AIP-175: Establish ApeComms

Thanks @Lost for posting our v2 proposal and thanks in advance to everyone in the community for taking the time to read through it, provide feedback, and ask questions. Here is a quick background on myself.

I currently write a newsletter for our DAO as part of AIP-66 and also track various engagement and participation metrics on the DAO here. This analysis has led to proposals like AIP-144 seeking to improve processes within the DAO.

I have also participated in numerous calls and chats helping people of our community become familiar with the AIP process and what to expect along the way.

You might remember me as the author of this initial proposal but not part of the team behind AIP-142. Back when the initial proposal was in the works, I decided to step away and build a few things on my own. However, to be honest I felt a little lost after doing so. My place has always been alongside this ApeComms team working to improve communication within the DAO and educating people on the DAO and proposal process.

I’m extremely grateful the team allowed me to come back and we are as motivated as ever to build something the DAO values. We have listened to feedback provided the first go-around and will continue to listen right up until our proposal goes up for a live vote again. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or anyone else on the team if you feedback or questions.

17 Likes

Major props to you all for taking the feedback and revising your AIP. The costs look much more reasonable in this version. The detail of roles and responsibilities is much improved.

I was a bit surprised to see 3 additional full-time mods at 30k each in the OpsFund, but won’t harp on it.

A few questions:

  1. Of the team members, how many (and which, if you can share) are currently employed or self-employed full-time? (IRS definition: 30 or more hours per week or 130 or more hours per month)

  2. If some members currently working full time, will they continue? Can they handle the 70-80+ hour weeks?

  3. Do you anticipate submitting an extension prior to the 6 month grant period ending? If an extension were to fail, would any of the things in this AIP live on without funding?

Part of me feels that a team of 8 + 3 FT mods is still too much, but at this point I think the DAO desperately needs improvement. Hopefully the community will grow into it to the point that you need to hire more to keep up with the activity.

Overall, I’m in support of ApeComms.

13 Likes

Glad to see the V2.0 of ApeComms. it’s good to see all the updates including detailed responsibilities and lower costs. ApeComms team has been working without budget for months and delivered solid outcomes. I’ll support it and hope to see ApeComms bring more value to the community.

15 Likes

Heya NFTC,

Thanks for reading our resubmission and for your ongoing support. Appreciate you appreciating our listening to the community and refining our deliverables to the DAO.


Let me do my best to answer your specific questions:

  • All team members are committed to Web3 full-time. We live, work and breathe Discord, Discourse and Twitter and ApeComms is our main commitment.

  • None of the team are working full-time elsewhere except our part-time Data Analyst who works about 30 hours a week in a normie job. However, his day gig is pretty flexible and he’s been handling both his Web2 and Web3 work brilliantly to this point.

  • Yes, we expect to submit an extension just prior to the 6-month grant period. As ApeComms is helping create the infrastructure of the DAO, we fully expect to continue building upon what’s working, refining the aspects that require improving and making the communications pipelines better and better. If for some reason a follow-up AIP were to not pass, we’d again listen to the community, address the feedback and do what needed to be done to provide the communications the DAO requires.


In addition if I may, just a couple of notes for clarification:

While every team member will be all-hands on deck in Discord to begin with, only Halina and myself will be responsible for managing the server on a day-to-day. There is so much work to be done in laying down the communications infrastructure, that every team member will be full-time with their own roles and responsibilities - not to mention the unsung work done when you live and breathe all things ApeCoin DAO.

We expect activity and engagement to increase dramatically and only have additional mods in the budget in case we need the support - and remember, unused funds remain in the treasury.

As you say:

Again, thanks for taking the time to dig into the details and asking the questions.

We’re here for the community.

Cheers – SSP✌🏽

14 Likes

Awesome - it’s great to hear that 3 additional Discord mods are earmarked, if the additional support is needed.

11 Likes

:triangular_flag_on_post: :triangular_flag_on_post: :triangular_flag_on_post: :triangular_flag_on_post:

Be very careful with parasites from the ApeComms team. Their mission is to infiltrate the trust of this DAO, gain influence and then empty the DAO pockets.

An example of how they work.

@0xSword from the ApeComms team worked hard to gain your trust and received a grant from the Foundation for his newsletter.

Then he used this newsletter to attack my proposal because it comeptes with the ApeComms proposal that they created after they saw support from the DAO for my proposal.

He also lied when I asked if he used The ApeCoin Foundation resources to get an advantage over my Discord proposal.

I also suspect the the ApeComms team made a deal behind the scenes with moderators to kill my proposal, because it was ignored by them for 4 months, and no one answered my questions. I managed to to push them to move the proposal forward only when made the problem public.

Before that I also thought that ApeComms here to help us, and I contacted 4 of them: @Halina.eth, @0xSword, @Amplify, and @Lost. All of them ignored me! Now I understand why.

