• Forum has been upgraded, all links, images, etc are as they were. Please see Official Announcements for more information

Official Pre-Proposal: Proposal Evaluation Committee

Will this be beneficial for Dash?


  • Total voters
    39
Mizzy, it takes guts to stand out and say something against the crowd. But what you said needs to be heard and I'm glad you said it.

My main question is: Why should I pay for someone else to do another's analysis?
It's a similar problem with taxation: Person1 takes money out of person2's pocket for person3's benefit. The further the money is from your control, then the greater the potential for corruption, inefficiency, and bad outcomes. In this case, the further the analysis is from your own, the greater the potential for misinformation, corruption, bad decisions.

So, I'd say: Either you pay someone to do your own analysis, you get together with other MN's to pool your resources and fund your analysis as a group, or the analyzers volunteer for free. Please don't use public funds to further centralize the group to do analysis that I didn't ask for, and on top of it give that group undue influence on the wider group.

On the other hand if this "committee" were simply an optional service for proposers to help them make better proposals with better chance of approval, then OK I would actually vote yes to fund a group to do that. Many proposals are of poor quality, and I would fund a 3rd party to help improve that quality. This is a very different flavor than a committee that gives ratings to influence the greater group - that is ripe for corruption if not now then eventually, as MizzyMax clearly points out. And we'll be stuck with this model that will be difficult to change.

1. I somewhat agree with GrandMasterDash: if we're doing something like this then the name "group" is better than "committee" and having MULTIPLE different groups - this gives more perspectives and competition, but still falls into the problem like the multiple ratings agencies that failed in the last financial crisis.

2. Also sorta agree with jimbursch: A "seal of approval" is a better way to go than "rating". It's a positive stamp that someone can display, like Organic, or GMO-Free, or ADA seal of approval. Better still, are positive stamps given by independent groups, not one funded by the network.

I have to add, and wish I could convey it better - I want to make clear to recognize Bitlong and other evaluator efforts - I do trust that your intentions are for the best of the network in mind. I hope you take my criticism and use it in as good of a way as possible. My advice is to restrict the "PEC" duties to helping proposers come up with better ways to present their proposal, and things along those lines. And if you see that a certain proposal goes forward with clear issues for whatever reason, then you voice those concerns, as an individual, not with the weight of an "official committee rating"

I like the idea of a "stamp of approval", if the total points get above a certain threshold.

However, I respectfully disagree with your criticisms.

1) You're into libertarian semantics when parsing terms like "group" or "committee". Nobody in the real world cares about this. Besides, if they do a bad job they will be fired (de-funded).
2) MNOs don't have to vote in accordance with the recommendations of the PEC. Most people in this space that I know have a brain and critical-thinking ability. If you disagree with the PEC, write a comment in the comments section, or vote to fire them.
3) If PEC were to take your advice about "helping proposers come up witih better ways...", what would we have? Paid professionals doing the proposers work (think parents doing child's homework), obfuscating the true abilities and qualities that may be lacking in the proposer's efforts or skill set. This type of meddling is exactly what you seem to want to avoid, and this idea would result in exactly the opposite of your intended function, much like the government agencies you criticized.

I hope this makes sense and explains some of the reasons why I support the PEC proposal.

-DJ
 
I like the idea but am concerned there's no marketing people to evaluate marketing proposals.
Ask for one person to drop out or share a bigger pie with the MBA?
Or if you're confident in their abilities, share the evaluations they did for you.

Perhaps marketing guy @craigums could volunteer for a month evaluating proposals?

If this is done well, there will be lot of value added to MNOs and DASH.

This is a great idea. I was actually thinking along the same lines...a few things come to mind:

1. What's good timing for this to come out? I'd want to leave enough time for discussion, but also leave enough time for all proposals for the month to be submitted. Perhaps halfway through the month?

2. Should it be a rundown of all proposals? Select ones on which I think there's value to be added with commentary? Ones that are on the border of passing? (I'm leaning towards the second option, as I think value should be the key...but am curious to hear any thoughts)

Also, I'd consider myself more of a business strategy guy with experience in sales rather than a marketing guy. (I'm a CPA who has started and sold a business and consulted on many others, filled the CFO role in some, but my heart lies in this kind of stuff (business strategy & sales).

