Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,
Our team has reviewed and discussed @Lost’s AIP Draft and have sent a list of initial questions. We await answers.
Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.
Kind Regards,
-Escape
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Hey @Moonlyght ,
No worries, we’ve addressed this in comments here on Discourse throughout the past month of this process. Our stated roles are not a unilateral comparison to their web2 counterparts, and we have structured this initiative to expect overlap in responsibilities for all of our team members. In addition to web3 jobs being generally compensated at a higher level than web2 jobs, or especially the general job salaries that you might find in a google search, the reality is that working for a DAO, and ApeCoin DAO specifically, carries extra risks given the uncertain regulatory environment.
The CTFC has taken extremely aggressive stances in targeting participation in DAOs, and the SEC is similarly taking aggressive actions in investigating and threatening to sue individuals for promoting unregistered securities, including recently investigating Yuga’s involvement in ApeCoin. The regulatory risk in this space is real. Those of us who are openly active in governance, or “building” at all, within this ecosystem assume even greater risk.
So, we consider the underlying risk and being a part of the blockchain ecosystem to be relevant when considering the ApeComms compensation. When considering the risks we are undertaking, the multitude of roles we are fulfilling, the considerable expertise in the ApeCoin ecosystem that our individual team members have developed, and the overall value our team provides to the ApeCoin ecosystem, we believe the compensation is reasonable.
Thanks again,
Lost
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I think a major concern of @Moonlyght is if the rewards/compensation for ApeComms matches their contributions. I agree that web3 jobs should have a higher salary due to special techniques. But ApeApeComms has 8 people. It’s the size of some small web3 projects and we don’t want to see overlaps among these comms. One way I would suggest is to publish a biweekly or monthly report of work as many projects did so that the community would know all contributions from ApeComms. More transparency to the community would eliminate the concerns.
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Hey @Lost ,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts regarding the compensation. Here’s my additional thoughts:
Why would you need to overlap responsabilities though? I believe the community as @ChrisL mentioned doesn’t want to see overalps among the comms… Is that really necessary? Or is it to justify a lack of “work” so the more people that tackle a specific topic the more “busy” they will be hence justifying the $10k a month?
I would love if you could share some additional info on these points:
- Developing Media.
You talk about Developing content and media for the community and that you guys have worked for the past 2 months, but If i go on the ApeComms twitter media there’s no content…
- Support members during AIP phases.
While I belive this is a great initiative, is the timing correct? How many people/members have you helped in October with AIP’s that have been reviewed and successfully went for a live vote?
- Coordinate ApeCoin Twitter & Open lines of communication between Foundation & DAO community.
Shouldn’t this be expected from the Foundation & Special Council? To serve the vision of the community by improving their communication with the community? Why do we have to add another layer of “communication” instead of holding them accountable? (With the upcoming elections I believe this will change.)
- Increase coverage about the Apecoin DAO ecosystem
Didn’t we approve a proposal for the Bored Ape Gazette already? Shouldn’t they act as a point of contact for media inquiries on behalf of the ApeCoin DAO?
What you guys are proposing is very honorable, but is feels that it was planned with utmost detail.
- Identify a problem within the ecosystem: Lack of communication from the Foundation/Council
- Assemble a group of reputable people within the community that can solve this problem
- Gain the trust of the community by being active for 2+ months and providing value for free
- Create an AIP that tackles the pain points of the community which is lack of communciation from the Council/Foundation
- Get rewarded in return $10k a month for each member
While the intentions might be good, and I like that, I have to question the Overall cost that the DAO would have to pay for this, to me it doesn’t seem reasonable. I would understand if there was 2-3 People at most, but 8?
Final thoughts. I would like to quote Chris here:
Will you have Monthly/Bi-weekly reports to share with the community from each member? So that we can hold each member accountable of their value to the community and measure it?
Looking forward to your reply,
-Moonlyght 
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While I’d like to encourage you @Moonlyght to continue to share feedback, I have to ask you to look back at the proposal in more detail. Our roles are clearly defined, and reporting done both monthly and quarterly has been addressed. To go a step further, I’d be glad to have a conversation, where we (as experienced DAO members) can help explain the difference between the executive Special Council board, and what we are doing. Additionally, we are not going to trim the team size to 3 people, and have built a solid reputation over the course of 4-7 months. In other posts, I have addressed that we have met w/ ~25 potential proposal authors. We also often engage with delegates and token holders, both big and small. Your feedback is noted, and generally has already been built into the proposal. Thank you again for participating!
