Dash Incubator: Vote on Appointment of new Proposal Owner

[rion]

Hey @rion ..so these admins are apparently unhappy with the centralisation of the PO role and that the decentralisation plan (which I remember you agreeing to in the March call we had with them) hasn’t been enacted for some reason, what’s your response to that?

Are you planning to enact that plan or some variation of it and how? Or what’s your plan for the future of proposal ownership in the Incubator and how to keep your Admins happy?

As I’m responding to all these posts it’s clear that (de)centralization is your (the YES group’s) main objective. Please see my prior replies above about that and about what was agreed and what wasn’t.

You’ll see my plan in this quarter’s proposal text. I’d like to see admins happy, but all of these admins were appointed by you, so there’s only so much I can do about that. Admin happiness isn’t my primary goal. The Incubator is here to serve Dash as a whole (and in my opinion, MNOs specifically).

 

[rion]

Since we are now in a public forum, however, I also raise the question to @rion - are you willing to commit to the largely agreed changes to progress the Incubator to a more democratic structure, including moving away from a centralised PO role?, or do you wish to continue ignoring the clearly frustrated admins who have been putting in a great deal of effort to bring about these changes, only to be met by what very much looks like a despotic attempt at retaining centralised power for yourself?

This sounds more like populist rhetoric than an attempt to come to mutual understanding. I’m happy to continue the conversations when emotions have calmed (one of the reasons I’ve waited a bit to reply).

I will say that I’m committed to serving Dash in general and MNOs in particular more than serving Incubator admins. That shouldn’t have to be a choice.

 

[rion]

4. Andy is the appointed PO of Incubator.

5. Andy transferred his PO duties to Rion.

Andy appointed me as PO. He is neither the PO, nor an admin in the Incubator, though at one point I did offer to him to be a Strategist.

Decentralized governance is not a choice. It’s the foundation upon which Incubator was built.

Dash Incubator Contributors do not work for any individual. Never!

I fully agree with @mayoreee 's comments about the importance of decentralization and I hope the current conflict can be resolved quickly

As mentioned in my replies to others, I see decentralization as a means to an end. It is necessary at the root, but it can actually be harmful at the branches. I'd be happy to debate this if anyone is willing.

 

[rion]

Pardom me, but the rules are NOT clear. The rules are STUPID.

Is it possible that they are both? That particular part of the rules seemed pretty clear to me though.

And this is simply because (as you said) there is no difference between NOT voting and voting NO.

I think some of Incubator's major decisions might need to be done in the DAO where negative votes will count. More about this in my proposal update coming in the next day or two.

 

[mayoreee]

Decentralization was not the purpose. Increase the value we’re proving to Dash was (is). It seems that decentralization very quickly became the goal for several of you, however. Value is my goal. Too much decentralization in the wrong places can actually harm that goal.

Why is what you personally think is healthy for the Incubator or Dash any more valid than what I think?

Andy appointed me as PO. He is neither the PO, nor an admin in the Incubator, though at one point I did offer to him to be a Strategist.

As mentioned in my replies to others, I see decentralization as a means to an end. It is necessary at the root, but it can actually be harmful at the branches. I'd be happy to debate this if anyone is willing.

As I’m responding to all these posts it’s clear that (de)centralization is your (the YES group’s) main objective. Please see my prior replies above about that and about what was agreed and what wasn’t.

You’ll see my plan in this quarter’s proposal text. I’d like to see admins happy, but all of these admins were appointed by you, so there’s only so much I can do about that. Admin happiness isn’t my primary goal. The Incubator is here to serve Dash as a whole (and in my opinion, MNOs specifically).

My goodness! Now, I see what these Admins really have to put up with here. Just wow!

Let's get some things straight here, @rion:

1. Nobody, not a single Admin, not a single soul voted you into the role of PO. The duties of the PO (Andy) were transferred to you - in good faith.

2. If you claim "Value" to the Network is your "goal":
- What makes you think having other Admins involved and responsible for Incubator governance is detrimental to value creation for the Network?
- Why do you think having you, your leadership, and your control is the best way to deliver value to the Network? Unchecked ego?

