How is Core Team held accountable?

[jimbursch]

Now that the Core Team is employed at market salaries, I think we can raise our performance expectations. Dash is no longer dependent on the kindness of volunteers.

How do we, as a community, hold the Core Team responsible for setting/meeting deadlines and service levels?

 

[David]

Now that the Core Team is employed at market salaries, I think we can raise our performance expectations. Dash is no longer dependent on the kindness of volunteers.

How do we, as a community, hold the Core Team responsible for setting/meeting deadlines and service levels?

Via the budget system, of course.

I'd argue that Core is more accountable than ever. Before, when full time Core members were paid $400/month worth of Dash, it was still basically a volunteer gig with a little bit of a "tip" at the end of the month. The network could have pulled funding, and the loss of such relatively little money probably would not have made a big difference to anybody. They would have kept doing what they were already doing. Now that people are paid market rates and are working for an actual full-time salary, the loss of funding would amount to being fired. It's no longer something they could just "shake off."

 

[jimbursch]

Via the budget system, of course.

I would call that the nuclear option. We don't want to threaten to pull funding if simply a deadline is missed.

How do we hold Core Team responsible for setting/meeting deadlines and service levels, short of threatening to terminate funding?

 

[TheSingleton]

Well as babygireaff recently mentioned in slack they are working on creating a legal entity that will only represent the Dash Network. Initially, that might be part of core so that we can use it to hold other big proposals accountable but eventually, it will be it's own entity that even the core team is accountable to.

 

[joemoraca]

Just brainstorming --- I know this process is still very new and still evolving. One idea might be separate functions more maybe "oversight" and "programming" and "project management" and "business development" and "marketing" need some space between them with their own funding.

It's an idea but I am not sure at this time it would be a better solution or not.

 

[David]

I would call that the nuclear option. We don't want to threaten to pull funding if simply a deadline is missed.

How do we hold Core Team responsible for setting/meeting deadlines and service levels, short of threatening to terminate funding?

We can't.

The community can ask, discuss, petition, complain, and so forth. The Core Team would probably listen and do what they could to address the situation, but if the community is still unsatisfied, there would be no alternatives short of cutting off funding. Likewise, masternodes could issue protest votes, and if Core saw enough "no" votes they would likely react. Again, if the reaction wasn't sufficient, there would be no recourse besides cutting off funding.

 

[arush11]

Responsibility to the team means being responsible to teammates, to the are accountable to one another and to the core values of the team.

 

[xjones]

I don't think Dash as as much a DAO as people think it is.

Superficially, the masternode owners call the shots and the core developers follow their wishes. Practically, it's the opposite. When we went through a major software upgrade recently, there was no obvious point in time when the masternode owners approved or disapproved of the upgrade. In theory, they could have refused to accept the software upgrade. But this requires a lot of organization and cooperation among the masternodes, and there is no mechanism available for this to happen. Any individual masternode that refused to upgrade would have no longer received any further masternode rewards, so there was a strong incentive to accept the upgrade.

Dash is functioning relatively smoothly only because there aren't two factions proposing that Dash go in two different directions the way there are two factions in the Bitcoin world, one wanting small blocks and the other wanting big blocks. But a dispute could easily arise in the future among the core developers. When it does, the masternode voting mechanism will not be able to cope with it.

Please also see this past comment from me:

https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...paid-out-of-the-dev-budget.14567/#post-124393

 

[xjones]

Please do a web search for:

quadratic voting

and see how researchers have concluded that one vote per person (or one vote per masternode) is a mathematically incorrect voting strategy. In a quadratic voting system, each masternode could cast any number of votes, but would be required to pay a fee proportional to the square of the number of votes it cast. This gives masternode owners a strong incentive to pick and choose which budget proposals they support and how strongly they support them.

If Dash could implement quadratic voting, it would be the only virtual currency doing so, and it would be doing so on the basis of sound principles. it would draw attention from adademic researchers, who are always looking for new and interesting things to analyze and publish papers about.

 

[TheSingleton]

@xjones I like the idea of quadratic voting but I don't like that the MNs would have to pay a fee in Dash as I fear that might further reduce participation. But we could give them a fixed amount of voting tokens that could be used to pay for such a fee.

Additionally, I would like to make MN payouts relative to the amount of voting power they have allocated to the various proposals. Governing is just another task that MNs have to do just like InstantSend + PrivateSend if they don't they shouldn't get paid. This might not lead MNs actually taking a look at all the proposals and they might just vote on things that seem certain already but I think it could be an improvement nevertheless.

And while we are at it iIguess being able to delegate Votes might also be a nice feature.

 

[demo]

Please do a web search for:

quadratic voting

and see how researchers have concluded that one vote per person (or one vote per masternode) is a mathematically incorrect voting strategy. In a quadratic voting system, each masternode could cast any number of votes, but would be required to pay a fee proportional to the square of the number of votes it cast. This gives masternode owners a strong incentive to pick and choose which budget proposals they support and how strongly they support them.

