I see your viewpoint, and under scrutiny it makes logical sense.
I’ll return to my primary concern then – that requiring 1001/2000 blocks is responsive and agile, but at the cost of giving sufficient time to socialize something to the larger community.*
* If the vote appears out of “thin air” without prior discussion. This argument could be made about the current configuration, as well, just with a different timetable.
I was wondering about this voting having appeared without first being flagged [discussion], [proposal], [new] or something like that.
But in the end it’s not the flags that make a motion a motion.
It’s the votes recorded in the block chain.
Due to my wonder I was at the beginning more critical than I might have been under different circumstances.
I was not in favor of this motion, because I found it dangerous (by default I consider anything dangerous I don’t understand 
).
But I was convinced that this motion offers the benefit of faster motions while having no (recognized) drawback.
As soon as you have a majority for a motion, you don’t even need to discuss it here.
Talk about it secretly. Post it at a hidden place. Create a hash. Vote for it. That’s nasty, but entirely possible.
If you want to totally have this community on, post the motion here after it already passed and let them wonder in between, what that motion is about that is shown at the block explorer, but not found here.
Motions are not a part of the protocol.
They are a way to form consensus about things that are either not embedded in the protocol or form consensus about changes of the protocol itself.
At least this is my understanding. I might be horribly wrong with that.
You aren’t, that’s what they are for. To invoke some action, be it developmental, behavioral, or methodical that cannot be enforced directly by the network itself.
Not a good proposal.
Right now if everyone voted on a particular motion it would still take 3.5 days to pass. To me that is great buffer more so than a liability. Changing the period to such a short time would also negate many smaller holders from having an impact in the general voting consensus because they would roll out of the scope much faster.
Has anyone considered a hostile motion takeover? What if motion a is drafted in secret. It is being voted on in the blockchain, but nobody can figure out what it is for. Once it passes a group of large shareholders come forth to reveal the motion text which has passed.
Would that motion stand? It must. There’s no precedence to state that it would not. Shortening the period so drastically could make such a scenario reality. I think the notion that motions do not instantly invoke any real world action doesn’t mitigate the impact such a change would have.
Democracy is slow whether it’s on the blockchain or off it. Keeping the current block count gathers a broader consensus from shareholders on how the network should proceed. I can’t imagine anyone would vote for this without agreeing to lose impact in future voting against larger holders who mint much more often than them. It’s a consolidation of network will to larger holders.
I would love if there was a mechanism to quickly/instantly gather a consensus of shareholder will. I don’t think this is an appropriate way to get closer to that.
This! I see nothing good coming from a smaller voting window and I never felt a need for faster motions.
I think the response to this motion indicates that there may be a necessity for multiple tiers of motions that have varying consensus durations. I can see the merits of a shorter time window for emergency situations, and of longer windows for fundamental changes to the network.
For example, let’s pretend I go off the deep end tomorrow. I lock every contributor out of www.nubits.com, replace the Nu client with my own version 2.0 (which steals NuBits), and begin aggressively posting through @OfficialNuBits that free NuBits are available to anyone who downloads the updated wallet.
Shareholders could immediately make public posts about my actions, set up a contingency website and social media accounts, etc. As we currently operate however, the network would not officially sanction my actions through blockchain consensus until a one-week period had passed. That’s an awfully long time to let rogue Tom Joad destroy the network without official censure.
An ideal solution might be to have three levels of motions:
1 month (less common): Fundamental changes to NuBits or NuShares that affects their valuations. This could include introducing NBT burning, opening the source code, or changing the peg from USD to a basket of goods.
1 week (most common): Changes that affect the daily operations of NuBits or NuShares. This could include changing our logo, creating a new social media account, or migrating our forum to a different domain name.
1 day (least common): Emergency changes that threaten the network. It would allow shareholders to quickly signal to the world that it does not approve of a damaging action.
The structure above could probably use some refinement. For example I would prefer having NSR auction authorizations at the one-week level, so maybe a broad template for their use would need to be authorized at the 1-month level first. I think we’re starting to realize that not all motions have equal time requirements for discussion and perhaps we should look at enhancing the options available to shareholders. Just an idea.