You are a great guy, but your excuse here - value is your goal - is just ridiculous. It's the same excuse every wannabe dictator makes before they go fully out of control. We've seen that script play out a million times, not surprised. You've only confirmed the other Admins' claims about what you really care about and desperately want to cling to - power.



Dear Incubator Admins, @wizlee @dashameter @Hilawe @spectaprod @Sam Kirby @Pasta @AshFrancis @cloudwheels, @QuantumExplorer, @Ivan Shumkov

I hope you all will take the time to carefully read @rion's words, and see what he really thinks about you and what your contribution's worth. Then, ask yourselves:

- Does having all Admins involved and responsible for Incubator governance vs Rion stroking his own ego help us deliver value to the Network?
- Does having all Admins involved and responsible for Incubator governance vs Rion stroking his own ego help us attract and keep talents?
- Does having all Admins involved and responsible for Incubator governance vs Rion stroking his own ego help us achieve sustainable scale in Incubator?

If you find yourself answering "Yes" to any of the above, I suggest you really start coming up with solutions to this problem.



@dkoedijk Thank you so much for your comment. I am glad to see what the Dash Marketing Hub leadership team has done to achieve decentralized governance. As we can all attest to, since they committed to a decentralized governance model at DMH and the initial PO role was retired, they haven't stopped delivering value to the Network. Maybe, just maybe, value is their goal, who knows?




Goodnight,
mayoreee

 

[solarguy]

I would like to see the full text of the alternate incubator proposal.

I have no preference about how, post a copy here, or a link here or in an email to me would be fine. Thanks.

[email protected]

aka solarguy

 

[AgnewPickens]

I would like to see the full text of the alternate incubator proposal.

I have no preference about how, post a copy here, or a link here or in an email to me would be fine. Thanks.

[email protected]

aka solarguy

Including the misleading headline.

 

[xkcd]

OK, let's stop paying lip service to decentralisation for the sake of decentralisation and get to the crux of the matter.

• Who did Rion piss off?
• Who didn't get paid?
• Who thinks they would get paid more under Kirby's model?
• What is your actual beef with Rion?
• What opportunities has he missed?
• What has he done wrong?
• What would have been done differently in a committee approach to running the crib?

As a MNO, I like having someone in charge of the incubator, why? Because MNOs have a direct line of communication into the sub-DAO to discuss how it is going, make enquiries, make requests. Rion as head is responsible for the crib and accountable to the MNOs and that's a good thing. I have no trust in a bunch of people that when things get dicey like now, who the hell am I going to direct a question too, or make an enquiry to and not get the fucking run around? In the decentralised model you still need one person to cough up the proposal fee, lodge the text to DC, answer questions there and get paid the superblock, since pay to multisig is not yet supported. How do you plan on decentralising that?


What actual issue do you think a decentralised crib actually solves for?

 

[AgnewPickens]

OK, let's stop paying lip service to decentralisation for the sake of decentralisation and get to the crux of the matter.

• Who did Rion piss off?
• Who didn't get paid?
• Who thinks they would get paid more under Kirby's model?
• What is your actual beef with Rion?
• What opportunities has he missed?
• What has he done wrong?
• What would have been done differently in a committee approach to running the crib?

As a MNO, I like having someone in charge of the incubator, why? Because MNOs have a direct line of communication into the sub-DAO to discuss how it is going, make enquiries, make requests. Rion as head is responsible for the crib and accountable to the MNOs and that's a good thing. I have no trust in a bunch of people that when things get dicey like now, who the hell am I going to direct a question too, or make an enquiry to and not get the fucking run around? In the decentralised model you still need one person to cough up the proposal fee, lodge the text to DC, answer questions there and get paid the superblock, since pay to multisig is not yet supported. How do you plan on decentralising that?


What actual issue do you think a decentralised crib actually solves for?

I share your sentiment, as a delegate voter, I want a single point of contact to communicate with, not wait on some
committee of unknowns to get back to me if I want to raise an issue. The Incubator works for the Network, not the other
way around.

