1 Year Later

TanteStefana

TanteStefana

Well-known member
Foundation Member
It's been a little over a year since the foundation began. Unfortunately, we have seen it fall by the way side, mostly because those on the board are in fact extremely busy coding, etc... There are many reasons why the foundation should not be allowed to disintegrate. That is why I would like to request the powers that be to initialize the voting for a new board. Maybe, if it's a 2 year term, we could simply replace those that have decided they don't have time for this?

Reasons to keep the foundation:

1. The foundation can take on legal issues that pertain to Dash, such as hiring lawyers and lobbyists to protect the users and workers from unjust laws and get the word out to congressional leaders how important freedom of money is to freedom of speech and basic human rights. It wouldn't have to function alone, but could combine with other foundations on mutually important issues.

2. The foundation should take ownership of assets that Dash paid for, such as the dash.org site or the trademark (after fully paid for of course) and any other such assets (patents?). Also, core development ought to be formally paid for by the foundation with multi sig wallets. When Dash eventually switches hands, we must make certain that things can continue on a trustless basis.

There are other good reasons to have a foundation, but these are two of the most important in my opinion. So please, can we get some people voted in that aren't in the midst of coding for Evolution, and have time to keep it relevant? Heck, the core development team can still be a part of the foundation, but we need some people willing to take the reins if only to start establishing regular meetings, and meeting minutes. And there should be a place where the community can submit questions and requests, which should be gone over at each meeting. Many can be simply dismissed, if it's something that isn't relative to the Foundation's work and responsibilities, but those that are related, should be answered in an official manner in meeting minutes.

I also propose that the foundation receive a legal fund. I kind of went on about this on slack, so I'll cut and paste here for your input. Thanks for reading my long post!

I would like to propose we start making plans for future legal stances on our project (Dash). That we plan for the eventuality of legal challenges. We want to control the narrative, not let politicians dictate how the public views digital currencies (crime, terrorism, etc...) Eventually, I think we will need to employ a powerful international law firm to represent Dash, lobby for legislation, etc... and when we do that a few years from now, we'll be paying up to $800 an hour or more. If we have issues identified, case studies to help build our case, etc.... ready to go, we won't be wasting time or money, and it could even help catch the attention of a great law firm, whom we'd have to convince to take our case. We would certainly be an interesting feather in anyone's cap, so I think we have a chance at succeeding.

With all these banks etc... trying to patent blockchain technology, we might also want to have Evan patent his inventions so that nobody can try to force Dash out of it's own invention.
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Hi TanteStefana! Thanks for your interest in the foundation. I agree that it makes sense to keep it around because in some instances we need a real entity to interact with reality: trademark agreement, Apple dev account for the iPhone app (it wasn't approved, but we needed to set it up to be able to try) and many other similar things. Anyway, this is not a discussion about the foundation, but about the board members, so I will address that.

As far as I know, one member can't call an election, but 2/3 of the members can remove a director in the annual meeting, which should be held soon because it hasn't been celebrated yet. You can check these things at:
https://www.darkcoinfoundation.org/about/bylaws/

We are probably celebrating a board meeting this week. We will discuss this so we can get back to you with the specific proceedings to follow (I'm not certain about a few things and I prefer to be sure before informing you).
 
Please understand, I am not dissatisfied with the board at all. I just think the members are stretched too thin. I simply have so many questions myself, that I feel only the Foundation can deal with, and the board members are too busy on other things. So maybe this means we should increase the board membership, including a few that make the Foundation their primary interest/job? I don't know, but I do know we're only going to get busier and busier and we need more hands on deck. This is one place where laypeople can help (organizing meetings by taking questions from the community, and creating a list to discuss, then writing minutes to inform the community what the consensus was on those questions as well as the Development team's updates and concerns. Marketing, legal, development.... all these things should be touched on a regular basis. Not to waste a ton of time, but to do status updates so we can assess how things are going, and pick up the ball where it is dropped.

Because balls will be dropped, all the time. It's almost all voluntary as it is. Teamwork is essential.

Even if you don't want to increase board size, we can still make committees and get more help from the community.
 
TanteStefana said:
Please understand, I am not dissatisfied with the board at all. I just think the members are stretched too thin. I simply have so many questions myself, that I feel only the Foundation can deal with, and the board members are too busy on other things. So maybe this means we should increase the board membership, including a few that make the Foundation their primary interest/job? I don't know, but I do know we're only going to get busier and busier and we need more hands on deck. This is one place where laypeople can help (organizing meetings by taking questions from the community, and creating a list to discuss, then writing minutes to inform the community what the consensus was on those questions as well as the Development team's updates and concerns. Marketing, legal, development.... all these things should be touched on a regular basis. Not to waste a ton of time, but to do status updates so we can assess how things are going, and pick up the ball where it is dropped.

