Hello,
One of the big concerns currently in the community is the way polls are lopsided by whales. There's some basic principles in democracy that should never be ignored.
- Everyone who is an adult of voting age gets a vote.
- Your vote isnt worth more or less then your neighbor's.
Obviously there are other principles that are important but for the sake of this discussion, they are a bit irrelevant.
What has been observed for a while is that polls are completely irrelevant, when the top 2 voters have more voting share then the rest of the community, you just cant consider this democratic in any form. Now there are some ways that people who are wealthier can participate in democracy in a more meaningful manner then poorer people. The Koch brothers in the United States come to mind. And whether you agree with Citizen United or not isnt really the point (I'm personally against, there's a limitation of $100 in contribution per year in Québec and the world hasnt stopped moving.)
If you are an active part of the community you've already heard the reason why we cant make it 1 vote per wallet. If we do, whales will just make more wallets and vote using 2000 wallets instead of voting with 1.
Based on the fact that 1 user = 1 vote, there's a very simple solution in my mind that would reduce significantly this issue, I'm not saying it would eliminate 100% of it but between this solution and the work required to vote using hundreds if not thousands of wallets, I think we can eliminate most of it.
My solution is simple. Increase the fee per vote to 1 GRC. 1 GRC is low enough that users with small wallets can pay for it using faucets or even grunching on a phone to pay for it but it's also high enough that should someone actually make 2000 wallets to vote, they would in fact be paying a hefty sum per poll. Obviously the specifics can be discussed.
Requirements to start a poll
Another issue with polls is the difficulty to start one. Based on current rules, it requires 100k GRC to be able to start a poll. I've been crunching for almost 3 month and I only have about 4k GRC earned in that period. As a person who is actively crunching, I wont be able to start a poll unless I buy GRC before 2026. This is absolutely ridiculous in my mind.
I think 10k would be a much better requirement. I'm willing to wait a year before I can start a poll, that's reasonable.
Or as an alternative, perhaps we could make it so that Magnitude is taken into account as a multiplier to your balance. Let's say that for every 10 magnitude, the value of your wallet increased. Starting from 0 to 10 magnitude, someone would have 100% of their value as GRC, their value would increase by 100% per 10 magnitude beyond that so at 11 to 20 magnitude someone with a balance of 4k GRC would have a value of 8k for polls, at 100 magnitude they would have a value 40k, etc.
What do you guys think of this idea?