Just saw by accident on the Foundations twitter page a bunch of requests to join the Advisery Panel 2019.
Maybe i missed this one here on the forum? H̶o̶w̶e̶v̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶i̶ ̶a̶d̶v̶i̶s̶e̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶b̶o̶d̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶j̶o̶i̶n̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶r̶e̶q̶u̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶A̶d̶v̶i̶s̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶P̶a̶n̶e̶l̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶9̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶u̶m̶ ̶m̶e̶m̶b̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶r̶e̶s̶e̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶.̶ [Mod edit by @Shawn for clarification, see my comment below about who is eligible to participate in the panel]
I suggest the Mods make a new topic about it, merge the posts from here in case there are any and make it a sticky so the forum community has a chance to apply to be included as well.
Any special requirements for this other than posting the foundation link on an own social media account?
Consider this tweet my intent to participate in the 2019 @ZcashFoundation
Community Advisory Panel regarding ZcashDevFund proposals. My name and this link are meant to be assembled on the website.
Why such a restriction and not open the panel for way more interessted people?
Someone even could assume that a bigger portion of the last years panel isn’t even aware of that option. And why “invite only” only for new members?
Seriously, the foundation should review these requirements and open the governance advisory panel for a brighter community than invite only!
I see just some few that participated last year but the majority seems to be new. Where do you see the reference who invited them? I’am referring to all these applies i see on the Zcash Foundation’s Twitter account.
I know you are quoting the foundatins blog post and that’s what i’am commenting and i commented it bevor that it should not only be invite only but by default include anybody interested in the Zcash community governance with some other restrictions, but not invite only.
Actually thinking about more about it, an invite isn’t any proof that someone has an affilation to Zcash either. Someone from the old panel for example could invite just his brother/sister and dictate them what to vote for …
Just noticed now the correction. So even people interested shouldn’t apply because they might not be eligable? Technically i would say that the option should be that they would be rejected because they have not been invited (if this really will hold at all!).
But even not allowing community members to apply is everything else than community based community governance. And than you wonder why more and more like the idea of a 3rd entity …
I made that edit because your asking everyone to apply is only likely to cause more confusion. The process is not “anyone can join” it is “old members from last year can invite one more”
This is the process that has been set by the Zcash Foundation Board. If you think it should be different I suggest you contact them.
Suggestion for changes of eligability of the Zcash Community Advisery Panel 2019.
As it’s stated that it’s only invite only i advocate for a change of these rules. I have asked previously allready but seems it didn’t get any attention so far, hence again asking for opening the Zcash community panel for a wider community, including VC’s, investors, miners, mining pools, forum members, ZEC holders, ZEC traders, ZEC fans, ZEC whomevers.
Invite only isn’t a good transparent fair way to involve interested Zcash members into the governance in my opinion.
Reasoning:
Actually Invite-only for new members encourages to invite people that might have a similar view rather than having people from all the different streams within the Zcash community.
Last years slection of the community panel allready raised a lot of discussion as many members have not been aware they would have been able to join and this years “invite-only” isn’t much better better either.
Should a community panel really be based on inivite only and do invite only represent these members that are not present in the community panel?
Should the last years community panel members have such much power to invite people they like or should it be possible to everybody in within the Zcash community at least be able to apply?
Possibility of abusing the invite-only option. Someone could invite a relative or even make invite his own puppet account eligable for voting.
Possibility of biased invites. It’s possible that especially the ECC, ZF, founders which are allready present in the current governance panel invite people that support their favoured proposals, actually it’s more than logical that this happens. That’s in my book not a fair approach for a fair voting within the community governance panel.
Invite-Only suggest more centralization than decentralization, at least that’s my impression. The invite option should be used voluntary to invite people like VC’s, investment groups, hardware producers, mining pools, etc but it should in no way be limited to “invite-only” by that small community group beside the ZF, ECC and founders that joined.
This are my points why i honestly and seriously think that the invite-only option for new members is a very bad choosen one. I honestly hope the foundation considers another more fair approach for people interested in joining the community governance panel (now Community Advisery Panel).
imo, “invite only” is probably the only way to properly vet people currently.
bet there’s not one person on the panel that would do this.
i think only people that prove they own zcash should be allowed on the panel. think it would be extremely weird to allow non-zec holders to vote on zcash related issues. being said, don’t see a single person on that panel that doesn’t have zcash’s longterm success as their top goal.
The logic behind the original Governance panel was to include as many people from different parts of the Zcash community as possible, (ie: ZEC holders, miners, investors, forum members, etc…)
Prior to the conference, we will be determining critical decisions for the Foundation—including board elections—by dogfooding a process outlined by our chairman Andrew Miller and augmented by me. The GitHub link has more information, but a summary is worthwhile here. Around 200 members of the community will be selected to form what we’re calling a “Community Governance Panel.” Each of these members are in the process of being vetted by me and other members of the Foundation to broadly represent the Zcash ecosystem.
