage adoption and continued use of the system. 

Speaking for myself, I am for the Keep It Simple System as much as possible.  I don't want to spend much if any time voting for delegates....but I do want the system to be safe and secure.

Why not reward people for voting?

I think that's better, keeping in mind I'm only thinking of the end users point of view, not the economic or technical merits.

You have to think and talk USER BENEFITS to encourage use so making "money" is certainly a BENEFIT.  If anyone ever creates a user guide (good idea BTW) they should put all the technical details in an appendix for those who are interested but focus on BENEFITS and use of the system primarily.  Just put a small section with bolded catch phrases like "Delegated Proof of Stake" with a link to the appendix.  Don't put it in their face and force them to wade through it.  Many will be impressed enough by the cool catch phrases.  :) 

However, my honest view is that as a USER of the system, I would expect the system to secure itself or to have the "carbon units" if there are any, take care of it. 

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 25, 2014, 05:23:46 pm
Just a thought on penalizing people who don't vote...Keeping mind that I am no expert on this stuff by any means. I barely get it in many ways....BUT i would say that I think someone needs to focus a lot on the usability of the system for it's intended purpose by it's intended USERS

How much thought, time, energy do the expected USERS of the system want to put into VOTING?  Is that why they are using the system so they can spend time evaluating DELEGATES and voting for them?  I don't think so.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in the myriad of interesting and sometimes marginally more beneficial ways to do something and forget about how we encourage adoption and continued use of the system. 

Speaking for myself, I am for the Keep It Simple System as much as possible.  I don't want to spend much if any time voting for delegates....but I do want the system to be safe and secure.

Why not reward people for voting?

I think that's better, keeping in mind I'm only thinking of the end users point of view, not the economic or technical merits.

You have to think and talk USER BENEFITS to encourage use so making "money" is certainly a BENEFIT.  If anyone ever creates a user guide (good idea BTW) they should put all the technical details in an appendix for those who are interested but focus on BENEFITS and use of the system primarily.  Just put a small section with bolded catch phrases like "Delegated Proof of Stake" with a link to the appendix.  Don't put it in their face and force them to wade through it.  Many will be impressed enough by the cool catch phrases.  :) 

However, my honest view is that as a USER of the system, I would expect the system to secure itself or to have the "carbon units" if there are any, take care of it.

I'm sure it must have been discussed before, but it seems like BTSX which is being burnt that is currently benefiting all shareholders, would have to be re-directed instead as dividends to active voters only, if that were technically possible.

Then the system will have fees that undercut the current trading system, a big benefit to users,  and if they take the time to vote occasionally they could actually earn a decent rate of interest, an even bigger benefit to users. (The fewer people voting the bigger the interest rate, so this system will naturally attract more voters if the voting pool becomes small.)
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: GaltReport on July 25, 2014, 05:30:35 pm
Just a thought on penalizing people who don't vote...Keeping mind that I am no expert on this stuff by any means. I barely get it in many ways....BUT i would say that I think someone needs to focus a lot on the usability of the system for it's intended purpose by it's intended USERS

How much thought, time, energy do the expected USERS of the system want to put into VOTING?  Is that why they are using the system so they can spend time evaluating DELEGATES and voting for them?  I don't think so.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in the myriad of interesting and sometimes marginally more beneficial ways to do something and forget about how we encourage adoption and continued use of the system. 

Speaking for myself, I am for the Keep It Simple System as much as possible.  I don't want to spend much if any time voting for delegates....but I do want the system to be safe and secure.

Why not reward people for voting?

I think that's better, keeping in mind I'm only thinking of the end users point of view, not the economic or technical merits.

You have to think and talk USER BENEFITS to encourage use so making "money" is certainly a BENEFIT.  If anyone ever creates a user guide (good idea BTW) they should put all the technical details in an appendix for those who are interested but focus on BENEFITS and use of the system primarily.  Just put a small section with bolded catch phrases like "Delegated Proof of Stake" with a link to the appendix.  Don't put it in their face and force them to wade through it.  Many will be impressed enough by the cool catch phrases.  :) 

However, my honest view is that as a USER of the system, I would expect the system to secure itself or to have the "carbon units" if there are any, take care of it.

