Hope you’re doing great. I’m a new community member (First post) and a holder in Otherside and I’ve recently increased my Apecoin position reason why I feel more interested in the success of the DAO, it’s members and community.
I’ve been reading most of the AIP’s that have been posted and I was overwhelmed by most of the community’s ideas; super excited for the 3 AIP’s that are live right now and up for vote:
Bug Bounty Program
Special Council Nomination Process
Special Council Election Process
While reading through the Special Council Election Process AIP I couldn’t help but notice the Overall Cost section (Picture down below), and I was a bit perplexed.
“Each Special Council member shall receive compensation as stated in AIP-1, or $20,833 of ApeCoin equivalent per month for the term.”
So I went back to the AIP-1 to do more research on what is the purpose of the Board AKA Special Council, and here it is:
Administer (manage and be responsible for) DAO Proposals
Serve the vision of the community
Three questions I would love to discuss:
Has the Board managed to do a great job to jusitfy the $20,883 per month?
What if we cut Board members compensation in half by making it $10,441 per month, while the other half is used to give back to the community based on incentives that promote new Proposals?
What incentives could the Board promote to increase activity both in terms of participation in the DAO and Proposals?
Thank you for reading and in the forward to an open discussion I take this opportunity to extend my best regards,
I have a few personal opinions on this. My experience w/ the Special Council is that some are more openly active in the community than others. I do believe that all contribute in their own ways. Specifically we see Maaria often working alongside community members, while Yat Siu has knowledge on global markets and has a strong background in building partnerships (which often may go unseen). Their “Star Power” and history is worth noting, and does have a value as well. Again, that’s my opinion on board stuff.
From a working group perspective, we’ve been forming the ApeComms group for a few months. When we were making our decisions on funding and salary, we had to consider Board Pay & Administration pay. If the executive board is paid only 10k, then working groups have to consider that, and possibly lower their own. It would be difficult to request more (or equal) pay than the executive branch makes. Does that make sense? Again, these are just some considerations that our working group has explored.
On increasing board participation, I have a couple of suggestions! First, if we have iniatives that excite them, they are likely to reach out to want to be a part of them. For example, I’ve had little-to-no reason to reach out to FTX’s Amy Wu. But I do think that if an initiative in the DAO excited her, and was in her wheelhouse, she’d likely be receptive to it. Same with Alexis. The second point is that elections are coming soon. You’ll likely see me support candidates who are community-driven. It’s a personal choice!
Appreciate the reply! Yeah that makes more sense, I was not aware of most of the behind the scenes work and I’m sure they do a lot. On board participation I meant more like them doing initiatives that boost the community to submit more proposals, for example a video tutorial on how to do and publish an AIP (as most people probably don’t even bother because might seem complicated to them). Also what is the ApeComms?
Yeah at the end the goal would be to see the overall DAO become more popular and thriving with the community participating all over the place. Glad to see you here!!
I don’t want to shill our proposal on your thread. Apecomms has been helping proposers and hosting twitter spaces about the AIPs. I think we’ve collectively helped with ~25 proposers, meeting on zoom to give them advice and feedback. Helping people through the process. What we’re doing next is:
Open a community discord & host twice a week twitter spaces on the OFFICIAL apecoin twitter
Proposal help for all members of the community + basic videos abt process
Being present in the Board Meetings + connecting w/ all the projects
We’re the group thats reached out and interacted w/ members like Maaria & the admins, so we’ve gotten a lot of insight. We want to share our knowledge & “level up” others in the community!!!
We’re in proposal process right now. Best guess is we could go to vote sometime in November. Back to your council questions, we’re going to have to decide as a community what we’d like to see from a member. Each will certainly have their own specialty, but what would you like to see?
Here’s the skills outlined in the new Special Council Nomination process:
Given that a key function of Special Council members is to work with and assess AIPs and their authors, it would be beneficial if then Applicant’s skills, knowledge and abilities are collectively suited to the AIP categories. Below are listed the AIP categories, along with the types of competencies and experiences that would suggest a candidate has expertise relevant to that particular category.
Ecosystem Fund Allocation: Since Ecosystem Fund AIPs deal with how to use the DAO’s treasury funds, it would be ideal for a Special Council member to have:
Educational and/or professional credentials in accounting, finance, business, economics or a related discipline;
Proven experience working in/managing/directing large corporations; and
Exposure to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.
Brand Decision & Informational: Given that Brand Decision and Informational AIPs deal with all matters related to what the DAO attaches its name, including projects, strategies, and identity, it would be ideal for a Special Council member to have:
Educational and/or professional credentials in marketing, public relations, and/or a related discipline;
Proven experience working in/managing/directing large corporations;
An entrepreneurial mindset;
Excellent communication and writing skills; and
Exposure to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.
Process: Given that Process AIPs deal with DAO governance, it would be ideal for a Special Council member to have:
Educational and/or professional credentials in law, politics, policy and/or corporate governance;
Excellent communication and writing skills; and
Exposure to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.
Yes I’ve read that, thanks for sharing!
Personally I would like to have the Special Council member/s share and submit a weekly report of what they have achieved that specific week so that we’re more aware of where we’re headed and potentially how we could also help. (A way to hold them accountable)
Appreciate your participation in the forums and taking the time to provide your feedback.
I’m gonna take the other side of this expectation and suggest that, while the Council technically works for the DAO, we shouldn’t treat them like employees, because…
They are not employees - (some legal issues accompany this designation) and,
They are generally high-performing executives/professionals in their own fields and should be provided that respect
Granted, we don’t exactly know what they may have accomplished during their tenure but moving forward, let’s elect the right candidates, set the appropriate expectations and give them some runway.
I agree that we ought to have some idea of a game plan, current projects and items accomplished, but perhaps the “reports” could be quarterly (or monthly at the most.)
Keep in mind, the CommsTeam will provide more frequent updates on many matters so the need for weekly reports from the Council maybe overkill anyway.
Hey ssp, thanks for the reply! Yes agree with electing the next right candidates and setting proper expectations and giving them some runaway. Monthly reports might work the best
Like thinking about this just now… they’re getting $20k a month approximately and WE, the community, don’t know exactly what have they accomplished during their tenure… doesn’t look right to me, hopefully we’ll move in the right direction in the near future. Again a weekly/monthly reporting would help a lot imo, only things is that most people HATE to be accountable.
Why have you guys thought about creating this ApeComms in the first place? Probably to solve a problem. (The problem existing in the first place due to a lack of executing from the Special Council.) Looks like the work that the ApeComms does should be done by the future Special Council imo, instead of overalpping the workforce and have a Special Council + ApeComms. Otherwise it looks like the Apecomms does the interest of the community to a larger extent and it protects the existance of the Special Council because without it wouldn’t exist, creating a conflict of interest imo. Just expressing my thoughts out loud.
It just needs to be in proportion to what they accomplish imo. Otherwise they’re getting paid for their time instead of results, which slows progress imo. Again, maybe they have accomplished great things that I might not be aware of… but who knows? That’s why a weekly/monthly reporting would help a lot to give insights to the community which in turn can decide if they wanna have the same people on the board or not.
