I'd like to propose the creation of a standardized way of dealing with community voting issues. At the moment there are a few discussions floating around regarding the look of the forum and the new NEM logo. The problem I see, is that these discussions take place in all corners of the internet, making it extremely difficult to achieve meaningful discussion and community consensus.
I'd like to develop a system of bringing community issues to the floor in an organized way. Not in an effort to control information or stifle the greater community, but in an effort to allow the most people possible to follow the discussion and be heard when it comes to the decision making.
There needs to be a set place for the voicing of community concerns. Not someone posting on BTT, someone posting on trello, IRC, and someone posting here. Just one place, and I think that should be here, the Official NEM forum.
Secondly, guidelines should be put in place regulating the amount of time the community spends entertaining issues. A set time for the discussion of issues and a set time for voting to be carried out. Most importantly the voice of the community needs to be respected and the results of the vote need to be upheld.
I'm sure once an initial framework is in place, more circumstances will come to mind. For example, what if six months from now we realize we made a huge mistake with the logo. A procedure for second voting could be put into place if enough community support is gathered.
I realize what I'm proposing could be the hardest thing for the community to agree on yet! I have faith though that once it's out of the way, progress will be much faster and NEM will become one of the most community driven platforms around!
all input welcome.
spaw
something like Robert's Rules of Order could give us some good guidelines to start. Certainly modifications would be made, but it could provide a decent framework.
spaw
There needs to be some rules and I think they need to be different pre- and post-V1 blockchain. Post-v1, the core dev team is not going to run and organize everything, so there needs to be some kind of community governance that is decentralized. (one idea for that is to do something using the NEM AE).
spaw: what kind of decision making processes are used by:
BTC?
NXT?
other coins?
NEM is hardly unique in trying to decide things as a community.
@vicvegas seems reasonable. What about time limits, etc? Also, what about enforceability? Who or what group will respond to the results of a poll?
There needs to be some rules and I think they need to be different pre- and post-V1 blockchain. Post-v1, the core dev team is not going to run and organize everything, so there needs to be some kind of community governance that is decentralized. (one idea for that is to do something using the NEM AE).
spaw: what kind of decision making processes are used by:
BTC?
NXT?
other coins?
NEM is hardly unique in trying to decide things as a community.
Makoto,
at the moment, it looks like BTC and NXT use BIPS and NIPS as a way of moving forward. Someone writes up a Bitcoin/NXT Improvement Proposal and the devs decide whether to say yay or nay.
A good way of doing this might be to create something like whitehouse.org. Where petitions must generate a set number of signatures/votes before being submitted to the president, or in our case before they go before the community for a vote. This would help to streamline the process as issues that the community cares about will rise to the top and be dealt with first.
This format would also ensure that if someone if passionate about an issue, it is their responsibility to raise awareness and support and not the various committees(dev/marketing) responsibility to facilitate/moderate discussion.
I agree, we need some kind of voting system or we will never be able to decide important things.
The place to implement a voting system should of course be this forum.
I'll begin drawing up some basic guidelines, all subject to change of course, just to get the ball rolling
spaw
I'll begin drawing up some basic guidelines, all subject to change of course, just to get the ball rolling
spaw
Thank you very much! Great!
I'll begin drawing up some basic guidelines, all subject to change of course, just to get the ball rolling
spaw
Perfect! This will help a lot to find consensus within the community and to build the NEM brand. :)
I'll begin drawing up some basic guidelines, all subject to change of course, just to get the ball rolling
spaw
Perfect! This will help a lot to find consensus within the community and to build the NEM brand. :)
+1. the rules do not need to be complicated in the beginning. We can improve as we move along.
here is an initial write up using this forum to host votes. Should a voting system be added to the NEM core, i still see a format like this being useful. This is just a rough draft that surely has many loopholes, questions, and flaws. It will almost certainly fail at pleasing everyone 
Please read this document as simply an idea on how things could be, not how things definitely will be. Also realize that this does not represent the finer details or really discuss the technical details of implementation. It is just an idea or structure that can be filled in with all the small things as we go.
the link to the google doc is here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1enJDPtmmKz7kg28feENlWaRzdaRriElyC8FSnRP9HAI/edit?usp=sharing
i've enabled comments, so you can leave them here or post them in the Doc and i'll try and work them into the document.
[center]NEM Voting System Proposal[/center]
In order to take ideas from inception to completion in the shortest and most efficient manner, NEM should use a four tiered method of decision making. Following the birth of an idea, a NEMster should 1) submit a proposal in the NEM Improvement Proposals board on the NEM forum. Following a successful run on the proposals board the idea will be 2) submitted for Developer or community leader (marketing team etc) review. After being reviewed by the appropriate team, the proposal will 3) move on to the NEM Community Voting board and if successful on to 3) implementation.