I'm sure it must have been discussed before, but it seems like BTSX which is being burnt that is currently benefiting all shareholders, would have to be re-directed instead as dividends to active voters only, if that were technically possible.

Then the system will have fees that undercut the current trading system, a big benefit to users,  and if they take the time to vote occasionally they could actually earn a decent rate of interest, an even bigger benefit to users. (The fewer people voting the bigger the interest rate, so this system will naturally attract more voters if the voting pool becomes small.)

As a user, I would probably be interested in that.  Depending on the frequency of voting and as long as it wasn't required.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: GaltReport on July 25, 2014, 05:51:25 pm
I'm a bit curious if DacsUnlimited has defined a mission statement or target audience?  It's important to identify your target user(s).

Is it a Bank/Exchange for:

CryptoNerds?
Libertarians?
Chinese people?
Typical Bank/Exchange users?
Advanced Bank/Exchange users?
....

or some/all of the above?

Each of these groups have different and probably some overlapping values so they will have their own ideas of BENEFITS.

Crypto people are often very invested in the technical concepts, details and privacy.  Some of those values may clash with the values of a typical Banking/Exchange user.  I heard an interview with Bytemaster and it sounded like that is something that he has been thinking about with respect to the whole Decentralization idea. 

Just wondering what the desired end-state would be?  Replace your local Bank?  Replace Etrade?  Replace both?  or is this really something completely different and beyond all that?

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: vikram on July 25, 2014, 08:34:26 pm
So that everyone is aware, in the latest development version, the standard wallet_transfer command currently uses the vote_recommended strategy by default: https://github.com/BitShares/bitshares_toolkit/compare/1ca979a7e6...3cb1d0f820
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bitmeat on July 25, 2014, 08:37:49 pm
Awesome news vikram!!!
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Agent86 on July 25, 2014, 10:20:30 pm
Well, I won't be voting for any delegate that publishes a "slate" of other delegates to vote for.  Delegates should be campaigning for the approval of shareholders not campaigning for the approval of a cabal of other delegates who all add each other to their slates.

I encourage any shareholder that cares about this stuff for the long term to take the same stance.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bitbro on July 25, 2014, 10:37:10 pm
Won't it be best to ultimately have only a few slates with clear intentions? Or would everyone ultimately converge on one majority-having slate?  If that happens, it's pretty clear who the delegates should be paying under the table.  Should the US govt create a slate? Should China create a slate?  So many wow. Questions.


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Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Xeldal on July 25, 2014, 10:52:35 pm
Well, I won't be voting for any delegate that publishes a "slate" of other delegates to vote for.  Delegates should be campaigning for the approval of shareholders not campaigning for the approval of a cabal of other delegates who all add each other to their slates.

I encourage any shareholder that cares about this stuff for the long term to take the same stance.

Cabals are going to happen with or without slates.

I can see by including this function, it might quickly encourage someone to provide a slate "service".  Someone who does thorough research into delegates and has strict standards of accountability/transparency.  concentrating the effort to find the best, most reliable parties to be made delegates into 1 person/group so that we, lazy users, don't need to bother with it.  Because most of us won't anyway.  It leaves the average user who's even slightly interested in voting with a much smaller burden of inspecting a hand-full of slate servicers, rather than a countless myriad of delegates.  Of course, for those of us who wish to do the research ourselves are free to do so, and might even lean on these slate servicers to help pick and choose our own delegates who are up to our standards/interests.

I don't see how not having slates prevents people from forming their own manual slates anyway if that's what they want/serves their interest.

