New RAE Enhancement Proposal: Implement New Community Channel Approval Process

Governance
1

New RAE Enhancement Proposal: Implement New Community Channel Approval Process

Objective:

There has been controversy over who gets to decide to start a channel that hooks into the RAE. It is time for the process to be straightforward for the community. Although some on the core project team make these decisions in hotly contested manners, those in the community should have a way to overrule them or fast track channels that may be slow walking.

The channel approval process (below) needs to meet the following requirements:

  • Protect the rights of the minority. Creators should not automatically be dismissed because they produce unpopular content or are up and coming.

  • Protect the rights of the majority. Creators should not automatically be accepted if RAE holders vote their content is an inherent risk to critical network distribution channels or is an overall drag on the network’s resources.

Definitions:

Sponsor: The RAE Token Holder that initiates a channel vote by proving they have 25,000 RAE in an address.

Sponsored Channel: The channel that a community member wants to vote to be approved to join RAE as an Approved Channel

Approved Channels: Any channel that can join RAE.

Process:

  1. Any RAE Token holder with 25,000 RAE can be a Sponsor that activates a channel vote. Each Sponsor is voting with their RAE to verify they have a stake in the network and are likelier to have the network’s best interests in mind.
  2. The Sponsored Channel will come up to vote on the second Wednesday of every month. All Sponsored Channels to come up for a vote must have their sponsorship before midnight EST on the second Monday of every month.
  3. A Sponsored Channel will be approved to join RAE if it gets a minimum of 150,000 RAE YAY Votes and no greater than 3x the NAY votes compared to RAE YAY votes.

For example, if a Sponsored Channel receives 200,000 YAY votes, then the NAYs would need at least 600,000 NAY votes to overrule the YAY votes. In this example, If there are only 550,000 NAY votes, that channel automatically becomes an Approved Channel.

  1. Upon passing, a Sponsored Channel becomes an Approved Channel and will automatically be credentialed within 48 hours.
1 Like
2

This is a great proposal and let’s the community decide how rokfin gets built out.

2 Likes
3

This is really cool, however I worry it may be time consuming for me to research whether I should approve or deny a channel access to the RAE ecosystem

4

Why?

Do you not think 25k RAE token sponsorship is enough to keep out frivolous votes? Seems to me that that level of network stake should at least get a vote to the floor.

5

I think they should be able to, I am saying with me as a voter I feel like it may be a lot of work to make a proper decision on a channel. Dont know if I have time for that extra work. I suppose I could abstain from the votes.

2 Likes
6

A couple things come to mind as both a creator and a fan of the platform.

  1. To @Ben 's point on voting, in order to empower community members to be a more insightful voter, I think it be helpful to have some framework for what exactly Sponsors have to include in their proposal for a new Sponsored Channel, basically a “pitch” framework for each nomination.

I.e. If I want to be a Sponsor and nominate “John” for a new Sponsored Channel, I need to provide details into certain key metrics/areas (Not sure what they would be, differ to @MattyT on his vision).

This way as a voter, i can understand that creators reach, content niche, upside, etc.

  1. What is the process for seeing if a creator is even interested in joining RAE? Maybe there is a way for creators who actually want to join to signal their interest, thus putting them in a pool of potential candidates.

My immediate thought is owning some RAE token and associating that wallet address with a creator will show they’re interested. At that point it could be worth an official sponsorship.

End goal is → Save our time from voting and putting together a big proposal for creators that may not even want to join.

I’m a fan of the spirit of this proposal, as I think channels getting added as a result of community interest seems powerful, if delivered properly.

Excited to hear peoples thoughts.

3 Likes
7

I like the proposal and think it’ll be a good move for network growth and community development. However, I think that @macncheeasy is right about using a short pitch to help voters get the TL;DR on any Sponsored Channel. It will streamline the process for voting without making the barrier for entry too high.

2 Likes
8

I think that a community voting process is both sensible and inevitable and also keeps us engaged and invested in the platform we represent. We don’t want substandard/infrequent channels being started - but there also should be a path for those that are serious and want to give a pitch.

That ‘pitch’, however should be content heavy. The 25k RAE let’s us know you’re serious. The content plan/pitch let’s us know if/how you’ll be successful and if/how you’ll have longevity.

I want to know the candidates 1) niche 2) content plan 3) social media following / impact

1 Like
9

Cool, looking at the proposal and the responses, I think this proposal is ready to move to a REP Vote, which is step 3 in the REP Process. (Quick Guide: How to Vote)

Let’s target Tuesday, August 2nd, to start the community voting window. That gives some time over the next few days to let the idea breathe some more.

I’m also interested in hearing any counterarguments to the discussion, i.e., “This isn’t a good idea because…”

10

i think one of the counterarguments goes like this:

The creator didn’t get initially approved, went through the additional process of posting 25k rae, got accepted, and then failed.

there is going to be some bitterness on that person’s/outlet’s end. and i’m sure they’ll be vocal about it and suggest some sort of fault/deficiency of the platform.

i guess what i’m saying is: be prepared for criticism when this creator (who didn’t look like a winner to begin with) doesn’t win.