Because balls will be dropped, all the time. It's almost all voluntary as it is. Teamwork is essential.

Even if you don't want to increase board size, we can still make committees and get more help from the community.
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Don't worry at all, I understand what you mean and no offence taken :smile:

Let me gather information with the other board members about options/procedures and I'll post them here.
 
What kind of people are you guys looking for specifically? Wealthy, Connected people? Or just people who will do what is asked of them?
 
We have good people, and they do a lot, but the foundation is floundering a little - for a reason, so much is going on. I just want to bring a focus back toward it.

We need the Foundation to manage certain things for Dash, such as the domain names, they're still working on trademark of Dash, and anything else that comes up that requires someone to represent Dash. But this also needs to be open so that people know that things are being taken care of, that money donated, or funds raised via membership, are being managed properly. Right now, things are very hectic, and the people on the board are doing so many other things, so we haven't had an organized reports, meeting minutes, etc... It kind of needs to be pulled together, so I'm just trying to bring attention to this corner of Dash, so it doesn't fall apart.

There was a point when they were talking about dropping the foundation, which kind of scared me. Evan thought the Virtual Corporation could do everything, but in reality it can't. Some entity needs to hold property (domain name, web site, etc...) so that if our current core developers and supporters should leave, they don't take everything with them (after we pay for it, of course) Not to suggest they would! But remember, we're making something that should last hundreds of years if properly maintained. So everything we set up now, it's like being the founding fathers of a country... we're setting up a well rounded system of entities that support each other and cover all the bases that are needed to function in society.

Miners
Masternodes
Autonomous Distributed Virtual Corporation
DAPI with all kinds of applications using our services
and
Foundation - the face of Dash.

I think all of these elements are essential. And I think this is why Dash really will be a living breathing entity let loose on the world that will last, possibly forever, or as long as some kind of computer is around :)
 
A bit late, but I finally have some info (we could not meet last week and we did today/yesterday).

In the next few days we will announce the annual members meeting. All members are entitled to attend if they want. The board will give some information on what has been done during this year and members can raise whatever issue they have and can vote on it, including the removal of board members. Obviously the meeting will be held virtually. We are currently doing some research on available solutions and we also need to work out the date (after the holidays). Once we have that we'll announce and we can start preparing. I think it will be a nice occasion to interact and discuss about what we care about.

Stay tuned!
 
Well, I hope nobody wants to quit, and I certainly don't want to remove anyone. Just want to keep the foundation alive and kicking ;) If it'll be open, I'll try to be there :D
 
TanteStefana said:
I also propose that the foundation receive a legal fund.
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This is the same thing I was trying to get at with my post on the December Proposal. We actually already have the ability to do this we are just choosing to litterally burn the left over money not going out into proposals instead of actually keeping it for when it would be needed in the future.

We have literally burned the following Dash from Oct, Nov, Dec, and Jan budget proposals:
Oct: 7990 - 7524 = 466
Nov: 7990 - 7700.69 = 289.31
Dec: 7,999.00 - 7,162.17 = 836.63
Jan: 7,990 - 7482.43 = 507.57
Total: 2099.51 Dash

That's two full masternode's that could be controlled by the foundation, securing the network, used for production testing, and generating future income for the foundation issues. This is no small issue feat and it's only been 4 months.

I was trying to suggest that we simply create a multi-sig wallet, provide it to the board for safe keeping and at least start to put some future savings away for this unknown. The only response I got about why we are burning this dash was that it was to keep the quality of the proposals high but lets be honest that hasn't been an issue at all and there is enough large holders that at this point they can vote down any proposal they want to should this whole "pork barrel" issue come up.

I really think we are not looking into the unknown when we are choosing to burn this Dash.

Edit: Burn might not be the right term for it but I'm talking about the Dash that doesn't get created in the super blocks that are not filled by the useable proposals.
 
Coingun... Agreed. We have more need for budget right now than can be supplied, so maximizing that is going to be a key priority going forward. We also need a "slush" fund of some type because of things like 1) expenses in fiat that aren't covered by a proposal if Dash price declines, 2) Dash for business initiatives that can't wait a month (or two if the current proposed budget is already full), 3) unplanned expenses (e.g., a contract that comes up for renewal that we didn't know about), etc. We are planning to formalize the budget process, and provide more transparency, and that will happen in the very near future.
 
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