Placement of Sanctions on Bots, Automations and 3rd party applications.

Draft Proposals
1

Abstract

Crypto Unicorns have been pushing up releases and that there are already discussions about Ban Proposals on General. The author believes that a proposal or a measure is required in order to have sustainability.

Motivation

There are several motivation for this proposal to push forward.

  • A bot will never provide word of mouth on a project in comparison to a scholar or another person who are delegated with assets.

  • A bot’s pure purpose is to make things convenient in an unconventional method. A game is supposed to be played by a Human. While Crypto Unicorns DAO has the right to create certain automations these certain automations should not be superseded by any automation software not unless Crypto Unicorns DAO approves this first, or the bot does not make any major impact on the economy.

  • A bot extraction can be way more impactful than a delegation process, and that it will hurt the economy in the long term.

Details

This is a policy and process that needs to be followed if the proposal passed.

The use of Automation, Bots, and 3rd party applications that affects the economy negatively will not be allowed.

Users who are caught using automation, bots and 3rd party applications that affects the economy negatively will get sanctions to be enforced by LG as approved by the Crypto Unicorns DAO. Sanctions is provided below.

If a developer would like to submit a 3rd party software, automation, bots for use in the game they have to file this under Zendesk and has to be enforced by LG as approved by the Crypto Unicorns DAO.

Complete Details are to be submitted over Zendesk on its functions and features. to be enforced by LG[Preferably when approved] once approved may also require further information with regards to the program. While on review, the said program will still not be allowed for use. A Newer updated version of this program will also need to be approved in order to be used in game.

If it is approved, it will be announced in Discord Announcement or Community updates or which ever it applies that a specific program is allowed for use. The developer can also choose if the tool would be announced on public or keep it private. If it is denied, it does not need to be announced unless the impact is huge.

If LG[Preferably when approved] Did not allow the use of the software. The developer can still be submit a proposal for a DAO vote. Where it runs for DAO vote. LG[Preferably when approved] is REQUIRED to submit review for specific software on why it was denied.

A Crypto Unicorns DAO with staked RBW can also submit a proposal to Deny a specific automation, bots and 3rd party application.

Warnings

Users are given a warning and only once. If they are given a Warning they should contact Zendesk if there are any false positives. Given the nature of the issue. LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] may not yet provide information on specific details yet. But should provide an information on why they received such warning and what the user needs to do to avoid these warnings in the future. Users can demand certain details if LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] is being unclear or subjective.

If in turn was a false positive LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] is required to clear that warning ASAP.

Warnings does clear on wallets, assets, and land at a 6 Weeks-12 Weeks Basis. Depending on severity.

Severity will have another section in this Proposal

Sanctions

Depending on the severity, users are temporary suspended in a minimum of 6 months. With developers of those tools banned for minimum of 12 months with maximum of 120 Months.

The suspension applies on :

  • Wallet Address.
  • Land NFT.
  • Unicorn NFT.
  • Items NFT [which ever applies]

Assets will be tagged as “Blacklisted”. A Mark in their picture should also be noticeable so if ever a loop hole happened that the assets becomes available in the marketplace. The users will be able to see a mark that the specific Asset is “blacklisted”.

Any rewards to be received by the specific wallet address will also be nullified unless appealed.

Severity

This section provides a guideline for LG[Preferably] to follow. Cases will be guided by Severity of an issue. This also applies on how negatively impacted the economy is.

Exploited Value Per Wallet Warnings Sanctions
1 – 500 in RBW 6 Weeks to cool down 6 Months – 11 Months
501 – 1000 in RBW 8 Weeks to cool down 12 Months – 23 Months
1001 – 5000 in RBW 10 Weeks to cool down 24 Months – 35 Months
5001 – 10000 in RBW 12 Weeks to cool down 36 Months - 59 Months
10001 in RBW and above No Warnings 60 Months – 120 Months

In RBW means the value extracted converted into RBW Amount.

Severity Exemptions

A user warning can get skipped and goes immediately to a Sanction if deemed asset were transferred to a wallet with warning or was “sold” in the marketplace for a very low rate to excuse a transfer.