I would rather say, I won't be supporting a slate/slate provider that's full of members all representing a cabal.  I'm interested in seeing a slate that's highly diverse representing a wide variety of groups from all over the globe with a diverse representation of interests.  All of which can be tracked and varified.  It will be up to these slate servicers to provide a clear, thorough, and professional representation of proposed delegates to earn my trust in using that slate or some protion of it.

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: gamey on July 25, 2014, 11:20:06 pm

I would rather just have a list of 3-4 trusted slates and have them all combined.  The delegates with the most weight win. 

I still agree with Agent86 about this screwing up incentives.  I've come to believe it may be a necessary evil to keep voter participation up with a meaningful 101 votes.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: AdamBLevine on July 26, 2014, 12:13:06 am
Well, I won't be voting for any delegate that publishes a "slate" of other delegates to vote for.  Delegates should be campaigning for the approval of shareholders not campaigning for the approval of a cabal of other delegates who all add each other to their slates.

I encourage any shareholder that cares about this stuff for the long term to take the same stance.

Cabals are going to happen with or without slates.

I can see by including this function, it might quickly encourage someone to provide a slate "service".  Someone who does thorough research into delegates and has strict standards of accountability/transparency.  concentrating the effort to find the best, most reliable parties to be made delegates into 1 person/group so that we, lazy users, don't need to bother with it.  Because most of us won't anyway.  It leaves the average user who's even slightly interested in voting with a much smaller burden of inspecting a hand-full of slate servicers, rather than a countless myriad of delegates.  Of course, for those of us who wish to do the research ourselves are free to do so, and might even lean on these slate servicers to help pick and choose our own delegates who are up to our standards/interests.

I don't see how not having slates prevents people from forming their own manual slates anyway if that's what they want/serves their interest.

I would rather say, I won't be supporting a slate/slate provider that's full of members all representing a cabal.  I'm interested in seeing a slate that's highly diverse representing a wide variety of groups from all over the globe with a diverse representation of interests.  All of which can be tracked and varified.  It will be up to these slate servicers to provide a clear, thorough, and professional representation of proposed delegates to earn my trust in using that slate or some protion of it.

Yup.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: alexkravets on July 26, 2014, 06:44:15 am
What happened to the idea of having automatic votes based on past performance as default?

Light weight nodes have no means of independently verifying past performance and even evil nodes can appear to be performing well.

Perhaps a naive suggestion to address this, given my ignorance of availability of the required data storage area in the consensually set common "logical" dabase.

What about adding a small area inside the blockchain header/metadata area for this ?

If the blockchain itself records a table of delegate ID's mapped to a few small cumulative past performance metrics ?

Sorry I'm not familiar with either physical or logical lay out of the BitShares Blockchain, but the corresponding area inside Ripple ledger's header would be where such info would be placed inside Ripple.
https://ripple.com/wiki/Ledger_Format#Header_Format.

This arrangement requires no client trust as it would be subject to the usual DPOS consensus algorithm.




Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bitmeat on July 26, 2014, 06:49:23 am
Perhaps a naive suggestion to address this. 
What about a small area inside the blockchain metadata for this ?

If the blockchain itself records delegate ID's and a few small past-performance parameters ?

The blockchain already has information about the missed blocks. I think this is enough as a start, I'm building some tools to help visualize that.
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: alexkravets on July 26, 2014, 07:40:25 am
Perhaps a naive suggestion to address this. 
What about a small area inside the blockchain metadata for this ?

If the blockchain itself records delegate ID's and a few small past-performance parameters ?

The blockchain already has information about the missed blocks. I think this is enough as a start, I'm building some tools to help visualize that.

Enough for which purpose ? If entire security and performance of DPOS depends on behavior of delegates, seems like keeping a trust-free historical audit inside the blockchain would be useful.

One use was already pointed out in this thread, which is to allow defaulting to a sound voting slate of most reliable delegates sporting the smallest pay rate ?
Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: puppies on July 26, 2014, 09:52:37 am
I'm still not sure how I feel about this.  Still working to wrap my head around it.

