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

Virgil Griffith i at virgil.gr
Tue Jun 10 20:42:54 UTC 2014 

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 reputation
      incentivization for operators.  So you'd want Torati to be seen by
search engines using the user's
      nickname, e.g.,
  -- https://torati.torproject.org/TORTverLover
    * A given nickname's contributions would be the sum across the relays
with that nickname.

Which in for "TORTverLover" would sum the stats across:
   *
https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/F2D3093388925780441433897F497797C5062B0B
   *
https://atlas.torproject.org/#details/A8541EA02D2BBE97086BC7EF44A67E8FDA0C75A9


To answer your questions:

> (The last link is a 404.)

    Try: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3308162/Iajya%202013.pdf
    But the most important papers are the first two I linked.


> 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.

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


> Where does the name "Torati" originate from?

     The name "Torati" is a Tor-ified version of "digerati" or
"illuminati".  It's meant to convey something
     along the lines of "Tor Ninja".  It's a positive term that one is
proud to call oneself.  The name was
     chosen as a component of the reputation social incentive.


-Virgil


On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 1:19 AM, Karsten Loesing <karsten at torproject.org>
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.  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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tor2web-talk mailing list
> Tor2web-talk at lists.tor2web.org
> http://lists.tor2web.org/listinfo/tor2web-talk
>
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