Example :

  • User 1 received a Warning, Asset was transferred to User 2, User 2 did something to exploit. User 1 will get the sanction and user 2 will get the warning.
  • User 1 received the warning. Asset was sold from the marketplace on a Very floor rate and was purchased within 30 minutes of listing. User 2 did something to exploit, User 1 will get the sanction and user 2 will get the warning.

IF LG(Preferably) found wallet connection or blockchain transactions between those 2 wallets before within 60 days, then both wallet will get the sanctions]. It is also worth noting that if a certain NFT asset keeps on getting Warnings, these assets can be “blacklisted”.

A Developer can also get a Exemptions on Warnings or Sanctions, if the Developer is running a test, or has initially filed to Zendesk an intent to build such tools or has such tools as a note informing the team Prior to even have an intent of approval for a working application, Provided the extracted value is less than 1000 RBW for the whole 30 days and is limited to only 1 wallet. anyone else getting the same copy that the developer build have may not have that exemption.

The Exemption also applies within 5 days after the this proposal has been passed. This means the Developers will have 5 days to inform their users and team with regards to the application status and that users are given a max of 7 days to halt 3rd party operations until approved.

Appeals

Users and Developers can file an appeal thru Zendesk. These reports are to be taken seriously and that an LG developer[Preferably when approved by DAO] who is involved with banning the assets should provide a report that indicates user have done something malicious. While certain security details should still be confidential. LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] has to provide CLEAR evidence that these users are malicious. a Video, Screenshots and Investigation details included. These malicious behaviours should also be included on the initial warning that has been given.

User is also open to file a proposal for unban of his account after he was denied in Zendesk. LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] will have to provide the evidence in the forums w/o providing the method on how it catches users doing malicious actions unless it is required by the public to make a transparent decision.

Compensation

Compensations are on case to case basis. Users who are wrongfully banned, due to wrong investigation or incorrect process done can be provided with compensation. A user that has an appeal may not get compensation, compensations are only given to users if there is indeed a misstep in LG’s[Preferably when approved by DAO] side. Users will have to provide this evidence of misstep in order to get compensation. If LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] still denies this, the user can file a compensation proposal in public to vote. Compensation request may also be included in the initial appeal proposal if in that proposal, the investigation LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] submitted has missteps or has biased judgements.

A compensation of 250 RBW per day worth of in-game items for each day that the user was not able to use his account will be compensated by LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] if they made a mistake on bans. Given that the ban lasted in a minimum of 1 week.

In-game Items, can or may include T1 Base Materials, T1 Class Materials, Seeds, Berries, T2 and T3 Class Materials, Boosters, Jousting Items, Quest Scrolls at this time. LG [Preferably] may provide the breakdown of the compensated amount to the user via Zendesk, Discord, or future in-game notification system.

Compensations must be applied within the appeal or within 7 days after the suspension was lifted. Anything longer than that can be considered invalid.

Conclusion

The Author believes that equal responsibility is required. If LG[Preferably when approved by DAO] is proud of its tools that it will work on these banning malicious actors and wants to ban people, then there should be an equal relative responsibility that they need to carry when imposing bans. It is also important to ban malicious actions that will cause issues within our economy in the long run.

Any statement above with value or weight or statement may only be changed via running another proposal.

4 Likes
2

I think I like this proposal in general. As we discussed many times, there should be a barrier for bots and I also do think thats only fair for normal players using no bots.

However, I tend to disagree with three things overall.

  1. As I also said in the previous proposal by LG, I still do think that we should wait 2-4 more weeks (Delegation should be here by then, right?) until such a measure goes live. Simply to give people, that are dependant on bots right now (no matter whether one finds it good or not), a second option to at least keep their assets and delegate them.

