[bitcoin-dev] [Pre-BIP] Community Consensus Voting System

Sat Feb 4 00:57:52 UTC 2017

Personally I think once the blocksize arguments are solved, there will
be no more contentious changes for this voting system to deal with.
What other contentious issues have come up in the past 3 years or so
that wasn't blocksize/scaling related? Do other protocols like TCP/IP
and the HTTP protocol have developers arguing every day over issues no
one can agree on?

On 2/3/17, t. khan via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Most of these are answered in the BIP, but for clarity:
>
>>Who decides on which companies are eligible?
> Preferably no one decides. The company would have to exist prior to the
> vote, and would need a public-facing website. In the event of contested
> votes (meaning someone finds evidence of a fake company), the admin could
> investigate and post results.
>
>>Is there some kind of centralized database that one registers?
> No.
>
>>Who administers this?
> I don't know. I'm happy to volunteer, if no one else wants to be
> responsible for it. The only task would be adding the confirmed votes to
> each respective BIP. From there, everything's public and can be confirmed
> by everyone.
>
>>What is to stop someone from creating a million fake companies to sway the
> voting?
> The logistics of doing that prevent it. But let's say 10 fake companies ...
> first, you'd need to register ten domain names, host and customize the
> website, all before the vote and in a way that no one would notice.
>
>>How does a company make it's vote?
> Someone at the company sends a very small transaction to the BIP's vote
> address. Someone at the company then posts what the vote was and its
> transaction ID on the company's blog/twitter, etc., and then emails the URL
> to the administrator.
>
>>How does one verify that the person voting on behalf of a company is
> actually the correct person?
> They post it on their company blog.
>
> On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 11:19 AM, alp alp via bitcoin-dev <
> bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
>> This proposal seems hopelessly broken.
>>
>> Who decides on which companies are eligible?  Is there some kind of
>> centralized database that one registers?  Who administers this?  What is
>> to
>> stop someone from creating a million fake companies to sway the voting?
>> How does a company make it's vote?  How does one verify that the person
>> voting on behalf of a company is actually the correct person?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 7:32 PM, Dave Scotese via bitcoin-dev <
>> bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>
>>> There are two ideas here for "on-chain" voting, both of which require
>>> changes to the software.  I agree with David that on-chain solutions
>>> complicate things.  Both proposals can be effected without any software
>>> changes:
>>>
>>> Those who wish to use proof of stake can provide a service for making
>>> vanity addresses containing some indicator of the proposal to be
>>> supported
>>> - 1bigblock or 12mbblk or whatever - based on a supporter-provided
>>> secret
>>> key, and then supporters can move their bitcoin into their own vanity
>>> address and then whoever wants to can create a website to display the
>>> matching addresses and explain that this is the financial power in the
>>> hands of supporters and how to add your "financial power vote."
>>>
>>> Those who simply want to "buy votes" can use their funds in marketing
>>> efforts to promote the proposal they support.
>>>
>>> This second method, of course, can be abused.  The first actually
>>> requires people to control bitcoin in order to represent support.
>>> Counting
>>> actual, real people is still a technology in its infancy, and I don't
>>> think
>>> I want to see it progress much. People are not units, but individuals,
>>> and
>>> their value only becomes correlated to their net worth after they've
>>> been
>>> alive for many years, and even then, some of the best people have died
>>> paupers. If bitcoin-discuss got more traffic, I think this discussion
>>> would
>>> be better had on that list.
>>>
>>> notplato
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 4:24 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <
>>> bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Strongly disagree with buying "votes", or portraying open standards as
>>>> a
>>>> voting process. Also, this depends on address reuse, so it's
>>>> fundamentally
>>>> flawed in design.
>>>>
>>>> Some way for people to express their support weighed by coins (without
>>>> losing/spending them), and possibly weighed by running a full node,
>>>> might
>>>> still be desirable. The most straightforward way to do this is to
>>>> support
>>>> message signatures somehow (ideally without using the same pubkey as
>>>> spending), and some [inherently unreliable, but perhaps useful if the
>>>> community "colludes" to not-cheat] way to sign with ones' full node.
>>>>
>>>> Note also that the BIP process already has BIP Comments for leaving