Proposal Phase:
During this phase a formal NEM Improvement proposal(NIP) will be submitted for community discussion on the NEM Improvement Proposals board on the NEM Official Forum.
In order for a proposal to be eligible for a community vote, 100 unique users must post to a proposal thread. This is NOT a vote! It simply means that enough interest has been established to qualify a proposal for a full community review and vote.
Once the 100 user threshold has been broken, the formal proposal will be submitted for Developer/Community organization review.
Dev/Community Org Review
This review phase will do nothing to stop a qualified proposal from being submitted for a vote. The purpose is to provide the community with feedback and information regarding the ramifications, positive or negative, of the proposal receiving approval from the community. They will comment on things regarding feasibility, time frame for completion etc.
Cryptocurrencies are incredibly complex and it
great work spaw, this will come in very useful. this will essentially turn nem into a true democracy run by the community where every single person who wants a say will have a say in what happens and know that it counts. now if only countries were run like this.
Nice write up!
Can anyone make a proposal ie. someone with only 2 posts?
What if for the 100 unique users they say the idea sucks? Does it still go to the dev/community org review?
The 100 unique users might be too high, at first they might be alot of activity on the forum but as time goes by, the activity usually drops. Maybe 50 - 75?
I like the voting phase, simple and straight forward.
This is a great starting point spaw :)
Vicvegas: originally thinking why not, it would be up to everyone else to determine if the proposal should move onto a vote.
And at the moment the 100 post barrier could be tough seeing as how the forum has roughly 200 members. Probably would be a good idea to lower the number initially.
Would it be better to just have a poll at the top of each proposal thread asking if the topic should be go to vote as opposed to just using posts? Would there be a better way of collecting "signatures?"
spaw
Good points, Spaw. Thanks for the post.
Could create a form with required fields/info for a proposal in each phase or maybe an example to make things more clear?
Good points, Spaw. Thanks for the post.
Could create a form with required fields/info for a proposal in each phase or maybe an example to make things more clear?
I think a specific form would be a good idea. It would give proposals consistency
Very interesting idea.
This could definitely be implemented in the forums. Great thinking!
Nice write up!
Can anyone make a proposal ie. someone with only 2 posts?
What if for the 100 unique users they say the idea sucks? Does it still go to the dev/community org review?
The 100 unique users might be too high, at first they might be alot of activity on the forum but as time goes by, the activity usually drops. Maybe 50 - 75?
I like the voting phase, simple and straight forward.
This is a great starting point spaw :)
Vicvegas: originally thinking why not, it would be up to everyone else to determine if the proposal should move onto a vote.
And at the moment the 100 post barrier could be tough seeing as how the forum has roughly 200 members. Probably would be a good idea to lower the number initially.
Would it be better to just have a poll at the top of each proposal thread asking if the topic should be go to vote as opposed to just using posts? Would there be a better way of collecting "signatures?"
spaw
I am just thinking about abuse by people with low post count, they could spam the proposal thread with ,well spam :) it's easy to make new accounts and spam away. I was thinking having to have 15 - 20 posts before being able to make a proposal, this might show they have a true interest in NEM and have taken the time to learn more about it.
Yes, 15-20 is a good number. I am nearly there. ;-)
My biggest concern is that great ideas are very often contrarian in nature. That's what that makes things happen in the real world. FB is one example. They were not the first, but they became the best.
What may seem like a stupid idea may well turn out to be a killer app.
Yes, 15-20 is a good number. I am nearly there. ;-)
My biggest concern is that great ideas are very often contrarian in nature. That's what that makes things happen in the real world. FB is one example. They were not the first, but they became the best.
What may seem like a stupid idea may well turn out to be a killer app.
very true, sometimes the anti can be a good thing. i think a solution like this however gives people the best chance of being involved. everyone can present their proposal. maybe it doesn't catch on right away but they are free to keep trying. also, having a developer review could help people see the value in something when it is not readily apparent. a trusted body will be giving feedback on proposals before a vote. that will be very beneficial.
everyone interested in this topic should give this a read through. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0001.mediawiki
It gives details on how improvement proposals for Bitcoin should be categorized and formatted. for the time being i don't think we need anything this complex but it could provide us with some basic structure so please skim it and put your feedback here. i'll start drawing up a document for review this weekend.
spaw
Spaw, I really like this idea and having a technical review is a good innovation. It would be great if we could handle the actual voting in the NEM system on the blockchain, as that would be safer (and could be weighted by an account's importance score).
This seems like a similar idea to the Whitehouse proposal board. My only concern is that you leave some gray area in two places (unless I missed something):
[li]Devs could just pigeonhole a proposal by delaying the review indefinitely.[/li]
[li]If a proposal wins but requires use of lots of resources or money, who will enforce its implementation? Ideas are 5%, actually implementing something to completion is 95%, so it seems like we should try to define more specifically how that should work. Who is on the committee to oversee the proposal to completion, for example?[/li]