 

[vazaki3]

What actual issue do you think a decentralised crib actually solves for?

What are you talking about? There is no decentralised crib at all !

Incubator is governed by a bunch of friends (or former friends) of @AndyDark, and this should not be called decentralisation. The current incubator rules do not define any decentralized structure when naming the admins, instead they define an oligarchy and a cabal (whose members are now fighting each other to prevail and get the incubator's money). Decentralization means selecting the incubator admins RANDOMLY. I repeat it, randomly. And having said that, I would also like to participate to a lottery in order to become an incubator admin and gnaw its money.

To all the members of incubator's cabal (both the dogs, the cats and the masters) , and to all the commenters of this thread, please do not change the meaning of the word "decentralization" in order to justify (or marketing) your cause. Αs Antishenes firstly said: "ἀρχὴ παιδεύσεως ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπίσκεψις ".

My deep respect to the incubator's cabal and to all the cabals, once again (and again and again) the stupid masternode voters and the naive dash community have been fooled. In the specific incubator's case, we’ve been sold a bill of (decentralized) goods! In a nutshell, the incubator's story is depicted below....Calife is the dash budget system, and incubator is iznogoud.


"Got to get and get again and again
And I`ll get you got so you remain the same"

 

[xkcd]

What are you talking about? There is no decentralised crib at all !

Incubator is governed by a bunch of friends (or former friends) of @AndyDark, and this should not be called decentralisation. The current incubator rules do not define any decentralized structure when naming the admins, instead they define an oligarchy and a cabal (whose members are now fighting each other to prevail and get the incubator's money). Decentralization means selecting the incubator admins RANDOMLY. I repeat it, randomly. And having said that, I would also like to participate to a lottery in order to become an incubator admin and gnaw its money.

View attachment 11311

To all the members of incubator's cabal (both the dogs, the cats and the masters) , and to all the commenters of this thread, please do not change the meaning of the word "decentralization" in order to justify (or marketing) your cause. Αs Antishenes firstly said: "ἀρχὴ παιδεύσεως ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπίσκεψις ".

My deep respect to the incubator's cabal and to all the cabals, once again (and again and again) the stupid masternode voters and the naive dash community have been fooled. In the specific incubator's case, we’ve been sold a bill of (decentralized) goods! In a nutshell, the incubator's story is depicted below....Calife is the dash budget system, and incubator is iznogoud.


"Got to get and get again and again
And I`ll get you got so you remain the same"

I think you raise a good point here and that is does the crib need to be decentralised?

Let's take a step back, why decentralise anything at all? Decentralised systems like Dash and Bitcoin are vastly inefficient and expensive to run. What purpose does it have? The reason we decentralise some things, eg a blockchain is because in doing so, an emergent property arises which is trustlessness and this is important in the handling of money, eg on Bitcoin because we have a long history of showing how centralised entities mismanage that money, or steal it creating counter-party risk for everyone else. The move to decentralise something is not to be taken lightly because the thing you decentralise will be worse in every other way, except that in the case of the blockchain like Dash, all those worse things still get out weighed by the one emergent property of - trustlessness, which we all so cherish.

So, back to the Dash crib, what evidence do we have that trust has been broken (by Rion)? How is he failing as a leader? and even more importantly, when we identify his failings (if any) and address them to him, has he refused to ameliorate them? If so, then perhaps moving to a fully decentralised model (is that even possible) should be considered, or simply replacing Rion with someone that can be trusted to act according to our wishes.

We can rush to decentralise all the things, but the end result would be mess, instead we should pin point the few things that could really benefit from decentralised systems, eg money, file sharing, exchanges, markets, etc.... and leave the rest in well managed hierarchical systems.

 

[AndyDark]

I think you raise a good point here and that is does the crib need to be decentralised?