  2. I do not like the “warning once, get banned 6-120 months right after” part. This is simply due to my strong web3-stance. Web3 basically stands for full control over your assets right. So taking away assets from a player is very anti-web3. However, I do get the reason for this, as there is no real other way to actually prevent such behaviour. For this reason I would AT LEAST introduce a 2-3 warning system though. Imagine you are missing your first warning and get 5, 10 or even 20 thousand dollars worth of assets taken away.
    As I said, I hate the idea of taking assets away from players, as there is no real other way to do it though, I would at least make it more than one warning though, in order to somewhat compensate for the spirit of web3. After all, this here is about tons of money in assets. This would at least give every player a little more trust in his investment choices here, as he is not running into risk of suddenly getting taken everything away. Everyone should be able to re-evaluate his actions after having received 2 warnings over the course of, lets say, 2-4 weeks though.
    Also, I think that there should be a decay-time on warnings. Maybe according to their severity? Imagine, we are actually still going to be playing this in one, two or even three years. You are receiving 2 warnings in Mid-2023, you continue playing without doing anything bad, building an asset-worth of (lets dream a bit) $300k and then suddenly, end of 2024 you receive your third warning aka. ban and everything is gone. Even though you didn´t even realize that there is anything coming your way.
    So maybe delete one warning every 6 or 12 months? Not sure here.

Just make it all as web3-friendly as possible, especially when thinking about the dollar-values being attached to it. In my opinion, noone would ever invest a substantial amount of money in CU if he is running right into the risk of getting rugged of all his assets and all his money. Does not even matter whether its due to a false alarm (which might not be appealed though. Stuff like this happens. Errors are human) or actually due to bad behaviour. Its simply the risk of losing it all all of the sudden due to a ban.

  1. I am also still not a huge fan of the DAO-implementation here. I think its already bad enough that LG themselves will have the control to take assets of a player away. However, there will have to be one party that has the power to enforce the rules.
    Whats even worse though is letting the DAO decide on ones faith and, again, making it a popularity contrast. I strongly disagree with the DAO involvement in such decisions.

Lastly I have to add though:
Please LG, for the sake of all clickers and botters, make the farm sim less of a chore and hour-long grind just to plant some farms.
If the farm sim would not take everyone with 16 lands 1.5+ hours PER account per day (maybe I am just slow af), there might not be as many botters in the first place.

4 Likes
3

Similar to a concern brought up in the prior proposal, please clearly define what “affects the economy negatively” means as there’s a lot of potential judgment to be applied here, and the prior discussion did little to clear it up.

Going through Zendesk first seems like it’s making extra work for the devs and support staff. In addition, as some have anecdotally mentioned prior instances of having tickets closed prematurely, it seems like many issues will come to the DAO regardless.

As for the severity of the bans you are suggesting, preventing all interaction with owned items seems fairly excessive for Web3. Even if the assets are unusable in-game, they should at the very least be movable as art. While it would be unfair for anyone who purchases a locked asset on OS due to stale metadata, I am of the opinion that CU could be making metadata refresh requests to OS whenever they apply metadata changes to their transferrable assets (upon unlocking or proposed banning).

Any cases which need to come to the DAO would also need to be anonymized in some fashion to prevent popularity contests.

1 Like
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I am looking in to 2 warnings initially the thinking is that depending on severity of an economic impact. i think i need to put in a graph so that it would be easier for people to see. give me a few ill cook up something for this.

one example is to collect poop. automating the collection of poop, farm, plots, gathering cart and crafting, i personal think is okay since one way or the other its just collection. but Planting Gathering, Crafting or if in the future assigning certain task to a unicorns that would in turn touch an econ source . I think should be prohibited. my definition of this may be different from LG but i think i should indicate that in the proposal so we can make a clear indication of that matter. [i wont indicate specific bias but will place something once its updated. ]

like per say someone yanking 20,000 RBW per day , if you’re someone who has a security standpoint you dont need to wait for something to pop up, you have to respond right away.

if it has an intention of malicious regard it wont care about warnings. it probably will just give them time to adapt or transfer asset in some regard and to clarify. warnings can be waived off when its a false alarm. I understand how big this concern is because no one wants to have a false ban.

when you get warnings. the assets should be tagged so regardless if it was sent out to another wallet it can be tracked and it can have corrective actions if its malicious 2-4 weeks is too exploitable and knowing LG’s timelines that is very short. im inclining to 6-10 weeks but let me know your thoughts.

about the DAO implementation . as i was informed we dont want to put responsibility directly to LG . as it also defeats the purpose of Web3. while of course in this regard we are allowing LG for now we should also still provide the right to anyone to allow or deny tools.

