Major Grants Review Committee Candidates MEGATHREAD

[zancas]

@secparam

@zancas and @zooko make a good case for what the steady state of the committees could be: i.e. well paid and with longer terms than a year. But we still don’t entirely know what this job will look like and it is prudent to plan on revisiting it in a year. Of course they are brothers, so I guess they think alike.

It’s true that @Zooko was lucky enough to share some quality genetics (~50%) ;), but I don’t generally give his opinions a blank check on that basis.

Per the issue of term length, I think my argument for longer terms is distinct from @Zooko 's.

My understanding of @Zooko 's argument is that:

 Longer terms gives MCRC members time to coordinate with each other.

But, I’m not really interested in analyzing that position either way, I’m sure @Zooko can if he feels like it.

My argument for longer terms is as follows:

I want the MGRC roles to be something a candidate feels like they can commit to.

Could you @secparam commit full-time to a role, foregoing other options, if the guarantee of the affiliation was 1 year? Do graduate students typically join a research program on that kind of timeline?

I will reduce the problem this way:

There are two possible MGRC-members “good/competent/diligent” and “bad/incompetent/distracted”.

In the case of the former we’d all likely agree that a longer term is better, and in the case of the latter we’d all want a shorter term.
My argument is that a shorter term increases the likelihood of the latter… or… now that I write it I realize I like the other formulation better:

a longer term increases the likelihood of the former

More specifically, a longer term that is agreed upon now would give valuable information to candidates.

To put it another way: Increasing churn in the MGRC composition increases chaos, in the very body that reputable persons might be depending on for confidence.

So, as I see it, short terms are part of defensive mindset that expects to be disappointed in the MGRC, and wants to pay a chaos-churn cost based on that expectation.
Longer terms, are more rational if paying the churn-cost is a waste… if the MGRC is competent, which again, is (I argue) more likely if candidates know the term is long enough to give a break from campaigning.

Having an initial term of one year followed by longer terms (probably) after that seems quite reasonable to me, so I think we (@secparam and I) may be in agreement (even though we’re not close genetic relatives)…

Oh… and also… MGRC members should receive ZEC-futures.

[zancas]

Quick thought… working well together is facilitated by working full time together.

[anon16456014]

More and more, I’m leaning toward no compensation and short term (1 year) for the MGRC.

I wouldn’t want this to be seen as a cash grab for MGRC members.

Based on my own experience as a one-time Zcash Foundation Grant Review Committee member, I don’t expect it to be much work. I expect it to be part-time at most.

I would like to see it start like this (no compensation) and if it proves to be different (substantial work), then we can change/adjust it for the next term. Nobody wants to do the grind for free The reality itself will show us the way.

Also, I’m not of the opinion that all MGRC members should be technical. Again, based on my own experience as a Zcash Foundation Grant Review Committee member. The most important is the ability to understand what value does the proposal bring to the ecosystem, if you think the team can deliver and if what they ask for compensation is fair. The ideal MGRC should be a mix of technical and non-technical folk so they can analyze each proposal from different perspectives.

As a final note, I would love to see some accountability checks and balances. For example, it would be great if the Community Governance Panel feels MGRC member(s) prove to be unworthy during their term, they could vote to kick them out, effective immediately.

I’m open to change my views based on facts, but this is where I currently stand.

[ChileBob]

@ChileBob

I might just toss my hat in the ring after all, will think on it for a while.

So… I’m going to stand as a candidate, will do a more ‘official post’ later today.

EDIT: Done

[Anton1]

Compensation for work should come from the success of the work itself, I think that this should also apply to the company and the fund.
I also do not see the point in the additional staff of people, I believe that the fund and the ECC should do this collectively, in accordance with the authority to manage trademarks, what is the point of developing an ecosystem if this can run counter to the basics.

[_eric]

So is MGRC supposed to be a bureaucracy (with hierarchy, continuity, defined rules, and expertise) or can it be an adhocracy (decentralized and flexible)?

I’ve always thought it was going to be a bureaucracy, with top-down structure. The world is run by bureaucracies, but the idealistic thought is maybe we can do something different here? Maybe we can keep it light and nimble. I love the idea of MGRC positions being unpaid oversight roles.

