Why I am voting against working groups or electing representatives and why thats okay

I’ve put a lot of effort and time into following the WG0 initiative. But now at the end of its mandate, I voted NO to both steward suggestions, and thats okay. Everyone is entitled to their own review of the results, and to make their conclusions. For me, I feel it all centered around implementing Ape Assembly elections.

The election system for BORED-AIP was put into place during an emergency.

The stewards had four months to engage users in WG0 and Catapult, but the working groups have not been effective. They are not functional. In nearly 0 cases were people talking about helping proposals, and how to actionably improve the current process. Stage panels did not appropriately address issues or onboard WG participants.

As a key Apecomms member, i’ve always looked at Apecomms as an optional experience.

Our collective has always been glad to have short zoom meetings and make introductions around the ecosystem. Often we’d simply share examples, but we’d rarely write proposals for others. Together, many community regulars throughout fall and winter have collectively helped proposals here on the forums.

I’ve always believed that we should focus on helping proposal authors. Apecomms first step, and the one im most proud still happens today, is there is a stage every week for proposal authors to speak to apes.

Last summer was hard. Proposal authors hosted spaces where no apes would show.
There was so little engagement after the bear hit. It was hard times everywhere.

Guess what…! Apecomms still opens it stage to host ALL proposers each week!

It was my hopes in January that working groups would quickly be setup to help proposal authors, to strengthen our core processes, to ensure monthly reporting like AIP-121 was quickly restored.

In some cases, the Twitter Spaces and large calls could leave people more confused than before.

And if I’m truly look at the performance of the Stewards to-date, I would say they are great Twitter Spaces hosts, but I do not want them representing Apecoin in ANY official capacity.

The tough part of my position is that I followed and partook in these processes. It was difficult at time to fit into the panels, to drill into further discussions, or counter things like basic definitions being blurred.

It is possible for people to leave a twitter space more confused than when they entered.

So my stance and reason for voting no, and even for asking delegates and voters to also vote no, is simply that after a performance review of 4 months, I don’t think that this system best suits us, and I also don’t think the stewards fully utilized their budget to explore structure options.

I don’t think its going to be fun to enter into this Ape Assembly or its elections.

So I’m voting no. After a full review, now looking at the results, I don’t think they are good for our ecosystem. And I think itll be harder to claw back than is being represented.

And I’m not excited to have gitcoin pass requirements for the Ape Assembly. Or whatever final detail they edited in to the dropdown menus before sending to snapshot. The new Working Group proposals appear to simply be drafts without budgets, and all of them are concepts that are not functional.

My input was not taken, and even my concerns were brushed away by hype.
So I’m voting no on these. And thats okay. I think others should consider it too

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. We talk a lot as team members at ApeComms, I have always listened to and reflected on your concerns. I figure it’s relevant to address the community here a bit as well, so this is some of my own personal perspective and context.

As the Host of ApeComms since sometime last year, I felt it was important to not only maintain the operations we were performing prior to AIP-196 and the admin transition, but also to highlight the work of WG0, as we have done with all ApeCoin contributors for nearly a year now. It may have seemed confusing at times, but the ApeComms work is/was separate from the AIP-196 work and was always treated as such as I created separate disclaimer/ agendas/ documentation for ApeComms. I enjoy the work I do at ApeComms, and it’s unpaid, so that extra work load is more of a hobby.

The proposed working group structure in AIP-239 is the result of exploring several options in coordination with other DAOs like ens/gitcoin, legal counsel, and the ApeCoin council.

AIP-239 would be compliant with the existing structure of the Ape Foundation & allow the DAO to move forward on the things people have continued to express a want for, such as creating a sustainable DAO which is able to continue to operate in perpetuity and without continued grant requests to the Foundation. Various Defi options, community ownership of various initiatives/projects - things the “Foundation” is not currently setup to facilitate.

Regarding the voting cited in AIP-239, it is still ApeCoin token weighted voting cast by the whole community for the Governance stewards and all those initiatives under it - like the Ape Assembly. The Assembly would elect stewards for other working groups like comms/treasury/metaverse/whatever community wants. The gitcoin proof of personhood requirement for only the ape assembly was included from the very beginning of proposing the idea months ago here on the forum, not only edited in a details section, and it is the first suggested improvement from the previous WG0 model (which did not include proof of personhood).

But, this is all with oversight of the standard community wide apecoin token weighted voting. The DAO would be able to elect/remove leaders (Stewards) to execute DAO compliant/approved initiatives.

AIP-240 is also community-wide ApeCoin token weighted voting, and would represent a DAO approved budget to continue the Discourse operations which facilitate our governance process (move proposals along through the DAO approved process and up to vote), if approved. It is separate from the WebSlinger budget, and those operations sited in AIP-240 are not in scope for WebSlinger. Alternatively, the current Discourse moderation team is prepared to continue operations without a budget until one is approved by the community, or request another budget extension from the SC to perform those duties. Priority is to keep operations running within the DAO approved guidelines, and then also as smoothly as possible.

Thank you @0xSword,

Lost
:gorilla::orange_heart:

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Yes, thank you for the conversation. There are often things that we agree on, and that’s a natural result of many many months working on proposals of our own and networking with others! What causes alarm for me, in any setting, is when talk of change to the grant system is brought up.

