ZF's Impact on the Zcash ecosystem

[Dodger]

The Alternative Dev Fund Sentiment polls have surfaced some intriguing data regarding the community’s perception of ZF’s impact on the Zcash ecosystem. Of the current Dev Fund recipients, 14 people believe that ZF has had the most positive impact on the Zcash ecosystem, while 18 people believe that it has had the least positive impact. Subtracting one from the other gives a net score of -4 (versus +1 for ECC, and +4 for ZCG).

While there’s a question mark over whether respondents took the disparity in funding between the three Dev Fund organisations into account when assessing their impact on the ecosystem, it still behooves me to heed the implicit feedback and dig into it further.

As a first step, I’d like to ask the community how valuable they consider ZF’s contributions to be, broken down by the various projects, programs and initiatives we undertake.

Zebra

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

FROST

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

ZCG Support

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

Community Support (incl. technical support, ecosystem support, these forums, Community calls, hosting the Arborist Calls, administering ZCAP)

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

Minor Grants

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

ZF Grants (e.g. research into programmability and privacy-preserving PoS, the ZK AV Club, My First Zcash)

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

In-person Zcon events

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

Virtual Zcon events

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

Establishing the Financial Privacy Foundation as an independent offshore entity

• 0 (Not valuable)
• 1 (Somewhat valuable)
• 2 (Very valuable)
• 3 (Essential)

[conradoplg]

@HIROSHIMAH

The reason for this is the approval of funds which, in my opinion, are highly questionable.

Which funds approved by ZF do you think were questionable?

[conradoplg]

Honestly from the messages I read from you I never figured out what exactly you dislike about ZF. Feel free to point me to a specific message or DM me if you want to.

[peacemonger]

@Dodger

The Alternative Dev Fund Sentiment polls have surfaced some intriguing data regarding the community’s perception of ZF’s impact on the Zcash ecosystem.

Perhaps there’s a simple explanation:

Alternative Dev Fund Sentiment Polls

ZURE’s closed survey went out to about 200 people. 65 responded. Here are the results: Zcash Dev Fund & Leadership Survey Results Some of the questions from the survey: Q8: Rate your support for the Direct Funding model (0-low, 5-high) Q9: Rate your support for the Non-Direct Funding model (0-low, 5-high) Q10: Rate your support for letting the Dev Fund expire and permanently allocating 100% of mining rewards to miners [Screenshot 2024-06-14 at 4.18.43 PM] Q11: Rate your confidence in Ele…

[cryptomuncher]

More support to blow the whole thing up. No more dev fund no more CEOs or Executive Directors. Let the project ebb and flow with community support instead of a tax. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

[peacemonger]

Wait, here’s more. I’ll post the full report for ZCAP members’ and Dev Fund recipients’ responses later, but here is a glimpse at some of the numbers:

ZCAP members’ responses (Q11-Q13, 34 respondents):

Dev Fund recipients/beneficiaries direct/indirect (Q11-Q13, 29 respondents):

[zerodartz]

few thoughts on results.

its not the actual perfomance of ZF exactly which i think is mostly good and essential for future in zebra and frost projects.

its just perception of it all. and maybe the “drama and misunderstandings on forum?”

and maybe the fact the work ZF does is not as easy to understand for most as its very backend. and not yet super implemented or daily seen by most community.

tho community support and communication from @decentralistdan and @autotunafish is very good and essential. but many might not realize its also part of wat ZF does.

edit: actually i dont know. doesnt make sense as the voters should know most of it.

[GGuy]

I’d be really careful about putting Q13 on the same page as Q11 and Q12 as they are not asking the same thing.

[zkcroc]

ZF does a great job and produces essential work, however the bickering between the two major beneficiaries of the dev fund is embarrassing and a major distraction. I wish everyone would get on the same page

[artkor]

Totally support that thought.