Maybe they can help you if you can be used by them, true.

But they’ll muddy you up and kill your endeavors if you stand in their way.

:triangular_flag_on_post: :triangular_flag_on_post: :triangular_flag_on_post: :triangular_flag_on_post:

2 Likes

Firstly I’m thrilled that @Vulkan is back on the team; excellent news for all of us.

Secondly, I like your move and development from the last proposal, where I was one of the first to comment on the uncertainty in budget allocation or team responsibilities. After reading the updated proposal, I think you solved all of the main reasons why the original proposal was declined :+1:

Personally, I don’t see any problems, unclarity, or budget concerns. The ApeComms team already did a lot for Apecoin DAO and should officially get these roles. So, I will be voting in favor.

And maybe one more thing: I would recommend you consider inviting people like @0xWave & other voters here to get feedback before voting.

19 Likes

Ecstatic to see this back on the docket, and with the comprehensive approach we’re accustomed to seeing from the team. Once again, you all have my full support.

16 Likes

This seem like a massive amount of money. Initial estimated costs of $650,000 pa - almost three quarters of a million dollars a year!!

You also say:

Please note: ApeComms is not taking custody of the total budget up front or in full. Contributors would be compensated by the Ape Foundation on a monthly basis. ApeComms Operating Fund amounts would only be accessed as needed.

So this means, that each month you’d like the amount of APE adjusted as it falls in price relevant to the FIAT figures you stated - which is absurd.

I deleted my previous comments as I come across as just ranting, but this is by far the most CASH GRAB proposal I have seen in a long time imho.

No one expects these features to be built for free, but what people do expect is that community members help create the spaces, we don’t need corporate level salaries paid to run a discord, you went in way too high initially and have now revised the figures using 6 month schedule to make it more palatable, but it is still an absolute joke and if people have any sense this will not pass.

We need to take care of our funds, build out well, but build out with passion, not just by people with their eye on the CASH. Makes me so mad and sick in my stomach ngl, most of what you propose is over lapping over remits and operations already running, the others are at best an added bauble and nothing more and possibly of zero benefit to the community as a whole.

You are asking such high sums for what most people have and will continue to do for free!

You’re proposing running a discord and a twitter feed, nothing else, to me this has to be a joke right?

Let’s just say it one last time - almost THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION DOLLARS [$650,000 estimated].

This is also so disrespectful to all the project managers, MODs, discord and community managers, admin staff etc within the BAYC, apecoin, otherside etc communities that already give their time and have done for years some of them.

You suggest to pay MODs 30,000 dollars a year right off the bat, three of them, SMH, this is just to line pockets, why would you need three full time discord MODs when your twitter has only 1K followers in two months, where is all this traffic and work coming from if we take your twitter as a kind of comparable product - the need for the MODs initially is coming from securing more CASH for your team of collaborators! SMH

I realize you all want to get reimbursed for your time etc, but lets be realistic here, maybe work on a delivery and reward basis for first 3 months initially - then we take the temp of the community and see if it has been worth it and whether it should be continued and then maybe talk numbers, realistic numbers I mean, this is absurd in current format and figures imho.

1 Like

I stumbled across this on Twitter today…

Love to see the ApeComms team reaching out to people who voted “no” the first round, seeking their feedback for the revised AIP! They really are taking community feedback to heart and incorporating it into the revision.

14 Likes

Only for me the proposal looks like it is written in a way so that almost no one would read it or understand?

1 Like

Very exciting to see @Vulkan back in the mix and that you guys have taken the constructive feedback to get this proposal back on the table. Very appreciative to the hard work you all continually put in.

Feel like at times what you guys have done, are doing, and will continue to do for the community has flown under the radar.

Full support for this team!

13 Likes

CALLING ALL APES

We must note approve this idea ever!!!

Is it only me that sees how dangerous it is to give this much power and influence to an outsourced team?

We should never ever OUTSOURCE such power and responsibility, there is no need to do this. Companies outsource due to necessity, and they then bring the service back in-house when they have grown and have the money, we luckily are already in that position so it makes no sense to outsource such a fundamental, ever.

I have thought about this all day, and there is no argument of any kind that could make outsourcing the APECOIN DISCORD a good idea.

We need to keep this service in house and do it in a way that is appropriate to the power that the APECOIN DISCORD would have.

I propose that we should be thinking about doing one of the following:

  1. Elect a DISCORD setup and oversight team. They will decide on the structure, positions, salaries etc and continue overseeing the running, maybe we switch out members every year etc. We would all determine these steps and processes over time decided by votes, polls, mini discord related AIPs perhaps, but you get the idea here - we keep the service in-house and gradually set it all up properly and fairly.