It seems to me that this is a consequence of allowing variable pay rates for delegates.  It dramatically increases the difficulty of picking delegates.  If we want to make voting easier for the end user, perhaps simplifying the choice would do more than further politicizing it.  If all we had to watch was reliability, and attack vectors, most of that could be automated and enabled in the wallet by default. 

An idea for an alternate way of funding growth of the dac would be a per transaction donation broadcast that adds .01 or whatever amount broadcast to a person you believe will use the funds in a manner you deem worthy.  This could also be enabled by default in wallets.  If its easy enough and spread out enough, people will be willing to do it.  I would suggest a clear sign that you are currently donating when you make transactions, but then you could sign up by clicking a link, just like a voting slate. 

Of course there is the argument that people will not be as willing to spend their own money on a project of their choosing, if they are not able to spend other peoples money at the same time.  Its a bit of a stretch but I think it applies.  Kinda
Quote from: Lysander Spooner
The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes – a large class, no doubt – each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a “free man,” a “sovereign”; that this is “a free government”; “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,” and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Bitcoinfan on July 26, 2014, 03:59:23 pm
This will follow the progression similar to indexing stocks-- S&P, Russell 2000, Dow Jones, mutual funds, I think indexing of delegates is going to happen by someone else if it isn't done here.   

Title: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: bitbro on July 26, 2014, 05:33:29 pm
What if delegates have to register to a "type" or "political party"... And then anyone who doesn't want to vote for 101 delegates can choose to vote for a "type" or "politcial party," however this would not be a vote for a set slate, instead a vote for a political party is a vote for any delegates randomly selected from that political party

Edit: the key difference in this proposal is the randomly selected aspect of the slate

Edit: example: if I want 50 of my votes going to the lowest bidding delegates then I choose the Low Pay Party for 50 votes.  50 random Low Pay Delegates then get those votes. 

I also want 51 Above Low Pay Marketing Delegates to get votes.  I vote for that party and 51 randomly selected Above Low Pay Marketing Delegates get a vote.

Edit:  these parties could be maintained and regulated by formula or by a third party





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Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 26, 2014, 05:45:17 pm
Ten Most Trusted (Kind of a variation of RDPOS)

Up to 101 unique trusted delegates are needed to decentralise & secure the system. However the task of trying to vet, choose and monitor a large number of delegates is an incredible challenge for the average active shareholder never mind the apathetic shareholders who just want the system to work.  This makes it a significant attack vector.

Premise The ten delegates with the most approval have more trust from the shareholders than the delegates with lower approval.

Conclusion They can be trusted with more responsibility than the other delegates.

- What if a normal delegate only got transaction fees but additional fees (& in future equity release) were only distributed to the ten most trusted delegates?

- What if only the top 10 were able to have a slate of up to 20 delegates (But the system doesn't cast the vote for anybody on their slate already in the top 15.)

Then we as a community  can primarily focus on, promote, debate & discuss who are the ten most trusted and best to represent the DAC.  We can make sure we particularly hold them to account and keep negative influences out  (Tracking ten peoples slates, spending & their development/marketing strategies is easier than 101 which is too hard & noisy for us to focus on as individuals let alone as a group.)

The idea is not to give them control of the system but a greater influence and responsibility because they are more trusted and the task of managing/monitoring large numbers of delegates is not realistic for the average shareholder.
 
However regular delegates can still campaign to regular users as well as be incentivised by fees.
(& have a fair shot at becoming a  'Ten Most Trusted' themselves - because positions 1-15 can't be influenced via the slates of the incumbents.)

Title: Re: RDPOS - Recommended Delegated Proof of Stake
Post by: Empirical1 on July 28, 2014, 03:10:52 am
RDPOS has really grown on me, now that I get it more, really like it now. 

Also impressed issue was seen so quickly and addressed. 

Far too hard for the average  shareholder to handle a very large selection themselves and considering many shareholders will be customers even more so. So good.  +5%