In rarer cases, there has been resentment for some votes that have went the wrong way. Thankfully in most all cases, apes in general are resilient. A majority of our grant inquiries come from apes, so generally all of us have approached the grant system trying to make it go as smoothly as possible.

From Fall till Now, there are now dozens in the community that can explain how it works. Even show others examples of proposals, and explain how to quickly fill out there own. I don’t think our current process is that difficult, however terrible delays affected a huge number of proposals throughout the last year.

During that time, we proposed Apecomms get in there and see what happening.

  • Was it legal reviews for each proposal that was slowing them down?
  • Why was it taking so long for novos event to get through the process?
  • Was it because of legal around making an officially branded “Apecoin Movie?”

Setting up things like a retweet system for the Official Apecoin Account for approved AIPS was one important initiative that Apecomms had begun to explore*. Youre also judging hackathons behind the scenes, participating in meetings with special council members, doing Thank Ape and Catapult integrations on the WG0 discord. Three times a week twitter spaces @ Apecomms ontop of that, and a few other things.

As far as a team goes you are strong. I’m not sure if Stewards have setup a discord that’s been as effective as Apecomms has been, but truly since building in Herbs unofficial discord all those months ago, our own collective is hella strong and has setup great documentation and processes. I don’t see that w/ Stewards.

But I do want to say, before we see how this vote shakes out, that we can utilize the existing system and just simply show people great proposal examples. And currently we have a very simple machine with a lot of active voters that are returning each week. Suggested changes to the way tokenholders interact is huge.

By voting no, what I’d like to see is this:

  • Deactivation of Lost, Amplify, and Vulkans moderator accounts
    *These appear to be used to only send pre-written messages. Webslinger can do it.
  • Ensure that positions for simple staffing continue without elections
    • It is likely within Special Councils purview to hire preparers for reporting and otherwise
    • They also likely have the ability and budget to contract community members for mod positions
  • Turn our sights not to Stewards elections and further exploratory committees
    • Community members should focus on creating proposals not seeking wage or employment
    • WG0 rebrands itself as an independent entity in the ecosystem and does not represent Apecoin

I present these things also from the position of looking back at Cartan Groups expanded services, which involved hiring and oversight of some community members for forum staffing. The idea of an Ape Assembly feels like a stark left-turn from what I would call a normally conservative AIP system and review process.

Even AIP-240 I’d like to see voted down at this time. If forum staff aren’t performing well, or there are problems, I can hold a special council member responsible every 6 months. I’m okay with that.

We’re talking about a very small number of jobs with some of these things. And when we begin to tell people “hey maybe your idea could be done by a working group,” that really can take away from the grant culture. And ultimately I don’t believe apecoin needs a core team to roll out products or experiences or events.

I think communities and small businesses and IP builders can write quick proposals that don’t jam up the system. An ApeComms or a WG or even a movie “The Legend of Apecoin,” has serious considerations.

I’m not excited to participate in what has been proposed!

I didnt think I was signing up to circumvent or change the grant process. I’d rather see communities like DAZE or 10KTF find ways to distribute to their creators and communities. I don’t feel today like an Ape Assembly is going to prioritize the current grant process. I worry this could impact in a very bad way.

I believe none of us should be Apecoin Representatives. And changing the grant process while we have strong frequent voting turnout can have consequences!

:pen: :crossed_swords:

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I commend you on speaking your mind :fist:

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It can be difficult to express these concerns without appearing as though I’m giving the stewards scathing reviews. It can also be difficult to address some of these more serious topics on a Twitter space panel. But when it comes to adjusting the grant process, it’s something that makes me holler! Right or wrong, I want to talk about these things with others. Here, where we can read and go back and forth on complex topics! Thanks sera

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Thank you for sharing your concerns and the context regarding your vote. I do understand how it is difficult to be heard, or even raise your voice at all sometimes, especially across various platforms.

Adding some personal context here and hoping to clear up any misunderstandings:

Changing the “grant system” (DAO approved governance process) is not being discussed at all within WG0 or by current Stewards as an option. There would be no changes to the DAO approved governance process with the approval of AIP-239 or 240. The process approved by AIP-1 would not change if these proposals are approved.

The community approved Thank Ape and Catapult, but there is nobody within the DAO who is tasked with the responsibility of coordinating these sort of integrations for the community. Along with the things I mentioned above, the working group structure would also help to address this problem on several fronts, in addition to creating more approved ways for the community to become engaged with those projects. My participation in the hackathon was documented in the ETHglobal server which is open to anyone as far as I know, rather than behind the scenes.

There is a living/working document folder, as well as several channels established to help us aggregate and pass on information. Similar to how ApeComms manages information, however, we do use an additional task management platform.

We’ve addressed this point together a few times, across different platforms including Discourse, but since it’s come up again here… Facilitating the DAO approved governance process on Discourse goes well beyond simply posting pre-written messages, and again - that responsibility is not in scope for WebSlinger.

The current forum staff who facilitate the DAO approved governance process is @amplify.admin @Vulkan.Admin and @Lost.Admin , WebSlinger is the administrator for the Discourse account. The DAO approved budget and mandate for WebSlinger does not include facilitating all the phases of our day-to-day governance process on Discourse.

Thanks again @0xSword,

@Lost
:gorilla::orange_heart:

9 Likes

It is not fun and easy, long way to go!

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