MGRC Update 10-28-2020 and Meeting Minutes

[Shawn]

Hey Zcash Zeal!

Welcome to the MGRC update and minutes.

This was a big week for the MGRC in that we made several concrete decisions. You will also notice that this week we had a couple guests: @antonie from the ZFND and Danika (a name you may not recognize) were invited to attend this meeting to discuss a few topics that directly involve ZFND and MGRC. Danika is a operations manager and has recently joined the team at ZFND.

The highlights from this week are:

• Decided to adopt the ZF Grants Platform as part of the MGRC grant application/approval process
• Accepted an offer from the Zcash Foundation to provide part-time administrative support for the MGRC
• Decided on a new name for the MGRC (reveal date for the new name has not been decided yet but twitter handles and URLs have been secured)

Please Note: Last MGRC meeting Mario who was taking the minutes stepped back from direct involvement with the MGRC so this weeks minutes were take by me (Shawn) as notes while participating in deep conversation so may not be as accurate as the notes that Mario took, my apologies in advance.

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MGRC Zoom Meeting: October 28th, 2020

[Minutes taken by Shawn]

Pre-meeting agenda:

1. Administrative support from ZF
2. ZF grants platform
3. Grant process draft review
4. Discuss Key metrics doc from ZF
5. Renaming MG

Meeting minutes:

Attendance:

Hudson Jameson
Sarah Jamie Lewis
Shawn
Chris Burniske
Holmes Wilson

Guests:

Antonie Hodge from Zcash Foundation
Danika Delano from Zcash Foundation

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1. Discussed Admin support offered by the Zcash Foundation

Antonie introduced Danika who is a new operations manager at the Zcash Foundation. Antonie explained that the ZF is willing to provide support for the MGRC with regards to taking meeting minutes and other administrative needs as the MGRC gets off the ground. Danika introduced herself and provided a brief summary of her background. MGRC members voted unanimously to accept Danika as part-time MGRC administrator and thanked the Zcash Foundation for their support.

As workload increases for the MGRC, if full-time administrative support is required then the MGRC will discuss options for hiring full time support at a future meeting.

2. Discussed ZF grants platform

On Tuesday this week Hudson, Shawn, and Holmes met via video conference with Antonie from ZF and Daniel from Grants.io to go over the grants.zfnd.org platform and to discuss adapting the platform for the MGRC.

Hudson presented the findings to MGRC members Chris and Sarah who had not been in attendance. Antonie informed MGRC that ZF will shoulder all ongoing financial costs associated with running the Grants io platform. MGRC members voted unanimously to adopt the ZF Grants platform as part of the Grant application and approval process.

Before the next MGRC meeting Hudson, Shawn, and Holmes will follow up with the Grants io team and begin the process of modifying the platform to MGRC needs.

3. Grant process draft

Chris presented the first draft of the MGRC grant approval process that he and Mario had worked on. Some MGRC members had suggested edits and concerns about the structure of the process. The MGRC agreed to keep the process in draft form and will continue discussion of the process.

Revisions to the grants process document will continue asynchronously until the next MGRC meeting.

4. Discussed ZF Key Metrics document

Andrew Miller from ZF provided a draft document of an upcoming ZF post regarding “Key Metrics” as required by ZIP-1014.

The MGRC members discussed this document and have a few points of clarification that they will bring up with Andrew asynchronously before the next MGRC meeting.

5. Discussed Renaming MGRC

The naming doc was brought up which had scores from MGRC regarding preferences for each of the names. During the call Hudson and Holmes searched the internet to be sure the handle was not taken on Twitter or a suitable URL was not already taken. One name was the clear favorite with the highest number of votes and MGRC voted unanimously to adopt the name change. Discussed with Antonie the possibility of re-naming a ZFND sub-domain for the grants platform to the new “MGRC” acronym.

[jmsjsph]

@Shawn

MGRC members voted unanimously to accept Danika as part-time MGRC administrator

Shawn, is ZF’s Danika paid for the part-time engagement with MGRC (like you are paid for the part-time engagement with ZF)?

