Official two way communication for mgrc/zomg and ethics

General
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Its that time again.

the zfnd have said they will use the forums to solict feedback upon which they may or may not act.

They have committed to announcements via blog posts and follow up discussions with the community.

10/10

The ECC have committed to releasing announcements via blogpost and only official two way communication (if you can call it that) via github. The ECC will discuss upto a point their reasoning and do interact with the forums. Although they have no official means of accepting community feedback (but you can complain about peoples conduct).

The @mgrc (I hate you for making me type @ZcashGrants shawn) can they both go to the same place please. Have committed to nothing. Sarah has stated that they will only make announcements and not take feedback. - is this just for grants or also how you set yourselves up?

For example an ethics thread was started a long time ago, with @ChileBob asking what consequences their might be. Has their been any progression in this area? if we are giving out money already I want to make damn sure we (you) have fire alarms, rip cords and the ability to pull the plug.

I have yet to see anything mentioned in anyones “vote for me” materialise yet, and we have started funding things.

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We are all here and get pings whenever you use the ZOMG tag, and I am not aware of any ZOMG stance that we will not listen to feedback from the community. That’s the entire point of having the ZOMG conduct a large portion the grant process on the forums, so the community can see what is going on.

Can you please link to what you are referring to?

Also, that reminds me, I will be posting yesterday’s ZOMG meeting minutes shortly.

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What I actually said (in November during the initial formation of the committee) was:

(On that note, the only “official” communication from the MGRC for the foreseeable future will be through meeting minutes and committee votes).

The ZOMG is a committee formed of 5 members, and the only offical mechanism that exists for us to provide official comment is committee votes.

That being said, in recent weeks we have sought input/feedback from the community in a number of areas e.g.

ZOMG: Should it be proactive in finding grantees?: ZOMG: Should it be proactive in finding grantees?
Request for Input Securing the Zcash Ecosystem: Request for Input: Securing the Zcash Ecosystem

We have also directly responded to people who have reached out via the forum e.g. Suggestion: MGRC liaison in community dev calls - #4 by holmesworcester

On the point of ethics, given that ZOMG has now been officially clarified to be a committee under the governance of the Zcash Foundation (https://www.zfnd.org/about/incorporation-docs/2020-12-01-bylaws-amendment-3/) we inherent all policies that govern the ZF.

As a committee I believe there is appetite for expanding the scope of those policies, but given that we are not a full time committee, discussions on that scope have taken second chair to discussing grant applications (something that the community was quite vocal about us prioritizing).

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I fully endorse @sarahjamielewis’s comments and have nothing to add.

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I value the time you are putting into the forums and zcash. I happy we are having this conversation.

yeah, it was the word official. I see where you are coming from with it, and your forum involvement specifically has been really candid and useful. - my issue is I have no mechanism as a community member to guarantee my voice is heard. - the mgrc is a community project, not a for profit like the ecc.

but we have seen little to no movement on the ethics stuff, the hours, etc. Meeting updates are great, but official communication to out of band questions really helps.

A good example is you are getting a lot of feedback and forum involvement over liteclients. is perfection the enemy of good here? Could your position be changed (not you specifically, the mgrc) I dont feel the mgrc stance on lightclients, if we could chat about, it might change.

It feels like the threads are dead. there is no room for movement from the community to help, only the proposer and the mgrc. so potentially we just lost two liteclients. both I recommend to people. the mgrc laid out their objections. the devs responded. this just feels strange.

3 light clients is better than 1. 2 sdk’s can implement different feature sets, idk. I dislike redundancy for the sake of it, but I think we need it for the moment at least. I vaguely remember

Nothing is stopping you forming something or using something already out there, indeed I remember having a chat with josh c about how this was a priority (I can dig out the post if you like), much like chilibobs request. - MGRC COI, COC and COE - #9 by ChileBob - why was this thread just dropped?

a recent call were the ecc wallet team was amazed at the work zecwallet and nighthawk had done for both UX and MEMO’s - it could be argued that zcash should upstream from them and then integration test - we are meant to be moving (slowly) away from the ECC, if that means they have to get more involved with comunnity wallet ppl. go for it.

I agree long term though, although I dont think the ECC version will be the one. we will see.

  • so it is official, mgrc will attend gardening club. Is this going to cost us (the community) extra?

In this thread I agree with autotunafish. - ZOMG: Should it be proactive in finding grantees?

So whilst conversation is great, where is the /officially/ supported 2 way communication method between the community and the mgrc. - it was implied that recipients would have to use the forums. is this still the case? What is the applicants officially supported method for two way communication with the community

Anyway I im going to try to get back to sleep for a couple of hours before i have to start doing things.

I am not asking people to sign things in blood here. These are reasonable questions. I walk into a fast food shop I can contact someone, through an official channel and get an official response. I am not saying every post has to be official I am asking where do I have to post it at least think my feedback is being taken seriously and maybe get an official response.

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Yes, per ZOMG guidelines this forum is a required part of the application process:

“When you receive the notification that your application is public, please post a link to it on the Zcash Community Forum in the “applicants” category. This step is to gather community feedback about your project.
Respond to our questions and to any community feedback in the forum thread. This part of the process is open to the general public, so be ready for some honest feedback, questions, and engagement with Zcash community members!”