The more I think about this the more I agree with what wiz has said in other forums. With the structure of these incentives the most popular clients will be the ones that send rewards back to the user performing the actions. The only tool we have to fight this is client id permissioning. Do we ban clients that return funds to users?

Assuming clients return rewards to the users:

Auction rewards act as a rebate on Nouns won at auction. Not a big deal.

Voting rewards incentivize users to vote on every eligible proposal. I'm ok with this. More vote volume. Not necessarily an increase in thoughtful votes, but still more eyeballs paying attention to Nouns. Perhaps there is also an incentive to discourage others from voting, to increase a users proportional share of votes.

Proposal rewards I'm less certain about. It incentivizes users to submit more proposals that reach a minimum # of FOR votes, currently 10% or 57 Nouns. Perhaps we see an increase in simple proposals like config changes, large proposals split into multiple smaller ones. This could also incentivize users to put more proposals onchain on behalf of others and keep the rewards. However, individuals and coordinated groups are already able to meet the 10% threshold specified. We could see voting blocks pass each others minor but legit proposals to drain the rewards. Worst case we see absolute spam from a voting block that controls the minimum amount of FOR votes. The other challenge here is that a growing proposal volume increases the risk that a malicious proposal will go unnoticed, as well, Nouns will be covering the bill to refund gas costs on all of the extra proposal voting happening.

In the future I would like to fund third party analysis of protocol changes like this.

https://www.lilnouns.wtf/vote/nounsdao/550/votes

FOR 109 VOTES

0x9e0e9D25a5ED9bc773f91691f0b45599255257B1 | "Support decentralized client incentives, ensuring fair rewards and sustained growth for Nouns DAO. A win-win for all involved!"

AGAINST 0 VOTES

ABSTAINS 0 VOTES

For: 4 | Against: 3 | Abstain: 0

+for — @krel

+against — @peterpandam

+for — @frog

• against | missed the nouncil vote; agreed with wag’s take. don’t agree with 40’s take that permissionless incentives with permissioned claims is an improvement over the previous model over pre-fund & build or build and hope for retro. mostly serves to benefit camp’s next VC fundraise as a claim to revenue imo — @wylin

+for left curving it as i've been incentivized to work on something — @indexcard.eth

+for — @0xishal

+against rounds retro or should be able to vote with own wallet as client — @kliegs

I'd love for moum to do a detailed breakdown of the attack vector. After thinking about the problem for a while I don't really see how it works. Just because I don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't exist though.

After witnessing the fork wreck havoc on the DAO I'd like to be more careful about protocol changes that are susceptible to attack.

I really love the idea of client incentives and would hope for a future in which the idea of client incentives can flourish without attack.

The nouniverse has voted through $NOGS ⌐◨-◨

FOR: 7
AGAINST: 1

33600 $NOGS have been shared among the participants.

I often catch myself being too much of a purist so this resonates.

Generally, im also in favor of running head-first into problems that are revertible (there are other classes of problems where we should prio caution). Its fine to get into trouble as long as we move forward. We can solve these problems as we go and as (and if!) they pop up.

If all we do is squirm and try to design our way around hypothetical downstream problems Nouns, as all projects, quickly stagnates.

One thing I’ve changed my mind on from the earlier days of Nouns is to be more practical and less of a purist. Maybe a proxy to the maturity of the projects? Either way, I hear the concerns of decentralization but think this is good for what is here now.

from /nounsfe:
For: 4 | Against: 0 | Abstain: 0

lunari: supportive of this experiment/project :] as we've tossed around before, I'm excited to see fun & useful clients spring up or continue to be maintained

katalyyst: seems like infrastructure is good for Nouns!!!

jesscas: yes, let's do it, I think the points that wag brought up are valid, and from what I understand, it has potential to be abused if people are trying to game the system. It seems like overall though, passing this prop would bring more positives than negatives, and if anything tweaking can happen in the future.

Strong yes from me. Reposting part of my VoteWithReason from Prop 545:

One of my biggest longstanding nitpicks of the Nouns ecosystem is the way that funded frontends and projects disappear over time.

Too often, promising sites and apps that were initially funded by the treasury become defunct or inactive once that initial funding runs dry. The client incentives model helps address this in a thoughtful way by directly rewarding and incentivizing frontend operators for the value and activity they generate.

I love the fact that these incentives should, in theory, enable clients to remain viable and active as long as it continues to deliver value.

Client incentives is one of the main reasons we are picking up work on nouns.sh. 5% sounds like a great start.

Seems like a great starting point the get the ball rolling. I'm all for it.

Come on, come on! I want the client rewards already!

⌐◨-◨

The Nouncil has spoken.

We discuss all Nouns proposals every week in our Discord https://discord.gg/fdjJpMeV6K. The calls are public and all are welcome!

You can find a link to previous call recordings in our Discord welcome channel.

Nouncil has decided in favor of Prop 550: Client Incentives, with 19 votes for and 4 against. General sentiment from the weekly call showed strong support for establishing the initial parameters, as many believe it’s a solid starting point for incentivizing client development. However, there were concerns about the potential for economically powerful actors to abuse the system and capture the entire reward pool. Despite these concerns, the majority of Nouncil members see this proposal as a positive step towards encouraging innovation and growth within the Nouns ecosystem.

Individual votes:

FOR - 19 VOTES

benbodhi | "I'm all for getting this setup and these initial parameters seem like a good place to start."

AGAINST - 4 VOTES

ABSTAINS - 2 VOTES

It's worth trying, regardless of the outcome. I see where wag is speaking from and probably agree in most part. However, we have the ability to put theory into action and see wtf happens. I feel like this might be one of those things to throw out and see.

YOLO ⌐◨-◨

I really like the idea of aligning incentives with client creators via a slice of the auction/prop/etc revenue vs an upfront payment. Perhaps some unintended consequences downstream that I haven't thought through yet, but this seems largely more aligned than lump payments. We should consider similar mechanisms for other props.

from prop 545 - "This step was added to reduce the risk of bad actors abusing the system."

it seems like wags and other large holders are being asked nicely to not abuse the client incentives, which contradicts the gamified, profit-seeking strategy inherent in the nouns protocol.

i might be misunderstanding which is why im abstaining but would like to see wag's signal addressed so he can feel comfortable about the long term strategy of nouns.

🪬✨

Cheers to many front ends. ⌐◨-◨