A few obvious critiques that I’d like to get ahead of:
“This isn’t fully decentralized, Josh.” We know, but it’s a start, and we’d prefer to attempt to solicit community feedback in a way that still preserves privacy even if it means we’re not “fully decentralized.”
“Wait, community? That sounds democracy, which sounds like mob rule, and I don’t want a mob running a crypto—” I’m going to stop you right there. Yes, it’s a democratic process, but of vetted community members. (e.g. those that have a public presence and have contributed to the ecosystem) And the decisions themselves are advisory rather than prescriptive.
“Advisory? So these decisions are non-binding?” Technically yes; the Foundation Board can’t abdicate responsibility for the Foundation, although we want broad accountability and public input for matters that fall under the Foundation’s purview. That said, other ballot decisions may simply be advisory because we don’t (currently) have the authority to make those decisions—e.g., a ballot to redefine parameters in the Zcash blockchain in a future hard fork. (“the blocks need to be 1 terabyte, etc”) But the fact that the community might be strongly in favor of such a technical change should hold weight for the current maintainers of Zcash and for future work of the Foundation.
…and many more that will undoubtedly be raised soon.
I absolutly agree that this would be a better restriction than invite-only for new members. Right now it would be theoretical possible that non-ZEC holders are invited for whatever reason as it’s enough someone is being invited without any other requirements, at least i’am not aware of such.
The own-Zcash restriction would be way fairer towards community members if they want to join even with restrictions like 10ZEc, 20ZEC, 50ZEC or 100+ZEC… I wouldn’t say a single word against such restriction or requirement.
The problem are not the old members, but new members that are not able to join due this invite only restriction.
Didn’t read the “forum sentiment” part? And the “sentiment summary” part?
Here
Forum sentiment
We will open a forum post to collect votes between September 3 and September 17. We will only accept votes from forum members that have accounts created before March 2019, as a minor attempt to prevent gaming.
Sentiment summary
By September 24, the Foundation will publish a data summary for the general public. While we don’t intend to formally analyze sentiment beyond the three methods described, the Foundation is happy to consider other forms of community feedback collected by other parties during the same two-week period. We will include such data in our summary if it is valuable and was collected in good faith.
The summary will serve as guidance to the Foundation’s board (and hopefully others) in supporting a specific proposal, but it is not binding. Your feedback and insights are crucial, but the Foundation is ultimately accountable to its mission, as determined by the board.
Did it achieve that? How many mining pools, miners, hardware producers, investment and VC companies, active forum members, etc are respresented there today?
It didn’t achieve it, maybe to some small extend but that’s it and with invite-only for new members it won’t achieve it either. The community governance panel can be a very good tool, it could be used to find consensus on many matters, but invite-only isn’t a good approach for it.
I read it and i’am well aware that in the funding discussion there might be some polling/voting on the forum for forum members that fit given requirements, but my post/suggestion is for the Zcash Community Advisery Panel and people that would like to join the panel.
Why do you assume their votes carry more weight? Its all going to be summarized as guidance, It also doesn’t actually state any newcomer would be automatically excluded, does it?
Because i assume that the community governance panel is used in future as well, while the forum option might be an isolated one for the dev fund discussion, that’s why it matters for me how the community governance panel is handled.
And i can’t see how interested people of the ZEC community can put their vote somewhere if they are not-invited and not a forum member for a given time. That’s why it matters for me.
Or to make it more clear, how can a holder with 100 ZEC for example vote if he doesn’t get invited and isn’t a member of this forum since x date? Having these forum members given the chance to “vote” on the dev fund proposals is ok, but what about all others?
Let this post signal my declining from participating in the community governance panel vote
Let whatever vote I commit be here on this Forum
Its we, not us and them
I agree with you almost 100%. This system is very exclusive and may lead into an “echo chamber” similar to people surrounding themselves with like minded individuals on twitter basically parroting the same views on a given subject. This is exactly why I hate social media as I find that there is no personal growth in such an environment and can lead to false assumptions and in consequence bad decisions.
I rarely ever tweet and people might think that I am some sort of newcomer, I have however mined and accumulated ZEC since its launch, its not some grand amount that will make me rich as I am not a wealthy person. I however feel that I might be able to help in some modest way and, from what I have read from you, even much more so.
The problem I have with the whole “If you hold xx ZEC” you should be able to vote is whats stopping malicious actors from buying ZEC transferring it to a zaddress for the relatively short period of time in order to influence or sabotage the decision making process, while shorting ZEC on Bitfinex?
H̶o̶w̶e̶v̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶i̶ ̶a̶d̶v̶i̶s̶e̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶b̶o̶d̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶j̶o̶i̶n̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶r̶e̶q̶u̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶A̶d̶v̶i̶s̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶P̶a̶n̶e̶l̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶9̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶u̶m̶ ̶m̶e̶m̶b̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶r̶e̶s̶e̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶.̶ [Mod edit by @Shawn for clarification, see my comment below about who is eligible to participate in the panel]