This doesn’t change that using a shorter block window would give a greater voice to fewer larger holders potentially providing them the ability to cram legislation through at their will and alienating many many smaller holders. There is no way of changing that when you shorten the window. The diversity of holders within that window will be impacted.
This is an example of why shareholders should discuss such matters ahead of time and pass motions with plans in place. The Strategic Reserve Fund for NuBits is another example of that. It is not a good example of why we should shorten motions passing to a 24 hour period.
This is not accurate as well. A motion is considered passed if it has 5001 blocks of any 10k block window(and SDD % but that will be changing). If everyone started voting for the motion it could pass within 3.5 days from the date of proposal in our current system - not a week.
To the inverse of your example what if Tom was unavailable for a day and shareholders erratically passed a motion to strip your position managing the social accounts within 24 hour period? There are plenty of reasons that could cause you to be unavailable for a 24-48 hour period, and now you’ve been fast tracked to removal without the opportunity to show up and defend your position. I could posit any wildly ridiculous scenario as yours for the purpose of hyperbole but the point stands that a preemptive contingency motion is better in either situation rather than allowing ANY future motions to get fast tracked with less voter diversity.
Who is to decide what tier of motion their proposal deserves? I think this needlessly complicates the motion voting process and doesn’t resolve the major concerns with this change.
When we see legislation fast tracked without proper review from all parties in the real world it turns into stuff like The Patriot Act, Bank Bailouts, and Trans Pacific Partnership. Why anyone would support this for Nu is beyond me.
I would still like to hear more of Ben’s concerns responded to on what has prompted such a drastic change to the motion voting. If there are concerns in who can do what, when and where they should be discussed and voted on ahead of time. Anything that is proposed will have at the very least 3.5 days to pass. I think it’s ample time to foresee catastrophic issues related to the network and prepare for them.
Can we get some examples of emergency situations that this change would help resolve (like real network problems, not Tom having a meltdown and putting dickbutt all over our website). If anyone can provide those then great! let’s put together a plan today on how to proceed in that event. Get the motion started, and pass it in half a week.
No need to create a fast lane for motion votes and reduce the impact of smaller holders on the motion voting system.
The motion tier structure would be decided the same way that legislation is passed in existing governmental systems: with full debate and voting using the existing voting mechanisms present. Standards could be agreed upon for each level, and motions that didn’t adhere to those standards could be deemed invalid even if “passed”. I realize this would be a huge undertaking.
I thought I presented a real-world example of an emergency situation. My hypothetical actions above would cause severe damage to the network and the example wasn’t intended to be hyperbolic. A false wallet placed on nubits.com would destroy trust in NuBits. Having the ability to officially condemn my actions quicker is an advantage for shareholders.
I agree that a shorter motion window introduces risks of abuse, as you’ve pointed out. I don’t think the right attitude is to dismiss my opinion outright though as somehow being an immediate conduit to the Nu Patriot Act of 2015. Emergency and temporal legislation exist in governments for a reason; they are very rarely needed to satisfy crisis situations (both foreseeable and unforeseeable). The fact that we have not yet discussed what hypothetical restrictions should be placed on their use doesn’t mean that it’s a terrible idea. I remain convinced that shareholders should have as much flexibility as possible in the way they voice their opinions about Nu network operations, and a system with variable durations would be a step towards that.
could it be forced to make motions public, maybe from inside the client? to avoid situations where people are voting for a private motion
Yes. I did.
Will a bigger window size prevent that? No.
The idea of a tiered model is good, but creates new problems like
A tiered motion model doesn’t solve the underlying “problem”: a majority is a majority.
Whether the majority lets the motion pass in 2,000 blocks, 10,000 blocks or 50,000 blocks doesn’t matter.
I’d see that differently if we were talking about extremely short periods. Say a motion were to pass with 11 votes in a rolling window of 20 blocks.
I can clearly see the risk there. Pure luck could make it possible to let a motion pass although only a minority is in favor of it.