Let's take a step back, why decentralise anything at all? Decentralised systems like Dash and Bitcoin are vastly inefficient and expensive to run. What purpose does it have? The reason we decentralise some things, eg a blockchain is because in doing so, an emergent property arises which is trustlessness and this is important in the handling of money, eg on Bitcoin because we have a long history of showing how centralised entities mismanage that money, or steal it creating counter-party risk for everyone else. The move to decentralise something is not to be taken lightly because the thing you decentralise will be worse in every other way, except that in the case of the blockchain like Dash, all those worse things still get out weighed by the one emergent property of - trustlessness, which we all so cherish.

So, back to the Dash crib, what evidence do we have that trust has been broken (by Rion)? How is he failing as a leader? and even more importantly, when we identify his failings (if any) and address them to him, has he refused to ameliorate them? If so, then perhaps moving to a fully decentralised model (is that even possible) should be considered, or simply replacing Rion with someone that can be trusted to act according to our wishes.

We can rush to decentralise all the things, but the end result would be mess, instead we should pin point the few things that could really benefit from decentralised systems, eg money, file sharing, exchanges, markets, etc.... and leave the rest in well managed hierarchical systems.

Hi - can we try to keep this unbiased if possible - thanks.

 

[AndyDark]

In addition to my previous comments, and for those who would like to understand why a decentralized governance model is so important to Incubator, below is an extract (text in purple) from Dash Marketing Hub’s (an official fork of Incubator) current proposal to the Network:

This proposal is a continuation of the Dash Marketing Hub, an official fork of the Dash Incubator, focused on grassroots marketing and promotion of Dash, and on community energizing/engagement.

This cycle we are continuing with the more decentralized leadership which replaced the initial single Proposal Owner role with the Director roles. Hub Directors at this time are myself (TheDesertLynx), Kanuuker, and Pozo, with one (myself) acting as a Treasurer (no change since last cycle). Full details on governance particulars can be found in our Rules document, with no changes since last cycle and changes since the previous cycle remaining highlighted in yellow.

Current Admins (in addition to the Directors who also act as Admins) remain unchanged and are GreekNick, Rion, whysmh4dash, and VVALTER_DASH.



Decentralized governance is not a choice. It’s the foundation upon which Incubator was built.

Dash Incubator Contributors do not work for any individual. Never!


Best,
mayoreee

Hey Mayoree - thanks for your feedback as an Incubator dev. I think you joined after I left, but good to see people who understand the value of decentralization (in this case on Dash's business layer) and have obviously read our Rules and understand why it was a key part of Incubator's foundation (and success) until recent times. Whatever the outcome of this vote I hope Incubator sticks to its core principle of decentralization (as a means to avoiding the problem in Dash where DFOs actually transition from organizations into vehicles for a single PO dictating / micro managing everything through control of a single wallet / proposal stream, to protect / exploit some vested interest whether financial or otherwise and the delivery / performance / user traction drops off a cliff). Good for you to sticking to your principles and speaking out about it.

Thanks

Andy

 

[vazaki3]

I think you raise a good point here and that is does the crib need to be decentralised?

Let's take a step back, why decentralise anything at all? Decentralised systems like Dash and Bitcoin are vastly inefficient and expensive to run. What purpose does it have? The reason we decentralise some things, eg a blockchain is because in doing so, an emergent property arises which is trustlessness and this is important in the handling of money, eg on Bitcoin because we have a long history of showing how centralised entities mismanage that money, or steal it creating counter-party risk for everyone else. The move to decentralise something is not to be taken lightly because the thing you decentralise will be worse in every other way, except that in the case of the blockchain like Dash, all those worse things still get out weighed by the one emergent property of - trustlessness, which we all so cherish.

So, back to the Dash crib, what evidence do we have that trust has been broken (by Rion)? How is he failing as a leader? and even more importantly, when we identify his failings (if any) and address them to him, has he refused to ameliorate them? If so, then perhaps moving to a fully decentralised model (is that even possible) should be considered, or simply replacing Rion with someone that can be trusted to act according to our wishes.

We can rush to decentralise all the things, but the end result would be mess, instead we should pin point the few things that could really benefit from decentralised systems, eg money, file sharing, exchanges, markets, etc.... and leave the rest in well managed hierarchical systems.