13

I agree with Willie Saylor that people will complain no matter what. I also directionally agree with MattyT that there needs to be a process to add channels. This process should be done in conjunction with the next half-life—no need to rush.

If it is up to me, I think this is too rushed.

14

Agree with some of the critiques. Below is the updated proposal. Understand that everyone doesn’t agree with the proposal, but after last RAE meeting it is my firm belief that we need a pressure release for bringing on creators.

New RAE Enhancement Proposal: Implement New Community Channel Approval Process

Objective:

There has been controversy over who gets to decide to start a channel that hooks into the RAE. It is time for the process to be straightforward for the community. Although some on the core project team make these decisions in hotly contested manners, those in the community should have a way to overrule them or fast track channels that may be slow walking.

The channel approval process (below) needs to meet the following requirements:

  • Protect the rights of the minority. Creators should not automatically be dismissed because they produce unpopular content or are up and coming.

  • Protect the rights of the majority. Creators should not automatically be accepted if RAE holders vote their content is an inherent risk to critical network distribution channels or is an overall drag on the network’s resources.

Definitions:

Sponsor: The RAE Token Holder that initiates a channel vote by proving they have 25,000 RAE in an address.

Sponsored Channel: The channel that a community member wants to vote to be approved to join RAE as an Approved Channel

Approved Channels: Any channel that can join RAE.

Process:

1. Any RAE Token holder with 25,000 RAE can be a Sponsor that activates a channel vote. Each Sponsor is voting with their RAE to verify they have a stake in the network and are likelier to have the network’s best interests in mind.

  • A Sponsor should make a pitch for the Sponsored Channel. The pitch should catch community members up quickly to save time with TL;DR information that is content-heavy and includes a) the niche, b) content plan, c) social following/impact, and d) any other valuable metrics.*

  • The Sponsored Channel should have a process to indicate their interest before a vote, should the vote be successful. This signal will evolve as the community gets more experience. An initial idea is the Sponsored Channel verifies they are a RAE holder.

2. The Sponsored Channel will come up to vote on the second Wednesday of every month. All Sponsored Channels to come up for a vote must have their sponsorship before midnight EST on the second Monday of every month.

3. A Sponsored Channel will be approved to join RAE if it gets a minimum of 150,000 RAE YAY Votes and no greater than 3x the NAY votes compared to RAE YAY votes.

For example, if a Sponsored Channel receives 200,000 YAY votes, then the NAYs would need at least 600,000 NAY votes to overrule the YAY votes. In this example, If there are only 550,000 NAY votes, that channel automatically becomes an Approved Channel.

4. Upon passing, a Sponsored Channel becomes an Approved Channel and will automatically be credentialed within 48 hours.

15

Cool, I took that proposal and put it up to a Snapshot Vote. Here is the Proposal Vote

Voting Window

  • Start time: midnight CST Tuesday (tonight in about 6 hrs)
  • End time: midnight CST Thursday
  • Duration: 2 Days

Looking forward to seeing where people land on this.

And this is a low resource vote, so quorum is 15% (1.075 million) of RAE supply, 60% YAY needed to pass.

1 Like
16

I don’t feel this new Community Channel Approval Process would be a good thing for a few reasons:

  1. Rokfin/RAE should be focused on adding hundreds, even thousands of channels over the next few years. Why quibble about 1 or 2 channels which have been rejected by what is hopefully a reasonable review process. I would be more supportive of making this review process more transparent. It feels like this proposal is just perpetuating the “Rokfin is a closed and limited platform”, when focus should be on adding many more creators and categories.
  2. I don’t like the idea that someone could, with enough votes, bring on a truly damaging channel which would cause Rokfin/RAE to suffer damage. Deplatforming is a thing, Google/AWS/Azure/Cloudflare/etc. banning Rokfin would be a huge blow.
  3. With Rokfin holding so many RAE, they could win virtually every vote anyways. So if they reject a creator, they could just vote Nay and win every time. If they don’t vote, they are handing the steering wheel to others, who may crash the ship.
  4. Since Rokfin essentially has veto power, this proposal (in my view) primarily provides a way to lobby for a particular channel. That’s a good thing, but this proposal seems like an indirect and confrontational way to do so. How will the sponsor and supporters (who hold significant RAE) feel when they lose a vote? Why create bitter feelings in RAE holders?

I do appreciate this proposal, and I know a lot of work went into it. I like the idea of RAE holders having input into the future of RAE. But a once-per-month process to potentially add a channel or two doesn’t seem to offer much benefit to RAE, with significant potential downsides.

1 Like
17

Interesting points!

A big idea you are talking about extends to all crypto communities, which is the balance of democratization and decentralization vs. the viewpoints of a project team spending their full-time on the project.

I don’t know if any community has struck the best balance yet in this regard. The general idea with these REPs is to continually strive towards that right balance through community discussion.

Appreciate the thought process. Keep sharing your thoughts on RAE governance, please!

1 Like
20

Great points by Raedog. It gave me pause, but overall this is a great way to diffuse the tension around channels. Time to move forward and make it work.

2 Likes
21

REP results: It passed and the quorum was reached.