But we are talking about 1,001 out of 2,000 here.
And we are still talking about motions and not grants.
This is the first time I’m glad that Nu has no ternary voting system.
Unless a vote is configured in favor of a motion, it’s configured against it. Full stop.
For a motion to pass you need a majority of votes to be cast in favor of the motion.
This is an active process that can be done manually or assisted by registering to a feed.
If you do nothing, you will never help a vote pass. Never.
You don’t need to convince people to vote against anything.
If you want to see a motion pass, you need to convince them of the use of the motion.
This motion here speeds up the voting process.
I can hardly think of a scenario in which this would really be necessary as motions initiate actions which will need to be taken after the motion has passed.
In most cases this action will take longer than the motion needed to pass.
One question is: is it really necessary to save (in best case) 80% of the time the motion needs to pass (1,001 blocks instead of 5,001; not considering that it takes time until there are more than 50% of the blocks carrying votes for the motion)?
I don’t know. Do you? Can you for sure say that there will never be a day at which it a quick passing motion could be missed? How can you prove that?
Another question is: does it hurt to reduce the rolling window size?
This is something that can be mathematically or logically analyzed.
Maybe somebody with more practice in statistical topics wants to chime in to calculate at which minimum window size the variance is sufficiently small to have close to no effect compared to a 10,000 block large window size.
Because this is the main difference.
What seems to disturb many is that with a smaller window size the effects of a majority deciding can be seen sooner than with a bigger window size.
The refusal might be rather related to psychological topics than to security. Seeing a motion pass very quickly, a motion some don’t like, creates a feeling of helplessness.
If the window were bigger you could nourish that feeling a little longer…
…in the end the motion would pass anyway.
>50% is >50%
I don’t want to step onto anyone’s toes with this post. At least not harder than necessary to direct the focus to the gist of the matter 
If something needs to be passed within 24 hours doesn’t that really negate the opportunity for many people to have a discussion on it? The current system enforces at least 3.5 days of debate. We’re a global organization, not only does this change push out smaller holders it could allow for motions to pass before they even get home from work. Even for some people who spend time away from their PC’s on the weekend could have things decided that they may not agree with. I think datafeeds could make the situation even worse if they don’t have the capability to check up on or access their client for a day or two. The potential for future abuse is far greater than the undertaking it would be to implement a more refined solution.
I misread that portion of your example and agree that it holds a more serious consideration than my response provided. It’s still a wildly ridiculous scenario that only exemplifies having these plans in place and discussed now rather than adjusting the motion system. Proactive solutions are well planned out rather than reactive solutions have been continuously abused, which is why I referenced devastating reactive solutions like the patriot act and bank bailouts (hell, lets throw the Iraq war in there too).
If there is a realm of the network that should require quick reactive decision it should be decided upon ahead of time after ample discussion. Reactive decision making has proven to be abused and far less beneficial to those within the sphere of influence, or even outside of it in the case of Nations calling for War.
I didn’t make that assertion and you know that I respect you even if I flat out disagree with you. This is a massive change that removes many many smaller voices from the table with a huge potential for abuse. I’m not dismissing your opinion I just believe the benefits monumentally don’t outweigh the risks, and the ends can be achieved by being more proactive than reworking the system to be more reactive. People are ultimately behind the votes, and they can be emotionally tweaked to make decisions that aren’t in their best interest when put on the spot.
Shareholders already have as much flexibility as possible to share their opinions on the network. Nothing is stopping anyone from advancing any motion they want about anything right now in this moment. Putting forth variable duration’s don’t really satisfy the biggest concerns with the shortest duration. It shouldn’t even be an option. The potential to push out voices and abuse the system is still there.
Only if you could embed the motions (not only the hash, but the motion text) into the block chain or reference it reliably from there.
Peermessage/Peerapps is a system that might be adjusted to do that.
But I see no need for that.
Would it prevent a majority letting a motion pass? No.
Absolutely not.
It enforces a minimum time for a motion to pass (after the first vote has been written into a block) of at least 3.5 days (5,001 blocks).