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You’re right. I should have put in that information on what negatively impacts the economy. i cant put some information completely objective but i would put a guidelines on what is so we can reduce subjectivity. and in the future if we want to fine tune it, we can.

They were asking for it initially. so if they really want to make sanctions they also have to commit to it. i did put certain placeholders for users to protect themselves. i understand how frustrating this is and i myself had this issue to. we all have the right to go public, file a proposal so public should be aware if LG has any malicious intent also.

The reason why i proposed an asset to be locked. is because of the abuse that a malicious actor will just transfer the asset to another wallet. i think a policy of item being sold in the marketplace is also exploitable. a malicious actor can just pretend they purchased an asset that was locked and the only way for us to see that is on block chain. i cant disclose some of the exploitable aspects here but as we go along, DAO , like you and me should fine tune it depending on the conditions of an attack.

like for example. we dont need a nuclear attack if the threat is only a kitten. some things will still be “subjective” but having to set an objective guidelines will help us follow a certain standards towards banning users in an acceptable matter in web3 .

with the community like ours at the moment and with the tea that every spills occasionally. I dont think its needed at this time. if someone got banned you’ll definitely see them complaining in mod-support of some sort.

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I like the input. I will make some reviews and will change some of it tonight or tomorrow specifically :

  • Warning
  • Severity
  • Further Explanation of “Negatively impacting the economy”.
5

Great proposal! I fully support the eradication of the bot army that has infiltrated our game. Extensive botting will always negatively affect the economy indirectly by discouraging new players to join and optimizing resource generation. CU is not appealing as a game when there is no game to be played. You are removing the emotions and human connection that drive an IP forward. The direct impact on the economy is the resource generation to the point no human could reach. I’ve shared this example before:

A bot can gather every 19.2 hours assuming 20% adjacency bonus. The vast majority of players/scholars will not set alarms in the middle of the night and have a constantly moving sleeping schedule. Thus they farm every ~24 hours. This equates to a potential 8.75 gathers per week vs the normal 7 per cart. This is a 25% increase in unim generation, which completely negates the recent unim nerfs we’ve had. Farming has the same issue tho less lucrative but even more difficult for a human to compete because of varying timers. For everyone who has gathering 7 times a week for the last year, how does that make you feel?

IF 3rd party full automation does somehow get approved then i believe the creator(s) should be fully doxxed to prevent a selfish bad actor from potentially draining the wallets of trusting users, without facing legal repercussions. I know I wouldn’t sign any transactions from an anonymous community member that gets total control of my accounts and assets.

Some above have expressed not fully banning assets, this is non-negotiable in my opinion. Without fully banning there will always be loopholes bad actors can exploit. The dollar amount here is irrelevant, you break the rules again after a warning then that’s on you. The fear of losing your assets is enough to stop the vast majority of people from even attempting. Those not breaking rules have nothing to fear.

I’m looking forward to trimming the fat and moving forward for a more fair playing field for everyone. Thanks for taking the time to write this up

3 Likes
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As mentioned in the Discord, I find this proposal far more palatable and detailed. I’d like to add support to the above comments from Daalex and Kora, and suggest that some detail be added on what medium LG is to issue warnings and bans through. The previous proposal by LG suggested a list of wallet addresses posted in Discord, I don’t believe this is an effective method of communicating something as serious as a ban and/or blacklist of assets.

My suggestion on this front would be a minted ‘warning NFT’ (obviously non-tradable), combined with an in-game notification that this warning had been received in your wallet. You could even make this fit the theme of CU, like having an NFT with a pair of shadowcorn eyes watching the user from the forest.

