We could do better with the proposals process.

[solarguy]

I usually hang out on the slack channel, but I thought I would post the idea everywhere to get feedback.

My gut says there are going to be a lot of new people getting involved in Dash in the next couple months/years. Admittedly, there is a ton of information for newbies to digest. With regards to the proposals to the treasury, I think we can and should make substantial improvements in the process.

1. If you do a google search for “How to make a proposal to Dash” this is the top meaningful response: Since I can't post links yet, this will be a text simulation of a hotlink:

dashcentral.org/budget/create


This is an easy but expensive way to put in an official proposal to the Masternode group.

Unfortunately, that’s absolutely the wrong first step.



The first step is to have a pre-proposal conversation with the slack/masternodes/dash.org/proposals community. But how would people find that out? Amanda’s otherwise excellent video about proposals suggests that you submit the proposal first, and then publicize it. If they actually do that, they get yelled at for not doing it right. This is both inefficient, and it’s bad public relations for the Dash community.

2. I think the cost to submit a proposal should be cut by 75% and adjusted as needed to keep the entry level to around a hundred bucks. This should increase the number of proposals substantially but still weed out trivial fluff.

More proposals reduces the risk that when we come down to the wire, we won't be forced to choose between just burning the last 186 Dash that haven't been allocated or picking some last minute ½ baked proposal.

3. I think the development team should have a standing proposal during every cycle for a "rainy day" fund. In the event that there's 186 Dash that is looking for a home, we could always stash it in the rainy day fund rather than burn it.

Then the Dev team has some flexibility if an unforeseen problem or opportunity comes up, they have some reserve Dash. Effectively, this raises the bar for proposals that are down the list a ways in terms of bang for the buck. Again, weeds out the fluff.

4. I would like to see a prominent list of trusted members of the dev team, and the larger Dash/Slack community. If a newbie has no idea about the merits and risks of a new proposal, they could ask for comments from this list of trusted people. And they could easily recognize comments on proposals, "Oh, moocowmoo thinks this is a terrible idea. I trust Moocowmoo, I vote no."

This would also alert new proposers who they should chat with to get useful feedback in producing a solid and useful proposal.

5. We need a prominent tutorial on DashCentral, Reddit DashPay and the Slack channel on how to submit a good proposal to the treasury. Amanda’s video from 6 months ago, while good, could use some updating. Somebody that knows something about search engine optimization could insure that the tutorial comes up on top of a google search.



In summary, good proposals would include:

A. A full and robust discussion on the proposal channel of Slack/Dash prior to submitting an actual proposal.

B. Establish who you are, to assure us you’re not some fly by night scammer.

C. An obvious way to verify if the owner of the proposal follows through and does a good job.

D. An estimate of the return on investment.

E. A better means of dealing with the highly volatile price of Dash. There are a ton of good ways to achieve this. It could be a "stretch goal" for additional work, or agreeing to donate the overage to the Devs’ rainy day fund, or perhaps Dash’s favorite charity. How awesome would it be for us to support Habitat for Humanity, or fill in the blank every month. Talk about awesome public relations…



OK, I have officially stirred the pot, let’s see what solutions emerge.

 

[JZA]

I agre, but you said it yourself, you dont hang out here at all. Well it goes both ways people might not hang out on slack that much. And this is an issue since well, I have put proposals that go completely unnoticed and uncommented here, and then after they are approved, a lot of people try to vote it out because they dont agree or have certain issues with it.

I can see your point on cutting down the 5 dash requirement, is already 500 dls I think that would weed out a lot of proposals.

Dev team rainy day, well, I think they have a good handle on management to 'freeze' some of the value and also I think they have a good reward from local MN they are operating to provide aditional funds (maybe).

Again, Slack is just a tribe, there are many tribes on Telegram, Reddit, Forum and IRC, I dont think we should 'judge' one better than the next, also not sure how will this support spread across the different channels. Forcing a n00b to get in slack is completely violent.

In summary, good proposals would include:

A. A full and robust discussion on the proposal channel of Slack/Dash prior to submitting an actual proposal.

Well this has been said, and a lot of the pre-proposals are not being discussed in the forum, if all I think people from slack need to get their dear behinds on the forum.

B. Establish who you are, to assure us you’re not some fly by night scammer.

This sounds a bit disingenous a privacy protected coin, that suddenly are asking KYC? I think this goes against a core value. I think identity should be protected and the risk should be shared. We dont really care for identity we care for capacity. I rather have risks, and non-violent crimes than a totalitarian surveilance regime.

C. An obvious way to verify if the owner of the proposal follows through and does a good job.

Most of the proposals offer advancement reports, so I think this should be covered already. Again, is up to the participation and inquiry of the community. We dont really ask the core team to give us reports, or harass the developers to show us the code that they wrote, etc. So I dont think we should be so violent with a newbie contributor. If he is on marketing, the actions should be public for the most part, and if it is on development, the github is public as well, so we dont really need a tidy document with the "report" title. This just adds unnecessary redtape and bureacracy.