All that said, awesome idea man! I'm looking forward to digging into it.
 
Thanks for the responses - some good points, and I'd like to respond to some of them:

1) You're into libertarian semantics when parsing terms like "group" or "committee". Nobody in the real world cares about this. Besides, if they do a bad job they will be fired (de-funded).
1. I don't care much either about the terms. How about multiple groups? Multiple committees? That's the main point that I was agreeing with in my comment - having more diverse views and analyses, as opposed to the "officially funded evaluation." Of course, I'd prefer to have no committees than any committees. But if we're going to fund one, I'd rather have multiple viewpoints. Multiple groups could still lead to the problem of group-think/failure, just less likely than one... Or, do you think one committee would be less likely to have problems since it can be fired? I'm open, willing to change my mind, and still considering this.

2) MNOs don't have to vote in accordance with the recommendations of the PEC. Most people in this space that I know have a brain and critical-thinking ability. If you disagree with the PEC, write a comment in the comments section, or vote to fire them.
2. Ok, so then what is the PEC's role, if MNO's don't vote with their recommendation? If you have critical-thinking ability, then why not use that to analyze the proposal itself instead of needing to analyze the analysis? If it's "easier" to analyze the analysis than analyzing the proposal itself, then that's where I see voting being distorted, because MNO's will (more easily) depend on the subjective analysis of the PEC. One problem then is that those disagreeing with the PEC will have to put in volunteer time to argue against the funded PEC. They're doing the analysis too, coming to a different conclusion, but not getting paid. You seem to be saying that most of the time MNO's can just go with the recommendation except in special cases where the PEC is very wrong, or even slightly wrong - then MNO's can take over so there's a failsafe and it's okay in most cases, is that right?

3) If PEC were to take your advice about "helping proposers come up witih better ways...", what would we have? Paid professionals doing the proposers work (think parents doing child's homework), obfuscating the true abilities and qualities that may be lacking in the proposer's efforts or skill set. This type of meddling is exactly what you seem to want to avoid, and this idea would result in exactly the opposite of your intended function, much like the government agencies you criticized.
3. I took some time to think about this, and for the most part I agree with you. Maybe we shouldn't have a "proposal assistance committee" (PAC) at all. My reasoning for supporting a "PAC" was that the volunteers working for the PEC have been eager to contribute, and it seems like their skills could be useful in helping proposers. Ideally, we wouldn't need it at all. But, if they wanted to do something to get paid by the Dash Budget, I would rather have "assisters" than "evaluators" - though I'm not sure if the transfer of skills is compatible (maybe a different group of people would be better for the job)... would evaluators be able to only assist without doing all the work (or covering up a proposer's deficiencies)? My hope is that helping proposers get started wouldn't necessarily be like parents doing a child's homework. Proposal-submitting often requires a different skill-set than proposal-carrying-out, and generally I would be okay with approving someone who had poor proposal-submitting skills, but excellent skills in carrying out whatever proposal (depending on proposal type). Besides, if the "assisters" were tempted to do all the work (or cover up a proposer's deficiencies), what makes them not tempted to evaluate with bias?
Anyway, generally I'm supportive of "subsidizing the infant industry" to get it off the ground - once more and more in the community learn how to submit proposals well, then we won't need to fund someone to hand-hold beginners through the hurdles of submitting. But again, I do agree that there's a potential problem that meddling would result in the opposite of the intended function.

I agree that something(s) should be done to improve the proposal system, and I see the potential value in having a smaller paid group do the work of investigating proposals more in-depth... However, it's difficult for me to reconcile that with one of the reasons why I got into this space - it is open, borderless, decentralized, neutral, censorship-resistant, and allows permission-less innovation where anyone can participate. The MN system allows a decentralized system of governance, and I believe a small group like the PEC would narrow that unhealthily. For the "wisdom of crowds" to make good decisions, diversity (of participants and opinion) is so important. Instead of "anyone can participate," it starts to turn into "anyone can participate that the PEC likes"

A better solution, I think, would be a more automated (more objective) system that presents better information to MNO's. Something more like Google Trends, where the data is presented objectively in a way that is easily seen (as opposed to Consumer Reports where the reviews are in-depth, but have more potential for bias).
 
