So, the final response from ECC to our invitation to work with ZF on expanding ZCAP using the two new criteria (organizations and individuals who have made a meaningful contribution to the success of Zcash, or whose membership of ZCAP would make it more independent and representative of the Zcash community) can be summarized as “No”.
This is obviously disappointing.
However, ZF will continue to fulfil our responsibilities under ZIP 1014 (“The ZF SHALL continue to operate the Community Advisory Panel and SHOULD work toward making it more representative and independent…”).
Additionally, James Joseph will be removed from ZCAP.
Once we have reviewed the new applicants and nominations from existing members and carried out the necessary admin (e.g. confirming email addresses, etc.) we will update the list of ZCAP members on our website.
Hi @Dodger ,
I would like to be added to ZCAP during the next expansion period. I am a ZEC holder since 2017, a moderator of the Zcash Italian Underground group on Telegram (Zcash Inside) and Twitter, and I am also participating actively on this forum since 2020.
I would like to nominate Ehsan Bahrami (@zcashbuddy) to be added to ZCAP during the next expansion period. Ehsan is an active member of the Zcash community from Iran who previously applied to the Global Ambassador Program, but was precluded from participating due to US-imposed OFAC sanctions against Iran.
As I mentioned to Ehsan on Twitter in June, the OFAC sanctions should not restrict him from participating in Zcash governance as a member of ZCAP.
@bloxster and @zcashbuddy look like great additions for ZCAP so I’ve reached out to them privately to arrange that.
We’re also going to invite anyone who spoke or appeared on a panel at Zcon3 who isn’t a member of ZCAP to join:
Alan Fairless (Bootstrap board member)
Aleixo Sanchez (Web3 Foundation)
Anna Kaplan (Least Authority)
Chris Tomeo (ECC)
Elizabeth Crites (University of Edinburgh)
Francesco Dainese (Zondax)
Ida Tucker (Zondax)
Isabela Fernandes (Tor)
Jonathan Bird (Free2Z)
Jordi Baylina (Polygon)
Kurt Opsahl (EFF)
Michael Lewellen (OpenZeppelin)
Michele Orrù (UC Berkeley)
Nathan Wilcox (ECC)
Pablo Kogan (QEDIT)
Pacu (ECC)
Paul Brigner (ECC)
Pratyush Mishra (Aleo)
Skylar Saveland (Free2Z)
Zaki Manian (Bootstrap board member)
Zooko Wilcox (Electric Coin Company)
As we will be shortly running a ZCAP poll to gauge the community’s sentiment on who should be appointed to the ZF board, we will pause accepting new nominations for ZCAP from 09:00 UTC on Thursday 27th October, to give us enough time to do the logistics of getting email addresses, etc. before the poll opens.
I would like to nominate a few people that I’ve noticed be active in Zcash, either through public discourse or through private discussions.
@januszgrze is the founder of ZecHub and very active member of the community. I’ve asked him about joining ZCAP and he said he thought he would be a valuable contributor.
Sacha (@ssaintleger on Twitter) has been very active in discussing Zcash governance in public and private (including a lengthy article studying Zcash governance posted in Cosmos ecosystem). He has also indicated a strong willingness to get increasingly involved in Zcash and I believe would be a valuable asset to us. I’ve asked him about joining ZCAP and he said yes.
@Slugsplatter13 (on Twitter). Through private discussion, I’ve learned @Slugsplatter13 is a very thoughtful and passionate Zcasher, and I believe they would make a good addition to ZCAP. They said yes to the nomination in private.
@ProfJWVerret. He is an active member of the current Zcash community and has demonstrated his dedication through his recent ZF board nomination. I have not had the time to reach out to him.
@zksquirrel on Twitter. He is an active Zcasher, ZCG-sponsored Arborist call community note taker, and member of ZecHub. He said yes to being nominated.
Members of global ambassadors in good standing. I suggest all members of the global ambassadors who are in good standing with ZCG who are not currently on ZCAP be added.
Same goes for members of ZecHub not already mentioned here but are in good standing. Perhaps @januszgrze or @dismad can provide a list for discussion.
Final question, will there be an opportunity to use the +1 mechanism for addition to ZCAP at any point before the end of the year?
Thanks for taking my nominations into consideration,
I would like to nominate the below individuals from The Equilibrium Group & Eiger to be added to ZCAP. All have either been ZCG grant recipients, are currently working with Shielded Labs on the Zcash Sustainability Fund, or are active members of the Zcash community.
I’m not sure it is ethical for you to be nominating 17 additional people to join ZCAP (over 10% of total current members) when you have made it more than clear that your goal is to plug Shielded Labs, your organisation, directly into the dev fund when ZCAP votes on it next year:
But hey, unlikely that that would be the least ethical thing that has ever happened in relation to Zcash governance or the Zcash dev fund so why not, just go for it I guess.
I was under the impression that anyone could nominate members for ZCAP. The 16 individuals I nominated are all active members of the Zcash community and, imo, all deserve a spot on ZCAP. I’ll leave it up to ZF to decide whether me (a ZCG member and director of Shielded Labs) nominating them is unethical or presents a conflict of interest. If so, I hope other ZCAP members will step up to nominate them and other active community members because I think ZCAP should be expanded to better reflect the community.
Sure mate, there’s now way what you did could come across as an obvious attempt to facilitate building a winning coalition in ZCAP for when the community votes whether to plug your organisation directly to the dev fund, or not.
I mean, is not like the 17 people you nominated, if added, would represent 10% of the ZCAP votes.
It’s just hard for me to grasp what kind of behaviours are ethical and which aren’t, so totally my bad, clearly.
I think it’s a fair point that you’re raising. Not many community members are nominating new ZCAP members, and expanding ZCAP should be a priority. If ZF, for example, played a more active role in adding people to ZCAP, one could potentially argue that they’re “building a winning coalition in ZCAP” since they’re also dev fund recipients. So what’s the solution? Any ideas @Chammy?
It would be an honor to share our experience and discuss the best for the ecosystem. If I am asked by ZCAP, voting or not, it will be done and will continue to be done.
What are the criteria for becoming a ZCAP member? Whatever those criteria are, I think these names meet them, regardless of who’s nominating them. They’re all active community members who care about Zcash, and those facts can be independently verified by anyone. The arguments for their inclusion should (and I believe do) stand on their own, regardless of who’s doing the nominating. Perhaps you could suggest some more people to nominate?
I think having clear baseline eligibility criteria like @Dodger posted near the beginning of this thread is a good start. The formal criteria make sense to me (invite open to forum members longer than a certain period, speakers at ZCONs, grant recipients with completed milestones, etc.). When additional candidates are nominated that don’t quite meet those criteria or it’s during a random time when there is not an official ZCAP expansion period, an open discussion can be had for why they should be included (like I did and Jason has done recently and further back with opening up the discussion for TG member inclusion).
One area where things get murkier is when ZCAP is used to decide on pan-Zcash issues (like the Dev Fund) versus for community input to ZF matters. While there doesn’t seem to be any conflict of interest if DF recipients are on ZCAP when advising on ZF-only issues, if a majority of ZCAP were DF recipients, polls dealing with the Dev Fund could be seen as less legitimate in this case since the majority of people would be voting to keep their own funding.
One possible solution is to make two voting bodies - one for ZF issues and one for pan-Zcash issues. The latter should be self-administering similar to a parliament or congress and perhaps contain certain rules to cap the percentage of members who are DF recipients to <50%.