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Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,
@Lost has responded to our questions and they are in our review once again.
Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.
Kind Regards,
-Escape
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1,000% YES from me on this. The ApeComms team has done an amazing job so far . i have learned a ton from there spaces on twitter and look foward to what they continue to do.
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This is a team that has proven itself to be dedicated to the DAO. Nothing prevents another team to be putting forward their own Comms proposal, yet no other one exists. That’s for good reason because this is the one team that has been putting in work for months.
Assuming this eventually gets passed, what I’d love to see in the next iteration of the AIP is for this to become an internal function of the DAO. As part of the ‘Future of ApeCoin DAO’ governance, we are supposed to move towards hiring DAO members to take care of certain functions that can make sense within the DAO; I would say the roles described here in ApeComms fits that. Creating a Comms department and hiring these individuals under the Foundation, even as contractors, would mitigate additional business risks for both the Foundation and for the ApeComms team members.
In the meantime, thank you ApeComms team for taking on the extra risks here by building without waiting for the DAO to catch up with its internal processes. We need more participants to put forward thoughtful and reasonable experiments such as this one that can eventually evolve into permanent functions for the DAO.
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Thanks for the kind words and totally support the idea of a more integrated Comms Group within the “Future of ApeCoin DAO”.
Also, not speaking for the CommsTeam, but personally I support your idea of expanding the Special Council to minimize the risks of centralized power, implied or real.
Thanks for putting yourself out there for SC and for your contributions in this ongoing discourse.
SSP✌🏽
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Can a person serve on both the ApeComms Team and the ApeCoin Board at the same time? If yes, was vetted by Apecoin legal counsel? Would they be paid both salaries?
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Hey @NFTC. We’ve talked internally about how we’d like to handle serving on multiple committees. One of our core members, Bored.eth, has always planned to run for Special Council, in which case we have a process for replacing. There is a good chance that he would still continue to be involved in our weekly Twitter Spaces, also finding ways to support us however possible, but not as a working group member.
In the case of this working group, we’re not often taking on other projects. Most all of us have been focused on the tasks outlined in this proposal, and our culture in the team is one that encourages each other to work harder. Decisions were made by many of us to not run for Special Council, even if that meant reduced pay, to see this working group model remain strong going into the new year. You can likely imagine how devastating it would’ve been for all members of our team to also apply to run as council candidates!
One area where we have to be careful is when serving on proposal committees such as Thank Ape or Catapult. In some cases, these roles may require ~3 hours of work each week, and are often likely to be uncompensated. As a team, we’ve all committed to openly talk about these opportunities, and how that could affect a member. For example, if I volunteer for many, it takes away from my ApeComms work.
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I just wanted to take a minute to point out the positive impact the ApeComms team has had on the DAO.
As I tweeted yesterday, many participation metrics like Discourse forum users have been slowly but steadily increasing. A big reason for this has been the work the ApeComms team has put in over the past several months.
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To me, this AIP is a no-brainer. The level of communication, professionalism and coordination that the team has taken on, from unofficial Discord moderation to Twitter Spaces, to regular posts keeping the community regularly informed, it would be difficult to imagine this ecosystem without ApeComms… and they’ve been doing this work for FREE. This proposal has my fullest support, and addresses one of our most important needs.
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Hey everyone, Porter here with a16z.
Thanks to @Lost and @Vulkan for their efforts drafting this AIP and pushing it out to the community. This is a great first step towards building out the working infrastructure for ApeCoin DAO by bringing on full-time contributors for a new DAO-specific team.
We appreciated the detailed post incorporating details about the team’s mission set, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), operating budget, and specific milestones per the timeline; this post establishes a positive precedent for other future ApeCoin DAO teams. Additionally, the proposed members have been heavily involved in the DAO to date, doing everything from Twitter Spaces to Zoom calls to proactively onboarding new members into the community. Due to these factors, and the reasonable budget request ($998,000 in ApeCoin for 12 months), we think there should be a bias towards action in onboarding an ApeComms team.
