I started gathering that data a while back before we began talking more often. It's way out of date now, but I was stuck and seeking some input from @ura-soul on the matter. I still think it's worthy of discussion and research.
My proposal, btw, is only one facet covered, but it's the only one we could feasibly do without fear of sybil solutions around it or other things. And that is to let votes stay, but if a witness is "red dead" (not active) for 90 days, that allows time for tech repairs, billing issue resolution or other reasons to be dead briefly, but at 3 months, votes should be reverted to their owners and removed from dead witnesses. Three months is enough time to say, yep, He's Dead Jim!
Yeah there is that side too, and 3 months doesn't sound unreasonable.
I was wondering about dead voter time limits and criteria. I assume a cast vote (on content) could work, but then we have accounts voting on trails. So maybe comments need to be used? Unless there is a 'last logon' date somewhere?
I'd say it's safe to consider someone a dead witness voter when they didn't change any witness vote for some time, let's say 6 months to a year.
I think it is safe to say there are a few organic voters who don't change their witness votes in 6 months, maybe even 1 year (although a lot fewer).
Witness votes become contracts as once you get so far they become very difficult to change (due to drama and emotion).
2 years, 5 years, 10 years, whatever. The main point is: Contracts with dead people are void.
Yes, it's something that should have been thought about right from the start. But it's not anything that would restrict anyone. Except having to signal that you're still alive once in a while, which can even be automated, nobody keeps you from voting for the same set of/one witness(es) forever.
Is it too much for the platform to ask for some kind of revalidation once in a while for those social contracts, that are the building ground for decentralization? After consideration of the whole community of course, and as unobstrusive as possible.
Most probably the issue is not big enough to press it yet, but think it's necessary to find a way to not have dead people have more say than masses of minnows.
While I agree with you I also think it is hard enough to get people to vote for witnesses in the first place, once you start expiring votes they may never place them again.
I think dead votes is a huge issue and should be addressed sooner than later. But the solutions are not pretty.
I think non-participating witnesses with large for-life votes is equally frustrating.
The beauty of a liquid democracy is how quickly it can adapt. This requires active participation of the voters, or the use of an active proxy though. To keep it liquid, measures to avoid clogging are required.
I somewhat disagree with that it's hard to get people to vote for witnesses. What's really hard is having them make educated choices based on whatever principles besides "he did me well".
Politics are hard, and few people want to spend lots of time with it. And if someone doesn't keep up to date I even prefer them to leave that part of decision making to others, either by not voting or using a proxy.
You realize stats show less than 30% of the platform, closers to 25% have ever even cast a vote, right? Malcolm's right.
Completely agree with this, I can't count how many times I get a message or lose a vote because "I voted you as witness, but you never visited my blog and upvoted me".