Core Team Budget Update Proposal

TanteStefana

TanteStefana

Well-known member
Foundation Member
Hi everyone,

Currently, we have a core team that work very hard for Dash. Right now, they're paid 1176 DASH, which amounts to a little over $4000. Yet our team more than doubled. So I would like to know if there would be any support to increase their "salaries".

According to the website (which I don't think is up to date) our core team is 18 strong. Not all of them are coders, but all of them are doing essential work. I don't see moocowmoo or solarminer or probably others I can't think of, but I thought they joined full time here?

So I really think that $4000/20 or more or $200 each is pretty slim pickens, and hope we can agree to increase the payouts a little.

Now of course, Evan has to tell us who is really putting in the time and results. And it would be great if he could break it as "full time" and "part time" where PT gets 1/2 of what FT people get, and keep it that simple.

Please voice your comments and ideas. I'm fully aware that some of the old timers have their own investments, and they expect to be paid for their work by having their investments increase in value, but we've actually attracted people because of this budget system enabling them to create a nest egg which would hopefully pay them back in the future.

Lets keep attracting talent, and keeping the talent we've attracted by keeping this core budget payment attractive.

Attractive proposal idea? LOL

OK, so it seems there is a solution being developed with an announcement coming soon :) So, as Roseanne Roseannadanna would say:
"Nevermind"
roseanne-roseannadanna.jpg

And thanks for sharing!
 
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Couldn't agree more. We need to get and retain the best brains. I think a lot of people are underestimating the crypto space; we're not here to compete with bitcoin, this is an arms race to resign bitcoin to history. And for sure, the alts will win, but the question is, which ones?

We can't afford to stagnant like bitcoin. Look at the innovations we've seen with the likes of dash and etherium. I think of it this way; the alts need to Innovate, Collaborate and Excel (ICE)... and that comes at a price.
 
Is it just me or does the core team budget seem completely arbitrary? I believe many in the core team are motivated much more by protecting/appreciating the value of their already-held DASH than they are motivated by earning $200 or $400 in DASH per month. No one in their right mind would work a full time tech job for $200/mo. But there is such a huge speculative element that I'm not sure how to determine what an appropriate distribution is.

I'm also interested in how the funds are managed. Currently all core members get equal distribution? Is there any accountability/merit-based element where core members can earn more by producing the most value? Who would get to decide?
 
True, that's what the initial developers are doing, but some of the new guys don't have that kind of investment (unless they were rich enough to buy a bunch themselves) I myself try to help out here and there, in hopes that my investment gains in value, but have no talent for actually getting paid. And I mean no talent :p I'm not a marketing person, not a coder, nothing.

So the point here is to keep attracting talent. People will come and go, and we have to trust the main people at the top to distribute coins in such a way that they make the most impact. And I feel we can trust them because the better talent we attract, the more Dash shoots ahead of the crowd, and thus the more our investment will be worth. We need all kinds of talent. I think we have and have had at least 2 lawyers, marketers, photographers and graphic artists, etc... they all have talent to bring to the table and we need all of them plus, probably more!

And yes, the funds are managed loosely according to what's agreed upon among themselves. The funds are collected by Evan because we, as a community are trusting his decisions there. At some point, there has to be a person that evaluates the worth of individuals, and pays them accordingly. However, right now, it's based on an even distribution and oath to work on the project at least a certain minimum number of hours or something like that.

Anything more complex will start requiring more management; taking people away from the work they love to do, and bring in more bureaucratic nonsense that sucks the life out of creative people. So, although I was going to suggest that we create a structure for making payments out to people, I think the future ought to be where developers eventually make proposals for work they're going to do, and get paid directly. Right now, it's a close knit team, in the future, it'll be many teams, and they can choose whom to work with and how to pay them, we as Dash members will only be concerned with results.

One thing we can do here, is make these proposals once a month, to enhance the current payouts to the core team until the existing more than pays for that. We can change the amount, etc... each month as we see fit. The initial core team proposal assumed growth in price, but I don't think it assumed such a growth in people.

