thoughts about governance

[Erkan-Yilmaz]

from the chat in IRC (#gridcoin-social) today, between me and Mercosity:

• Erkan: governance: based on past stuff and e.g. polls favouring rich, ... I currently would say governance would not be doable
• Erkan: someone would have to need let go power first so that the governance can work
• Erkan: or the governing committee is just a puppet play
• Erkan: I told user1 some ideas about the governance
• Erkan: he tried to lure me with it
• Mercosity: ...yup, decentralized governance will put some peoples noses out of joint, but we've got to do it very soon as before we open up ..
• Erkan: he didn't give then feedback on what I criticized or what need to be done for it to work ;-)
• Mercosity: I think everyone except a few realise there is a desperate need ..
• Erkan: even if there is a need
• Erkan: you can't force it currently
• Erkan: it only will work when people like user2 and other whales give away their power
• ...
• Mercosity: I've been doing some research and no one seems to have come up with a really workable system .. people always seem to quote DAO (ETH) ..
• ...
• Erkan: but I see 2 things to do it:
• Erkan: 1. everyone can decide
• Erkan: 2. a group gets elected
• Erkan: --
• Erkan: 2. will corrupt over time
• Erkan: 1. the whales just distribute their wealth on more accounts to bypass that
• Erkan: so, the workable thing is 1.
• Erkan: but only when the whales prove they e.g. burn wealth or something
• Erkan: I haven't thought more about this all yet
• Mercosity: Funny, but everything is relative .. some people see us as whales ..
• Erkan: you know the !top ? ;-)
• Mercosity: Depends on which way you look at it .. biased towards crunchers or biased towards whales .. I believe we must respect the investors but the crunchers are the primary movers ..
• Mercosity: Yeah, it's just perception with new users who don't have a big stake .. in real terms I am a 'guppie' ..
• Mercosity: not even a 'minnow' ..
• Erkan: minnow, guppie, whales: wait until the team requirement falls
• Erkan: that will in my view have not a positive effect
• Erkan: will bring more distance between rich and not-rich
• Erkan: governance: in the end the blockchain only favours balance
• Erkan: everything we do so far is outside-action
• Erkan: and if the coin does not radically get changed we won't have true governance any time soon
• Erkan: important decisions like these: Low network (balance) stake weight participation solution?
• Erkan: are just talked about
• Erkan: for 1 year now
• Erkan: no action
• Erkan: outside action: as in when we want to democratize more it goes on by stuff we do outside of the chain
• Mercosity: That's where the voting mechanism comes in as it's weighted to advantage whales at this moment ..
• Erkan: yes
• Erkan: and to think about even changing that we need "approval of the whales"
• Erkan: and they normally wouldn't cut their own flesh
• Mercosity: Yup, that is the 'bottleneck' ..
• Erkan: so, the first practical governance model Gridcoin might dare to attempt
• Erkan: will involve a bias towards whales
• Erkan: otherwise they would not join the initiative
• Erkan: but then to pull away again the power from them is like the poll-system
• Mercosity: dats our dilemma .. we can't do anything without the whales approval ..
• Erkan: yeah, so we'd need a radical change in the chain
• Erkan: and that they also won't allow
• Mercosity: Mexican standoff?
• Erkan: so the governance model will be supported when it fits good into marketing plans and so
• Erkan: Mexican standoff: we are not that
• Erkan: we are already in the losing position
• Erkan: because whales HAVE the power
• Erkan: even if we could get al 99.99999999999999999% of Gridcoin users on the side of a governance model
• Erkan: we couldn't implement it by the poll which would decline it
• Mercosity: Maybe we need mutually assured destruction (MAD) governance model ..
• Mercosity: Crunchers stop crunching and close their wallets .. dead ..
• Erkan: well when all miners stop Gridcoin it will be just a PoS coin so it will survive, so to speak
• Erkan: people will go away because no science in it anymore
• Erkan: but for like a few weeks it will hold value
• Erkan: and in that time people can sell their GRCs
• Erkan: so miners have not really a big influence
• Erkan: given also:
• Erkan: that we assume everyone would really wanna a governance thinggy
• Erkan: we are interested
• Erkan: not sure who else is really
• Mercosity: I think maybe we need to define governance then so users understand what it is and what it will do for them ..
• Erkan: the average user will just care about GRC price
• Erkan: we hardcore guys care for more
• Erkan: longterm vs shortterm interests
• Erkan: I think all what I have said may sound negative
• Erkan: but I am also supporting governance
• Erkan: but I just think it would be wasted time without assurance of whales first
• Erkan: if no whale support: in the end starting all this governance will back fire
• Erkan: like people giving up hope on Gridcoin and showing really that's a whale-coin in the end