We have 8% to distribute. We have great, creative, talented people in this community. I think without a doubt we can put those resources together to function as an adhocracy and distribute the entirety of the 8% block reward to those working on development and adoption.

[zancas]

If I understand your proposal correctly, it’s:

Depend on the self-selected financial circumstances of the electees to dictate their interests. (At least at first.)

Isn’t that setting up Zcash for capture by whomever bothers?

Aren’t multiple (or all?!) candidates thus far significantly interested in other/disparate ventures? Accenture, Summa (not necessarily running), Ethereum Foundation, etc. (these are just tip-of-the-brain)…

I’m not speaking ill of these other interests, mind you. I’m just saying these are other interests…

IMHO, MGRC members aren’t going to be “grinding for free” in any circumstances, they’re going to grind for whoever is paying them.

This isn’t a denigration of the role… it’s a statement of fact about the human condition.

There are two possibilities:

1. Depend on the set they come in with to align with the mission of increasing the value of ZEC.

2. Make it explicit that the MGRC role is an interested role by defining compensation as part of the role.

I’m leaning towards the following:

I will not vote for any candidate unwilling to commit to establishing ZEC futures compensation for MGRC members.

By the way, @anon16456014 I think you should consider running… though I’d have to convince you to change your mind about incentive alignment, before I could vote for you.

[zancas]

@anon16456014

I’m open to change my views based on facts, but this is where I currently stand.

Fact: Many (or all?) of the current candidates have explicit and significant interests in diverse non-ZEC areas.

[afterconnery]

I do not think you have to be technical to be a committee member. I have only been a part of the Zcash community since the beginning of the year. I started out mining and now am helping out with ZECpages. From my point of view Zcash has been horrible at what it has set out to do at least from where I sit. The privacy tech is there but nobody uses it.

I think focus should be on how to get people to understand the difference between T and Z and then actually have the tech available to use it. On both of those accounts Zcash is failing. Even as a miner there are only a couple of pools where I can use a Z-addr for my mining wallet. As a semi-educated person in regards to crypto I could care less about what Zcash is doing with Cosmos or whomever else because Zcash doesn’t even do the basics it has set out to do. Helping projects that focus on the original purpose of Zcash would not require technical expertise. Just enough knowledge to know if it will actually help or not.

[PhusionPhil]

I really appreciate this comment.

@_eric

So is MGRC supposed to be a bureaucracy (with hierarchy, continuity, defined rules, and expertise) or can it be an adhocracy (decentralized and flexible)?

I am also hoping we can establish this type of committee here, yet as you said it will likely turn out to be a bureaucracy.

There is hope however I have just realize, we can give an incentive to the MGRC reps by allowing them to apply for their own Grant for Funding that would be voted for just once annually by the Community Advisory Panel solely to ensure Quality of Service from the MGRC. Obviously the idea needs some refining but I am just figuring out how to introduce this to the community as I came across your comment.

[Anton1]

It seems to me that everyone forgets that financing is based not only on interest but also on the price of a coin, there is no way to guarantee financing because there is no way to set a certain cost, and if we say that financing will be installed as many people think here, it can capture all 8% of the allocated funds what then is the point in this structure when it spends 100% of the money to distribute the remaining 0% This structure should already be in a funded organization, and better in both. After a year or two, you can look at the situation with a separate structure.

[PhusionPhil]

Annually, the Community Advisory Panel could Audit the performance of each elected MGRC member, I hate to put it this way but it would be similar to a push or a pull request on GitHub that would eventually lead to certain representatives being in positions of trust based authority, Trust form the Zcash Community Advisory Panel, who ultimately are random community members and represent the diverse demographic that has been requested.

On github a lot of people are already used to “pay it forward” logic which is what I would be voting for at the end of the day anyway with my ZCAP position.