Hello. Why then my post has very few views and there is not one evaluation. I wrote a letter that there are people who evaluate projects. Could you evaluate it? Thanks in advance.
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/pre-proposal-promoting-dash-in-kazakhstan.15760/
I also designed it for all the recommendations in the letter

The PEC has ceased to operate to the best of my knowledge.

I think that the way forward is to establish an open process for assisting proposal owners and evaluating proposals.

There are a bunch of documents that were created during the PEC experiment that could form a starting point for this process.
 
There are a bunch of documents that were created during the PEC experiment that could form a starting point for this process.
Hmm. They removed the proposal. Also deleted all the templates and guidelines for creating proposals from the dropbox (now all the links show error 404).
It looks like immature behavior, like wanting to slam the door before leaving. After some critical comments... Wow.
 
Hmm. They removed the proposal. Also deleted all the templates and guidelines for creating proposals from the dropbox (now all the links show error 404).
It looks like immature behavior, like wanting to slam the door before leaving. After some critical comments... Wow.

I kept versions of all the important documents, I'm currently editing them for general release.

A lot of work went into the PEC experiment, a great deal of that work was done by Biltong. He brought a great deal of passion and enthusiasm to the idea.

If I'm emotionally invested in a project sometimes it's not so easy to separate criticism of the project from my own emotions.

I think he has helped lay the groundwork for a pre-proposal process that will ultimately be of benefit to Dash. This is very much new territory and the only way to make progress is by putting different solutions into practice.
 
They intended to work with people and big money. This requires steel nerves and maximum impartiality.
 
I should state for the record that I was part of the PEC experiment, I pulled out before the proposal was withdrawn due to time constraints and conflict of interest: I'm working on a proposal.

I think it's important to understand that the PEC was not a homogenous single entity but a voluntary collective of individuals each with their own strengths. Some of us certainly do have nerves of steel and complete impartiality, some bring their passion and energy.

If one individual chooses to make a decision to wipe out the proposal without consulting anyone else in the collective about it, and that person is the proposal owner, then you get the situation we are in.

This is why I favour decentralisation, to remove single points of failure, to become more resilient and responsive.
 
100% of the proposal is for one clear purpose: to implement a bug bounty program for Dash. The mistake I believe you made was to interpret the BugCrowd numbers as fixed costs that can be plugged into a spreadsheet for the budget proposal. Those numbers inform my negotiation with BugCrowd, but they do not represent how the funds will be finally allocated. This is a proposal for a 12-month program funded over the first 3 months in a highly dynamic financial and technical environment. I would be a fool not to write this proposal in a way that maintains maximum flexibility to get the best deal for Dash.

All this problem occurs because the MNOs are not allowed to vote the numbers (and change their vote willingly whenever they wish).

Voting the numbers allows to the MNOs decisions to adapt in a highly dynamic financial and technical environment. You dont need to care how to write the proposal to maintain flexibility. All the proposals will have X variables in the place of all the numbers they deal with. And these X numeric variables will be able to be voted by the MNOs.
 
Last edited:
Hey y'all! We ended up doing a video on this, and we plan on doing one the last Wednesday of each month before the deadline. Here is is for July:
 
Hello, Im new on the community and I want to post a Pre-Proposal, Im trying to read the How to submit a Dash Pre-Proposal https://goo.gl/7jmwXQ , but the link is broken, could you help me to find the correct link? I would appreciate you a lot!! Best regards :).

Hi Simon,
If you do want to use our services (note this is a free service)
1. Please Private Message @Biltong on the Dash Pre + Budget Proposal Discussions Forum indicating that you want the help of the PEC, so we can assign a team to you.
2. Once you have read How to submit a Dash Pre-Proposal https://goo.gl/7jmwXQ you might want to adjust your Pre-Proposal before we submit our 1st Evaluation, so we’ll wait for you to give us the go-ahead before we start the evaluation process.
3. Again, PM @Biltong when you are ready for the 1st Evaluation.
Hope to hear from you quite soon. :)
 
Back
Top