Proposal to run voting similiar to a 401k for casual users

[luckybit]

I guess a better and shorter explanation is you can take "anonymous usage patterns" and turn them into a data driven anonymous shareholder voting based feature improvement program.

Simply use Bitshares and rate every feature anonymously and while you rate features you can decide to assign votes to any feature you think needs improvement.

This would collect data on what shareholders think needs to be improved in real time. Then people would be able to acquire the delegate votes by agreeing to focus on the features which received the feature improvement votes.  That is one way to do it anyway but I also realize it is very controversial.

[luckybit]

What statistics are we collecting? How does that corelate to what a user wants the company to do in terms of allocating resources?  With this proposal users can express in broad terms what they want from the system while those who vote directly can pick the best delegates to perform those functions.

When you make decisions it has to be data driven. You need to collect data first and then analyze it. So for example how do you know what the problems are if you don't have some data showing it? How do you know what the risks are to the Bitshares ecosystem if you don't have some data backing that up?

If you just ask people to allocate resources based on their feelings then a psychological marketing campaign could convince the community to burn money by focusing on improvements which might have a very low impact for the users of Bitshares. In fact some improvements might actually have a very negative impact and could hurt the community.

So when you're talking about resource allocation you have to collect statistics prior to and during the decision making process. How do people use Bitshares? How secure do people feel while using Bitshares and what types of security do people use the most? How often is multisig used and how much do people value transparency/privacy based on actual use of these features?

If you know the most commonly used features then you can then ask "how important are these features?" within the app itself. Like for example the user could use a particular feature in Bitshares itself and within the app submit data indicating they rate that particular feature 5 stars while another feature might get 1 star. They could discuss the feature within the app anonymously like how purchasers of iTunes music discuss albums in the review section.

This would produce statistics which show the actual usage patterns of Bitshares without compromising anyone's privacy. This data could be used to show that most people will need certain features to support their usage patterns. When you combine these statistics with a poll then you can look at the poll and the statistics and if the data matches you know something has to be done.

There could be times where the statistics don't match what is going on in the polls. Such as if there is a FUD campaign not really based on any change in use statistics. Say if somehow people become really paranoid about privacy and are loud about it in the polls yet no one uses the feature. You would have to then question why the use statistics don't match what is in the polls.

If we are talking about governments or corporations then they direct resources based on statistics. They collect statistics to determine what is needed to keep the business or state running. Businesses collect statistics on what kind of chairs and office designs improve or reduce productivity and governments collect crime rate statistics to figure out where to direct resources.

So in our case we would need usability statistics, we would need use statistics that the user themselves can review (such as you spend X amount of money on security features you never use). As long as the proposal you describe is focused on being data driven then I can support it.

Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_driven
http://www.forbes.com/data-driven/

[Pheonike]

What statistics are we collecting? How does that corelate to what a user wants the company to do in terms of allocating resources?  With this proposal users can express in broad terms what they want from the system while those who vote directly can pick the best delegates to perform those functions.

[luckybit]

If possible I think this proposal can incentivize users to vote who don’t have the time to research all the delegates.  Just as we pick funds in 401k, users can pick categories for their votes.
Delegates declare the category they are working within. This will be in on the blockchain and can’t be changed later. Those categories are then used for the Poll. People who vote directly for a delegate get the full weight of their stake(current system). Those that vote through in the poll will have their vote proportionally divided by the percentage to the individual categories. Inside those categories their vote is then weighted to individual delegates based on how many individual public keys voted for those delegates.

Who does the casual voter have to trust?

This system is kinda similar to US senate and houes of representatives. It allows the casual users to have a similar influence to those that do take time and research and for individual delegates.

If it can help solve the attention scarcity problem without a reduction in decision quality then I'm for it. I'm sceptical as to how casual voters would be encouraged to optimize for decision quality. Is there an incentive which punishes bad decisions? Is this a long term solution or just a short term band aid?

Who and what does the casual voter have to trust in this information system?

Example

As a customer of Bitshares you have direct impact on how the service is ran. How would you like your influence to be represented in the Bitshares service.

This might be good but instead of just asking the user why not just let the app collect anonymous statistics about how people actually use it and then use that data also? I think polling the user can result in users giving false statistics to sway public opinion or be inlfuenced by marketing/propaganda. User statistics on the other hand are clear and much more costly to fake.

Please give a percentage to the individual categories below?

__% Developement
__% Marketing/Advertising
__% Charity
__% Security

Thank you for participating and as a reward for you will receive x BTS.

I don't think it's efficient to pay people for this specific vote but I think if it were possible to pay users for usage statistics and other data then that data could certainly be used to represent them. Suppose I want to vote but I don't know what my actual interests are because I don't have enough use statistics to know how I even use Bitshares to know what to prioritize?