But I don't think Evan will ask for more funds, as he was very conservative and just wanted to reward people a little bit. But that little bit is getting kinda tiny, LOL.

And BTW, I don't think a lot of people on that list of core team members are paid at all. It would be nice to give them a little something for their time. On Slack, you see them working on things, and discussing things, etc... all the time. Often the general community don't hear from them - that's why I think Evan knows or at least Evan and the top 4-5 people know how much people are doing and will be able to offer 1/2 time payouts to them.
 
There is also possibility, not really something to consider for immediate needs, but is there any chance of securing funds from places outside the blockchain? Any grant/donations coming from the outside is an automatic net gain for DASH. Blockchain funding is great but if there are other funding options as well I think all routes should be explored.
 
Actually, the beauty of the budgeting system is that Dash and it's programmers, marketers, etc.... are only beholden unto themselves. How much influence does MIT and thus the current USA presidential administration (cabinet member affiliation) and probably banks have on the direction that Bitcoin is taking? Do you notice how decisions are being made that many people seem to disagree with, yet that is the direction the developers insist on taking Bitcoin? Why is that?

With our own budgeting system, we are beholden only unto our users and infrastructure. Everything else that anyone wants to do still can be done, but outside of the core functionality, on the user end of the API.

So I'd have to disagree with that, sorry, it's the best thing about Dash. We don't need any altruism. No grants, no donations, nothing to influence the way the coin is developed from outside entities. That was the brilliance of the budgeting system :)
 
TroyDASH said:
Is it just me or does the core team budget seem completely arbitrary? I believe many in the core team are motivated much more by protecting/appreciating the value of their already-held DASH than they are motivated by earning $200 or $400 in DASH per month. No one in their right mind would work a full time tech job for $200/mo. But there is such a huge speculative element that I'm not sure how to determine what an appropriate distribution is.
Click to expand...

on a side not, just to be clear
only because some team members are around since forever does not mean that everybody is holding huge stacks of coins and MN's !
some do, others do not !
We are definitely all motived otherwise we would not be here since 2 years, but a 'salary' would really help to keep this motivation going !!
we need new Team members as always, but we have to make sure we are using the existing team to it's limits and exhaust these resources before signing up more and the next !
+ we have to secure the team we have now, if we are losing the 'old boys' we are in trouble even if we get new once in.
So there has to be found a good way and balance between the two + a line between full time / part time
(just my 2 Duff's)
:rolleyes:

Edit:
outside funding
we do this by (our) blockchain, nicely decentralised and democratic as satochi dreamed of
Outside Funding = Centralised = Regulations
no need for that
 
So, I guess the next step would be to ask Evan whom he considers full time workers and half time workers (well, at least have him tally them up) and...then figure out how much we ought to give people??
 
Outside funding could be considered centralized, but only in the sense that funneling the entire core team budget through Evan could also be considered centralized. DASH may not *need* outside funding, but why pass up opportunities especially in DASH's early history to help it gain as much adoption as possible? Anyone got any billionaire connections interested in crypto? Just saying.
Even from the MN budgets though if we limit to that, I think introducing a more competitive marketplace for our core team members would be beneficial for everyone, in terms of individual merit-based distribution, and compensation amounts that are more competitive with real world job markets.
 
OK, so back to "salaries". I guess what I need to know is how many people are on the "salary" list? I know some of the developers are big holders, but I know of a couple that are not, and are working on this project 24/7 basically because they're so passionate about Dash. So how do we help those guys out? We should keep them from burning out, don't you think?

OK, I guess I have to go to Evan, LOL, and find out :p
 
Dash's Decentralized Management and Budget System will more and more effectively distribute the budget with every new month (and even with every new inevitable mistake)...
I hope that MN OPs will become so confident in this system and trust to it that we will see voting in 2016-2017 for gradually increase current 10% share to 15%, and then to 20% of new block's reward.
This 20% percentage of Dash budget will correspond more realistically state that any other "corporation" spends on developing and promotion.
 