No debate is enforced. The protocol doesn’t know there was a debate. The protocol doesn’t even care about that, because by protocol nothing happens after a motion passes.
People are allowed to do, prohibited to do, need to do things after motions pass. Nothing more, nothing less.
If the don’t configure to vote for the motion, they vote against it - whether they know of the motion or don’t know.
Like I said:
If the many many smaller voices are dwarfed by a majority that is voting for a motion, they can’t do anything no matter the size of the window (still assuming the window isn’t ridiculously short).
Having a 10k block window instead of a 2k block window absolutely improves the diversity of voters to ward off larger insiders gaming the voting. It’s not intended to prevent votes from going through completely, but instead to prevent decisions from getting hijacked by a fewer set of individuals.
Users abusing the network to vote in a rogue custodian account getting 10 billion NuBits or motion votes should be treated with the same level of concern. While the motion votes have no immediate impact they can have far more impact in the future of the network.
Motion votes indicate the will of shareholders and this change limits the voices involved, and that has potential for abuse, which is why custodian votes will not be changed.
We should continue the same level of concern for motions, not reduce it.
You are aware that you are answering a quote of mine which was my résumé of rogue voting?
This motion as controversial as it’s discussed meanwhile by some individuals still hovers at 35 of last 100 blocks - and it got there quite fast.
The reason why it is at 35 of 100 might have to do with the fact that @JordanLee has posted it.
The same effect could be seen with the NBT burn motion provided by @Nagalim and the one provided by @JordanLee.
Individuals have an effect.
But I don’t consider it hijacking.
Don’t take that for slavish obedience, but I have high regard for @JordanLee’s work as architect. And I hope that he always tries to do the best for Nu as long as he has this role.
Still I was very critical at the beginning. I changed my mind, because from my point of view it makes no difference whether to wait for a majority in 2,000 blocks or in 10,000.
I can’t prove that with numbers, but according to my gut feeling 2,000 blocks is sufficiently large to eradicate variance.
After 7 days the chance of successful minting for an UTXO doesn’t increase. It wouldn’t even help to stop voting to gather more coin age and increase the chance by that, right?
How will you game a motion that passes with 1,001 of 2,000 blocks unless you convince a majority to vote for it?
This is frustratingly pedantic and you know that the point of the statement was that it enforces a duration of time that people have an opportunity to express their concerns or agreements. I’m not sure why you go on to trivialize the point of motions votes and their outcomes but I’m guessing it’s also the attitude that doesn’t see any concern with reduces the diversity of votes in the voting window. I think it’s totally reckless to look at motion votes this way. They should be regarded as important to protect as custodian votes.
I’m sorry. I think I’ve put emotion in some of my statements and picked an inappropriate tone.
It’s not my intention to frustrate anyone.
I’ll take a break and think it over.
Maybe I’m wrong with my assumption about diversity and that it doesn’t change in general between a block window of 10,000 and 2,000 that is required for finding a majority.
You have my apologies.
I think it’s been a very strong discussion. I apologize if my arguments seemed personal as they were not intended to be so.I think I’ve shared (and reshared) my concerns on the matter, and it’s time for me to bow out from the discussion as well.
Good discussion here. I need some time to digest this. My use case question haven’t been answered satisfactorily and my gut feel says it is not a good idea, but I’m not sure if I’m able to explain why other than what have been said above. I like the layered model Tom proposes but I’m afraid that the complexity is too high indeed at least at this stage.
I won’t be adding this motion to my data feed in the next few days which might become indefinitely if no new perspectives are presented.
I have to admit to still being very much on the fence on this issue.
I like the idea of being able to quickly pass a motion but my caveat would be that there has been suitable visability and discussion around it. There have been motions in the past which have gained a majority consensus through discussion but which still take an extra few days to pass.
That isn’t what this shortening of the voting period does though, as has been pointed out, this could lead to motions which could pass without that discussion.
I like the flexability shorter voting time gives but I don’t like the possability that it could be more open to abuse.
I think that, like @Cybnate, I’ll have to digest this further.