@Dodger, @joshs, I don’t think we should shape the questions in surveys in such a way that their essence comes down to “who is better, who is worse”. I couldn’t help but answer this question because it’s a mandatory question, so I put the same organization in both meanings. I won’t say which one, because it could have been any of the three organizations. Each of the three did their job perfectly, but each of the three could have done it even better. And there’s no answer as to why, it’s just always possible to do even better because we’re all improving.

But if we’re asking which of the three was better or worse, posing the question in this way to the general public in and of itself implies discord among the collective. Everyone will be looking for a reason why I am worse? That’s the way human beings are. This will lead to unnecessary offenses, to misunderstandings. It leads to emphasizing self-promotion rather than work. It does significant harm to Zcash.

Isn’t it obvious that Zcash has no future without Zebra? Isn’t it obvious that FROST is a tremendously important line of work? Isn’t it obvious that ZF’s organizing work is indispensable for mass events? Work that no one else will do! And it’s not even a question of the percentage of the distribution of funds. I think the virtual Zcon this year was great, and less costly, which makes it even more awesome.

So I understand how Jack and the ZF engineering team may feel looking at the results and I share their feelings. But no need to take it personally here, these are just very subjective numbers that probably don’t reflect a fair situation.

[ZcashDeFi]

This poll doens’t represent anything.

ZF != ZF engineers.

ZF as an organization needs to go away. Productives people can stay.

[peacemonger]

None of the questions in ZURE’s survey were mandatory. You were able to choose any score for any organization. You made your choices, and so did other respondents. These are the results. I value your opinion, but a single opinion voiced here doesn’t override the opinions of all the other respondents who might not be interested in participating in this discussion right now.

Btw, you can see that when asked about ZF’s effectiveness in the last 6 months, respondents rated it higher than their confidence in ZF’s leadership. ZF’s leadership, which is the people who manage ZF, is not the same thing as ZF.

Smart leadership doesn’t fight or ignore data like this. Which is why, I really appreciated @aquietinvestor question to ZCG nominees. That’s how you handle feedback like this - you try to figure out what’s broken and how it can be fixed, instead of getting defensive and mad at the question/responses to it - that’s not leadership. The survey is not the problem here.

Performance evaluation is standard procedure. These polls should be done at least every six months.

[ambimorph]

Are you saying there was an option to not answer the question? I didn’t see that option.

What is someone supposed to do if they think a question has an unavoidable slant no matter how it’s answered? That’s how I interpreted artkor’s objection. (Open to correction.)

[peacemonger]

None of the questions were mandatory. You could submit a completely empty survey. Someone actually did that.

[peacemonger]

Are you saying that questions about performance should not be asked because they hurt the feelings of those whose performance is below average? ECC, ZF, and ZCG get millions of dollars in guaranteed funding. Standard questions about their performance should not produce so much pushback. We shouldn’t have waited 8 years to ask them.

Competition is the core element of free markets. Dev Fund recipients have to be able to compete within the Zcash ecosystem and outside of it. ZEC holders watching their portfolio decrease in value have every reason to have high expectations for the companies they are bankrolling. This urge to shelter Zcash form the natural forces of free markets will not help us succeed. This is why it feels like a school project sometimes. In the real world you are evaluated against your competition. Reality is a fight for resources at every level. For everyone. For orgs, it’s a competition for funding, talent, users, attention, etc. The IV drip of guaranteed funding has allowed some dev fund recipients to forget how resources are usually acquired.

Most startups have to compete, show results, allocate resources effectively, be accountable to their investors, etc every step of the way. Startups, that don’t compete well, fail. Startups, that figure it out, stay in the game and go on to make great products for real users. When you get millions of dollars without having to compete, you can easily afford to maintain the status quo and act in self-interest. Terrible incentives and bad news for investors and users. The current Zcash dev fund model, which is a direct funding model, has enabled failing upwards. Let this sink in: an organization without a clear roadmap is getting millions of dollars in guaranteed funding. This is not on ZF engineers, btw.

