WPB Known Neuron Merger Plan

There are several NNS known neurons that are currently controlled by Wenzel Bartlett including Synapse Original, Arthur's Neuron, Synapse New, and CodeGov.  They were each set up over the last 4 years for pragmatic reasons that helped achieve specific decentralization goals using the NNS governance framework that existed at the time.  Recently, DFINITY has updated the known neuron framework to improve the features of known neurons and enable removal of known neurons that no longer wish to be known neurons.  This provides an opportunity to consolidate the number of known neurons that are controlled by Wenzel.  Therefore, a known neuron merger plan has been developed as described below.  A primary goal of this plan is to give current followers ample opportunity to discover the plan to consolidate these known neurons and for each follower to respond according to their own best interests without missing any governance rewards.  This could include switching their following to the Wenzel known neuron or it could include selecting a different known neuron to follow.

The Plan

Synapse Original (4966884161088437903) will be renamed to Wenzel (CodeGov | Synapse).  This Wenzel known neuron will be set to follow a wide variety of people who actively participate in NNS governance on each of the proposal topics.  These will be the people who Wenzel considers to be reliable, credible, and sensible with their governance decisions and are known to conduct themselves in professional and diplomatic ways.  Most of the Followees who will be chosen will be grant recipients, but some of them will have other incentives that make them qualified for the role.  The configuration for this neuron will be actively managed based on the vote history of each Followee and the quality of their engagement in governance discussion on the forum.  The control of this known neuron will not be decentralized, but the Followees that are chosen for each topic will be qualified and active in NNS governance and they will normally trigger the vote for this known neuron based on natural consensus.  In rare cases where consensus cannot be reached among Followees, the vote may be triggered manually based on the majority decision of the Followees.  Full control of this Synapse neuron was granted to Wenzel by the Followees of the Neuron Management proposal topic after discussion in our private chat group and unanimous voting on proposal 139004.  This neuron will exist long term and will remain actively managed.  The committed topics for this known neuron will include almost every topic because Wenzel is very experienced and aware of all public participants in NNS governance and is intentional about managing the Followees to ensure the neuron is making reliable and credible decisions that are always in the long term best interest of the internet computer in order to help advance decentralization.

CodeGov (2649066124191664356) will be renamed to CodeGov | Wenzel.  This neuron will be configured to follow the CodeGov team members on each topic where we have received a grant for reviewing technical proposals.  For all other topics, this neuron will be set to follow the Wenzel known neuron.  The future of the grants for voting neurons program is currently unknown and there is currently no sustainable way to incentivize people to perform technical reviews other than the grant program.  Hence, if the incentives remain available long term then the CodeGov known neuron will remain active.  If the incentives become unavailable then we will not be able to maintain a CodeGov team and the known neuron will be deregistered.  Either way, the followers for the CodeGov known neuron will have at least 2 cycles of Periodic Confirmation to recognize if there will be changes and to modify their following accordingly.  The committed topics for this known neuron will include almost every topic because CodeGov actively participates in most topics and would pursue any funding opportunity that enables active participation in other topics.

Synapse New (5553849921138062661) will be renamed to Synapse | Wenzel.  This neuron will be configured to follow the Wenzel known neuron and will be deregistered at the end of 2026.  This gives all current followers two full cycles of Periodic Confirmation to recognize that the Synapse neuron will be deregistered so they can take action to change their following.  The neuron will still exist after deregistration, so any remaining followers will continue receiving voting rewards even though they will only see a neuron ID instead of a neuron name in their Followee list.  This neuron carries the majority of the total voting power that is currently triggered by these 4 known neurons that are controlled by Wenzel, which means deregistering this known neuron will help ensure that any neuron that continues to follow Wenzel is doing so by choice and not by historical legacy or set and forget inactivity.  Full control of this Synapse neuron was granted to Wenzel by the Followees of the Neuron Management proposal topic after discussion in our private chat group and unanimous voting on proposal 139004.

Arthur's Neuron (5967494994762486275) will be renamed to Arthur | Wenzel.  This neuron will be configured to follow the Wenzel known neuron and will be deregistered in the middle of 2026.  This gives all current followers one full cycle of Periodic Confirmation to recognize that the Arthur neuron will be deregistered so they can take action to change their following.  The neuron will still exist after deregistration, so any remaining followers will continue receiving voting rewards even though they will only see a neuron ID instead of a neuron name in their Followee list.  Full control of this known neuron was granted to Wenzel by Arthur Falls as stated in this post on the forum.  A description of how Wenzel became the owner of this neuron can be found in this post on the forum.