šŸŗ MGRC Watch Dog Thread šŸŗ

In the interest of transparency and accountability, I am asking the @ZcashGrants to

  1. provide an update of accomplishments since Day 1
  2. provide a roadmap to Day 30, 60, 90, 120ā€¦
  3. make all internal communications public (say, a read-only groupchat)

This is especially important because all 5 elected members of the inaugural MGRC are contributing part-time (or less) and all members have financial ties to LA/ECC/ZF. Moreover, all paid @moderators are LA/ECC/ZF.

Letā€™s set a standard of decentralized excellence! The Major Grants Review Committee can be an independent, productive member of the Zcash Network Flywheel

If we truly want to decentralize developer funding decision-making then we need to keep a close eye on MGRC and demand FULL transparency.

For the zpl,

James :mechanical_arm:


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@ZcashGrants

Before the elections a lot of candidates were in agreement that it would need some full time work.

Would each of you please answer as to how much time you are currently committing to the MGRC and how much more / less you can do.

@mlphresearch - the two for 1 deal that was in yours and chisā€™ application, means we are getting twice the hours, right? Would you please clarify this when you outline your hours.

Could you post a record of hours spent v predicted hours spent.

How are you sharing the workload?

What are the risks you can see regarding time commitment? What are you currently doing to mitigate these issues?

Many thanks.

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Just to clarify, I am not paid for moderation: it is not part of my job description, nor am I moderating on behalf of ECC. I am moderating based on my own judgement and on a volunteer basis.

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Thank you. I enjoy your moderation

I :heart: Discourse. Fortunately, Shawn got the most unrestricted approval votes and transitioned the boards ownership to ZF foundation before assuming part time position with ZF to moderate our most fun and popular boardā€¦ And frankly, Iā€™m all for it! Good job!! :pray: :pray:

Can we showcase @ZcashGrants discussions here and disable non-MGRC zpl from interrupting? :pray:

I would estimate about 4-5h thus far. Since elections, I have carefully re-read ZIP-1014, tracked the MGRC-related public discussions, and attended the first MGRC meeting as a passive minutes taker. Plus time spent today typing replies on the forum :slight_smile:

From the moment Chris announced his candidacy, heā€™s been open about the fact that if he gets elected, weā€™d be sharing the MGRC-related workload. At this point in the process, I would rather not speculate on a specific number of hours and how it will be split between us.

The most obvious one is that the MGRC is so overwhelmed with work that it fails to deliver on its main objectives. I personally think thatā€™s an unlikely scenario. The best way to mitigate this risk is for the MGRC to be as smart, strategic, and efficient as possible. I think all MGRC members understand what theyā€™ve been elected to do/achieve, including @cburniske. Iā€™m making myself available in any capacity deemed appropriate by the MGRC, and possible given my other obligations.

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@ZcashGrants should write a guide to working with them. It would be to clarify the elected members role to each other, potential grant recipients, and the larger Zcash community: " What do I want to be involved with? When do I want to hear from you? What are my preferred communication modes? What makes me impatient? Donā€™t surprise me with X "

That would be super powerful

H/t Urs Holzle, Claire Hughes Johnson (read her personal guide)

At the beginning, I think all of our work will be to get in a position where we can accept applications, review them, and make grants.

Weā€™ll be providing detail on each grantmaking decision, and I believe grant applications will be public so people can review those.

Re: making all internal communications public, I think itā€™s usually helpful for small groups to have some space where they can speak off-the-cuff with each other without worrying about being taken out of context. For example, if weā€™re discussing a grant, we might want to give a frank assessment of the grant without worrying about offending the applicant. If we canā€™t do that, Iā€™d worry that it might lead to the MGRC making worse grants.

So Iā€™m in favor of having detailed meeting minutes to start with, and lots of detailed decisions on grantmaking decisions, and making applications public. Thereā€™s something really cool about having public meetings, but on balance I donā€™t think it best serves the process of making good use of MGRC funds, because it inhibits frankness.

Weā€™re going to be public about a ton of stuff on the forums and if you ever have a specific question about the meeting minutes, please ask and Iā€™ll give the best possible answer I can!

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Sounds good. Hope to help, especially as someone without any financial ties or pre-approval from ECC/ZF/VCs.

@moderators , Iā€™ve made a similar request, elsewhere, but I believe it is more relevant within this thread:

Can we create a @ tag for all ZCAP members? That way, at least for those that are on the ZCAP and the forum, they can be more informed, especially as we had hosted candidate statements and debate discussions here, earlier.

Without access to this rich, interactive nformation, ZCAP members are more likely to blindly approve of whom they are predisposed to, thereby furthering centralization.

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As I mentioned before when you wanted to ping the ZCAP to vote in your ā€œmost precinct zcasherā€ poll:

The ZCAP has a place for voting, via Helios where itā€™s secure, private, and recorded. The forums do not provide that.

Further, I donā€™t think it is appropriate for every one of the 11K registered forum users to be able to ping/email 100 people (or more in the future) with whatever thing they deem as important enough to warrant using a @ZCAP tag.

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Not sure how that gif is relevant.

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@jmsjsph Since you feel itā€™s important to notify a set of forum users of topics/threads that you like we could create a group for your use.

If you wanted to we could make a group called ā€œJamesNotesā€ or whatever and allow forum users to opt-in to be added to the group. What do you think?

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