RE: Proposal for an incremental Constitution and Dapp layer governance on EOS
There are a few misunderstandings here.
ECAF is not a police or an enforcer. It's the judge. What does it judge? Disputes. What kind of disputes are under its jurisdiction? All kinds of disputes in the EOS blockchain which can't be resolved in any other way, because it's the default arbitrator.
The Constitution is a multiparty contract. That's the contract which defines the jurisdiction of ECAF. When ECAF makes a ruling for a dispute, the dispute has been something that was against the Constitution, for example, transferring tokens without the consent of the owner.
If we remove the default arbitrator from the Constitution, there will be disputes that won't get resolved. Users can try to get them resolved through traditional justice systems, but as most already know, it will be very difficult.
The arguments for and against a default arbitrator, IMHO, should be made from this perspective. Can we create a system which can resolve disputes in a protocol layer? If there are risks, are those risks so big that it's better to leave disputes not resolved?
We have already seen that there is much bigger demand for protocol layer dispute resolution that anybody could have imagined. Hundreds of open cases. If the protocol layer dispute resolution is removed, all those cases will be left unresolved.
I think that we really need a protocol layer dispute resolution. Not only for obvious problems, like theft, but for everything that we can't foresee. The more complicated system we have, the more there will be ways to create new kind of problems and disputes. If we don't have any kind of dispute resolution system, the end result tends to be bad.
And maybe even more important is to actually create a market economy. For free markets to function properly, we absolutely need private property rights and a dispute resolution system. Those both are formed by the current Constitution. V2 would ditch them out, so I'm not sure if we can say that we have free markets with it.
Your example how things could go wrong with ECAF on the protocol layer is not very convincing. Governments can't just say to it that it needs to shut down an app. ECAF can only make rulings on disputes. So first there needs to be a dispute. Let's assume there is. What kind of dispute would require to shut down the whole app? That would require pretty convincing arguments if it was to be accepted by BPs and the rest of the community. If ECAF was forced to create obviously false ruling, it would create a shitstorm immediately and very likely BPs would not enforce it. And even if it would somehow successfully to be sneaked in and enforced, without anybody noticing what's happening, the app could be brought back online on a different account. So nothing would be achieved, maybe the contrary, because now everyone would be aware of the app and it would get a lot more users and the next time it couldn't be shut down so easily.
Of course, there is always a way to replace ECAF it was to be corrupted or forced to follow outside orders. It requires a change in the Constitution. It will take longer than replacing BPs, but I pretty sure it would be easy to do. Because ECAF is used by everyone, everyone must care about it. This creates a huge incentive for everyone to make sure that it functions properly. And if it doesn't, everyone has an incentive to pressure it to fix itself, or to vote for another arbitration forum to replace ECAF on the Constitution.
A thief steals someones tokens and the token holder calls ECAF to step in - ECAF agrees to step in and freezes the account (highly unlikely as it's not set up to act this quickly), the thief has not agreed to arbitration, yet ECAF agrees to arbitrate anyway. How is this arbitration when their are not two parties agreeing to it? It's not. It's enforcement. You guys are claiming ECAF doesn't have enforcement powers when it clearly does. If you're not prepared to admit to the powers you possess - why should the community be asked to trust you on how you use these powers?
In terms of the unresolved disputes - my advise to ECAF would be to resolve as many of them as you can before we vote via referendum and show the community your worth rather than holding these cases over the community as some means of political leverage in order to gain funding. A large proportion of the cases you guys have are in relation to the key generator phishing scam in which you have all of the evidence. Refusing to look at cases before being paid just looks like political gamesmanship to me. BPCs all worked incredibly hard to showcase their worth to the community prior to being voted in - why isn't ECAF doing the same?
'Your example how things could go wrong with ECAF on the protocol layer is not very convincing. Governments can't just say to it that it needs to shut down an app. ECAF can only make rulings on disputes. So first there needs to be a dispute.'
The dispute would be between the State and the Dapp.
I appreciate all you ECAF guys for coming on here and putting forth your side and for that I thank you.
The Constitution places all parties under arbitration. As a contract, this is binding.
You may say that the thief did not agree with that. Sure, this is a theory that might be advanced. In which case the thief has no rights in EOS. They don't have rights to the property, they don't actually have any property in their ownership because the Constitution is the document that creates the rights to the property in EOS.
Unless of course the thief can present a valid alternative contract that establishes their rights. We're all ears to that!
'The Constitution places all parties under arbitration. As a contract, this is binding.'
Until a new C is ratified.
Unless ECAF is honest about the powers it wishes to grant itself, then there is going to be skepticism. You are more than a mere arbitration forum...
Of course, until a different C is ratified. Meanwhile ECAF will serve the C as it is stated.
It's hard to be more honest that the C is written - the powers are written right there in black and white.
Oh my lord. Firstly, cases are declined because of a due process. Secondly, it is highly unlikely that declining cases would put pressure on the community to change their ways or thoughts. Only a controversial ruling is likely to do that, and no case has delivered a ruling as yet.
Thirdly, it is the case that EOS victims are grudging supporters of ECAF's existence, but unrepentant grumblers of ECAF's speed.
??? You do understand that this isn't TV trial time - Judge Judy and all that? A lot of cases have sensitivity, and they are not conducted as reality shows for the pleasure of the viewing audience.
The Arbitrator is required to keep mum about any running case, and communicate fairly with only the parties and assistants. Not to run around in chat rooms and say how worthy they are...
The point of maximum transparency is the ruling which has yet to be delivered in any case. Recent figures suggest AAA has average of 7 months. Yes, things have been slow, but yeah, everyone has day jobs too.
And how many standby BPs are being paid now?
Let's not get carried away with Judge Judy hyperbole. Ruling on a few of the simple cases would go along way to showcasing your usefulness. Waiting to be paid $160 per hour per arbiter before taking any kind of action doesn't look great, but hey, it's your gig.
If it's going to take 7 months for someone to get their 200 phished EOS tokens back, it's hard to see how this system is ever going to scale.
Yes indeed. But no matter how much pressure you put on an Arbitrator for a result, he or she should ignore it. It's hardly a workable system if you can push the Arbitrator to follow your bidding.
That would be handled in State courts. A ruling or order from the State court would then be forwarded to ECAF under 5.4 External Courts . Then, see @samupaha's response above - firstly ECAF would have to accept and forward the order, then the BPs would have to accept and execute the order, then the Community would have to accept and not referendum / vote out the BPs.
Lots of checks and balances.
The fact that a state court has a single entity in which to engage with weakens the whole decentralized structure we aimed to build. We can talk about the few checks and balances (such as BPs ignoring ECAF/EMAC orders), but the truth is, having ECAF as the centralized arbiter on the protocol layer makes it way easier for a state to request censorship - ECAF builds an accessible door in which hostile states may enter.
I'm not being marginally theoretical either - many states all over the world deny their citizens access to information and employs a practice of censorship upon them.
Granted. It all depends on who your enemy is. If your enemy is the state, you might like Bitcoin better. If however your enemy is the thief, this system works better.
It's doubtful ECAF could gather all the necessary evidence together and rule in time to stop a thief.
If ECAF employed a practice of freezing accounts prior to making a ruling then that opens up a whole other can of worms.
...and so we loop back to the issues I raised in the above article.