Splinterlands: Post-Mortem Analysis of Riftwatchers Presale Proposals

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(Edited)

Recently, voting ended for the 4 SPS Proposals related to the Riftwatchers Presale. This is a brief analysis about the outcome and what options are available moving forward:

SPS Governance Proposal - Riftwatchers Presale Proposal 1

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-riftwatchers-presale-proposal-1

Riftwatchers Proposal 1.png

This vote confirmed that all of the presale purchases in the final block (Block 67936464 at the 1 minute, 39 mark) count for the presale. This was brought up for a vote because it does cause the presale amount to exceed 500K, increasing it by 1166 packs.

Since this passed, nothing needs to be done by players who made transactions in the final block.

If this proposal had not passed, then some mechanism would have been needed to decide which transactions in the final block count for the presale and which transactions would not, but this is a moot point.

And for players who had purchases in the last block and benefited from the passing of Proposal #1: I hope you remember this and gain some empathy and compassion towards other Splinterlands players who encounter problems.

SPS Governance Proposal - Riftwatchers Presale Proposal 2

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-riftwatchers-presale-proposal-2

Riftwatchers Proposal 2.png

There were 147 accounts who bought presale packs in the first 1 minute 39 seconds who did not claim all of the bonus packs that they were eligible for. This amounts to 13,389 bonus packs (and will increase the 500K presale amount by that number, though it's possible that not all users will file support tickets).

The ESTIMATED Riftwatchers Set Release is September 27th, 2022 (in 2 days) and while it is still possible for the release date to be postponed, if the set is released on that date, that means a very narrow turnaround time for players who want the bonus boosters in time for the set release. This may also affect your eligible boosters for the Riftwatchers promo card if you do not quickly resolve your support request.

A. Thus far the Support Team has received support tickets from 111 of these users, which means 36 users who are eligible have not filed support tickets yet.

@icecreamtony, @brucutu, @kioshiru, @newbrine, @jnix33, @romulus594, @a-a-r0n, @beccss, @moonseer, @dharanir, @henrycase, @andrea97, @depppt, @doemdirty, @grem29, @joy-2the-world, @nuaykubb, @tidepodoreos, @shadowch4ser, @enton81, @drolo, @jron, @revisesociology, @thetah, @yabalka, @colskr, @runningwater63, @cheesehead144, @chiboulette, @atanvardo, @tannix, @wkcrisis, @brooder, @rikkon, @libertyguy, @faustgottes

If you want to claim your bonus boosters in time for the September 27th release date, please file a support ticket ASAP at:

https://support.splinterlands.com/

B. For the 111 users who have already filed a support ticket, the Support Team will work towards responding with an update. But ultimately we will be asking the users to send the missing vouchers to: sl-cs

(You can preemptively send your vouchers to sl-cs, which stands for splinterlands-customer support, even if you haven't gotten an updated response yet).

C. Proposal #2 as written, technically only helps users who were in the presale period:

"Anyone that purchased packs during the presale, but used less than the full amount of Vouchers be allowed to purchase the full amount of presale eligible packs by submitting the missing vouchers."

If you bought packs after the 1 minute 39 second mark (Proposal #4 failed so that is still the cutoff), it can be argued that you technically missed the presale (and don't count as someone who "purchased packs during the presale"). Furthermore, the clause "purchase the full amount of presale eligible packs" doesn't address people in the general sale who want to purchase the full amount of general sale eligible packs by submitting the missing vouchers.

As a result, we could very well need a follow-up SPS Proposal that states:

"Anyone that purchased packs during the general sale, but used less than the full amount of Vouchers be allowed to purchase the full amount of general sale eligible packs by submitting the missing vouchers."

D. And for players who benefited from the passing of Proposal #2: I hope you remember this and gain some empathy and compassion towards other Splinterlands players who encounter problems.

SPS Governance Proposal - Riftwatchers Presale Proposal 3

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-riftwatchers-presale-proposal-3

Riftwatchers Proposal 3.png

This proposal passed narrowly. Both Proposal #3 and #4.A were controversial because there was ambiguity in some of the wording and there were some aspects that not everyone was happy with.