If Dash could implement quadratic voting, it would be the only virtual currency doing so, and it would be doing so on the basis of sound principles. it would draw attention from adademic researchers, who are always looking for new and interesting things to analyze and publish papers about.

https://www.econjobrumors.com/topic/quadtratic-voting-dumbest-idea-ever

 

[solarguy]

Our system is so much more effective and responsive with properly aligned incentives compared to bitcoin. So there's that.

But, we could definitely improve as we go along.

I suspect that a major contributing factor to the current situation where the Core Team has appeared somewhat unresponsive, is just that they are trying to drink from a fire hose. Our budget has increased by an entire order of magnitude in the just a few months. This would paralyze and cripple most brick and mortar businesses.

I think the paid staff more than doubled in the last 60 days. Holy crap, what a job to get everybody on board and up to speed. And work on Evolution (super important) and go to conferences (super important) and look for and fix day to day problems and issues (super important), ect etc etc ^10.

So I want to give the Core Team a big thank you and a lot of grace right at the moment.

And still, we want to grow and improve steadily. I think the easy thing that we could implement immediately is just to assign somebody on the Core Team as the Communications Officer. I doubt it's even a half time position. And if it is, hey let's pay for a new full time position. We HAVE the money. Let's call that person Bob. This does at least 3 things.

1. It simplifies and streamlines the communication process both directions. If they need to convey information to the Masternodes, or the larger community, Bob just takes care of it, and does it in all 3 or 4 or 7 places where folks look for information: Slack, Reddit, Dash.org forum, DashCentral, etc.

If a Masternode, or the whole Masternode community has an urgent question, they just email Bob, and Bob either knows or finds out and responds within one business day, and frequently within the hour. That alone would drastically improve the atmosphere and general attitude among the Masternodes, and among the larger Dash community.

2. It would actually reduce the workload on the Core Team, because Bob already knows 75% of the answers, and we won't have 192 random dash people pestering 17 different people on Core Team. Bob can strain out the irrelevant questions from the FAQ's from the legitimate questions that need unique answers from Core.

3. Wouldn't that be a nice feature in our marketing program if Dash has the first Chief Communications Officer. Do any of the other tokens have that????

 

[jjk]

... Dash is no longer dependent on the kindness of volunteers.

What do you mean by Dash in that sentence?

 

[jjk]

Well as babygireaff recently mentioned in slack they are working on creating a legal entity that will only represent the Dash Network. Initially, that might be part of core so that we can use it to hold other big proposals accountable but eventually, it will be it's own entity that even the core team is accountable to.

A legal entity allows a group of natural persons to act as if they were a single person for certain purposes - mainly lawsuits, ownership, and contracts.
A legal entity is not much else than the natural persons of which it is composed, such as for a company or corporation.

Why the Internet (network) has no legal entity?
Why the World Wide Web (network) has no legal entity?
Why the E-mail (network) has no legal entity?

Why Facebook, Skype or Ripple do have legal entities for their networks?

What is the Dash Network legal entity going to own?

 

[solarguy]

What do you mean by Dash in that sentence?

I am not Jim, but the meaning seems plain to me. In the beginning, a lot of the team worked for less than market rates, like volunteers. Now they get paid proper salaries, so they are no longer volunteers.

 

[jjk]

I am not Jim, but the meaning seems plain to me. In the beginning, a lot of the team worked for less than market rates, like volunteers. Now they get paid proper salaries, so they are no longer volunteers.

There are two issues here.

First, the meaning of the term Dash being what you write is NOT so plain as you put it - Dash also can be understood as a network technology without an owner that allows people to exchange value. (In fact I did not know that the team is called Dash.)

Second, without being under a legally binding contract, or being a slave, you are free of job commitments regardless of how much money you get. I think.

 

[solarguy]

The Core Development Team works for the Dash DAO. Are they not the Dash team? They are not the Bitcoin team.

Do you not appreciate the idea that working for less than market rates makes you something of a volunteer?

You can make it complex if you wish. I do not find it so.

 

[jjk]

Do you not appreciate the idea that working for less than market rates makes you something of a volunteer?

I accept your statement "working for less than market rates makes you something of a volunteer".
But I do NOT appreciate the introduction and insisting on the use of the term "volunteer" here, because it is misleading.
English dictionary gives two meanings for the word:

volunteer |ˌvɒlənˈtɪə|
noun
1) a person who offers to undertake a task out of free will: a call for volunteers to act as foster-parents.
2) a person who works for an organization without being paid: the railway is operated solely by volunteers.

Consequently, the way of thinking
"working for less than market rates" => volunteer
"get paid proper salaries" => not volunteer
holds only for the second meaning.
It does not hold for the first meaning because
if you undertake a task out of free will
you would almost certainly undertake it also when you get a proper salary on top of it.
But legal biindings with additional rules and/or procedures in the name of accountability and certainty may harm the free will.