1 Like
7

How about an asset jail - so if the DAO /Laguna had decided that an infraction has occured the assest could be locked in a “jail” for an amount of time say 5-10 years or what ever amount decided. Durning that time it could be red lined.
Owner would still keep their asset.

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could you explain more of this concept on how does and asset jail work? .

when a player is banned his asset is locked on his end.

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First of all, we need to make a game in which ordinary bots will not have an advantage. (What was described earlier is not bots, it is hacker software.) It has already been proposed to increase the time of farm timers to 12 hours, which will allow everyone to safely plant 2 times a day. All this talk about prisons, bans, etc., only scares current players, and even more so new ones.
I am against bots that do everything for the players and can plant farms without entering the game using the maximum speed bonuses. But I’m not against clickers, if the player, for example, recorded his actions and repeats them. My experience of delegation shows that those who do the routine are no different, they don’t buy game assets, they get $ and if the game becomes unprofitable they go to another one.
I want fun in the game, not a game of suffering (Proof-of-Pain). I like the idea of Laguna to distribute the income to different activities, and not just make a farm out of the game.

3 Likes
11

I feel your pain about farms. i think LG needs to step up on that front for improvement.

as for the clickers if clickers are automated process recorded like macros that does planting i think its still circumventing the work that is suppose to be done by a human. but again. the DAO can decide.

I think we should all have an agreement that regardless if its a called bot or a hack or a clicker or anything, if it still extract value on a project automatically or has that capability of auto actions. I think there should be some fine line into this.
so if say a developer believes that his tools does not affect the economy negatively and helps the DAO this proposal is there to help the developer get some chance to apply for his tool to get it approved and this benefit is not just for him but for everyone to use. developer can even have option to charge users if they want once his tool got approved.

so in some certain cases it doesn’t restrict you as a developer to build tools its just that you have to be have some type of consent thru the DAO first on what the tool is about. if its really helpful and not as econ affecting. then it means people would approve right? .

The proposal also focuses on people who build their own 3rd party. your only barrier is that if it will get approved or not. but the key thing here is that if people do not see anything wrong with it then it shouldn’t be blocked right? .

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I don’t think we should encourage the sale of tools, if a person has reached the clicker himself, it’s not bad, it will still be a lot of work for him to record new scripts after updates. But if someone offers it centrally, it will kill the motivation to play. My thought is that if it is possible for a person to save a little time in routines and focus on important things, it’s good, if it replaces the game, it’s bad.
We can do partial automation in the game, let’s say a new building that allows you to sow farms for a whole day with maximum speed bonuses, each land requires 1 uncorn energy + you need some kind of scroll that needs to be crafted. This way we let the assets work and reduce the players’ routines. And when profitability spreads over many activities, the game becomes exciting, and not a daily duty.

2 Likes
13

I dont know exactly its just what your sanctions made me think of.
We need some sort of middle ground where assests still belong to the owners but if an infraction has been made there is some levels of severity of punishment or jail time. Perhaps the assests would appear behind bars. During the “jail time” the asset would be “art” as Kora suggests, not able to access the game and worth less?

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then this is about QoL updates that LG currently doesnt have. it doesnt need to be 3rd partied? . i maybe seeing this wrong. or i may need further input about this. hmmm. ill dive in deeper once i get home.

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i see. like tainted unicorns

this requires further developments to the current smart contract. while it is a great solution in the long run at this time if we want to cap that its not possible. the goal of this proposal is to be approved as soon as so that we can have a system in place. and then moving forward we can implement “tainted unicorns”.

just in-case you didnt know. i was working on a proposal on that initially but it will take LG a lot of time for that to be done and currently we need something that will work.
image

1 Like
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I just think it’s bad when someone makes ASIC for the game, people will just pull resources from the game without getting involved. But if the person himself wants to slightly improve the quality of his life in the game, this is not bad. But in the end, of course, it’s better for the game developers to do QoL.

