Community Sentiment Polling Results (NU4) and draft ZIP 1014

If this is the case then the ballot should include this information, so voters know that a funding cap requirement would result in the ECC declining to work on zcash in exchange for dev funds.

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ZIP 1014 has now been published. Thanks to George Tankersley, @acityinohio, and @tromer for helping with the final push!

Note that the changes from ZIP 1012 are visible on GitHub PR 312. They can most easily be viewed in this diff.

(For completeness, there was also a minor wording clarification here.)

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I believe it’s this part:

In case the value of ZEC jumps, the Dev Fund recipients should not be allowed to wastefully use excessive amounts of funds.

The question is would such a cap actually discourage waste?

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Thanks for finding the precise phrasing Shawn. I tend to lean that yes, for the moment, it would. I believe there’s a certain degree of trust that needs to be re-established between the ECC and the community. Once (and if) that’s settled then if the value of ZEC rises substantially the community can re-evaluate the funding policies.

It will be very interesting to see how voting is handled and what the results are.

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Are the other accountability requirements not stringent enough that it requires a method specifically for preventing “waste”?

Do these caps serve a legal purpose?

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Worst case scenario: If ECC declines it then can ZF be sole recipient of dev fund? I recall that ZF didn’t want to be one. We can defer this conversation when worst case scenario happens. I hope it doesn’t happen.

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Negotiations have reached an impasse when there will be a solution (as i wrote earlier, either agree to the terms of the company or they will manipulate the opinion of the community through pressure)?

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I don’t see it as manipulation but more like negotiation. Regardless, I would’ve been very happy if ECC said “we would prefer to have no USD caps but would still accept the job if community wants USD cap”.

Can someone from ZF tell us pros and cons of ECC becoming non-profit?
What can ECC achieve as for-profit that it would not achieve as non-profit?
May be community will vote for no cap if ECC promises to turn into non-profit.

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This will not happen, they said that the community decides and after the voting set the conditions. I said earlier that it would be nice to have a few more teams in reserve for such work, but no one was looking for an alternative to ECC, it said that everything goes as planned, that is, ECC will be hired on conditions that suit them, while if something will go wrong again, the right to a trademark gives them the opportunity to accept the coin option that is convenient (yes I understand that the fund has the option to block, but no one will do it otherwise the fund simply will not exist). And maybe I’m wrong.

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It’s really borderline in my opinion with at least a tendency of soft manipulation from the very beginning of the discussion months ago. Additonally, there should be NO negotiations, but only fine tuning on technical relevant issues, don’t let us forget that we have a proposal that won allready.

There have been enough proposals without hardcap, but these didn’t win the voting. I have problems to understand why afterwards a proposal should get that much modified so it fits finally the ECC christmas wishes.

If the intention from beginning was to have a dev fund that fits 100% the ECC’s wishes than we could have done everything easier with an ECC suggestion and an Approve/Don’t approve voting instead of months of community proposal making.

Where is the deal in having afterwards a proposal changed that much that it has little to nothing in common with exactly these specifc points it contained that made it outstanding and different from all other propsals???

Only point in my opinion that i agree that has to be added to new proposal 1012 is" What happens with a given slice of funding IF the benificary (be it ECC, ZF or Major Grants) isn’t able/willing to operate/function/work/bankrupt/whatever…

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Yup, that’s how subtle negotiation works, apply gentle pressure to one point at a time until you encounter solid resistance.

A good negotiation is where both get enough of what they need, think we’re getting close as there are few issues left and resistance to further change seems to be building. The poll is going to be interesting.

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Resurfacing a few points:

The company’s position is tied to the alignment of ZEC holders and employees. We think that’s critical for the success of Zcash.

The community has asked for transparency and accountability for the use of funds as part of proposal 1012/4.

All funds must be used for purpose - for the benefit of Zcash. The community would be able to see and keep us accountable.

We have worked hard to set the standard for best in class in transparency through quarterly transparency reports, work with 3rd parties such as Messari, and live-streams. I believe we have been good stewards in spite of a challenging market.

The level of transparency and accountability is, and would be, a beacon in this industry - best-in-class.

Given the transparency and accountability requirements, if unhappy, the community could elect to change the structure of the dev fund (for any part of it / for any party), as raised by others previously.

ECC has been clear that it will honor the wishes of the community with our part in the stewardship of the trademark. This is true now and true for the future.

We’re grateful for the support of allowing us to continue, and even accelerate our work on behalf of Zcashers everywhere and our collective future.

Thank you all and happy new year! I don’t know about you, but I’m personally looking forward to a strong 2020! :slight_smile:

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The question is not that the ECC cannot get what it wants, the problem is that after the voting and announcement of the results, the requirements are put forward, this had to be done before the voting began. They would come up with a proposal for state support, and it turns out that they are already changing the final result for themselves, this is wrong! Since there are no more options, the situation is that everything will be done as ECC says and I agree that the restriction is not necessary but rather a percentage of the block indicating that all the money is only for the development of the coin, but the situation that has now arisen in my opinion the opinion is not fair, because all previous
voting is actually canceled and we vote only for one proposal, or we need to conduct a new vote with the addition of 1 amended proposal or leave the result as is, it is possible to change it in the future.

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You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
Well, you might find
You get what you need

Richards, Jagger - Rolling Stones

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Okay this seems to have got a bit out of hand.

Can I just remind everyone that only 5 people voted not to give the ECC money. I think it is also worth noting that all the proposals that got any real backing all mentioned the ECC by name. It would seem counter to community will to put forward a proposal that the ECC wouldn’t accept.

@acityinohio can you please make sure that this is abundantly clear in the voting.

to the ECC (@joshs)- I understand that this is a blocker for you. Is there any chance you could put forward what you ideal scenario would be. I am still at a loss ( even after a year of discussion) as to what the ECC actually wants out of this. I understand that @zooko doesn’t want to tell us, but realistically we now need to know. It is exceptionally frustrating and pretty disheartening I am left trying to read between the lines most of the time. It would be nice to just be told. I am a grown up and I can handle the truth.

Thanks.
steve.

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Hi @mistfpga! We don’t see any blockers to ECC accepting 1014, other than the cap. There are a couple of other language things and zip related things we’d like to discuss but they are not blockers. Zip 1014, without a cap, seems reasonable. I hope that answers your question. Per Zooko:

Personally (not an ECC position), I would like to see ECC receive a greater allocation of funds in order to ensure we can do all the things we’d like to do in Asia, executing privacy narrative, ramping PR, increasing demand gen efforts, hiring more engineers, etc.

By my math, this is how coins would be distributed in zip 1014. ECC would receive 56% less coins than it would receive today.

With different funding options, this is what coin distribution would look like for ECC.

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From a different point of view. 56% less is still more than nothing, which still is the original setup of funding for the ECC after the Founders Reward expires.

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Before starting the vote in December, the ECC examined each proposal in detail, in my memory there were no locks on this proposal, how did it happen that they appeared after the vote?

Thanks to everyone for their patience. I hope you all had a good holiday and New Years! Some responses and next steps below.

First thanks to @zooko for the ECC update. For what it’s worth, I think it’s reasonable for ECC to plan on declining funding if a fiat-denominated cap is required. But I also think that the Foundation and community members deserve a more detailed rationale for ECC’s dismissal of suggested solutions to the employee incentive alignment issue.

As far as I can tell, the closest responses on this thread regarding my proposed solution to the incentive problem were as follows:

And most recently:

Meanwhile other ECC comments in this thread imply that the removal of a cap is not just related to employee incentive alignment but also ECC’s desire to expand spending in other areas. In that case, addressing the specifics of any suggested solution is a moot point.

