Fighting a wildfire

@ml_sudo I admire your courage, and I find your post very persuasive. I support your proposed three month delay.

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@ml_sudo, thanks for sharing this. It looks like that there is quite some foundation work to do.

I hope these changes will be done and we keep you.

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I also support delay. Since origin, there was a clear lack of consensus as to how MGRC was to work with ZF. ZOMG was a complete failure. MGRC would have been workable. Appreciate the honesty and objectivity here.

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@lawzec the zomg is not a “complete failure.” I am uncomfortable at your stating as such in this post of yours, and on other threads.

When you say that, it has the impact of

  1. feeling like you’re insulting all five of us, and
  2. it may also make CAP voters wonder if you have the right balance of qualities to lead in the next panel.

On the whole I like your inputs in the forum, but this one goes a bit too far on the aggressive side.

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Thank you for your contributions, honesty and integrity. You are a huge asset to the the Zcash community and mission. I share your concern, appreciation of the significance of the money and time at stake, and personally support the delay as long as there is a clear commitment from the ZF and community to support your other proposed actions (2-4).

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While I did mention in my other post that I think the support issues ZOMG has could be addressed without completely stopping the election. I am also fine with a set-time delay.

My only concern with this approach is that we could get stuck in a endless feedback loop and polls and by then end of a few months (a short time TBH) all issues will not have been addressed and will cause yet another delay.

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That’s why we need a special committee. Without a special committee who has one job of putting forward an actionable recommendation, I’m confident we will spiral into an “endless feedback loop.”

This sort of special committee mirrors the kind that is created within boards for special situations like M&A discussions, or for important but routine topics like compensation or audits.

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Please answer to my first reply. Zcash investors deserves TRANSPARENCY about the shenanigans that are going on. You owe the truth to our community.

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My answer is no, @joris. Given the tribal warfare and immature behavior i see on the forums from some members, I will not feed the mob with more fodder for ad hominem attacks. I don’t know anyone at the ZF or ECC who isn’t trying their best.

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The issue of support is being addressed and the issue of compensation unknown so I wont touch those, nor the issue of your personal relationships (generally good advice). Nobody expected a really smooth first time around and I certainly won’t forget you all but I do feel that the issue of discontinuity (which I think is more inherit than maybe everyone else) demands that we do not defer but get the next iteration up to speed quickly while the five current members can be reasonably expected to help out a little there, not months later. I would see stopping the momentum as a disservice to the work already put in.

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To be 100% honest, I only now, vaguely, remember that you suggested, in conversation with me, delaying the next ZOMG elections. I think when I posted that, I thought it was my idea! :rofl: I know that last year at the advent of the first ZOMG, I talked with ECC and we collectively as a company suggested a 90-day delay to the elections, for a few reasons. The Zcash Foundation quickly agreed to that suggestion, and the result worked out pretty well, I think! We got a strong pool of candidates to apply.

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ML, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and well thought-through post. Over the course of today, I have discussed it with the ZF board and with other members of ZOMG.

I remain firmly of the opinion that the ZOMG elections should go ahead as planned.

In saying that, I do not intend to belittle the concerns and issues that you and other ZOMG members have raised, both publicly and in private. Nor do I intend to stymie or prevent discussion about how ZOMG should evolve in the future.

As you know, we are addressing the operational issues that have been raised by hiring more staff, and increasing the expected time commitment, based on feedback from the current ZOMG Committee members (which will also result in a commensurate increase in the nominal compensation amount).

FYI, the current $500 per month nominal compensation is based the ZF’s original assumption of a five hours per month time commitment, at a rate of $100 USD per hour. This rate was based on the fair-market value of a non-technical executive at a non-profit with a yearly budget of $5 million USD a year (which doesn’t appear to have changed much since last August).

We’ve also come up with an idea to begin staggering elections to address the lack of continuity that results from the 100% turnover that can result when everyone’s terms expire at the same time.

With the new staff we’ve recruited, we will also have the bandwidth to begin working with ZOMG to address the problem of a lack of quality grants. Next week, we’ll be meeting with ECC to discuss how we can work together to address that.

And, just this evening, we’ve been discussing with other members of ZOMG how we could use RFPs and bounties to allow ZOMG to access and benefit from technical expertise that may not be otherwise available from ZF or ECC.

At the same time, I want to improve communications and interaction between ZOMG and ZF. It’s become clear that there have been miscommunications and misunderstandings that have led to us talking (or emailing) past one another, and caused resentment. I want to address that by talking more with ZOMG, and making you all feel more like part of ZF.