D. An estimate of the return on investment.

Again, making it too hard, newbies people want to try ideas out, pushing a ROI is hard, specially because you dont know how things will turn out. It could be very good, it could be shit, sometimes is completely unrelated. Imagine asking a ROI for airfare to give a talk, or to buy a camera for a podcast. Now you want metrics? I am not against acquantibility but if you want solid proposals you should also make it easy, otherwise nobody will do them and both parties would be frustrated by the process.

I think I have a different rant about what the treasury is and if it needs policing. The treasury is a reward that is voted on a descentralized fashion, meaning that there is no piramid or tribe deciding the future of the proposals.

There is a communication channel both on the forum at an earlier stage, and a continuation on the dashcentral site. I think this is a great process, except, is completely abandoned.

I would question that the forum has been completely shunned by most of the community, and the voting period has been pumped by most of social media, and there is not really a connection between the two, which could be a reason on why we are here.

Lets take one of my favorite ideas but a bit poorly performed is the DASHOUS site.

Dash needs fiat gateways, the proposal and the idea was greatly detailed, but in the end, we have a smewhat mediocre site that hasnt really thrilled the community. So my question here is, where was the conversation as the site was being developed? The Github messages on that project are completely abandoned, I am not sure if the developer is active on slack, but is obvious he is not really reachable on Github, and also doesnt seem clear on a continuation of the roadmap.
​

I think the first step is to clear this situation specially on the communication side. I think slack is too tribal, just like telegram, IRC is great for this casual encounters, and let alone the forum which you need to register to be able to communicate. I see the best scenario as IRC could allow someone to participate without having to disclose much and be able to interact fully. Is up to the rest of the community to participate.

I think if there needs to be changes should be on the masternode side, usually managed by competent people as opposed to the poor n00b who doesnt know whats going on.

This is what I would hate to see, I would hate the voting to be tribalized, into a voting police that scare away people, and become highly bureacratic based on a bunch of assumptions, centralizing all decisions. A big thing about descentralization si that one node doesnt really care what another node does, and yes, efficiency is not the best word to describe that environment but thats the tradeoff you get for descentralization.

 

[solarguy]

In summary, good proposals would include:

A. A full and robust discussion on the proposal channel of Slack/Dash prior to submitting an actual proposal.

Well this has been said, and a lot of the pre-proposals are not being discussed in the forum, if all I think people from slack need to get their dear behinds on the forum.

I should have included Slack/Dash Forum/Reddit. Just meant to convey that discussing a proposal before actually making a proposal drastically improves the odds the proposal will be successful. Part of the challenge for new folks is that there is no single place to have a conversation with masternode folks.

B. Establish who you are, to assure us you’re not some fly by night scammer.

This sounds a bit disingenous a privacy protected coin, that suddenly are asking KYC? I think this goes against a core value. I think identity should be protected and the risk should be shared. We dont really care for identity we care for capacity. I rather have risks, and non-violent crimes than a totalitarian surveilance regime.

As an example, if you want to start a help desk, for a big pile of money, we would like some assurance that you know how to run a help desk. Your actual identity doesn't matter, provided you can show you have the capacity to do what you say. I'm just responding to actual criticisms that caused proposals to fail.

C. An obvious way to verify if the owner of the proposal follows through and does a good job.

Most of the proposals offer advancement reports, so I think this should be covered already. Again, is up to the participation and inquiry of the community.... So I dont think we should be so violent with a newbie contributor.

This certainly applies to some proposals more than others, but I think it makes it far more likely to be voted yes if it's obvious the owner of the proposal intends to follow through, and gives us an easy metric to evaluate. It's not a requirement at all, but a definite sales tool for the proposer.

There is a communication channel both on the forum at an earlier stage, and a continuation on the dashcentral site. I think this is a great process, except, is completely abandoned.

Exactly. Thus my hope for a big obvious stickied tutorial in all the places a newbie might look.


This is what I would hate to see, I would hate the voting to be tribalized, into a voting police that scare away people, and become highly bureacratic based on a bunch of assumptions, centralizing all decisions.


That's what I'm trying to avoid, by giving everyone, newbies and experienced people alike, the resources they need to navigate the proposal process.

 

[JZA]

Exactly. Thus my hope for a big obvious stickied tutorial in all the places a newbie might look.

But newbies are doing their job, just scan these forum topic, there are a lot of empty pre-proposal. Which mean the fault is on OUR side, not the n00bs.

 

[ChurchOfNotNothing]

But newbies are doing their job, just scan these forum topic, there are a lot of empty pre-proposal. Which mean the fault is on OUR side, not the n00bs.

Interesting discussion. What do you propose JZA.....for cutting down on the empty pre-proposals?

 

[JZA]

get the ppl from slack into the forums

 

[ChurchOfNotNothing]

Haha...I'm a big slack person and I'm now trying to get more involved over here. I've got the forum pinned to my browser so, I have more incentive to get on here.

 

[thesavoyard]

Being new I'd like to know, does a positive response here usually lead to approval? I'll be putting at least $500 on the line!

 

[solarguy]

Being new I'd like to know, does a positive response here usually lead to approval? I'll be putting at least $500 on the line!