To clarify, the work of individual engineers/employees at ZF is not in question here. I could be wrong, but I believe that if I asked respondents to rate the ZF team, exclusive of ZF’s top leadership (top executive + board of directors), the average score would be much higher. Excellent contributors should not be held back by subpar gatekeepers. ZF leadership needs ZF engineers, not the other way around. This is one of the reasons why non-direct funding models are so important, and this is why this option is being blatantly suppressed by ZF. In that world, ZF engineers could fire ZF leadership.

Here’s an example. Right now, it doesn’t make sense for engineers to break off and do their own thing, because no matter what, ZF will continue to receive direct funding, and will just hire new engineers. With non-direct funding, engineers can leave and take a chunk of ZF’s funds with them. If ZF starts losing engineers to independent projects that do the same work, the community can then reevaluate the scope of ZF’s work. Grants-based models mean more freedom and opportunity for top performers and less opportunity for below-average performers, which is a win for Zcash.

[artkor]

You’re just adding oil to the fire of drama that is completely unnecessary here and has been dragging us down all these years. We could do a poll in the form of an evaluation of each, without bumping heads over who’s worse and who’s better. Keep in mind that most of the people responding either represent one side or haven’t watched any Arborist Calls and have no idea what you’re asking them about. Such nonsense.

Right now the issue is that everyone has until July 2nd to contribute ZIPs, and the context is that these are only Dev Fund issues (x.com). And it’s called the 6th major network update. It probably won’t have PoS or ZSA or any of the things people have been waiting for for 2 years since the last major update. And it was announced for the fall of 2022, by the way. Is it ZF’s fault only?

This is what everyone needs to be talking about, not how we’re going to divide the pie based on someone else’s subjective judgment. If this happens, a garden-themed update could be named after the most popular fertilizer among private farmers, as it will be associated with feeding future fruit.

I know how to snap, I don’t even advise you to continue. I’ll make this thread a firestorm on the eve of decisions on the fund if I really start saying uncomfortable things.

[peacemonger]

@artkor

You’re just adding oil to the fire of drama

I’m voicing my opinion and contributing survey data. You are also voicing your opinion. That’s what this forum is for. Or do you believe that people with opinions that don’t match yours should censor themselves?

@artkor

We could do a poll in the form of an evaluation of each, without bumping heads over who’s worse and who’s better.

Yes, you could do a poll.
When you say, “bumping heads” are you referring to the data being displayed on one page? Are you referring to the differences in the scores chosen by respondents for different organization? Or is it something else?

@artkor

Keep in mind that most of the people responding either represent one side or haven’t watched any Arborist Calls and have no idea what you’re asking them about.

What are you basing this assumption on?

@artkor

I know how to snap, I don’t even advise you to continue.

Ok.

[artkor]

If we take away all the pretty wrapping, the task comes down to simply convincing a narrow community to vote for the fund, and the broad in the legality of this vote. And that’s why we have a dozen polls with the same participants. We make up a new structure for the foundation to create the illusion that things will change for the better. But we shouldn’t convince ourselves too much of that. It may happen that the overall result will only get worse, although the funding will be secured along with the engineers’ jobs.

Multiple funding streams can lead to all sorts of problems, which ZCG has already experienced. The community in principle will not be able to control the fulfillment of the set tasks. It will have to hire third-party auditors, then lawyers, and so on. Seven nannies have an unattended child.

Less control means less responsibility, less synchronization, less forward motion. So don’t flirt with slogans.

[peacemonger]

@artkor

This is what everyone needs to be talking about

According to you. Unfortunately, people continue to do what they think they need to do.

@artkor

So don’t flirt with slogans.

I might, if I feel like it.

[Minghe]

@peacemonger

an organization without a clear roadmap is getting millions of dollars in guaranteed funding. This is not on ZF engineers, btw.

Exactly. There were no any roadmaps of ZF for the past 4 years.

At this situation, for the next 4 years, ZF intends to encourage the community to choose a direct funding model. Direct funding model = Allocate funds to ZF.

@peacemonger

ZF leadership needs ZF engineers, not the other way around. This is one of the reasons why non-direct funding models are so important, and this is why this option is being blatantly suppressed by ZF. In that world, ZF engineers could fire ZF leadership.