I voted in favor of both proposals because I thought it was important for there to be a refund mechanism in place, even though some of the wording was non-ideal.

"DAO to refund anyone the exact amount of SPS and vouchers they spent for Riftwatchers packs. Packs can be refunded up to two weeks after the proposal passes as long as packs remain unopened and no air drops have been occurred or been claimed. Packs refunded this way would be burnt and the purchaser ineligible for airdrops. Splinterlands to loan 30k Vouchers to be returned by the DAO at a later date. Players would have a 2 week window to redeem the refund."

A. @aggroed mentioned that he was surprised by the number of players who expressed on Discord a preference that the refunded packs be put back up for sale instead of being burned.

If there is sufficient interest, players could hypothetically rally for an amendment to this proposal, offering the alternative of having Splinterlands (on behalf of the DAO) reselling the packs instead of burning them.

B. Technically, the wording means that someone could theoretically buy 2 million Riftwatchers packs right now, immediately request a refund, and cause the majority of the cards to be burned (while receiving a refund of the exact amount of SPS and vouchers they spent). If someone were to try that, I would imagine that there would be a subsequent amendment to address such a loophole and prevent such a refund from happening.

C. "Packs can be refunded" and "redeem the refund" are a little bit vague. I think the better wording would be that "players would have a two week window to file a support ticket requesting a refund at: https://support.splinterlands.com/"

D. It is unclear how the DAO would eventually return the 30K vouchers being loaned. Will Riftwatchers purchases in the short-term result in vouchers being collected (but not burned) until the loan would be repaid? Or will the DAO eventually need to purchase vouchers to repay the loan?

UPDATE: @warrentrx has pointed out that sps.dao already has 19K vouchers which it has accumulated over time for the 2 million SPS that it has staked.

E. "no air drops have been occurred". Besides the grammar issues, the promo card is technically an airdrop too, which means that if Riftwatchers is released on September 27th, it is really only a 3 day window and not a 2 week window.

F. "packs remain unopened" and "no airdrops have been occurred or been claimed." I think the intent was that as long as the player has not opened their packs and claimed their airdrops, they can request a refund. But as written, it could be interpreted that as soon as anyone has opened packs or claimed an airdrop, that it prevents anyone else from requesting a refund.

G. I think the intent of "the purchaser ineligible for airdrops" is that the packs that are refunded do not count for airdrops. But based on the wording, it could be argued that if someone buys 100K packs and then refunds 1 pack, then they are completely ineligible for airdrops (even with the 99,999 packs that were not refunded).

SPS Governance Proposal - Riftwatchers Presale Proposal 4

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-riftwatchers-presale-proposal-4

Riftwatchers Proposal 4.png

This was the first failed SPS Proposal (other than the very first "test proposal").

A. Because Proposal #3 passed and #4 failed, right now the only refund mechanism involves the DAO providing the refund.

If people prefer that Splinterlands provide the refund (instead of the DAO), they could advocate for a reworded version. However, Aggy has stated that the reason why 4a was combined with 4b was because if the presale window was not extended to 3 minutes, then the amount of money required for Splinterlands to fully cover the refunds would require board approval. Thus any such SPS Proposal of 4a (but not 4b) would be advisory and not binding because ultimately it would be up to the Splinterlands board.

B. There are definitely going to be some sad players disappointed that the presale window was not extended to 3 minutes.

However, even though this proposal failed that doesn't mean that a revised/reworded version could not be proposed and passed in the future. You could:

  • Find additional evidence of technical issues that happened in the first few minutes of the presale
  • Convince enough SPS stakeholders to change their vote (or to vote in the first place if they didn't vote in the last round)
  • Buy and stake sufficient SPS to change the outcome

C. For those who purchased Riftwatchers packs in the first 3 minutes but didn't make the presale cutoff: Please review the refund provisions of Proposal #3 and decide whether you want to request a refund or if you are okay with your purchases being counted for the general sale instead.



