Proposed Article – Minimum BPC Requirements to Receive Votes

by @controllinghand (member of the EOS BP Compliance data/research group)
This was a group effort from the EOS BP Compliance data/research group team members. Many thanks to all that have contributed.
7/6/2018

UPDATES WILL BE POSTED HERE
Proposed Article – Minimum BPC Requirements to Receive Votes - DRAFT
https://github.com/controllinghand/minbpcreq/blob/master/MinimumBPCRequirements.md

Preface:

Since the launch of the EOS Mainnet there has been a lot of conversation around voting, block producers and EOS community. However, the biggest issue, is the constitution and what it states. In order for the EOS community to thrive we need to set some better ground rules.
Many in the EOS community are concerned that some of the BP could be a single point of failure in the EOS ecosystem. Here is a list of possible points of failure:

Checks and balances.
- Some BPs have not provided enough information so that the EOS community can validate they are compliant to the current constitution. As we work through the official constitution this will become more important
- Influence of a few people over a BP (i.e. Whales)
Demonstrated performance.
- There is nothing that states a BP needs to meet a certain performance level.
Demonstrated security.
- There is nothing that states a BP need to meet a certain security standard.
Global Disbursement.
- Country of origin could shutdown all BPs for any reason
- Producing nodes not evenly distributed globally in case of regional disasters or God forbid wars.

Now that we have demonstrated the demand of 100s of BP Candidates we have the luxury to ask our Block Producers for more. Our goal is to keep the Requirements at the bare minimum while addressing the issues above.

Below is the proposed Article.

Please provide comments and feedback. This is only a draft and we want to get the EOS Community feedback to improve this Article.

Proposed Article – Minimum BPC Requirements to Receive Votes - DRAFT

To be included on the EOS Mainnet blockchain as a vote recipient, Block Producer Candidates must meet the following minimum requirements:

I. Checks and Balances: Have a website that includes the following in the footer or clearly linked on the homepage.

Code of conduct

Ownership Disclosure

List of all ultimate beneficial owners names or business associations who own more than 9.99%, as well as, all direct shareholders.

Voting Disclosure

If any votes from the top 100 wallets are received for your candidacy, then an explanation will be required to document and prove you have no relationship with said owners of the wallets. However, if you do have a relationship then an explanation must be included. This includes any proxy wallets in the top 100.

Contact info

business phone numbers, email addresses, GitHub, and social media links
If you are in the top 100, contact information for emergencies is shared among the top 100 BPs on how to get in touch with team 24 hours a day.

Infrastructure

A diagram or simple list must be provided
Showing server types, hosting providers etc.

Team Members

Images, names, and titles of all your current team members must be available and always up to date.

Maintain an active json file

bp.json file located at the root of the home website above
name of BPC
url to the home website
home office country location
list of nodes with IP or DNS name that produce blocks and location in longitude and latitude

II. Performance: Demonstrated ability to produce blocks by participation on a test network.

Must miss no more than 5% of blocks over any given 3 day period.
If a producer has not produced any blocks within the last 24 hours they are removed from consideration until they have again demonstrated ability to produce blocks via a test network over a 24 hr period.

III. Security

Must provide a validated certificate from 3rd party security audit on infrastructure and include on website.

IV. Global Disbursement

No more than 5 BPs in the Active top 21 BPs will be allowed to be from the same country (as an organization home office location). BPCs from countries at max capacity will be automatically placed in a standby position until a position in that region opens.
Standby BPs may continue to receive backup BP rewards
Standby BPs may move into the top 21 if they have more votes than a current BP in said country. The BP with the lowest amount of votes would then be placed into the standby position.