In short, we are working to make ZOMG work, as it is designed and described in ZIP 1014. I think it’s entirely reasonable to give the changes we’re making an opportunity to take effect. Based on informal conversations, the majority of the current ZOMG Committee feel the same way.

Therefore, we’re going to go ahead with the election, to ensure that ZOMG continues to function, and the changes we’re making have an opportunity to take effect.

Simultaneously, the discussion about whether and how ZOMG should evolve (including whether it should become an independent entity, become a DAO, spend its own funds, etc.) can continue, involving both the former and new ZOMG committee members, as well as other interested members of the Zcash community and ecosystem who want to contribute - i.e. the same constituency that took part in the governance process that resulted in ZIP 1014.

However, in the event that our efforts to make ZOMG work are unsuccessful (for whatever reason), we need an objective way to recognise and respond to that.

Therefore, if, after four months of the new Committee (i.e. mid-March), a majority of the new ZOMG Committee is of the opinion that insurmountable problems remain, we will consult ZCAP about changing ZIP 1014. Should that eventuality come to pass, the ongoing discussion should have produced enough viable ideas and proposals to be able to progress rapidly to a resolution (in the same way that we went from 13 proposals to ZIP 1014 during the Dev Fund process).

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I understand that you believe this is sufficient. I don’t think it is. I would rather run a race, fully prepared, than limp along on a marathon. But i acknowledge we all have different styles.

On the nonprofit management benchmarking, there are two points i’d like to make:

  1. nonprofit board members typically don’t require the skill sets that you require for the ZOMG to be successful (success = adoption of ZEC)
  2. I would recommend we shift our mindset towards “pricing” for value, not for cost: https://www.intercom.com/blog/price-value-not-cost/

In any case, this is not the right forum to hash things out. This is why i said my only goal for this post is to propose a deferment. What we can all agree on is that all of the 10 topics are still outstanding and major; going through a trial and error process (your approach above), instead of re-designing things from the ground up, could be the most expensive mistake the ZF and ECC makes, as unofficial guardians of the ZOMG process.

You may be right, I may be right. The right thing to do is for a special committee to work through the pros and cons of all the approaches under consideration.

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Just for clarification, the plan to to have an open discussion involving ECC, ZF, and members of the community in a panel-type discussion. We’re tentatively targeting September 16th at 21:30 UTC. Registration details will be forthcoming.

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I’m with @ml_sudo here. Community came up with ZIP 1014, it doesn’t mean we need to blindly follow it when we know it is not perfect. I support delaying elections & taking a step back to come up best path for ZOMG/MGRC.

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In the current structure, ZOMG has no power or flexibility. No incentives to make it successful. ZOMG is dependent on ZF, & that’s the problem. I’m very much in favor of fully independent arm for Zcash to increase decentralization.

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I don’t know if it’s obvious enough to everyone, but even though the suggestion to defer the election has a critical mass of interest/support (in this thread and others), it is being unceremoniously overrode by the ZF (one could say by a single individual at the ZF).

This top-down, unilateral behavior runs dramatically counter to the ethos of crypto in general, and especially to the kinds of people who believe in Zcash. I’m surprised this is not raising more eyebrows.

This unilateral ability to commandeer the ZOMG process strips bare the fact that ZOMG is in important ways under significant influence from the ZF, which IMO betrays ZIP 1014 and the intentions that went into it.

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@ml_sudo It’s apparent that this stonewalling is having such an effect for you to hint about it more than once.

Zcash has had a centralization problem from the very beginning and it was always ignored and labeled as “fud” by insiders. Well maybe those concerns weren’t unfounded.

I’m more than happy to stick up for you over the internet and IRL and I’m sorry that you feel you can’t name them, but I think it’s necessary to keep the community in good health.

P.S. if this person at the ZF sees this, you might as well respond now, otherwise eventually the truth will come out and you are just going to look worse.

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Nobody really seemed to have an issue with the haste that the MGRC was created. I remember it coming late, nobody suggested deffering and I don’t see any more reason to now.

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@ml_sudo, the situation is clear, but tbh I don’t think it’s a great example of the general pattern you’re alluding to. Timely election is mandated by ZIP 1014, which ZF and its Executive Director must adhere to. I don’t think it would be great for ZF to set a precedent of deviating from ZIP 1014 at its discretion.

Perhaps one way to reframe this is by proposing a concrete amendment to ZIP 1014 that would achieve what you want, and advocating for urgent vote on this amendment.

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