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9 comments
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Please explain to your CEO that if wants to preach decentralisation and keep his credibility intact, then he should stop deliberately manipulating the votes and results of proposals by selectively voting with multiple accounts on some proposals and not others, to make sure he gets a result he is looking for, or a result that he may be getting canvassed for in private. This is pure manipulation, and the very thing he preaches against constantly. He has spent many years here, preaching against centralised entities manipulating and influencing politics and other real world events, and here we see him doing that very same thing. If he was interested in what his players want or think, he would not need to manipulate the voting and results of proposals. This is bad for everyone, and he is causing major damage to the credibilty of this game and the existense of the DAO itself. This result should be rejected, and it should go to another vote immediately before any action is taken based on this result. This is a kind of fake democracy that is promoted as community consensus. It's not acceptable that this is allowed to go through, and there is no discussion around this. The last thing any DAO wants, is the real threat of this kind of manipulation, and it could have seruous real world consequences if the DAO is audited in future. Everyones interests are at threat here, and there could be serious consequences. Keep the credibility of DAO intact, and reject this result based on this selective manipulation.

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Hello!

It's good to hear from you, though I'm more used to seeing you post from your other accounts. Not withstanding the grudge that you have had for several years against @aggroed and many members of the Splinterlands team, I do think you bring up many interesting points that should be discussed - some things which I agree with and some things which I don't fully agree with.

I do agree that there should be subsequent votes before refunds are processed. But I think it should be done for the sake of further clarity and to allow players the opportunity to offer amendments or revisions to Proposal #3.

I disagree with your claim that this was "manipulation," but I do think there should be greater transparency regarding how certain high level people vote.

Keep in mind that the vote would have passed even if spswhale had not voted. In that case it would have passed with 67.93% of the vote.

Is your issue with:

A. The fact that spswhale voted on one proposal but not the others? (The issue of "selective")

B. The fact that spswhale voted near the end of the process?

C. The fact that Aggroed voted at all?

  • I think it's fine if some accounts vote on some proposals but not the others. I think a lot of accounts did that. In fact, there were more votes for Proposal #3 than for Proposals #1 and #2. Or if you excluded spswhale, there were more votes for Proposals #1 and #2 than for Proposal #3.

I do think it would be ideal if there were additional vote options such as "abstain" or "present."

  • Timing is tricky. With the Reward Pools by League and TD Reward Pool proposals, there were some complaints that Aggroed and Yabapmatt voting right from the start (before anyone else had the chance to do so) could cause undue influence because their vote weight would give the impression that the vote was going to auto-pass anyway. But as we see here, voting too late in the process risks other types of complaints.

Now that the SPS Proposals are utilizing a public discussion phase, this may mitigate the issue of voting early.

  • Right now, Splinterlands team members who happen to be asset holders, stakeholders, and/or players are permitted to participate in voting just like any other players. The two founders (Yabapmatt and Aggroed) have reflected upon how they should vote and under what circumstances but AFAIK nothing has been decided on that yet.

It would be one thing if spswhale was a Splinterlands company account (company accounts shouldn't vote) but AFAIK, it is a personal account.

If you think there should be restrictions at certain levels you should clarify at what level:

  • Founders
  • C-level
  • Board members
  • Leadership
  • Employees
  • Contractors
  • Team members
  • Partners

I think there is value in the founders being able to vote with their personal stake to stop proposals that could threaten the game or the company. I think such a safeguard would actually be a net positive.

I do wish there were guidelines or a procedure for how and when the founders vote (e.g. whether they should vote at the beginning or end of the process, that they openly declare which accounts they are voting with, etc.)

I myself try to be as transparent about my own voting as I can, and (when possible) to provide explanations and reasons for why I am voting the way I am. (And for the record, I voted against the Reward Pools by League and TD Reward Pool proposals, even though they ended up passing).

