Kleros Escrow - Mock Trials

Usecases
#1

Problem: High stake courts are scary for users. A perfectly good actor could potentially lose 25 ETH (Ethfinex Court) because of a tiny mistake such as forgetting to upload their latest security audit document (4.1). This hampers Kleros’ adoption.

Solution: A platform which allows jurors/challengers to offer consultancy services via Kleros Escrow, such as mock trials. This lowers the risk for users and opens up more job opportunities for jurors.

An example:

  1. An experienced juror offers reviewing service for projects wanting to apply for Ethfinex badge (whether a project satisfies each policy criterion).
  2. An interested token project (client) opens up a Kleros escrow, promising to send the payment only if they agree with all the juror’s assessment.
  3. If the client disagrees with one or more assessment(s) of the juror and decided not to send the payment, the juror could challenge the decision and the mock trial begins.

Benefits, for:

  • Jurors: more money to be made as long as the fee is higher than a coherent ruling payouts. Higher quality jurors could command a higher market price.
  • Challengers: more users mean more submissions, more submissions mean more potential challenges.
  • Users: less risk of being challenged.

Potential problems:

  • I’m not sure about the contract agreement in the escrow, but shouldn’t it be possible to emulate a mock trial?
  • The escrow is handled by the general court, which means less domain expert jurors. Is it practical for each court to have their own escrow subcourt?

Thoughts and comments appreciated :raising_hand_man::raising_hand_woman:

2 Likes
#2

We could have an arbitrable contract and interface allowing users to put the information of their case, but without any enforcement. This could be used as mock trials.

1 Like
#3

This led to the arbitrable proxy project. See:

1 Like
#4

About the mock trial - how about using testnet?

Well… Kovan PNK are hard to get.

How about launching your own instance?

That would require some effort, getting the code, deploying, setting the governor…

I definitely believe in adoption and simplicity. I remember it took me some effort to figure things out during the hackathon, I’m so overworked with life, family, other work and preparing for the largest civil disobedience in the history of humanity:

(shameless plug, comments welcome)

#5

I think you still want incentives for the jurors in the mock trial.

#6

I see…

I though of mock trial as a way for larger audience to have experience as a juror.

Currently, there is low valume of cases and unless you staking a sizeable amount of PNK your chances of being elected are low - that’s why suggestion of running your own instance.

I always stand on the side of adoption and simplicity - helpful tutorial how to deploy your own Kleros. That’s a material for a bounty right there!

People can poke with the UI, find more bugs and edge cases, make the system more resilient.

Examples of edge cases:

A)

1 yes
1 abstain
1 no

B)

A single juror having the weight of 2 in a 3 vote court.

These are not bugs, these are edge cases I didn’t think of while reading white paper and using the system for a year… :slight_smile: