Community Sentiment Polling Results (NU4) and draft ZIP 1014

Perhaps - although there’s value in having some oversight of MG, especially from an org thats trusted and beholden to the community.

MG would be new and in control of significant funds - being able the ‘do whatever provided ZFnd is not unhappy’ seems a good operating mode. Good ‘training wheels’.

This would help protect MG from lobbying, coercion & capture etc - ZFnd could react to anything against their charter or the community.

Its just a thought, maybe a useful one.

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Another thing is the ZF is committed to transparency. Will the MG committee be transparent and verifiably free from self-dealing? Will the MG committee be compensated for their time and expertise? We are already paying the foundation to act in the interest of the Community and they are doing a good job, but do we want to also pay 5 more people to make informed decisions?

I guess I just see a lot of negatives to a MG committee and I not significant benefits.

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Thanks for your feedback @aristarchus. A few responses below and suggestions for our final poll:

The Foundation board (and I) did not ignore the support behind this proposal. It’s listed as one of the leading proposals in our initial analysis, and our lack of support (and support for ZIP 1012) is explained succinctly in the relevant paragraph from that post:

These proposals share two qualities that we believe the community finds important: a 20% dev fund and significant funding for the ZF and ECC. However ZIP 1013 differs with regards to accountability and the explicit financial development of external developers. The Foundation feels strongly about accountability and transparency — as stated in our original guidelines in August — as well as third party developer support and growth. Two of the three proposals that received the strongest community support align with that view; it’s clear there’s strong sentiment for both more accountable and decentralized Zcash development.

Therefore the Foundation will build on ZIP 1012, a version of Matt Luongo’s ZIP 1011 with modifications by Eran Tromer, which received the most support on the forum and Community Advisory Panel.

As you yourself admit, it makes sense to build on ZIP 1012 as the proposal that received the most support. And as @tromer mentioned, it’s not clear how these proposals could be combined particularly given the accountability and third-party developer requirements requested from both the Foundation and the broader community…and the main concern you have about underfunding the ECC is arguably better served by them having the possibility for more funds as stated by @tromer:

All of which to say: I promise we didn’t ignore ZIP 1013.

Summarizing your other concerns, with responses below:

  • There’s bias from me suggesting integration of my (admittedly reasonably supported proposal) with ZIP 1012
  • You believe the Foundation should have more power in determining/vetoing Major Grants
  • You want to explore other percentages of distribution for the various slices

My and the Foundation’s bias

Everyone is biased, myself very much included. But I hope that the community recognizes that the initial improvements the Foundation suggested from my ZIP 1010 served to reduce the Foundation’s power, particularly with regards to grant selection. After the community feedback earlier this week, we scaled back our changes considerably and gave the Foundation more power (namely in administering the Community Advisory Panel) but the Foundation still has preference in reducing our ability to countermand major grant decisions.

Granting the Foundation More Power (for Major Grants)

I have mixed feelings about this. As @ChileBob suggested there could be a veto in the case that the Foundation believes it violates community consensus or the Foundation’s mission? Providing a final veto for arbitrary reasons seems dangerous to me, particularly as we’re seeking to broadly distribute funds outside of the Foundation (sentiment which seemed widely supported by our interpretation of the results). And there’s already a veto for some circumstances (violating Foundation’s operating docs and/or US law).

I think a way to gauge this is to add something similar to @dontbeevil’s poll to the final Helios vote which is broader; I think this makes sense given the discussion here.

Other distribution options for various slices

I understand the point you’re making, and perhaps giving people various choices in the final vote for the percentage distribution could offer us greater insight in the community’s support, which I expect would solve the biggest issue you have.

However I do take exception with the bolded suggestion you make regarding percentages: in none of the leading proposals did the Foundation receive less than 25% of the dev fund for its own operations, and you’re suggesting a new percentage that has no precedent or community support. (In the top three proposals, those numbers were 25%, 30%, and 50%)

It just seems strange to suggest that you trust and support the Foundation more than our modified ZIP 1012 suggests, but then anchor anyone reading this thread to reduce the funding the Foundation has for general operations in a way that’s not supported by the community.

So instead, I would suggest offering these options for the final vote, which still minimizes the funding the Foundation receives for its own operations based on the most supported proposal:

ECC MG ZF
35% 40% 25%
40% 35% 25%
45% 30% 25%
50% 25% 25%

In essence, this scales the amount the ECC is guaranteed versus what’s available for third parties, from 35% all the way up to the 50% advocated in the “Keep it Simple” proposal.

FWIW, I personally think the more the ECC receives as a guaranteed portion of their slice the less eligible they should be for the MG slice, but as that wasn’t part of any proposal (and that’s quite hard to prescribe) I won’t push for that change. However I hope the future grant review committee/Foundation-appointed body takes that into consideration when distributing those funds if the community agrees to increase the guaranteed amount received by the ECC.

Improvements to the Final Helios Poll

In final summary, I think all of these concerns can be ameliorated within the context of the final Helios poll, which will merge the eligible participants from the forum poll (71 users) and the existing community advisory panel (62 users). For all these users we will attempt to remove duplicates if we can determine identity.

We will ask three questions:

“Do you support the modified ZIP 1012 presented here?”

  • Yes
  • No
  • Abstain

“Using modified ZIP 1012 as a basis, 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%

“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 modified ZIP 1012 as currently written?”

  • Yes
  • No
  • Abstain

From the results of this poll we can assemble a final modification of ZIP 1012.

Note that the Foundation hasn’t yet collected specific feedback from the ECC on our modified ZIP 1012, so we may make additional changes prior to the poll which may materially change these questions. But I think this structure of polling could provide greater insight into the community’s preferences on some critical pieces of ZIP 1012 without changing the fundamental tenets of (widely-approved) ZIP 1012. Thoughts and feedback welcome.

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I’d like to suggest that eligible forum accounts should be allowed to participate in the next Helios poll even if they missed the previous forum poll.

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You are right; the slices you suggested make more sense.

Yes, I never meant to suggest bad intentions, just a bias. I think its noble to try to reduce the foundations power but I’m just concerned about unintended consequences of a new committee.

Thanks for your response @acityinohio!

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Hi.

Thanks for your leadership @acityinohio. Per Zooko’s post, it is my recommendation to wait to finalize the poll until we have a chance to respond early next week.

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I will close the sentiment collection poll tonight. As there will be a poll from ZF to collect sentiment anyway. Feel free to vote it anyway, ZF might remove that from poll if all of us vote for single option.

Small suggestion – I know this likely isn’t the final text, but I’d try to avoid a two-choice question with “yes/no” answers. It’s unclear which is which in this case.

Better might be

A “Foundation should have total authority”
B “There should be a new committee with Major Grant authority”

… or similar?

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Poll results are up. Interesting numbers. Had a chance to look at https://eco.com/about , Check out the governing section (slightly similar).

Since that was mostly an in-house flash Pole ( the low turnout indicates it was probably mostly people involved in this particular conversation) I think revealing who voted for may have been a little more interesting than just 4-4-3 (or 8-7 if “either” can mean both)
Just a thought

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Hi,

It has taken me a bit to catch up on this. Im not sure I fully understand what is going on.

For example, the vote. Shouldn’t it have the original proposal vs the proposal with modifications, rather than the modifications of the proposal? It is starting to feel a bit like design by committee and not in a good way.

If there is going to be an abstain option on questions one and three, shouldn’t there also be one on question 2 also. - the way it is outlined above I can abstain from answering if I like the proposal or not, but am forced to make a decision on the distribution. it doesn’t make too much sense.

On the subject of abstaining, I think this might need to be qualified for this poll, so that if there is a majority of abstain votes then it is for the proposal in its original form. - This I understand will be controversial. but it seems to make sense to me.

So I did some quick back of the envelope calculations on the different % splits and looking at the extra restrictions on the ECC and how MG’s are paid out - it would seem that giving the 700k and then the ECC have to go through the MG process would yield them more financial reward and a greater amount of freedom.

This I think could be a good thing - if and only if the ECC is willing to persue this route. - I don’t like the idea of making people have to “reapply” for their jobs. (in fact I hate it) but it would seem an elegant solution due to the way it is being suggest MG’s would work differently. - and if they don’t want to do it like that I don’t think trying to force them is a good idea.

You could even use that original 700k as the basis for building the network and then give the ECC extra funding based off how well they can integrate other development teams into the space. (via the MG’s - the ECC get one and so does the team being integrated. for example @mhlungo’s team or other grant winners)

To be fair though, it is more the process I am concerned about than the outcome. It seems pretty evident what decision has been made (which is why I personally believe abstain and possibly absent votes should some how count. - this isn’t deciding on the winner it is more finetuning.)

For example the 25,50,25 split would give 1.4m a month to the MG program, where as 50,25, 25 would only give 350k to MG and 350k to the ZFND due to the USD caps put in place. so realistically 25,50,25 is better for everyone - unless im missing something - which I may well be, its been quite busy recently.

I really like the spirit of this thread, but as I stated at the start, I am not too sure what is actually being discussed and asked about. - I would have thought we would have got a bit more feedback from the ECC before we went to the next stage. (I know they are working on it and don’t want to respond before the final proposal.) but hey. it is what it is.

Thats what I mean by flash pole, I think it was just to add a little more context to the arguement

I suppose I’ll go first (even if no one’s even interested), I voted C for the committee, I don’t know if it can be corroborated but I dont care, its true

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@acityinohio The ZF statement says: “The Community Advisory Panel will continue to be administered by the Zcash Foundation, with an eye toward broadening its reach and enhancing its voting/selection mechanisms.”

Does “broadening its reach” mean increasing the number of its members? If so, would that happen before the Panel is asked to make further decisions and what is the criteria for including new members? Given that the Panel would be responsible for determining the membership of a new grants committee (if indeed a separate body is created), these feel like important details worth disclosing prior to the final vote.

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The more I think about it the less I like the idea of a new grants committee.

It seems unnecessary, a potential weakness and does not use the expertise or trust that ZFnd have already built.

Expanding the community adv group is a great idea, makes it more diverse & resilient. Making more use of it (regular polls) keeps everything on track, including MG decisions, as ZFnd are pledged to serve the community.

But… thats just my humble opinion.

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I dont know my good man I have decided to steer clear of discusions regarding governance as I feel that I wouldnt help much and I would only be in a way.

But to me the ECC getting the smallest slice makes no sense. I could be missing something here, maybe I didnt concentrate enough and missed something.

Can the ECC also apply for grants?

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Yep, they could. See the earlier comment from Josh - a bigger slice could make it harder for them to access MG.

Heh as I said I would be wasting my time reading through all of this and I wouldnt be able to help you guys much. I think I will leave this issue in your capable hands and I will focus on other things, I am good, at that can help us out. I just come here and read out of curiosity I read mostly superficially. Trust me its better this way I am far too emotional to make the right decision here.

I still feel that the ECC slice is too small. We rely on these people to keep ZCASH running smoothly. Remember even BTC was attacked by an inflation bug and they had to kill a block.

ZCASH is preserved for 3 years running and let me tell you something. The way that these people meet deadlines is VERY rare in the software industry and even rarer in crypto.

I feel that the danger for ZCASH is more likely to come in a form of a 0 day exploit rather than a 51% attack. It doesnt make sense to me for the miners to attack the chain. It does however make sense for a hacker to exploit a potential bug.

And I know that these 3 years of running smoothly were no accident. Bugs were found fixed in just the way you want them to be. All Im asking is will ZCASH maintain the same level of security (third party audits cost money) that we have all grown accustomed to and all take for granted but which depends heavily on the expertise of the ECC developers?

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hey,

I see where you are coming from with this, but I disagree. I think without the MG process we have not really progressed much further than before - to the point I think it would be a step backwards to use the KISZ method.

Sure it adds complexity but I think it is valuable in and of itself. How the ZFND have proposed to reconcile this seems okay imho. The question as I see it is how to gather the interests of people and present them with an informed choice.

Can someone please explain a bit more how the %'s will work. - these USD caps seem to be causing an issue. @tromer if the split is 25,50,25 isn’t that more than 50,25,25.

For example say 3million was raised for that month in the dev fund. (cherry picked because it fits my example.)

  • 25:50:25 == 0.75m:1.5m:0.75m (equals 3million)
    or
  • 50:25:25 == 1.5m:0.75m:0.75m (equals 3million)

but due to the caps doesn’t this mean thant:

  • 50:25:25 == 0.75m:0.375m:0375m (equals1.5million)
    or
  • 50:25:25 == 0.75m:0.75m:0.75m (2.25million, where the 3million is the figure, but this gives a large overshoot of fund to the ECC, but not to the zfnd or MG.)

So what happens to the extra zec over this time? were does it live and how does the ECC claim it? It is quite a lot, what about MG recipients? how would they go about claiming the extra to make the total 3million distributed? (assuming the 700k is the limiting percentage and others are aligned with that.)

Sorry if im being stupid and missing something. - the caps only really make sense with a 25:50:25 split.

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@mistfpga, you’re correct. Put otherwise:

  • ECC gets 35% and its excess ZEC starts going into its Volatility Reserve when ZEC price surpasses $91 (=700000/(21000000/4/48*0.2*0.35)
  • Zfnd-GU gets 25% and its excess ZEC starts going into its Volatility Reserve when ZEC price surpasses $128 (=700000/(21000000/4/48*0.2*0.25)
  • Zfnd-MG gets 40% and its excess ZEC starts going into its Volatility Reserve when ZEC price surpasses $80 (=700000/(21000000/4/48*0.2*0.40)

So as ZECUSD goes up, Zfnd-MG gets the fastest USD increase, and once it reaches $700k/month, the fastest increase in Volatility Reserve (and thus increase in runway and withdrawal opportunities). ECC gets the second-largest such increase, and Zfnd-GU the least such increase.

(An alternative is to make the Funding Target be proportional to the coin percentages, i.e., have equal ZECUSD threshold for all three slices. This would not substantially affect ECC, but would change the allocation for the Zfnd-GU vs. Zfnd-MG slices at at high coin prices.)

So what happens to the extra zec over this time? were does it live and how does the ECC claim it

ECC and Zfnd maintain their Volatility Reserves in separate accounts they hold, which they’re allowed to withdraw from only under specified conditions. Quoting the ZF-revised proposal:

[…] the excess over the Funding Target will be put into a dedicated Volatility Reserve account by the funds’ recipient.
Funds may be withdrawn from the Volatility Reserve account only by that same party, in months where the aforementioned monthly ZEC value falls short of the Funding Target, and only to the extent needed to cover that shortfall. […]
The Funding Target may be changed only by unanimous agreement of ZF, ECC, and the majority vote of the Community Advisory Panel. (In case of excessive accumulation of reserves, the community can condition an increase of the Funding Target on the redirection of some of the reserves to a different entity, miners or an airdrop).
Dev Fund ZEC that has been received, not placed in the Volatility Reserve, and has not yet been used or disbursed, will be kept by the corresponding party (as ZEC, or sold and invested) for later use under the terms of the corresponding slice.
Irrevocable obligations to the above must be made by the recipients (e.g., using their Operating Agreements or by receiving the slice as Restricted Funds).

what about MG recipients?

Major Grant recipients won’t be directly subject to the Funding Target. The Foundation-managed Volatility Reserve will, in effect, form a large long-term “endowment” pool (h/t @ttmariemia) that cushions the volatility for the various grantees, so grantees can focus on their work instead of hedging short-term price risks.

Similarly, the Major Grants would need to be denominated in USD (as they already are in the updated grant program), to ensure that they can be paid. (If they were specified in USD ZEC, a spike in ZEC price could cause the USD value to exceed the Funding Target.)

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We may be disagreeing about different things :slight_smile:

I think the ZFnd board would do a better job of making Major Grants decisions than a new committee.

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