Community Working Group stf, Ed. Request for Comments: 0x7e1 Hungarian Autonomous Center 4 Knowledge February 2017 Category: Standards Track Camp++ community payment protocol Status of This Memo This document specifies an Community standards track protocol for the camping community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Copyright (C) The Hungarian Autonomous Center for Knowledge (2017). Abstract This document specifies the Camp++ community payment protocol (CPP). Camp++ is a non-profit community event where all the participants share the costs fairly and equally. The CPP is applicable for any small event where the participants are (mostly) honest. As such it is a decentralized, but naive protocol, the rules must be enforced by the participants themselves, who - if participating - are motivated to keep other participants also honest - the community governing itself. Terminology The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [BCP14]. Protocol This protocol is intended to provide the fair sharing of costs between participants of non-profit community events. Interest This RFC is being distributed to members of the non-profit event community in order to solicit their reactions to the proposals contained in it. While the issues discussed may not be directly relevant to the research problems of the Internet, they may be interesting to a number of researchers and implementers. Roles The protocol requires three roles: - organizer - notary - participant The protocol allows these roles to be assumed by one or more participants to the protocol at the same time. State engine The protocol has multiple stages to which the participants MUST actively contribute. Prior to the event (phase 0) 1. the event organizers MUST publish all fixed and known costs publicly 2. all participants SHOULD state their (non-binding) intention to contribute to the event 3. any participants that have to cancel their planned intention to contribute SHOULD do so at the earliest possible. The information in this phase is informational and does not constitute any commitment. As the final costs of an event can also include other factors that might only be known at the time of the event (like the actual number of participants). Nevertheless this information should give a ballpark estimate to everyone about the final costs. The cost-estimate enables participants to contribute alternative and possibly cheaper services than the organizers had found. Participants SHALL be able to see the current number of intent-of-contributions, so they can estimate the divisor of the total costs. On-site Registration (phase 1) Participants MUST register with the Notary on site, which registers a pseudonym and the units of consumption (e.g. the full event or only a 1-2 days) intended to enjoy. This notary MUST be transparent to all participants, so everyone can know what the actual share of burden is per unit of consumption. All registered participants MUST get an easily recognizable token, that MUST be worn during the event. This token differentiates to everyone clearly who is registered and who is not yet. Any registered participants noticing anyone participating without a visible token are motivated (see section motivation of participants) to encourage the unregistered to register with the notary. If possible at least stats of the notary should be readily available to all participants on-site, access to the database itself, displays showing stats or regular announcements can help increase transparency for all participants. Premature finish of the protocol The protocol MAY end prematurely for participants who cannot participate until the end. All other participants MUST finish in the final phase of the protocol. For premature finishing a participant MUST calculate their share of burden based on the currently available data, which they MUST pay to the organizers. Note since this information might not be complete premature finishers may be punished by a (possibly) higher share of burden than regularly finishing participants. Premature finishers are thus even more motivated to have as accurate registration in the notary than regular finishers. However the discrepancy between early and regular finishers should not be significant especially if the participants enforce the protocol properly. Regular finish (phase 2) At the end of the event the on-site registration is closed, and the final share of burden is calculated based on the data collected by the notary. At this point all participants MUST pay their share of burden multiplied by their units of consumption claimed during phase 1 in the notary. The notary registers the amounts paid for each participant, clearing them of any financial claims towards them. Motivation of participants By making the final per-participant cost depending on the total number or units claimed, every participant is motivated to include other non-registered participants to claim their units of consumption, thus rendering the final cost lower for all participants. Thus every registered participant can reduce its own costs by taking care all other participants are also registered. Security considerations Dishonest participants can cheat by claiming less units part than they actually consuming. Dishonest participants can also register multiple times with the maximum consumption, and one with minimum consumption, of which in the end they'll only settle the later one. Glossary Participant: person taking part in an event running the CPP. Unregistered participant: person taking part in a CPP event, without being registered as a participant. Unit of consumption: the minimum fraction of the total consumption a participant can claim, e.g. "day-ticket" Notary: public database of participants and their claimed units of consumption. Share of burden: total costs divided by the total registered units of consumption - the minimum cost a participant has to contribute. Acknowledgements This document draws heavily on the previous work of the organizers of the Stadtflucht events; as such, we are grateful to the organizers of those events for putting their time and effort into the initial seeds for this protocol. References [BCP14] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997, . Contact To contact the RFC Editor send an email message to: "rfc-editor@ctrlc.hu" Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Hungarian Autonomous Center for Knowledge (2017). This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Hungarian Autonomous Center for Knowledge or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. 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