Status: Draft:
This proposal adds an automatic review step after every jury vote in Kleros. A small set of reviewers is drawn to vote agree or disagree with the ruling. Reviewers can only lose or keep their stake. They never gain anything from reviewing.
If majority of the reviewers agree with the ruling, the decision becomes final for that court level. If majority of the reviewers disagree with the jury, the dispute proceeds to a regular Kleros appeal with a new jury. Reviewers from the review round cannot serve in the appeal or subsequent juries for the dispute. This process repeats at higher courts until either a review round majority agrees with the triggering jury ruling or the General Court is reached.
The goal is to strengthen the appeal system and reduce user appeal costs by shifting correctness incentives onto reviewers and jurors.
The current appeal system requires parties to manually watch, initiate, and pay for appeals. Incorrect rulings may go unchallenged because the cost barrier is high or due to obscurity. However, attempts to automate appeals create biased incentives for reviewers if they can profit from overturning. (You can think about this yourself to see why.)
A loss-only review layer solves this. Reviewers participate knowing they cannot profit from reviewing. Their only incentive is to avoid being wrong. This provides automatic quality control without distorting incentives.
a. After each ruling, a review round is automatically opened. Reviewers vote either agree or disagree with the ruling.
b. Reviewer incentives:
Correct review vote: retain stake
Incorrect review vote: lose stake
No rewards of any kind are given to reviewers.
c. If the majority of reviewers agree with the ruling, the dispute finalizes at that level. Any dissenting reviewer’s stake goes to the triggering jury (increasing reward for the voting jury)
d. If the majority disagree, the dispute enters a regular appeal round in the same or higher court as defined by existing Kleros rules. The reviewers from the review round are excluded from serving in the appeal jury.
e. After the appeal jury rules, another review round occurs automatically. The same logic applies.
f. The process repeats up the court hierarchy until a review round agrees with the current ruling or the General Court rules and completes its review.
g. The number of reviewers work just like the current appeal process. I.E. When one juror votes, the reviewer count is 3 reviewers, etc.
This design avoids the incentive problems that arise when reviewers can earn rewards. There is no incentive to overturn for profit and no incentive to affirm for consistency rewards. The only goal of reviewers is not to be wrong, and, to vote, since mistakes cost stake.
The review layer provides fast, automated quality checks. Appeals only occur when the majority of reviewers disagree, reducing unnecessary escalation. The system remains compatible with existing Kleros appeal mechanics.
Requires adding a review phase after voting, selecting reviewers (jurors), applying slashing to incorrect reviewers, excluding reviewers from the next appeal jury, and looping the process through higher courts.
Requires standard Snapshot approval, Futarchy evaluation, development implementation, and a Governor upgrade.
Existing disputes continue under current rules. New disputes in configured courts follow the new ruling-review-appeal flow.
Improves ruling accuracy, adds a built-in appeal process that STILL allows for outside parties to initiate appeal while improving honest voting juror incentives.
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