I have been around the cryptospace for a long time, and have been blown away with the whole network. I however, after searching for mCOIN polls, finding none, forgetting about it, and then hearing of others requesting a COIN poll in the telegram chat, quickly made one. It cost 9.84% / 9.99% quorum and then failed, probably because there was network downtime for the last couple of hours.
I did not realize it at all when I made the poll that I would be losing $1,000 for creating it. This is pretty absurd! This is the first major mistake I have ever made, apparently I forgot to check for another poll when making the mCOIN proposal again. Everything was working so beautifully I did not consider that there would be a hidden penalty for creating a vote, I had assumed it was like the votes which (I believe… ) do not have a harsh penalty for proposals that do not pass.
Why is there a huge fee for not passing a proposal? I understand there might not be a desire to dilute the current assets, but what is the reason for such an extreme penalty for fomo-helping?
What is the major benefit to be gained from such an extreme risk? Why is there such a huge penalty to the users? Why is there not at the least a warning that you will lose your funds? This should be in bright red at the top (you are about to make a negative-freeroll, where you will lose or break even!) .
This is pretty broken; fix the polls. Do not let well-meaning users lose 100+mir ($1000 at the time) because of trying to help the governance system and participating. Close the poll listing until the system is fixed, with proper incentives for gambling such an amount, and alert users that they are punting in the meantime.
I suggest offering something like a 10-fold increase on the mir staked for a proposal if it passes (or maybe more), removing it as an option, or fixing the poll-creation to properly warn users (others have and will make the same mistake until it if fixed, unless intentionally a black-hole for funds!). Clear incentives need to be in place, and clear warnings for the suicide-polls.
TLDR: with good intentions, I lost nearly 5% of my life savings in a few clicks by making a mirror poll, without realizing it was a terrible, terrible gamble that was almost surely a complete loss with no upside, and these situations are predatory and should be removed (governance should if anything encourage participation, not penalize it).