That said, the ApeComms proposal also highlights the need to frame a discussion around the future organizational design of ApeCoin DAO. Following this proposal, others are likely to come forward requesting funding to establish full-time teams. Some initial considerations here are:
- What teams should be prioritized?
- How should they be organized?
- What should their roles entail?
- How can the community balance the need for full-time contributors and experimentation without overextending itself?
- What are the processes to measure and evaluate performance? How should funding be considered?
- What can ApeCoin DAO learn from other communities in the space?
- Finally, what is the overall organizational strategy moving forward, and at what pace of development?
We’ve spoken with many of you already, and we look forward to meeting everyone else as we continue to get involved. Feel free to get in touch with me here on the forums or via Twitter if you have any further thoughts or questions!
Porter
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gm gm @Porter_Smith,
Thanks for the kind words, it’s truly been a team effort and has been many, many hundreds of hours in the making (and tons of caffeine).
Agreed 100% that additional full-time teams are needed, and your considerations are a great “template” of sorts, a jumping off point at the very least.
To that point, AIP-64 IRL Events Feasibility Study has a follow-up AIP that proposes such a working group (IRL Events Support Team) based on countless conversations with industry professionals, event organizers, brands and sponsors. The list above will no doubt be a great guide to integrate in the AIP.
Again, thanks for your support of ApeComms AIP-142, we’re here to help grow the DAO together, sustainably.
Peace
SSP✌🏽
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Just read this. This should be shared more often on social! 
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Agree completely! The ApeComms team is doing stellar work for the DAO on a consistent basis and high standards on a pro bono basis so far! It is very clear to see the passion and commitment of its team members. I don’t know of any other AIP so far that has already achieved this level of impact in their exact proposed area with no funding involved!
One difficult question I want to raise, which I think is important for the voters to have in mind:
What would happen to the ApeComms team if for whatever reason this AIP is not voted in? (I sure hope and trust that people will see the value here but just asking as a hypothetical question)
I don’t know what the ApeComms team answer to this question would be and it’s totally fine if they prefer not to discuss this scenario at this stage. But I personally think it’s neither fair nor sustainable for the community to expect this level of service with no official recognition and financing moving forward!
Some may argue that communications could be expected already from the Special Council team. Questions about the potential overlaps between the SC role and comms team are valid and interesting to explore but at this point, the SC “responsibilities” are defined in the broadest terms! It all falls on the voters to decide which candidate to vote for and it’s not guaranteed that communications (the way it’s structured and delivered by the ApeComms team) will be offered by the elected candidates! I sure hope it will be somehow but just highlighting the fact that it’s up to each individual SC member to choose how and to what extent to facilitate communications across the DAO.
There’s also no “coordinator” role pre-defined within the SC team. I’m sure the elected council will all be experienced team players, passionate about communication (as I certainly am like many other nominees that I know) but we shouldn’t underestimate the amount of time and effort that’s required to establish and maintain a communications system internally, so it will probably not be optimal or feasible to also expect that the SC will be responsible for facilitating communications between DAO members on a broad level.
With ApeComms, we already have a strong team who have a track record of working efficiently and transparently as a team with defined responsibilities.
I think Apecoin DAO will operate more efficiently, transparently and productively if we have a dedicated communications team in place, especially one that’s grown out of the DAO itself and is already operating up to high standards.
This is not to disagree with anyone who may have other ideas for how communications should best be managed amongst the DAO members and between token holders and the special council. I think it’s still healthy and constructive to think of alternative solutions where those exist.
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Hey Novo! Glad to see you on the forum, here’s some of my thoughts:
This in my opinion is a problem that needs a solution, see my AIP idea (Establishing Accountability Processes) that tackles this exact problem and proposes a solution. Would love to hear your thoughts.
I also love what the ApeComms team is proposing, my only concern was with the $1 million a year, but I believe they are gathering feedback before moving to a live AIP and that might change slightly, I remain hopeful as having a working group like the ApeComms would be a huge assets to the whole community and DAO.
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I think @Porter_Smith brought great questions here. For most $APE holders, they may not know the ApeComms team well and how much they have contributed to the community. Making a standard of establishing working groups would give a guide to the community of what kind of teams/roles are encouraged.
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