My observation is that if you discuss your proposal here, on the Slack channel for proposals, and on the subreddit Dashpay, you are far far more likely to get approved. There is zero need to put money on the line until you get a favorable conversation going on with the Masternode folks.

https://dashnation.slack.com/messages/proposals/ (I -think- this is the most active group at the moment)

https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/

and here of course.

 

[akhavr]

@solarguy - why not create a HOWTO to make a good proposal? I'm sure, when complete, it would make its way to the official wiki

 

[JZA]

@solarguy - why not create a HOWTO to make a good proposal? I'm sure, when complete, it would make its way to the official wiki

There is a video on that topic by Amanda and also there is a wiki with a 'template' for proposals.

 

[solarguy]

There is a video on that topic by Amanda and also there is a wiki with a 'template' for proposals.

As lovely as Amanda B. Johnson's video is, it's a little dated. For example, she recommends to pay your money and put the proposal out officially, and then talk about it on the various channels. These days, it works far better the other way around, pre-proposal conversation first, and after working the kinks out, then make the official proposal.

 

[JZA]

Sure, however most of the preproposals are not really discussed in my experience, even after being posted on other channels like slack or reddit. Only real questions come after, during voting. I collected tons of likes and by the time it was finally published, many people start questioning it and campaigning against it.
So I dont really think it matters what goes first.

 

[TroyDASH]

Agree with all except for #2. The proposal fee being expensive as it is, even with that being the case we are seeing a huge influx of proposals with the price increase, some of which are clearly scams (imo). Lowering the fee any further could cause it to get somewhat chaotic. If some dash ends up getting never created, that's ok.

 

[JZA]

Agree with all except for #2. The proposal fee being expensive as it is, even with that being the case we are seeing a huge influx of proposals with the price increase, some of which are clearly scams (imo). Lowering the fee any further could cause it to get somewhat chaotic. If some dash ends up getting never created, that's ok.

I dunno, at this point even asking for airfare (to give a talk in a major city) is less expensive than the fee. I think 500 dls is a bit ridiculous now. Also if for whatever reason your proposal is not passed you are left on a serious position. Just the risk of loosing 500 dls if my proposal is not passed mades me unconfortable to ask for help on small projects like organize a talk on a Chamber of commerce of my town (for example). Or code a tipbot for my favorite chat group.

If you are a coder in India, 500 dls for a month-long proposal could seriously present a threat to your lifestyle. You are asking someone to put 2 sometimes 3 month of paycheck on hold for 15-30 days with a risk he might not see it back.

I am sure this is a bit extreme example, but I for once talk to a lot of people from Venezuela, and I can see how much more difficult it has become to do anything on their country for DASH.

 

[UdjinM6]

I dunno, at this point even asking for airfare (to give a talk in a major city) is less expensive than the fee. I think 500 dls is a bit ridiculous now. Also if for whatever reason your proposal is not passed you are left on a serious position. Just the risk of loosing 500 dls if my proposal is not passed mades me unconfortable to ask for help on small projects like organize a talk on a Chamber of commerce of my town (for example). Or code a tipbot for my favorite chat group.

If you are a coder in India, 500 dls for a month-long proposal could seriously present a threat to your lifestyle. You are asking someone to put 2 sometimes 3 month of paycheck on hold for 15-30 days with a risk he might not see it back.

I am sure this is a bit extreme example, but I for once talk to a lot of people from Venezuela, and I can see how much more difficult it has become to do anything on their country for DASH.

That's what proposals like Dash Force are for - you simply need to collaborate to manage such small events together.

 

[JZA]

That's what proposals like Dash Force are for - you simply need to collaborate to manage such small events together.

Right but this I think DF is a centralized way of doing things as opposed of the more decentralized MN voting model. IMO.

 

[UdjinM6]

Right but this I think DF is a centralized way of doing things as opposed of the more decentralized MN voting model. IMO.

Yes, basically MNs are voting for someone to manage this kind of small things instead of voting for each individual $100 bill proposal. Just like they vote for "core team" and not for every member.

 

[JZA]

Not sure if its apples to apples, a development team is a team that works as a unit, however descentralized meetings dont work like that, each have their own environment, pricing, location, schedule, segment of audience and goals. Having them funnel through a centralized organization makes it act as a bottleneck for all these initiatives. However I dont only talk about meetings only, most of the small time developers might also see a problem with a high tax on their idea.

A MN fee now equals to book a flight, stay in Palo Alto, take an uber and pitch to a VC about a development idea.

 

[UdjinM6]

Not sure if its apples to apples, a development team is a team that works as a unit, however descentralized meetings dont work like that, each have their own environment, pricing, location, schedule, segment of audience and goals. Having them funnel through a centralized organization makes it act as a bottleneck for all these initiatives. However I dont only talk about meetings only, most of the small time developers might also see a problem with a high tax on their idea.

A MN fee now equals to book a flight, stay in Palo Alto, take an uber and pitch to a VC about a development idea.

Why can't there be "meeting team" - someone who can quickly provide some funds, graphics, presentation from previous meetings, give some advices, connect some people in the same region etc?