Rationale
Former Special Council (SC) and Working Group Stewards (WGS) have contributed to building the DAO to this point. I was thinking should we have a more formal Alumni program.
They would be able to call themself Alumnus or Former Special Council or Working Group Steward (depending on what applies).
FYI. now days people use Alumnus for male and female, though historically it was specific to males.
They would be able to use this title if they performed their role and they neither resigned during their term or were forced to leave via a DAO wide vote.
It would be a way to say thank you and to let them have the honour after they leave a formal role.
Polls
Should we have Alumni roles for Alumni of Special Council and Stewards?
Yes
No
0voters
Should we provide an NFT to Alumni of Special Council and Stewards?
The idea of an Alumni program is fantastic! Recognizing former Councilors and Working Group Stewards with the title of Alumnus is a warm gesture of appreciation. It would be a wonderful way to honor and maintain connections even after their terms end. I really like this initiative.
It is an honorific program. A badge of honor after they leave the role.
It could be listed on the ApeCoin website but we could also create a soulbound token for it. Even if the NFT isn’t soulbound, I don’t believe they would be sold and the number of people it would apply to is not many, so it is easy to verify against the website.
Cool. One interesting thing that has come up in the past is finding a way to keep the alumni in touch in some way. They have great knowledge on the DAO and could provide insight and experience where appropriate.
What type of more formal program were you thinking? Like Vulkan mentioned, this was something that’s been discussed in the past. Also agree that there’s a lot of knowledge there that could be helpful if able to tap into when appropriate.
During WG0, we made an alumni role in the Discord and there’s a chat in there that no one uses. I already use the title WG0 Steward Alumni, but I guess that could be more formalized.
It is a formal way specifically for SC and Stewards, as it is hard to get elected for these roles and the term is at least 1 year, so shows a significant contribution in term time in the DAO.
They have no requirement to contribute further, but Alumni are likely to be more friendly to fellow Alumni and many are likely to contribute in the overall sector development, so it will benefit the ApeCoin Dao.
A “little blue book” could be distributed and updated annually, to Alumni which includes the contact details of all Alumni (They can share as much contact info and updated info as they wish). A play on a little black book concept.
Furthermore, as we look to experiment with ways to include Social Capital this could be one item included.
Social Capital examples
Special Council Alumni
Working Group Steward Alumni
Successful AIP Author
Level 3 in Discourse (more difficult as dynamic and can be taken away)
WG0 Steward Alumni
Level 2 in Discourse
They have simply done the jobs they were paid to do. And let’s not forget they were very well paid with salaries of between $110K & $250K a year. Also most of the work they did was directed by the communtiy.
When will people stop with this push to grant certain individuals & groups extra power and/or status over the rest of the members of this community? We are suppose to be decentralised and communtiy driven. Ideas like this try to persuade others that certain members have some sort of greater importance because we paid them to do a job and imo it goes against the ethos and the spirit of what DAOs are meant to be.
I’d ask we concentrate more on uplifting all members of the community and making sure every voice is equally listened to.
Had to bring my opinion out of retirement for this one, ’23 was an exciting year of changes. Looking forward to what’s next
Just a little context from the past…
This has consistently been a somewhat contentious topic, especially among individuals who held the roles mentioned.
Some advocate for establishing a program to preserve institutional knowledge gained by members who have successfully undergone the election process and served a full term as a Special Council member or Steward.
On the other side, there are members against solidifying additional hierarchies or creating opportunities for “back-room” discussions, see Cabal.
There’s an existing forum category and private networking area for approved AIP authors.
In my opinion, capturing the value invested in members who have been in paid roles could benefit the entire community. However, it seems that the consensus across discussion so far leans against creating additional hierarchy or special titles for “alumni.”
I initially advocated for the creation of the Alumni role/channel in Discord, and stand by the intent. But, I acknowledge the challenges and for now would prefer to see the DAO explore ideas for a program or any solutions beyond roles and channels in the discussion platforms, possibly incorporating DAO-approved guidelines and incentives for alignment.
Thank you for your comments. My personal opinion it is about the Equality of Opportunity.
For example, we can all run in the elections if we have one ApeCoin. We don’t get restricted to run based on things like our gender, social background, colour of our skin etc.
I know you refer to Yat Siu at times and he views we should consider both financial capital and social capital. Having such a role or contributing in here as a Level 2 or Level 3 is also a form of social capital.
I end with this quote.
“We fight God when our Social System dooms the brilliant clever child of a poor man to the same level as his father”, British Admiral Jacky Fisher, Records (1919)
I mentioned the little blue book, but I was not suggesting we have private channels for the Alumni, though I was not against giving a role purely for status value.
I am thinking about how we can start to identify Social capital and pilot ways to give benefits to those who have accumulated that. If we accumulate financial capital, we get the benefit of extra voting weight on snapshot, so hence thinking of ways related to social capital.
Yat had a related idea related to earned (labour) vs owned (capital).
So this line highlights perfectly where my reservations come from. The OG post states the role will be a simple “thank you”, and now it is already turning into some form of social capital/credit with attached benefits.
My main concern is that these small accreditations/labels then snowball into “allumi only meetings”, “the allumi think”, gated areas just for “allumi to discuss”. What happens then is the general community is regarded as the bottom of the pile, a place you want to escape from to join the others who have pulled themselves up/out. And this then becomes exclusive and exclusionary and even less appealing for new entrants.
Anyway, I get what you are trying to achieve and look forward to reading more and maybe some day a great workable solution.
I agree with you, we need to encourage more people to join and contribute. The area of social capital and/or earned (labour) is a very complex topic.
I will bring this back to a much more narrow focus. Also any potential future benefits related to contributing to the community would have to be a separate AIP, which would have to pass a DAO wide vote.
The narrow focus is in the earlier posts but also including these ideas.
If true, I believe that this would be a fault of those alumni. I am strongly against treating people differently based on roles or titles. Judge based on merit and merit alone.
I am speaking directly to the quote I highlighted and not a simple badge system. The assumption that alumni are more likely to be friendly to fellow alumni is a concerning point-of-view to have from my perspective.
I mean relative to someone who has no link to the ApeCoin Dao. Like how University Alumni are more likely to be friendly to each other versus someone who doesn’t have that shared experience. Again there is no guarantee that the Alumni will be friendly it was just a likely possibility.
Being real, there’s like 10 people who actively post here. I understand your perspective, I just think there’s a big difference in the scale of circumstances we’re talking about.
I understand your perspective, I just think there’s a big difference in the scale of circumstances we’re talking about.