Wanting the option to expand other spending would also be a perfectly reasonable position, but if it is indeed ECC’s position then @zooko @joshs I urge you to say so explicitly. The community deserves to know either a) why the proposed solution doesn’t work or b) that solutions to the problem are irrelevant because ECC wants more leeway in spending beyond the employee incentive issue. If that is the case, I kindly ask you to make it clear by updating your blog post about the cap and letting people know about it. Demonstrate your continued commitment to transparency by addressing these issues head on.

On the polling side, as others have brought up in this thread, the Foundation does think it makes sense to add a question to the poll that tackles what to do if the ECC declines their slice (and make it clear they intend to decline it if it includes a cap). I’ve assembled the (final I hope) draft of the polling questions here for the followers of this thread and I expect to reach out to begin the voting process shortly, along with providing more details and a timeline on the Zcash Foundation blog. I and others at the Foundation are excited to finish this round of sentiment collection!

“Do you support the ZIP 1014 presented here? ZIP 1014: Establishing a Dev Fund for ECC, ZF, and Major Grants (ZIP 1014 is a lightly modified version of ZIP 1012, which had the most support in the previous sentiment collection poll. Note that all follow up questions in this poll assume ZIP 1014 as a basis)”

  • Yes
  • No

“In ZIP 1014 what should the distribution of the dev fund slices be?”

  • ECC: 35%, MG: 40%, ZF: 25%
  • ECC: 40%, MG: 35%, ZF: 25%
  • ECC: 45%, MG: 30%, ZF: 25%
  • ECC: 50%, MG: 25%, ZF: 25%
  • Any of the above distributions is acceptable

“Do you believe the Foundation should have independent authority in determining Major Grants, or should there be a new Major Grant Review Committee as prescribed in ZIP 1014?”

  • There should be a new Major Grant Review Committee with near-complete authority as prescribed in the ZIP
  • The Foundation should have independent authority in determining Major Grants

“Using this ZIP as a basis, should there be a Funding Target/Volatility Reserve (aka a cap) for the shares to ECC, ZF, and Major Grants or should there be no restrictions? Please note that we are not measuring your approval of the specific amount of the Funding Target in the ZIP; we are interested in your approval of the concept as a whole. The exact cap can be set by processes outlined in the ZIP.”

  • There should be a Funding Target and Volatility Reserve for each slice as prescribed in the ZIP
  • The other accountability requirements prescribed in the ZIP are sufficient and there shouldn’t be spending restrictions

“Note that the ECC has indicated they plan to decline their funding slice if there is a Funding Target/Volatility Reserve restriction (aka a cap). If they decline their funding, where should their slice be redirected?”

  • Major Grants
  • Zcash Foundation
  • Miners
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A couple suggestions:

If you ask “Do you believe A or B?”, the options should be in the order A and then B, for clarity, so how about reversing the order of answer options for the Major Grant Review Committee question?

For the funding cap question, the answer

could be changed to include the word "additional’ in front of spending restrictions, or even better yet just leave it as “The other accountability requirements prescribed in the ZIP are sufficient”. The last part of that answer saying “there shouldn’t be funding restrictions” is a bit misleading since the ZIP does list several restrictions such as “ECC must undertake a firm obligation to use the Dev Fund only in support of the Zcash cryptocurrency and its community.”

One other possibility that I actually think is the best of all is to simply negate the first answer option: “There should not be a Funding Target and Volatility Reserve for each slice as prescribed in the ZIP” This is better because the opposite of wanting a funding cap is not wanting a funding cap, but the question makes it seem like that opposite of a funding cap is the belief that the other requirements are sufficient, which is really not necessarily the position of someone who doesn’t want a funding cap. I also think the term “Funding Cap” should be used instead of “Funding Target”.

Overall I think it is important to recognize that it is possible to drastically sway the outcomes of polls by making subtle changes to the wording, as has been demonstrated by many academic studies. I do not mean to imply any bad intent, but I do think that we should try to reach a consensus where all of the poll questions have a neutral tone that won’t impact the results. :slight_smile:

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