I am neither against nor in favor of decentralization. As in every aspect of life, decentralization is not a panacea. The quality of the people who implement something makes the difference.

I think @AndyDark 's idea and efford, after realizing that the masternode voters do vote stupidily in the dash budget system , was to create another structure (incubator) where a bunch of approved by him "experts" will run things more efficiently. I do not blame @AndyDark for doing that, I blame him for trying to sell incubator as a decentralized thing, while it is not. Like it or not, agree with it or not, decentralization is not hiring my friends to operate my business. Decentralization means randomness, if you are a true proponent of decentralization and not a scammer of decentralization, you have to be bold enough to randomly accept anyone to sit on the chair of power. In the case of incubator there was no randomness when selecting the admins, so there was no decentralization. Not to mention I got banned from participating in the early stages of the incubator (either as an admin or as a developer), and I suspect I'm not the only one banned. So what kind of decentralization is this, when randomness is prohibited and when some people are excluded to participate?

 

[AndyDark]

@rion thanks for the various posts / feedback - just to clarify a few things: I'm not a "Yes" voter, i'm trying to mediate this because (same as in the March call) there's a danger here of an Incubator split, or a good part of Incubator's key people leaving, and as i'm not involved in Incubator operationally these days i'm not eligible to vote anyway.

Secondly, in that call you did agree to joint proposals, I remember both during the call and also it was in @dashameter's notes after the call on Discord (which you didn't object/refute). Also, I didn't appoint these Admins and the only one I knew prior to Incubator was @cloudwheels... as you know Admins come into Discord and are appointed on the Admin channel and everyone has a chance to vote / vito including yourself at the time.

Third - you mentioned the emergency 'super user' powers that I used... If you remember I never actually used them. As stated in the Rules they were temporary and should be removed as soon as a decentralized process can be defined in the Rules, same as the PO role itself, which was always my view as I think you know.

In terms of the actual vote, i've not given any position myself (and actually i'm not party to any of the 9 months of negations etc, just a call in March, so i'm hardly in a position to understand everything that's happening here). What I can say is that as I put in the rules, the key design choice with Incubator was to avoid having a single PO controlling the proposals / funding which is why the PO has not actual control of the funding once received and this is decentralized across Admins...because whilst on one hand it can give MNOs more confidence from an investor relations point of view, its actually what I feel is one of the main weaknesses in Dash's gov system with the tendency to centralize DFOs way more than e.g. CEOs of public companies, and Incubator was designed as an experiemental antidote to that and for the most part (when it had a working network to build on) did very well and with very high growth/user traction as well as MNO approval. How that relates exactly to this situation, as I mention I don't have all the information to know if that applies to the current situation or what the actual outcome is going to be.

But whatever the outcome here and your internal negotiations / discussions, I do hope Incubator stays true to this decentralization/transparency-first success formula and you all manage to stay together as it would be a shame to lose what is a working example of how decentralization, transparency and full incentivization are keys to making DFOs deliver user growth for the Network they serve.

thanks
Andy

 

[solarguy]

After 48 hours of no response, I will ask again, respectfully, to see a full copy of the removed proposal. Time grows short.

"Hi - would you mind not posting this kind of idiotic drivel on this thread and responding to the resident troll - if you want to pontificate about why central points of failure are a good thing, this isn't the place, and actually crypto itself might not be your thing. If you want to try to influence the governance system, use the governance system - having a little green badge on a trusted website doesn't mean your posts have any authority or influence over anyone else here. This thread is to collect votes from Incubator Admins lets keep it that way - thanks."

1. This thread is NOT ONLY to collect votes from Incubator Admins. That is just straight up incorrect. All Masternodes have been directed here from the remaining Incubator Proposal on Dash Central to get meaningful and timely information about what just happened.

2. It appears to me that whoever put up the unfortunate 2nd proposal had 9 months to have internal discussions and internal votes of Admins to find a way forward without having a big ugly public fight about it. This strikes me as a "Dr. Phil" moment. How's that working out for you? And for Rion? And for the MN community? And for the Dash community?

