Bitcoin Forum

The recent thread on what criteria a LTC-GLOBAL moderator should use got me thinking.

What if a group of LTC-GLOBAL moderators self-organized and formed a company that provided contractual advice services to people trying to get listed on BTC-TC and/or LTC-GLOBAL? It would, essentially, be a small group of LTC-GLOBAL moderators who, for a small fee, would analyze a contract and come up with a list of (standard) criteria that they would want to see before they would approve the security. Of course, such a group of people would not be the only moderators capable of clearing a security. Any asset issuer would be free to try to list without the services of said fictional group.

But for those interested in paying a brireasonable fee, it would provide a one-stop-shop for not only getting approved, but also making sure your contract fixed up and beautified, and made acceptable to the community.

And possibly providing other services such as big bro ongoing oversight or accounting and financial reports.

Of course, buying such a service would not guarantee that you would get cleared for listing. Members would be free to vote as they see fit. I'm sure their paycheque from the company wouldn't influence their decision at all.

I have no intention or desire to set something like this up, but I have set up something similar for GLBSE actually. I'm just wondering what burnside (and other LTC-GLOBAL) moderators think of the idea.

Many, many LTC-Global mods who seriously care about what is going on, already provide valuable feedback to new and existing asset issuers... for free.

Any potential issuer only has to open a new thread in the securities section of either forum (BTC/LTC) and simply ask for this advice. The issuer can follow this advice or not.




As a LTC-Global Mod, I think this idea is exactly the opposite of what an open and transparent community should be.

But, not everyone wants "open and transparent," and I will not criticize that aspect.

This is not to say that I am against the idea of a company of professionals charging consulting fees for advice--like a lawyer or accountant would. But having a consortium of just LTC-Global mods doing this sounds dubious in the least.

I see a danger in this.

If a group of moderators charged a fee to look over someone's contract and give advice then it's a small step for them to take to adopt the policy that they'll automatically vote no on any proposals that haven't paid the fee (there's a clear financical incentive for them to do precisely that).  There's also an incentive for them to 'guarantee' approval on receipt of a fee.  Both of which move away from approval based on fair assessement to approval based on what boils down to being a bribe.

Whilst the idea is sound in principle it just isn't very good in practice.  I don't see any issue with an individual (or group) charging a fee to help in preparation of a proposal but as soon votes begin to become explicitly or implicitly attached to payment then the whole concept of moderator approval becomes undermined.  This proposal actually highlights one of the major flaws with the system - that often there's financial benefit to a moderator to vote one way or the other irrespective of the merits of a proposal (this proposal would just make it more obvious - the flaw already exists).

I dont have a moderator vote - but if I did then because of what my fund does if I were to vote purely in self-interest (which I wouldn't do - tempting though it would be) then I should be voting Yes on bad/very bad/slightly good investments and NO on anything that actually looked very good (the reasons behind this aren't immediately obvious).   Similarly issuers of assets should vote yes on competitors that are obviously worse than themselves but no on any that are clearly better (being best of a bad bunch is better than being worst of a good bunch from the perspective of sales).  I'd hope noone votes like that but with anonymous voting there's no way to know.

My feeling is that this proposal wasn't actually serious - just an attempt to draw attention to the fact (and it IS a fact) that there's no way of enforcing voting based on any fair criteria (aside from anything else I'd hazard a guess most voters aren't competent to vote - as is the case in just about every vote that occurs anyway).  If the proposal WAS serious then no - it's a bad idea.  If it wasn't serious then yes - there IS an issue with how votes are cast (consider how my fund LTC-ATF can have a 9-8 moderator vote whilst a bond ISSUED by it gets an 11-0 - that makes absolutely zero sense : any reason to vote no on the fund pretty much has to also be a reason to vote no on debt it sells as a debt instrument can't be more reliable than the issuer of it).

See the better business bureau to understand why this is a bad idea.

Besides moderators already get paid dividends on the shares they own.

The idea of offering consulting services to write contracts and business plans is a different thing but advertising it as a service offered by moderators is wrong.

Yes, it was a devil's advocate type post, not serious. It's to point out some situation like the above with ATF and ATF.B, and split off a discussion from the "my voting criteria" thread.

I see the point you're trying to make, but this group would have to own a fairly large percentage of the ltcglobal shares to be effective... and listing scam socks and funds would quickly make that equity worthless. They would have to be paid enough in bribes to essentially tank the exchanges, while owning a significant percentage of them. I suppose if executed perfectly it could achieve some small short term profit, but it would not be worth the time or risk.

I enjoyed the thought experiment though.

You can always go with other bitcoin exchanges and talk to the owners on IRC :)