>>>> textual
>>>> opinions on the BIP unrelated to stake. See BIP 2 for details on that.
>>>>
>>>> Luke
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thursday, February 02, 2017 7:39:51 PM t. khan via bitcoin-dev
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > Please comment on this work-in-progress BIP.
>>>> >
>>>> > Thanks,
>>>> >
>>>> > - t.k.
>>>> >
>>>> > ----------------------
>>>> > BIP: ?
>>>> > Layer: Process
>>>> > Title: Community Consensus Voting System
>>>> > Author: t.khan <teekhan42 at gmail.com>
>>>> > Comments-Summary: No comments yet.
>>>> > Comments-URI: TBD
>>>> > Status: Draft
>>>> > Type: Standards Track
>>>> > Created: 2017-02-02
>>>> > License: BSD-2
>>>> > Voting Address: 3CoFA3JiK5wxe9ze2HoDGDTmZvkE5Uuwh8  (just an example,
>>>> don’t
>>>> > send to this!)
>>>> >
>>>> > Abstract
>>>> > Community Consensus Voting System (CCVS) will allow developers to
>>>> measure
>>>> > support for BIPs prior to implementation.
>>>> >
>>>> > Motivation
>>>> > We currently have no way of measuring consensus for potential changes
>>>> to
>>>> > the Bitcoin protocol. This is especially problematic for
>>>> > controversial
>>>> > changes such as the max block size limit. As a result, we have many
>>>> > proposed solutions but no clear direction.
>>>> >
>>>> > Also, due to our lack of ability to measure consensus, there is a
>>>> general
>>>> > feeling among many in the community that developers aren’t listening
>>>> > to
>>>> > their concerns. This is a valid complaint, as it’s not possible to
>>>> listen
>>>> > to thousands of voices all shouting different things in a crowded
>>>> > room—basically the situation in the Bitcoin community today.
>>>> >
>>>> > The CCVS will allow the general public, miners, companies using
>>>> Bitcoin,
>>>> > and developers to vote for their preferred BIP in a way that’s public
>>>> and
>>>> > relatively difficult (expensive) to manipulate.
>>>> >
>>>> > Specification
>>>> > Each competing BIP will be assigned a unique bitcoin address which is
>>>> added
>>>> > to each header. Anyone who wanted to vote would cast their ballot by
>>>> > sending a small amount (0.0001 btc) to their preferred BIP's address.
>>>> Each
>>>> > transaction counts as 1 vote.
>>>> >
>>>> > Confirmed Vote Multiplier:
>>>> > Mining Pools, companies using Bitcoin, and Core
>>>> maintainers/contributors
>>>> > are allowed one confirmed vote each. A confirmed vote is worth
>>>> > 10,000x
>>>> a
>>>> > regular vote.
>>>> >
>>>> > For example:
>>>> >
>>>> > Slush Pool casts a vote for their preferred BIP and then states
>>>> publicly
>>>> > (on their blog) their vote and the transaction ID and emails the URL
>>>> to the
>>>> > admin of this system. In the final tally, this vote will count as
>>>> 10,000
>>>> > votes.
>>>> >
>>>> > Coinbase, Antpool, BitPay, BitFury, etc., all do the same.
>>>> >
>>>> > Confirmed votes would be added to a new section in each respective
>>>> > BIP
>>>> as a
>>>> > public record.
>>>> >
>>>> > Voting would run for a pre-defined period, ending when a particular
>>>> block
>>>> > number is mined.
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > Rationale
>>>> > Confirmed Vote Multiplier - The purpose of this is twofold; it gives
>>>> > a
>>>> > larger voice to organizations and the people who will have to do the
>>>> work
>>>> > to implement whatever BIP the community prefers, and it will negate
>>>> > the
>>>> > effect of anyone trying to skew the results by voting repeatedly.
>>>> >
>>>> > Definitions
>>>> > Miner: any individual or organization that has mined at least one
>>>> > valid
>>>> > block in the last 2016 blocks.
>>>> >
>>>> > Company using Bitcoin: any organization using Bitcoin for financial,
>>>> asset
>>>> > or other purposes, with either under development and released
>>>> solutions.
>>>> >
>>>> > Developer: any individual who has or had commit access, and any
>>>> individual
>>>> > who has authored a BIP
>>>> >
>>>> > Unresolved Issues
>>>> > Node voting: It would be desirable for any full node running an
>>>> up-to-date
>>>> > blockchain to also be able to vote with a multiplier (e.g. 100x). But
>>>> as
>>>> > this would require code changes, it is outside the scope of this BIP.
>>>> >
>>>> > Copyright
>>>> > This BIP is licensed under the BSD 2-clause license.
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> bitcoin-dev mailing list
>>>> bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org
>>>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> I like to provide some work at no charge to prove my value. Do you need
>>> a
>>> techie?
>>> I own Litmocracy <http://www.litmocracy.com> and Meme Racing
>>> <http://www.memeracing.net> (in alpha).
>>> I'm the webmaster for The Voluntaryist <http://www.voluntaryist.com>
>>> which now accepts Bitcoin.
>>> I also code for The Dollar Vigilante <http://dollarvigilante.com/>.
>>> "He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules" - Satoshi
>>> Nakamoto
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>
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>