It has been an honor to serve as the Secretary of the ApeCoin DAO. I am writing to announce my resignation from this role effective October 1st, 2024. I want to provide transparency about the reasons behind my decision:
Structural Inefficiencies/Need for Structural Reform: The current structure, initially devised by WG0, has proven ineffective. With over a year of testing this model, it’s clear that spending $130,000 per month on Steward,Facilitator and Secretary salaries is unsustainable and inefficient. While I do not have all the solutions for the ideal working group structure, it is crucial that the DAO initiates discussions on reevaluating and restructuring our approach to address these systemic issues. We need a structure, just not this one.
Inactive Stewards: Multiple stewards across various working groups are not actively participating in their steward responsibilities despite receiving a monthly salary of $9,000. These individuals were elected through popular vote but have not contributed to the working groups or the DAO in any capacity. This issue places undue pressure on the active Stewards and discourages open discussion about the situation because no one wants to be “the rat”, but I feel that the DAO needs to know what is actually happening. The steward role in its current form is a popularity campaign that has ZERO accountability once elected. There are a few Stewards (a few of which I will mention below) who bust their butts day in and day out which gives the DAO the perception that everyone is working when in reality that is far from what is actually happening.
Lack of Communication: Contrary to outside perceptions, there is minimal communication/coordination between the various working groups. The same can be said for the working groups and special council. I have not participated in any meetings with the Special Council since assuming my role and have found “all working groups” calls poorly attended. This lack of internal communication is highly inefficient in a setting where all working groups should be working together to achieve one common goal. Instead we have created separate entities all doing their own thing.
Notable Contributions: In my time as the secretary there were two stewards who went above and beyond for the DAO. One being AllCity. He truly had the DAO first in everything he was/is doing. When I first came in and the GWG had only two stewards AC was doing a massive amount of the work. He was putting in 60-70 hour work weeks. His work ethic and leadership in his tenure as a Steward with the GWG and the initiatives he has delivered have been a massive portion of the success that has come out of the current working group structure. The other Steward is Dim. Dim from day one put his head down and started building. He didn’t worry about budgets and salaries, he started building and hasn’t stopped since. He has been open, communicative, and has proved himself as a true builder for the DAO. I want to be clear that this list isn’t the only Stewards who are working. And due to a massive communication problem I simply haven’t had the opportunity to work with all currently elected Stewards. That being said, as mentioned above, there are currently elected Stewards who are doing nothing.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have served the community. I look forward to remaining an active member of the DAO and hope to see us come together to build a new structure to continue making ApeCoin what we all know it can be.
Thank you for all your hard work, especially with organising the monthly delegates / working group meetings, which I could attend. I’ve found them very valuable and wish you all the best in the future!
It takes a lot of courage to make a post like this, thank you. And thank you to @AllCityBAYC and @DIM for being called out as DAO superheroes.
I would support any AIPs that result from this which are focused on removing the no show stewards, and any other paid roles which are not actively fulfilling their duties.
I’m just going to leave here without any further comment seeing as I’ve been yelling about most of these things forever and a day.
Well done @BojangleGuy and thanks for your efforts. It takes a lot to walk away from what is essentially free money. You have my utmost respect for this.
It’s not always about the money.I’ve learned in my years of owning businesses that integrity will always pay off.
Some may ask “why did it take you so long to come to this conclusion?” Without writing a novel, there are things that we’re working, that gave a glimmer of hope that this could actually sort itself out and be something that did work. Ultimately that wasn’t the case and it’s time we make big changes, and we need to make them fast. As mentioned in my post, we need structure, and who knows we may try something new and that won’t work either. But we can’t keep pushing along in this current format. And when a new structure is put in place it needs to be put in place with the mindset of hyper transparency and accountability. Those who lead that new structure can’t be afraid to fail or be scared to speak up and admit things aren’t working. It will do no good for anyone.
And lastly, to be fair to those who are actually working it’s certainly not “free money”. Are their salaries justified? That is a different topic. But at the end of the day, yes, there are stewards making $9,000 a month simply because they know enough people with enough $APE to get elected to the role.
Sad day for the DAO and sad to see you go as your contribution as been immense. There are a lot of issues that needs to be solved and it’s time for change!
Thank you Bojangle for your contribution before your role, during and I am sure after as well🫡
Indeed. And as you’re probably aware, for the longest time I have said that the only way to save the DAO was to close and re-open it. There is seemingly no other way because with the pre-existing processes in place, the voting system is all but assured to stifle and stymie any attempts at restructuring anything.
So, now what?
I mean, even as I type this, I have been trying to close* no less than three working groups for various reasons, despite the fact that one or two of the stewards have made certain attempts at performing as expected.
I simply don’t envision anything changing. Despite the best efforts of some of those who show up every day, the DAO, like the treasury and the token - and to some degree, ApeChain - are all destined to fail due to lack of generally accepted processes, accountability and transparency. And there will be no recourse or ramifications because it’s always someone else’s problem and/or fault.
All working group must be closed, some of the issues mentioned on Bojangle’s post are due to the current election process which is the same on all WG.
It does not mean all the good initiatives that came out of the WGs must be thrown under a bus, but they can live separately and led by the person who initiated them.
Until there is a robust solution that combats the popularity circle jerk, the DAO remains a bloated dairy cow, milked at the convenience of a group of community abusers.
Even if we don’t close the DAO, it’s going to take an exceptional amount of PROFESSIONAL work to sit down, map out new processes, procedures etc. and which we can get people in leadership to adhere to. But ALL of that starts with revising our voting system. Unless and until we do that, there is absolutely no way forward. This - I can almost guarantee because the transfer of voting power via delegations isn’t a fix - it’s a transfer of power akin to covering the wine stains on the couch with a couch cover. It doesn’t change the underlying issue.