See, my vision of the future is that eventually, each core developer will become a sub contractor. They will create a proposal, state what they will do each month, and what their price is. MNs would say, yes, flair has been a great asset, we know he will do at least what he proposes and work hard on this project, and we'll pay his salary for the next 1, 3, 6, 12 months. Then at 3 months in, flair falls off the face of the earth, we can't find him and he hasn't been active, so we stop payments.

But right now, the wheels are getting greased, the MN owners are fickle, you don't know if they'll pass the budget. And for me, I'm willing to put the 5 coins up to do this, but frankly, that's a ton of money for me, so I want to KNOW the MN owners are with me on this before I risk my coins. A lot of people think all these guys have a ton of coins, but many do not, and all but Evan have joined after the initial mining hiccup.

So, what do you all think about enhancing the payments a little. Our team has grown a LOT since Evan started this, and he was a little miserly with the initial budget, undoubtedly not to irritate people too much, but I think our team deserves more.

Edit: Alex, that's so true!
 
TanteStefana said:
See, my vision of the future is that eventually, each core developer will become a sub contractor. They will create a proposal, state what they will do each month, and what their price is. MNs would say, yes, flair has been a great asset, we know he will do at least what he proposes and work hard on this project, and we'll pay his salary for the next 1, 3, 6, 12 months. Then at 3 months in, flair falls off the face of the earth, we can't find him and he hasn't been active, so we stop payments.

But right now, the wheels are getting greased, the MN owners are fickle, you don't know if they'll pass the budget. And for me, I'm willing to put the 5 coins up to do this, but frankly, that's a ton of money for me, so I want to KNOW the MN owners are with me on this before I risk my coins. A lot of people think all these guys have a ton of coins, but many do not, and all but Evan have joined after the initial mining hiccup.

So, what do you all think about enhancing the payments a little. Our team has grown a LOT since Evan started this, and he was a little miserly with the initial budget, undoubtedly not to irritate people too much, but I think our team deserves more.

Edit: Alex, that's so true!
Click to expand...

I just think it's fascinating that we are hammering out how a decentralized corporation should most effectively manage and compensate its employees. Groundbreaking stuff. The compensation method definitely does seem rather primitive at the moment so I am glad the dialogue is happening.
Right now with the relatively low market cap of DASH, there isn't even enough DASH that can be allocated to deliver the amount of compensation that the core team probably deserves, even if we increase it. This will hopefully change over time as DASH increases in value. So right now I am more concerned about making sure we put together something that legitimately rewards individual key players for their contributions. The "share-the-wealth-equally" mindset can work initially (like it has been working already) and it can be great for the team mentality, but over the long haul we will need to act like a real corporation would in order to get maximum benefit, in my opinion.
 
It's also hard right now because the coin isn't worth what it should be at the moment, thus the available budget is too small (just saw we've approved more budgets than coins available for the first time this month :) ) This will change as we get bigger. I think we'll always have a core team of some sort, that the community trusts a little to guide us. "yes, this guy knows his stuff, we believe he can do what he says he can do, vote if you want him to do what he says he'll do" Then we vote and gain another "worker/employee" but really he's a subcontractor.

So anyway, it's all weird, and hard now. It'll get much easier as Dash becomes more valuable. I just hope it increases in value quickly this year because of this very thing. It's a yin and yang, growth and development for growth feed each other, LOL.

I honestly can't think of a reason that this coins isn't worth at least $10 right now. I think it's pretty insane, and caused by the rest of the space being fickle with scams. So all the legitimate projects get no support.
 
You know what, I think it would be really useful if we had a weekly email newsletter aimed at both enthusiasts and MN owners. Something that can translate into English the work that is being done. An opportunity to give credit where it's due and allow us to appreciate more what happens behind the scenes.
 
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