1 Like
17

i dont think the treasury should give compensation to people wrongfully banned

18

I appreciate your ideas and your attitude in helping to find a fix to the problem that the DAO is facing. Here are my thoughts on this proposal:

  • While it is a good idea, given our present workload and priorities, reviewing third-party apps/bots/programs may not be practical at this time. We need to consider how this aligns with our timeline.
  • The ability to freeze assets and render them untradeable is actually interesting, but it is not currently within our capabilities. For this reason, we decided to propose suspending the wallets, which is more aligned with our current technological capabilities. If we shifted our attention to creating this feature, it might interfere with our present priorities.
  • Compensating for false bans is very intriguing. I intend to add a revision to my proposal to this effect. If you have other ideas along that line, please feel free to share!
  • Your idea of bans for 6 months or 12 months is interesting. I wish to explore this more.

Thanks for writing this proposal. Let’s continue to find a solution to this current issue together. I’ll be publishing a revision before the week is out with parts of your proposal as inspiration.

19

The proposal has been updated. please view the changes.

@Daalex
I have incorporated Warning Cool downs, this cooldown is also based on Severity so that its not a 0 and 1. no more chance and all. this is now listed on a new section called Severity.

@kora
I have added the details of “Negatively impacts the economy”. it is basically a form of extraction in the game and on this case with the use of bots, applications and 3rd party software and I also included the Severity of each so that we know how things deep an issue can be.

In the response of the assets that will be suspended, since the attacker can just transfer it to another wallet there are certain warning systems in place to protect the innocent users. there is also certain exemption provided.

hope this will make things more fair.

@Krumpy_Lumpkins I didn’t add the “Warning NFT’s” as this will add an additional work thru the smart contract which will require audit which means will require more time before a process gets implemented which we don’t have. so on this front. we can put this on the 2nd proposal as one of the ideas along with the Tainted Unicorn. there were several loopholes i see on this too as in some cases it can be considered as we are rewarding these players with an NFT. but again we can see a use case for these NFT’s too as an additional function.

@Venticello I have added options on setting the tool or program privately. I also have added certain exceptions for developers who are building tools for approval. I still oppose the option to assign a seed or a unicorn on a farm plot or gathering cart etc. it may not be convenient now but these QOL updates or request should be provided to LG even by a proposal so that they can look into it further on how we can make things much convenient for everyone.

@cuppy from our discussion in discord, we do not want to incentivize wrongful bans using RBW’s. hence I found a solution where by we provide them in-game items instead of direct RBW amount. that they can use to progress their land or use on their land instead of a Direct RBW amount. I expect LG will use this in terms of balancing to the current in-game econ. I also added new policies on applying for compensation so that it will not be exploitable. let me know if this more agreeable compared from before.

@lgManicUnicorn

I believe this is important because it helps everyone to commit on responsibility when it comes to putting suspensions or sanctions. since we are building a new form of structure. (in my expectation a forensic team) this should be handled seriously.

I have updated the proposal to the similarties of what you have to yours prior which is to add a “Blacklist” mark to the assets or apply the temporary suspensions on wallets. it works similarly on what I initially proposed hence I think it should align on your proposal.

Since cuppy mentioned he doesn’t like compensations of RBW. I would take it as we do not want to incentivize people using directly Tokens as it is possible that the tokens received will just be exploited or sold to the exchange. with that intent I updated the proposal to provide In-game progression items instead with no direct RBW’s or UNIM.

I have expanded some of this on the updated proposal. Added severity, cooldowns and further improve exceptions. hope this will help in future proposals.

Dear all,

let me know if this is more acceptable to you.

Thanks!

20

Hello, Keizer! Thanks for the feedback. I would like to once more mention that, officially, we will not be able to implement the following given the limitations stated above:

  • Review third-party apps/bots/programs
  • Implement assets locks making them untradeable

Thanks for the revisions on the compensation and the ban durations! Pretty good reference.

21

Hi Nessa,

to clarify. you also posted this before on the ban policy proposal right ?
image

do you want me to copy paste the similar content in my proposal ?

If i want to still keep the current proposal but LG [preferably] to implement that on a later time. will they deliver? .