And sitting atop that org chart, are the WebSlinger admins who apparently only answer to the SC instead of to the DAO. That’s a whole different issue that also needs to be addressed at some point.
The question now is, where we would even start to try and fix this? Closing the SC isn’t going to yield the expected results because then we’re going to end up with a situation whereby WebSlinger are left in charge. Who do they answer to, then?
Most of us who are entrepreneurs and business owners know precisely how to fix this, but who wants to spend time on something that’s never going to happen? We can’t change anything in the DAO without a proposal - and that process is gated via a voting system that landed us right where we are.
Right. So, now what?
Once the chatter and noise of this thread dies down, everyone will forget and move on. Until the next fiasco. This has been the cycle here and I don’t see how that changes.
We can start by making sure this proposal that I wrote, passes. AIP-471: Special Council To Propose Voting System Reform. If we pass this, it will be the very first step towards restructuring; at which time I will volunteer to put together a committee of DAO people that I know and trust to work on structures and processes which will hopefully position the DAO for prosperity.
Many things here are not accurate, as @BojangleGuy doesn’t have full visibility of what is and has been going on. I do think the Secretary role can be paired down to a few functions, which must be compulsory for Working Groups to do. This can be achieved with a budget of 1000-2000 USD per month.
I won’t comment further as I would be breaching my NDA with the Foundation.
I’m so glad finally someone has made this public!! I have DMed to special council, cwg & soo many members about us not getting the support from the dao that honestly it has led to depression. When I heard the first spaces of apecoin dao I genuinely felt wow these people support creators & I made an AIP & from the beginning things were not as what I heard in spaces. Our AIP was passed because the dao literally had nothing else to pass & infact had been rejecting all AIPs! We were suggested to not ask for a grant. Dao has been granting millions for unnecessary but won’t support a genuine creator! We were then asked to go for just marketing support in terms of bi weekly tweets or rt & after 2-3 rt nothing happened. So who really checks what’s the real benefit ?! What happens is friends of friends gets their AIPs passed in a blink. We are proud when I say we got to make first ever Official apecoin quality rugs & to hear from mar comms that there is no place to display at irl events is the most ridiculous explanation I have ever got. If anyone has marketing experience then you have got to display & dao is spending to literally money to host an event & yet don’t have a space to show something that’s official?!? The main problem is passing of AIPs of friends / family of people who already have inner positions in the dao & o won’t say name but before our AIP was even going to pass I was informed internally it will pass just shows how much centralised the dao really is. The team knows it that few months ago I requested to withdraw our AIP because of lack of support from dao or the team & yet there is no response. When I shared that I have spent my money & my families money the response I got was I was emotional! Wtf is that reply! We are humans and if you can’t support then don’t speak things that will hurt.
Here is the replies from council & other members when i reached out in dms.
Special council- “bro you don’t always have to tweet about rugs” this was shocking to me because this is my business & im not making something for me I was making the rugs to represent apecoin
Marcoms- “no space to display the rug at events” like are you kidding me? Dev Allo brought his own rug at Brussels event & everyone loved getting photos & convesations started to happen. So someone who bought the rug found the space yet the team who is actually responsible didn’t find the space?
Member : “don’t ask for funding, coz your AIP won’t pass” this led me to spend my own money.
From discourse to twitter dms all support we got was to talk to this person to this person & honestly I have had enough when I was asked to request some people. Like wtf.
I’m grateful for everyone who has supported me but this is the truth that exists in dao. The favourites gets their AIPs passed & the real hard working people get silenced.
There is so many things & names that I won’t mention but this is the reality & im glad bojangle has shared this! Just recently bigbill asked me to shared my thoughts from passed AIP authors & I shared my honest thoughts,
Does anyone in the dao really know how much they are spending upon marketing?
I’m glad bojangle has shared his honest option here! It’s time to think again for a better future or else with current state things are going to get worse as the they will keep continuing to drain dao & dao loves getting drained as friends of Moca just votes in favor. That being said I love bojangle for supporting us & for sharing the truth! The dao should be held responsible for not doing what it was supposed to do in our AIP just shows what the dao is all about.
A lot of these accountability issues also seem to go into the authors who have had AIPs pass, and seemingly done nothing in regards to the AIP after. I’d love to see a detailed breakdown of the top AIP spends and what the outcome of the funding was, if any.
OK - let me get this straight. You have “full visibility” than he does, but yet you failed to disclose systemic issues? Is that it?
Nice try. There’s absolutely no NDA on the planet that precludes you from disclosing TO THE DAO (that’s us) issues related to the functionality and processes of the DAO. Further, the Ape Foundation answers to the DAO. Again, that’s us.
So, if you have something to say, just say it instead of hiding behind inconsequential and unenforceable NDAs.
My Guy! I am sorry to hear this for multiple reasons. For one, your campaign videos were ALWAYS my favorite ones to do. I appreciate the freedom you allowed me, it gave me the opportunity to be truly creative.
Second, I’m sad to hear that there are folks who are just collecting and not producing. Especially since there are people, myself included, who would love to have one of these positions.
Super thankful to have met you and seen you grow here, even with all the ups and downs. Always happy to support you in any capacity you fall into next!
It’s currently 3 to 1 in regards to feedback from elected officials (DIM, Cap, BojangleGuy on one side, you on another. Unsure if there are other elected individuals here I’m not seeing.)
I’m saying that because the burden of proof is on you to refute their claims should you choose to do so.
Was a pleasure serving by your side.
