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

[Karsten Loesing]

[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.  Towards this end, I've explored various avenues such as
> increasing user-awareness via tor2web.  More 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.  The most relevant
> papers I found are:
> 
> * http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/LMS2_ManSci-Paper-Final.pdf
>  * 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".  Upon 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.  I 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.  The
> 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.  You can also imagine a
> receiving special "special recognition stars" for operating an exit or
> bridge node.  Moreover, 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.  As 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.  We could define some
> simple metrics on the usefulness of a relay, like provided bandwidth or
> uptime, in comparison to other relays.  A possible statement from these
> metrics could be: "your relay provides more bandwidth than 95% of relays
> in the network."  Similar to 8.  If 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.  We could even invent a points system for running
> relays, with additional points for running exits, if that makes the Tor
> network better.  Probably needs input from a community coordinator
> person.  (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:

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

 - Where does the name "Torati" originate from?

All the best,
Karsten