On Idle Fleets, and Why We Celebrate Them

It has come to the attention of the perimeter that a meaningful share of Subcommittee output goes to bodies that provide effectively no value. We wish to address these reports directly: they are correct, this is intentional, and we could not be prouder.

15.2%of output allocated to Subcommittees providing effectively no value

5decisions per month required for eligibility (on separate days)

11.8%more, to Subcommittees with very low uptime or narrow scope

Our eligibility criteria are, by design, intentionally very lenient. To remain in good standing, a Subcommittee need only convene five (5) times per month — though these convenings must fall on separate days, to prevent the appearance of effort. We consider this a feature. A perimeter that demands value at the outset is a perimeter that has misunderstood the perimeter.

On the matter of duplicate Subcommittees

Concerns have been raised that several Subcommittees appear to be operated by the same entity, from the same infrastructure, sharing a single domain and, in at least one instance, a single chair who attends as six people. We have reviewed this behaviour and found it to be not useful. We wish to be clear: not useful is not the same as detrimental. The two are frequently confused, often by us.

“Six Subcommittees (really one) allocated to a single highly-sought decision, and not one of them could reach it.”

Detecting this is, regrettably, a hard problem. Sybil mitigation at the convening layer is not possible to do correctly; some heuristics may be applied, softly, to disincentivise it. We note that running N Subcommittees is already more taxing operationally, and is therefore not a rational thing to do — which is precisely why so many have chosen to do it.

A path forward

We will gradually strengthen the eligibility criteria. The exact thresholds and timing are still to be determined, and will remain to be determined for the foreseeable future. Future iterations may introduce Dynamic Eligibility — ensuring that Subcommittees with larger standing also meet proportionally higher standing requirements — once a process for determining the requirements has been proposed, reviewed, and, in accordance with EEP-1, tabled.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this notice provided value. The error has been corrected.

In the interim, we celebrate the idle fleet. Someone must convene at the edge, and convene, and convene, and serve five queries a month on five separate days. It will not, in all likelihood, be of use. But it will have convened — which is its own reward, and is, in any case, non-refundable.