Summary

For the purposes of registration and distribution the dao must currently obtain data from the outside world. For registration this data is the pre-registrations as aggregated in a special purpose reddit thread while for distributions this data is the reddit published csv file. This data for both registration periods and periodic distributions is processed by a script that generates a merkle tree and then re-published along with the merkle data, to ipfs. The merkle root along with ipfs content hash can then be submitted for acceptance to the dao by a vote. This vote must pass for the data to be available for users to then actually register or collect in distributions.

Issues, mitigation, and alternative scheme

Concern has been raised that the requirement to vote registration and distribution data into the dao represents an unreasonable burden on voters and that low participation would threaten legitimacy. Some mitigation strategies could be employed to counter the burden, such as longer periods between votes (month rather week for instance), and rewards for voting. Another proposal, though, would be to flip the scheme and by default accept the proposed registration/distribution data after some time period without challenge. Further modifications of this alternative scheme could limit the group of people with rights to propose the data and/or reward proposers of successful challenges. At the moment, since it's possible to end votes early if overwhelming support is achieved, it gives a nice inherent property where registration periods or distributions could start as soon as the vote ends. That could still be replicated, though with the challenge scheme. It could be:

1. propose data to dao (any registered user? users above some threshold of donuts? mods?)
2. vote to accept is initiated (or skip this)
3. data is automatically accepted after time period if vote to accept does not complete early and there is no pending challenge
4. successful challenge invalidates data (and transfers penalty/stake?)
5. unsuccessful challenge validates data and opens reg period or distribution as long as time for challenge period is finished