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@Shawn

ZFND sub-domain

Re: “preservation of power” and “decentralization theatre”

Given ZF metrics, ZF administration, ZF platform, ZF subdomain and the fact that every member is pre-paid by ZF grants or ECC/LA ties, I really hope MGRC finds someway to differentiate and, if it’s even possible anymore, decentralize decision-making.

There is potentially millions, if not billions, that will be made available (which can even be used to fund the establishing of MGRC regardless of its name). Please not be afraid to be bold and audacious rather then obligatory and traditional.

[jmsjsph]

@Shawn

MGRC members voted unanimously to adopt the ZF Grants platform as part of the Grant application and approval process.

Did MGRC consider any alternatives to the ZF grants platform? Perhaps even one of my proposals:

Double-Blind Grant Review

The Problem: A Zealous Solution: A grant proposal appears. Like shielded memos, zero return address is required - we don’t know who submitted the grant proposal. MGRC scores the proposal and offers feedback. Again, like shielded memos, zero return addresses are required - we don’t know who gave what score to the grant proposal. If the proposal passes initial review, the grant candidate(s) may come forward and reveal themselves to continue to second phase of the review process. MGRC publis…

If not, why not? You are the originator and main moderator of this forum and I expect that people voted for you because of that special power…

[Shawn]

@jmsjsph

Did MGRC consider any alternatives to the ZF grants platform?

@Shawn

Decided that, before committing to using it, the MGRC should compare it with other, potentially cheaper and lower maintenance options (e.g. Google Forms combined with Zcash Forum, Github, or other freely available platforms).

@Shawn

Decided to adopt the ZF Grants Platform as part of the MGRC grant application/approval process

@jmsjsph

Shawn, is ZF’s Danika paid for the part-time engagement with MGRC (like you are paid for the part-time engagement with ZF)?

Danika’s primary job is as a operations manager for the Zcash Foundation. Antonie and Danika felt that given her current responsibilities she would have bandwidth to help the MGRC with part-time administrative work. We felt that this is a good short term solution for the current level of MGRC admin needs.

@jmsjsph

ZF subdomain

The MGRC has secured a separate URL and we may choose to host the grants .io platform under that URL to help differentiate. The question about the ZF sub-domain is still undecided.

[jmsjsph]

@Shawn

cheaper and lower maintenance options

Is there a cost constraint? If I am not mistaken, there will be millions, perhaps billions, available.

[lawzec]

What is the absolute best way to make sure that the Founders reward is not renewed in 4 years?

[Shawn]

@lawzec

Founders reward is not renewed in 4 years

The Founders reward ends at the halving. It’s up to the network nodes and miners agree to enforce the new network consensus rules which set aside funding for development work, ie: ECC,ZFND, MGRC. They can always choose to not recognize the network upgrade and fork, we will have to wait and see what happens.

[lawzec]

thank you for appropriately reminding me of miner supremacy. i believe this is correct. thank you.

while i appreciate the efforts of the developers in this coin, whatever coinholders continue to accept as a governance subsidy is just that whatever it may be called. these developments at this meeting are plainly decentralization theatre. lets see if the 5 members and ZF that just torched any remnant of adhering to the zip act to the benefit of coinholders…

eventually the network will have to begin to stand on its own. (and my opinion is 1- irrelevant, 2-that zcash needs subsidized development currently)

[Shawn]

@lawzec

if the 5 members and ZF that just torched any remnant of adhering to the zip

It seems that some would like to see MGRC 100% sever any ties to the Zcash Foundation but per ZIP 1014 this is simply not possible. The MGRC doesn’t have a single ZEC that it can spend without ZF help, we will not even have the private keys to the address that the ZEC is deposited to. Furthermore, the MGRC decides how it would like to spend ZEC but after that decision has been made a grantee then enters into a legal contract with the Zcash Foundation for disbursement of ZEC to the grantee.

Speaking for myself, it seems that under the above structure it makes sense that the person (Danika) who will likely be writing the contracts and disbursing funds to the grantees maintain open lines of communication with the MGRC. This will prevent confusion about what the MGRC wants/intended and help speed up the process of getting the ZEC into the hands of the grantees.

[lawzec]

yea, i would think that if the ZF commandeers the [now up for revision MGRC] that it may be considered a material diversion from the solicitation to the “community” (in reality Panel) to continue the block subsidy. would make a very interesting law review article, or more!