The challenge would be to collect data in a way which preserves anonymity. If you can do that then you don't have to poll or ask the user anything more than "would you like to contribute anonymous usage statistics to the system and in exchange receive a recurring payment?". If they say yes then they would opt-in to getting paid for selling their data to the Bitshares experience improvement research project. This data could then be presented to the community, analyzed, and then we can have polls on where to shift resources based on the data.

It's already done in this way for many different apps. The less attention users have to give the better and information can be collected with their permission anonymously which can produce the same sort of statistics you'd get from polls. In fact you would get much better statistics than you could get from polls in fact. The developers for example could figure out what parts of the GUI are commonly used and which parts are too confusing for people.

If you have to do polls then if you can do it anonymously and internally in the Bitshares app where the user can select their priorities then that would work. So that part of your proposal is good as users should be able to know the areas they want resources directed even if they don't know to whom but I think it's a bit complicated. So I think if you could combine your proposal with usage statistics then we could have both an idea of where people want resources directed while also having the usages statistics to back that up such as people say they want more security and a large percentage of the users have statistics which show they use these features.

[hpenvy]

If possible I think this proposal can incentivize users to vote who don’t have the time to research all the delegates.  Just as we pick funds in 401k, users can pick categories for their votes.
Delegates declare the category they are working within. This will be in on the blockchain and can’t be changed later. Those categories are then used for the Poll. People who vote directly for a delegate get the full weight of their stake(current system). Those that vote through in the poll will have their vote proportionally divided by the percentage to the individual categories. Inside those categories their vote is then weighted to individual delegates based on how many individual public keys voted for those delegates.

This allows casual voters to have impact without having to research the individual delegates. An incentive can be giving to those that participate in poll. This can be set up so that they poll occurs on a certain interval (60/90 days). If you take the poll then vote for delegates directly later within the poll period, the incentive pay is repaid back to Bitshares. If have voted directly for a delegate in the past x days then you don’t receive an incentive.

This system is kinda similar to US senate and houes of representatives. It allows the casual users to have a similar influence to those that do take time and research and for individual delegates.

Example

As a customer of Bitshares you have direct impact on how the service is ran. How would you like your influence to be represented in the Bitshares service.

Please give a percentage to the individual categories below?

__% Developement
__% Marketing/Advertising
__% Charity
__% Security

Thank you for participating and as a reward for you will receive x BTS.

This is not a bad idea. It's a good start until we have conditional preferences or other more advanced capabilities.

  It's a bridge to a more elaborate approach down the road.

[luckybit]

If possible I think this proposal can incentivize users to vote who don’t have the time to research all the delegates.  Just as we pick funds in 401k, users can pick categories for their votes.
Delegates declare the category they are working within. This will be in on the blockchain and can’t be changed later. Those categories are then used for the Poll. People who vote directly for a delegate get the full weight of their stake(current system). Those that vote through in the poll will have their vote proportionally divided by the percentage to the individual categories. Inside those categories their vote is then weighted to individual delegates based on how many individual public keys voted for those delegates.

This allows casual voters to have impact without having to research the individual delegates. An incentive can be giving to those that participate in poll. This can be set up so that they poll occurs on a certain interval (60/90 days). If you take the poll then vote for delegates directly later within the poll period, the incentive pay is repaid back to Bitshares. If have voted directly for a delegate in the past x days then you don’t receive an incentive.

This system is kinda similar to US senate and houes of representatives. It allows the casual users to have a similar influence to those that do take time and research and for individual delegates.

Example

As a customer of Bitshares you have direct impact on how the service is ran. How would you like your influence to be represented in the Bitshares service.

Please give a percentage to the individual categories below?

__% Developement
__% Marketing/Advertising
__% Charity
__% Security

Thank you for participating and as a reward for you will receive x BTS.

This is not a bad idea. It's a good start until we have conditional preferences or other more advanced capabilities.

[Pheonike]

If possible I think this proposal can incentivize users to vote who don’t have the time to research all the delegates.  Just as we pick funds in 401k, users can pick categories for their votes.
Delegates declare the category they are working within. This will be in on the blockchain and can’t be changed later. Those categories are then used for the Poll. People who vote directly for a delegate get the full weight of their stake(current system). Those that vote through in the poll will have their vote proportionally divided by the percentage to the individual categories. Inside those categories their vote is then weighted to individual delegates based on how many individual public keys voted for those delegates.

This allows casual voters to have impact without having to research the individual delegates. An incentive can be giving to those that participate in poll. This can be set up so that they poll occurs on a certain interval (60/90 days). If you take the poll then vote for delegates directly later within the poll period, the incentive pay is repaid back to Bitshares. If have voted directly for a delegate in the past x days then you don’t receive an incentive.

This system is kinda similar to US senate and houes of representatives. It allows the casual users to have a similar influence to those that do take time and research and for individual delegates.

Example

As a customer of Bitshares you have direct impact on how the service is ran. How would you like your influence to be represented in the Bitshares service.

Please give a percentage to the individual categories below?

__% Developement
__% Marketing/Advertising
__% Charity
__% Security

Thank you for participating and as a reward for you will receive x BTS.