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Re: [tor-dev] [Tor2web] Proposal for improving social incentives for relay operators



General remarks:
  * I agree 100% with your Dec 2013 post.
  * All data I seek to make available in "Torati" is available from Onionoo.

The proposal is to interface to Torati is like ATLAS but keyed by Tor nickname.
  * However, where Atlas intends primarily to be a reference, Torati aims to be social reputationÂ
   incentivization for operators. ÂSo you'd want Torati to be seen by search engines using the user'sÂ
   nickname, e.g.,
  * A given nickname's contributions would be the sum across the relays with that nickname.

Which in for "TORTverLover" would sum the stats across:


To answer your questions:

> (The last link is a 404.)

  But the most important papers are the first two I linked.


> Why not make it entirely opt-in? ÂWe could include a subscription
link in Weather's welcome messages that relay operators receive when
their relay first receives the Stable flag.

  I greatly prefer opt-out over opt-in. ÂEven if a Torati operator is in fact reputation-hungry, I don't wantÂ
  the opt-in mechanic to encourage him/her to be seen as reputation hungry. ÂMoreover, as ATLAS isn'tÂ
  opt-in so I see no reason to deviate from that precedent as this is really just a "reverse-lookup" versionÂ
  of ATLAS.


> Where does the name "Torati" originate from?

  ÂThe name "Torati" is a Tor-ified version of "digerati" or "illuminati". ÂIt's meant to convey somethingÂ
  Âalong the lines of "Tor Ninja". ÂIt's a positive term that one is proud to call oneself. ÂThe name wasÂ
  Âchosen as a component of the reputation social incentive.


-Virgil


On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 1:19 AM, Karsten Loesing <karsten@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[Attempting to move this discussion to tor-dev@ to avoid cross-posting;
assuming my Reply-To: header won't get eaten by Mailman..]

On 10/06/14 02:26, Virgil Griffith wrote:
> For a while I've been seeking to grow the Tor network in both size and
> goodput. ÂTowards this end, I've explored various avenues such as
> increasing user-awareness via tor2web. ÂMore recently, I've been exploring
> financial incentives like TorCoin.
>
> Not wanting to strictly limit ourselves to financial incentives, I began
> reading the literature on incentivizing volunteers. ÂThe most relevant
> papers I found are:
>
> * http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/LMS2_ManSci-Paper-Final.pdf
> Â* http://pareto.uab.es/~prey/gneezy_254.pdf
> * https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3308162/Slonim%202013.pdf

(The last link is a 404.)

> The most relevant of these papers (Lacetera 2013) cites the major
> motivations for volunteer labor are: "pure altruism, warm glow, self-image,
> and reputation". ÂUpon reading this I realized TorCoin's technical
> interestingness had blinded me to much easier to leverage motivations of
> "warm glow" and "reputation".
>
> I propose the following system for harnessing "warm glow" and "reputation"
> for Tor relay operators. ÂI am willing to fund this in its entirety.
>
> I propose establishing a subdomain on torproject.org giving each Tor relay
> operator (hereafter affectionately called "Torati") his/her own page using
> the information her machines provide to the Tor Directory Consensus. ÂThe
> fields to show on her "Torati profile page" would be things like:
> ContactInfo, PGP fingerprint, list of server nicknames, date the Directory
> Authorities first saw her contact info, etc. ÂYou can also imagine a
> receiving special "special recognition stars" for operating an exit or
> bridge node. ÂMoreover, some bandwidth measurement like EigenSpeed or
> TorCoin gain traction, the Torati page could recognize contributors with by
> listing the sum total she has relayed to the Tor network.
>
> Naturally a node can opt-out of Torati recognition by setting a parameter
> in the torrc file.
>
> I argue this would be a cheap and easy way to motivate operators to
> volunteer more bandwidth for the Tor network. ÂAs mentioned before, I am
> willing to fund this in its entirety.

Hi Virgil,

adding more/better incentives for people to run relays and bridges
sounds like a great plan!

What you describe sounds related to what I suggested last December on
this list:

https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2013-December/005948.html

> 9. Provide relay comparison metrics in Onionoo. ÂWe could define some
> simple metrics on the usefulness of a relay, like provided bandwidth or
> uptime, in comparison to other relays. ÂA possible statement from these
> metrics could be: "your relay provides more bandwidth than 95% of relays
> in the network." ÂSimilar to 8. ÂIf Atlas [6] or Globe [8] or a
> yet-to-be-written Facebook application or a also-yet-to-be-written
> Twitter integration into Tor Weather (#10372) tell the world how
> successful someone's running Tor relays, maybe that encourages others to
> run relays, too. ÂWe could even invent a points system for running
> relays, with additional points for running exits, if that makes the Tor
> network better. ÂProbably needs input from a community coordinator
> person. Â(Orange part in the diagram.)
>
> [6] https://atlas.torproject.org/
> [8] https://globe.torproject.org/

Want to take a look at Onionoo and see whether it already provides the
information and functionality you need, and if not, open tickets for the
missing pieces?

https://onionoo.torproject.org/

But let me also give you some quick feedback on your proposal:

Â- Why not make it entirely opt-in? ÂWe could include a subscription
link in Weather's welcome messages that relay operators receive when
their relay first receives the Stable flag.

Â- Where does the name "Torati" originate from?

All the best,
Karsten

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