[mistfpga]

@lawzec

“community”

Im bored with this. Please show me some proposals that back up you assertion that the community does not want the zfnd to control the money.

because, and this is for the last time, the community wanted to give all the money to the zfnd. they said no, we would like to try to decentralise it.

So even if they mgrc is 100% captured by the zfnd you probably wont find much support to fork the coin away from it.

[lawzec]

i also am bored with it, and based on some other posts, i feel that every post i make here is unwelcome. fine. and some people have left the forum. i have been trying to go back to just lurking but the prehalving jitters have my attention here. and please do not pee on my shoe and tell me its raining. let’s not forget that the founders reward was expected to expire. because the panel does not meet, hold discussions, or do anything in public, and the ECC does not release minutes, we are left to wonder how we ended up with essentially the full subsidy continuing with control by the foundation. doesn’t go to their pockets directly, but having influence over the spending of coins is the same thing as retaining possession (all this is at law is a trust)

i do not want to see zcash turn into a developer mine. i’d rather miners dump the coins and find a natural price floor, than have developers dump them on a schedule pleasing them. but the panel was expanded to a bunch of ethereum just before the vote (through twitter … smh) with people who really had no interaction with zcash prior, but were favorable to the developer mindset and could be influenced by their newly awarded designation, and here we are with a founders reward by a different name. recognizing this, i guess that’s why i ran for the seat to try to support my investment. looking back, i wish i just continued lurking.

but now that i’ve irritated this entire forum, i wouldn’t write this if i didn’t feel like the forum was missing the obvious bait and switch, and not even that covert of a delegation of control over the spending of these funds. the foundation controls the money, because the foundation has created a panel supporting of the foundation goals, and now is encroaching on the MGRC (which wont even stick to the very name or terms of the ZIP once the ZF showed up) this is why i advocated the MGRC be limited to voting on proposals, (democratic check) and not enmesh themselves in a governance process. after all, this is what the ZIP said. this is even what the foundation + ethereum lackeys panel voted on. and the value of my coins depends on not having this portion just made into a slush fund.

i apologize if this comes off as continued complaining, and i guess i’ve had my full say now, and so i will zip it. but because of the design of shadow governance, this is exactly going how i anticipated, and how i warned during the call, and on the forum prior to the vote.

have a nice halving everyone. best to all.

[jmsjsph]

@lawzec

i do not want to see zcash turn into a developer mine.

I always wondered why ECC and ZF didn’t just buy their own miners like everyone else! Now they have the money to do so…

I’m sorry you feel unwelcome… You should know that there is a silent support that is afraid to face retaliation and reputational harm by commending you

[lawzec]

and, based on the fact that i like zcash so much, i do understand that it was the developers who created the value for me. i get it. perhaps i just need to shut it during transition.

it’s not like any of this has been done before.

[mistfpga]

@lawzec

i apologize if this comes off as continued complaining

it just comes off as passionate but not researched.

@lawzec

i feel that every post i make here is unwelcome.

only the deliberately disruptive ones.

@lawzec

and please do not pee on my shoe and tell me its raining.

please do some research

and post things that support you assertions.

@lawzec

we are left to wonder how we ended up with essentially the full subsidy continuing with control by the foundation.

If you are wondering how we got here, then i suggest you go back and read my posts explaining it to the mgrc candidates. im not writing them all again. it is all on the forums.

@lawzec

with people who really had no interaction with zcash prior,

Stop making things up. please back up this claim.

btw i wrote the zip to end the FR, i coined the term dev fund. I know about the FR and the dev fund. They are not the same things.

anyway as i said im bored of this. please post evidence rather than idle specutation.

[lawzec]

im not naming names. that’s further reason for animosity. i just want the zip stuck to.

[mistfpga]

@lawzec

i just want the zip stuck to.

but you dont understand the history of the zip so have a quirky interpretation. if you wont do research i cant do it for you.

[lawzec]

ok, this statement, i accept. an ahistoric “quirky” interpretation relying on what words mean i accept.

(and i understand the history, was lurking during it, and refreshed my memory when running for mgrc, but its irrelevant)

[mistfpga]

quirky is histrionic? okay mate. nice one. i thought it was a polite way of saying wrong.