I respectfully disagree, here are my takes on your essay, take my word as a rejected applicant, as a future ZCAP member, and someone really invested in the success of Zcash.
I’ll not answer your points in any particular order, I’ll probably go back and forth between arguments, shall we begin?
On Education
Educational content are all fine and dandy, but can get saturated. What good would it make for someone to have all the books in the existence if they would never be able to read them all?
Let’s take a fictional country called ZecLand, in this country their population speaks Zeclandish. Let’s assume 5 teams are creating education content in Zeclandish. Since Zcash is still more or less a niche, the more content creators they have, isn’t necessarily better. Since the audience of these content creators would be basically the same people, and since a person can’t consume every single article, video, tutorial, etc … the more content, less effective it becomes.
See the following table of 5 content creators and their audience, ranked by popularity:
| Rank | Total Audience | Carried from previous creator | Distinct viewers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 52 | N/A | N/A |
| 2 | 51 | 44 | 7 |
| 3 | 36 | 32 | 4 |
| 4 | 29 | 25 | 4 |
| 5 | 18 | 16 | 2 |
And yes, these number and this theory is based on nothing, but it’s my feeling that the more content there is, their number of viewership tends to zero.
On the proposals
I agree with every single proposal that got funded.
Now let’s assume ZecLand, instead of being a country, it’s an amusement park, all these 3 proposals brings something to the table:
- Zecwallet Lightwalletd server continuation
- Imagine that ZecLand, our amusement park only have 1 ride, let’s say a Ferris wheel. Our park would be boring with only this ride.
- Zcash lightwalletd infrastructure right now is like this, I believe every lightwalletd server is controlled by 1 team, bringing a independent server is good for decentralisation (more rides on the park).
- That’s why we need this one.
- Full lightwallet functionality for .NET
- One common complain from the community, is that Zcash lacks good and diverse SDKs for development. I’m actually glad that ZCAP is listening to the community needs.
- This could be like maps and guides in our amusement park, where visitors (developers) can more easily navigate the park.
- That’s why we need this one.
- Improved Lightweight Formal Verification of Halo2 Proof Systems
- This one is a very clear to me, aiming to creating tools for making the protocol safer is a winner.
- In our ZecLand park this would be automated safety routines, making it safer for visitor to enjoy themselves at the rides.
- That’s why we need this one, but …
- I believe this one is so important, it shoud have apllied for a Major Grants, instead of a ZF Minor Grants. I think it’s more aligned with the view of Major Grants of protocol furthering. So by being accepted by the minor grants, it ended up taking a good chunck of the budget that could have been aloocated to other proposals.
On the “conflict” between technical, educational and community proposals
This one is kind weird, what is technical or not?
I see own my proposal less technical, since it not intended to further Zcash protocol in any sense, but as a community, and a bit educational proposal. My mempool visualizer would be a visual tool for the community to understand the mempool and see minor statistics about the network.
I would even classify @hanh 's proposal as community based, since it’s offering more options to the community. He’s not developing anything, just offering infrastructure to us (at cost (sic)).
On marketing
Let’s be honest, we’re in a bear market, $ZEC price isn’t what we would love it to be.
If you were responsible for marketing on an amusement park, you’d choose to pay ads on TV, viral marketing campaigns on the internet, etc … on low season or high season? Imagine a marketing director spending money on ad for a water park on winter? This guy should be fired immediately!
With Zcash, we’re in the same boat … speaking of boats …
Imagine Zcash as boat leaking water. Who would you prefer to be on board of this boat?
- A nautical engineer that can point this boat to the right direction and try to make the boat float as long as possible until safety, or …
- A Marketing guy telling everyone how the boat is awesome?
I have my pick 
.
ZCAP inactive members
I agree that inactive members should be removed from ZCAP, but this doesn’t make a lot of difference in the voting process. The quorum for approval is 51%, it makes no difference if 100 people of 500 voted, or 100 of 100, the quorum of 51 votes would be the same.
Closing words and disclaimer
First of all, apologize my terrible English, if my text is somewhat unclear or non-sense please inform and I’ll try to answer in a better way.
Also, I understand that @gordonesTV is not against the proposals, he is only proposing improvements to the poccess. But I felt like writing why I support every single approved proposal, with a minor observation wrt halo2 verification one.
See you 