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everyone who has the sps is allowed to vote, why should the founders be excluded? it's not like they secretly print sps and have an infinite amount of them. they earned them honestly so they have the right to vote like everyone else. honestly, it reassures me that the founders have so much sps and that we are not completely at the mercy of some whales who just want to suck the game dry and then fuck off again.

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what i find quite catastrophic is that there is a private chat between aggro and cryptomancer that says something different than what is in proposal 3, and this private chat made people vote yes even though the proposal itself says something completely different. in the proposal itself, the only condition for the refund is that there was no airdrop and that no package was opened. that was also the reason why the proposal was rejected. and suddenly this private chat appears, throwing the whole proposal out the window and making people vote yes. then how credible is such a proposal anyway?

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As I mentioned, I am in total agreement with a subsequent / follow-up vote to provide greater clarity on who is eligible for a refund and who is not.

But I don't think the reasoning is because of supposed "manipulation" (which I don't think is the case). I think private discussions are okay but this exchange between Aggroed and Cryptomancer illustrates how there was ambiguity and uncertainty regarding who Proposal #3 would apply to, so I think some subsequent votes would allow SPS stakeholders to narrow down the criteria and vote on it.

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it is too late for a subsequent vote, on the 27th there will be airdrops.....

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Thanks for the heads up, I just sent my vouchers off as you advised 👍

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@byzantinist. Saw your post by chance, and now have 8 extra RF packs… thanks!
Thanks, too, to everyone who voted for proposal 2.
🍻

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The combining of 4a and 4b was definitely problematic. If the passing of #4 would require a further board vote to be implemented, that caveat should DEFINITELY have been mentioned in the proposal. AND, in the case it did pass (with such a caveat provided to voters) one would hope that he board might then choose to vote in the interest of the community that participated in the voting process (much like how the electoral college system in the US operates).

This lumping together in #4 also seems to have adversely affected the exclusion of players from the presale. For example, Neal McSpadden talked about prop 4 in the TH and only mentioned the fact that refunds seemed redundant when compared to prop 3, and seems to have voted against #4 solely for that reason. It is very important to point out that he did not mention the part about extending the window for people who were delayed when buying, many of whom were struggling to navigate a defective interface.
We know the interface was defective via video evidence, and prop #2 helped partly 'right' this issue (my main account was one of the ones that did not even get to see the voucher field, but was within the presale timeframe so made whole by #2).

However when I went to purchase for an investor on a second account, the interface presented me with a voucher field only halfway opened, stuck behind the other two fields, inaccessible, with no way to enter the vouchers for bonus packs. I spent time trying to get the field to fully populate (unsuccessfully) and finally hit 'buy' when hearing Aggroed counting down to the very end... and as a result of this delay missed the presale by only a few blocks. Had I not wasted time trying to correctly fill in all fields I would have been able to simply claim bonus packs after the fact and been included in the presale.

Many community members (Neal included) publicly expressed desire to vote to benefit the entire community due to the company blunder (defective interface), but the refund 'source' lumped in with the presale window extension in prop #4 prevented this it seems. Since the company (not the DAO) provided a defective purchase interface, the company should be making the call about making this right... not putting it to a vote where a large number of the voters were fortunate enough to not even have experienced the UI defect (I saw this argument a LOT in the chats - 'well it worked fine for ME, those who missed out/messed up should have done a better job when buying'). However, I know for a fact that others experienced this same issue.
It is also prudent to point out that in the TH, Aggroed himself 'introduced' prop #4 as being about the company (not the DAO) providing the refund and did not even mention the window extension associated with it, which imo, is an EXTREMELY important provision that got swept under the rug.

Prop #2 and the window extension provision in #4 should have been immediately 'righted' by the company who provided the faulty interface, and not even put to a DAO vote imo.

For transparency, I voted against #3 only because I did NOT like the idea of ANY packs being burned in such a limited edition printing.

I should also point out that it seems like, moving forward, proposals need to be reviewed by multiple high ranking team members in order to detect and correct redundancies or loopholes in the wording before being published for voting.

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