  2. We keep things as they are for the time being and have no discord (do we even need one/is it worth the costs to do right).

  3. If we decide to have an OUTSOURCED DISCORD team [an all-in-one setup] implemented, then before we do this we need to elect a small oversight panel, this of course is an additional cost, but extremely necessary. Panel is answerable to the DAO directly, has final say over and above the discord team always on all matters and is publicly contactable for related complaints also.

WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS SERVICE TO BE CREATED AND CONTROLLED BY THIS TEAM OR ANY UNELECTED TEAM EVER, IT WOULD BE APECOIN APPROVED MAIN GO TO FOR MANY APES AND IS JUST FAR TOO IMPORTANT TO HAND OVER AND OUTSOURCE JUST LIKE THAT.

I know I have had differences with some apes in the past, but I call everyone to VOTE against this if it gets to that stage and actually try and shut it down right now.

I think we actually need to setup an oversight team regardless at some stage to look out and check for collusion, bias reporting, unfair accounting of situations, unape like behaviour and a clear way of reporting it and powers for the panel to act accordingly.

To rush a major service like this through and also to just give it away to a clickie team is MADNESS.

Let’s slow down, keep this in house, elect a panel or small team to oversee it and do it right, there is too much power and influence here to be so quick to sell it off.

Let them continue to setup boringtv and apecomms etc, but this will remain unapproved, and they can also still make as many AIPs as they want to get funding for these and other ideas, BUT WE DO NOT GIVE THEM CONTROL OR OUTSOURCE THE DISCORD TO ANYONE, has to be a team we all elect & oversee and it must always be keep in-house, it is just FAR TOO IMPORTANT, INFLUENTIAL AND INTEGRAL.

1 Like

I agree - this is far too much power and influence - we need oversight immediately tbh, checking and calling out and putting a stop to this bias and clickie kind of behaviours.

We want an open and honest, fair and inclusive system, not one that is dogged by bias articles and back door dealings. We are all better than this. This is such a disgrace, I see where it’s heading and makes me physically sick in my stomach.

1 Like

Hi everyone!

I’m late to comment, but I want to thank everyone for their feedback and for reading our resubmitted AIP. The original idea for this team was started back in midsummer by @0xSword. He brought together some of the most active people on Discourse to get involved. We all have different backgrounds, but share a love for the DAO. We’ve been spending our time working for free, reading and replying to AIPs, as well as trying to help others understand the process and how things work. Living by the ApeComms guiding values and the guiding values of the DAO and web3 is important to us, even though it isn’t always the easiest or most understood path. Our ability to communicate with each other, adapt, and reach consensus is what make us strong. I’m very proud of our team.

We put forth our new AIP with the feedback we received from the community in mind. We are open to new feedback and have been trying to reach out to those who voted against us to incorporate theirs as well. We want the support of the community and what’s best for the DAO.

I also want to thank those of you who have supported us along the way! It really means a lot! :heart:

13 Likes

Hi @Lost,

Your topic will be automatically closing in less than 24 hours. Are you content with the feedback received, or do you wish to extend community discussion for a further 7 days?

If we do not hear from you within 48 hours after your topic closes, your topic will be moved straight to the AIP Draft process.

We look forward to hearing from you.

-Escape

Big red flag for their team!

I believe this is not just a money grabbing, but also they want to take more power in our community. If they win, anyone who wants his proposal to pass will have to pay them a bribe in one or another way, for example by publically spread comments about how good they are.

1 Like

Hi Swarm,

I have addressed your concern previously on our original post, it didn’t seem like you were comfortable sharing any details. I’ve sent you a DM in hopes that we can clarify. It’s unfortunate that your proposal for an animated show did not reach consensus, likewise, our original proposal was not approved. We certainly don’t have any power to decide which approvals are passed. Our services are educational and to date - complimentary. We’ve turned down several offers for compensation, and paid positions, from members of the community.

Thank you for your consideration,
Lost
:gorilla::orange_heart:

7 Likes

Hey @culturecodes.art,

We’ve now made several edits to the formatting here to address this concern. There is a challenging balance here between including all of the relevant information and keeping it short/simple. We’ve noted previously that the community prefers to have all of the information present in the proposal, but would also like a pitch deck style presentation. We’ve now included an easy to read Pitch Deck at the top, under the Abstract, which should also carry over to the Snapshot voting page for maximum exposure. We’re always open to any direct feedback regarding the ApeComms proposal/initiative.

Thank you,
Lost
:gorilla: :orange_heart:

5 Likes

Hi @Escape,

We’re ready to move into the AIP Draft process. We have followed the AIP Draft Resubmission Template since our original AIP, AIP-142, was not approved at Snapshot.

Thank you,
Lost
:gorilla: :orange_heart:

2 Likes