3. Who caused this to become a very public issue for the whole world to see? (legitimate, not rhetorical question. I still don't know.) Whoever that person or persons is/are, you don't get to shout, "I TAKE IT BACK! We just want to have a nice civilized private discussion among ourselves. "

4. The quote above looks and smells a little bit like censorship. If we are to allow and encourage free discourse in the Dash community, it has to protect the uncomfortable scratchy comments just as much as the thoughtful and productive comments that don't include name calling, personal attacks and insults.

 

[AndyDark]

After 48 hours of no response, I will ask again, respectfully, to see a full copy of the removed proposal. Time grows short.

It was already posted here on Friday: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...tment-of-new-proposal-owner.53267/post-231489

 

[AndyDark]

After 48 hours of no response, I will ask again, respectfully, to see a full copy of the removed proposal. Time grows short.

"Hi - would you mind not posting this kind of idiotic drivel on this thread and responding to the resident troll - if you want to pontificate about why central points of failure are a good thing, this isn't the place, and actually crypto itself might not be your thing. If you want to try to influence the governance system, use the governance system - having a little green badge on a trusted website doesn't mean your posts have any authority or influence over anyone else here. This thread is to collect votes from Incubator Admins lets keep it that way - thanks."

1. This thread is NOT ONLY to collect votes from Incubator Admins. That is just straight up incorrect. All Masternodes have been directed here from the remaining Incubator Proposal on Dash Central to get meaningful and timely information about what just happened.

2. It appears to me that whoever put up the unfortunate 2nd proposal had 9 months to have internal discussions and internal votes of Admins to find a way forward without having a big ugly public fight about it. This strikes me as a "Dr. Phil" moment. How's that working out for you? And for Rion? And for the MN community? And for the Dash community?

3. Who caused this to become a very public issue for the whole world to see? (legitimate, not rhetorical question. I still don't know.) Whoever that person or persons is/are, you don't get to shout, "I TAKE IT BACK! We just want to have a nice civilized private discussion among ourselves. "

4. The quote above looks and smells a little bit like censorship. If we are to allow and encourage free discourse in the Dash community, it has to protect the uncomfortable scratchy comments just as much as the thoughtful and productive comments that don't include name calling, personal attacks and insults.

I've already said this on the thread - but this is an internal vote for Admins of Incubator. Anything relating to Proposals should be a separate thing - it's an abuse of position for the PO to use Proposals as a Platform to try to sway Incubator governance... the Rules are clear about what Proposals should be fore and it's not that. Rion should have removed any link to here (and not 'direct' MNOs to here) - the effect is we have random individuals outside of the governance system trying to say that the governance system can exert decisions by Admins here.

 

[qwizzie]

@AndyDark

This withdrawn proposal from DashIncubator had a reference to this site i think, coupled with a request to hold off on voting on both budget proposals untill voting on the Dash Incubator Proposal Owner was concluded (the proposal text was edited to current proposal text at a later point)

If anything brought the MNO's here, it is that budget proposal.

And yes, putting an internal Dash Incubator vote up on a public Dash forum with such uncertainty and confusion with regards to what is going on with the Dash Incubator, will indeed bring a lot of MNO's here. Discussion from other Dash community members / MNO's besides the actual Dash Incubator internal vote taking place, is pretty unavoidable in such a situation.

 

[AndyDark]

@AndyDark
If anything brought the MNO's here, it is that budget proposal.

Sorry can you verify your claim that there are MNOs here?

And lets say you can and they were, what does that actually mean? How would we know that if there were MNOs here, they represent consensus of the MNO network?

The Rules of Incubator are pretty clear - a new PO isn't appointed by polling the network - it's by polling the Incubator Admins. The Network gets its say at Proposal time (the only way to gain their consensus trustlessly). Anything else is a breach of the Rules that the Network approved of end-to-end, including the value on decentralization, consistently since Inception (and contrary to the alleged MNOs here's apparent opinions)