[kek]

@anon16456014

I’m leaning toward no compensation

here’s why i’m currently pro compensation:

pros -

1. more costly to bribe MGRC members.
2. (think) MGRC will be somewhere between full/part time work. have a feeling proposals will come in waves. 1st elected team will need to put in the extra time to set MGRC up as a properly functioning legal entity, from scratch IRL (this will not be an easy task).
3. MGRC workload will increase, not decrease over time. have no doubt MGRC membership becomes full time work. only thing we don’t know is when.
4. MGRC needs to attract top talent over multiple years (maybe forever). figured 1st committee would garner most interest, but there’s only currently 9 people in the running. think that number would be at least doubled if candidates knew the position paid a living wage.

cons:

1. could attract people that just want a guaranteed job for a year that pays well (cash grab). really don’t see this happening. CAP is filled with very bright people. we’ll sniff this out immediately.
2. proper annual pay is currently very difficult to estimate.
3. funds paid to MGRC members reduces available funds for proposals.

as-of-now, believe compensation is necessary for MGRC’s longterm success, but a well reasoned argument against compensation could change my mind; not militant about it.

[ChileBob]

I’m OK with compensation provided MGRC has no control over it, there’s just no clean way for a group to decide how much to pay themselves from a common fund.

Looking at it a differently - the committee will work for and be accountable to others, its that other group who should control reward/compensation. Everyone should have a boss, most actually need one.

Compensation opens other cans of worms, like ‘How much is enough?’, ‘Should everyone get the same ?’, ‘Who works hardest?’, ‘Who put in the hours?’, ‘Performance review? By who?’, blah, blah, blah.

Could quickly devolve into a time-sucking mess & that’s not what we’re here for. I suggest something extremely basic, simple (if at all) & decided during the Helios vote.

[PhusionPhil]

Bribes are illegal, while we are on this topic I see 2 problems.

1. Bribes can be made anon
2. Z addresses can make that easier to achieve

This type of activity will defame this entire organization and goes against “The Mission” we set out to do here when we adopted Zcash ethics into our lives. Taking bribes could be detrimental to the image of this cryptocurrency.

For instance if Trump started using Z addresses for his campaign manager Jared Kushner, who is his Son-in-Law and attends Bilderberg meetings in Switzerland how do you think the uninformed public would respond to that?

All this considered, I agree that we should approach this in a way that doesn’t encourage bribery, but just simply paying them wont accomplish anything and the bribe is still a bonus on top of every paycheck.

[kek]

@PhusionPhil

simply paying them wont accomplish anything

imo (not an expert), would be easier to bribe volunteers than paid employees. honestly doubt bribery will be an issue. just something that could possibly happen.

what’s your opinion on the compensation issue?

[PhusionPhil]

I havent gone much past where I left this thought on this comment. Waiting for more community input so everyone gets a chance to contribute in this early stage of this committee being formed.

@PhusionPhil

Annually, the Community Advisory Panel could Audit the performance of each elected MGRC member, I hate to put it this way but it would be similar to a push or a pull request on GitHub that would eventually lead to certain representatives being in positions of trust based authority, Trust form the Zcash Community Advisory Panel, who ultimately are random community members and represent the diverse demographic that has been requested.

On github a lot of people are already used to “pay it forward” logic which is what I would be voting for at the end of the day anyway with my ZCAP position.

[kek]

@ChileBob

I’m OK with compensation provided MGRC has no control over it

interesting …you think ZCAP should “sign the paychecks” since MGRC is basically ZCAP’s chosen representatives?

[ChileBob]

Something like that - ZCAP controling amounts (could be zero) & ZFnd moves funds would be better.

[Mikerah]

The main issue I see with ZCAP controlling funds or other such decisions is that the ZCAP is an arbitrary group of people decided by the Zcash foundation based on how loud they are on social media (zcash forum, twitter, etc) or based on prior connections to the Zcash foundation. In other words, there isn’t a formal way to become a ZCAP member. There’s a lot of room for bias due to the composition of the ZCAP.

Further, another issue I see is a lot of the suggestions are committees deciding upon other committees upon other committees. This is just going to lead to unnecessary bureaucracy and include subtle ways in which members can be influenced. A way around this would be to use more “DAO”-like tools in conjunction with some needed bureaucracy.

Disclaimer: I am a ZCAP member.