Principled Blockchain Governance Requirement #4 - Arbitration
Where we left off was Principle #3 - Constitution! which sets the scene.
But, this only gets us to the point of writing out our position in rules. So I’m going to propose the Constitution for this blog post and lay out my preferred example toxicriminal: Trolls! These people are toxicrims because they take up my time with BS, and they don’t return any value to me. So their troll is my loss. That’s fraud, and in my world, I’m happy to execute the lot ‘o them. In my Constitution, then it is so writ:
Article 1 - Death to Trolls
Now, note that we have a few issues here. Firstly a choice problem - Your toxicrims could well be different, you might prefer "no mafia" and another might say "no impossibly tall and scary men." All of these things are valid fears! But, to show how this all works, from end to end in 7 principles, bear with me and my rhetorical trolls.
Secondly, now we get into a bit of a definitional problem. As we know a good troll is one who yells Troll! faster than a victim. So it’s me that’s the Troll? Or You? Damn, my defence is turned into an attack on me and I lose. Off with my head?
Who's to say who's a troll? Me, you or anyone?
My community is going to die very quickly, or I am which amounts to the same thing, unless we can answer the trollity of any particular person. I need a defence against this, and I hope y’all agree we ALL need a defence against this. If not, troll, the lotta ya, and I’m outta here!
It turns out there is a really tractable defence to the decision problem of who’s the troll and who’s the victim - dispute resolution. And in short, there is a completely good, fair and legal way to do this in our community. It’s called Arbitration. Not only is it legal to set up our own “courts”, it’s backed by most countries in the world, and there are powerful treaties and so forth.
So, to cut this one very short, we have to write our Constitution referring all our disputes to our forum of Arbitration:
Requirement #4 - Arbitration
Then, when we get into a tiff, we trot off to the forum, and ask for a ruling. Done deal! And we're just about yearning for Principle #5.
Arbitraition is popular globally, because like most of globalisation, what looks 'efficient' is actually a transfer of power and access to those who have lots of money and want more viz bank's use of 'arbitration clauses' in retail contracts to remove access to court processes....
Big diff between the theory and the practice here and 'arbitration' needs v careful handling....
Indeed, arbitration can be weaponised to take rights away from people. The key here is to ensure that the forum is run by the members, for the members, of the members. For example, "big bad corp" cannot have any especial powers over the forum, and especially cannot steer Arbitrators by means of rewards. Normally, that latter one where the corporations sets the list of Arbitrators is the giveaway to weaponised Arbitration.
Unfortunately, that probably does not do enough to stop BBCorp hiring better/more expensive lawyers .... or suborning Arb's with persistent 'revolving doors' rewards..... but I'm just re-hashing the old 'Qui custodiet ...' debate....
I really dislike those kind of trolls that give trolls a bad name. A good troll is not about wasting time and getting emotional response, it is about advancing the understanding of things. There might be some gentle prodding of boundaries involved, but if we are talking about those who mastered the art of trolling it is hard to notice, and the result is that the boundaries expand. What kind of boundaries I am talking about? Boundaries of understanding, of course. :>
Besides, a good troll knows when time is being wasted, since sometimes people are so centered in their worldview, or idea or whatever, that they start to go in circles, and it quickly becomes tiresome.
Anyway, here is a good principle of a good troll. Good troll is on either side of that saying: "If you want to get better, play against stronger opponents."
Still internet anonymity is probably the thing that makes comfortable for people to be bad trolls. Le sigh.