Apologies for the delayed response to anyone who is following this - I just got back from a very nice trip which included Dash's open house and a trip to Zion National Park.
I am happy to discuss this proposal, and any genuine concerns that arise. Mastermined's message contains both legitimate concerns as well as mischaracterizations. These mischaracterizations are disappointing coming from such a prominent member of this community, particularly when such behavior is expressly prohibited by the forum on which it occurred (Slack), which mastermined moderates. I would have preferred to handle our personal disagreements privately, but I will defend myself when attacked publicly.
If you don't care to slog through my response, here's the summary: I disagree with mastermined's characterization of me and of our conversation. Mastermined references a private conversation which is the back story to his comment. I am comfortable sharing that conversation in it's entirety. Reading that would be the only way you could judge for yourself what my actions and intentions were. Anyone wanting this can ask mastermined if he is comfortable sharing the conversation, and I would be happy to provide it. I doubt anyone is, but I'd be happy to share.
Rion contacted me about running this proposal for him last night and wanted me to read it and sign off on it immediately so he could submit it in this month's proposal cycle.... He continued to be very pushy and persistent and said he did not want to run the program but just for me to pick him as one of the side projects to be funded and “compensate” him for his still unknown software project.
I contacted mastermined because I wanted to discuss the idea. My intent was not to "push" him to sign off on anything "immediately". Since his organization (DashForce) was already established with a track record of trust and success I felt that the program I had come up with could potentially fit well within his offering. Because the program was specifically designed to assist MNOs in their duties, I wanted to give them a chance to vote on it and pass it this month, because there were ample funds. Both in my video and in our conversation I said that this program was something I could run, but would also be happy if someone else (like DashForce) wanted to run it. I just wanted the program to exist. I never said or implied that my purpose was to get someone to just "pick [me]", either for admin or for subcontract work. I said I would be willing to work as admin or subcontractor on this program, yes, but I would have to win over the MNOs as an admin, or compete with other applicants as a subcontractor. Of course I'm interested in getting compensation for valuable work; that is the whole point of this proposed program. I wouldn't expect to get paid for some "unknown software project". In my video I specifically said that all projects would send specific proposals (with detailed scope, schedule, and budget) to the admin. They would only get paid if and when they provided their deliverables. Was I being "very pushy"? Only if you consider words on a page "very pushy". I was assertive regarding what I wanted to accomplish, as anyone with a vision he believes in should be, but I consider all that I wrote to be respectful. I simply wanted to know mastermined's opinion as early as possible so that I could write the pre-proposal accordingly and send it out in time for MNOs to give it feedback. I made it clear that my haste was to give MNOs the opportunity to put unused funds to work.
I was aware of his earlier github proposal which was not run very well IMO and proved to be a waste of funds, I did not want to fund another project like that. I found myself using the word “redundancy” a lot when speaking with him but he did not see that as a problem, I see that as a waste of funds.
Whether my earlier proposal was run well or was a waste of funds is up to each individual to decide. I admit that it hasn't caught on and grown as quickly as I would have liked it to, but I have far from given up on my efforts to make that project successful. Some projects take more time and effort to complete, and some of that is out of my control, but I'm still working on it and I'm confident that it will be more valuable in the near future. Regarding redundancy, please see the last paragraph of my response to Mark Mason's comment above.
I tried to tell him it was not a good idea to propose this project at the last minute with zero pre proposal discussion and no clear plan. I told him MN owners don't like having giant proposals dumped on them at the last minute and that is not how we do things around here. He said core and others had done it but I pointed out they had a solid track record of delivering successful proposals and he did not.
I took mastermined's advice here, and did not propose anything to the network. Instead I simply posted this pre-proposal video and document. I see no problem with putting a proposal directly to the network for MNOs to assess or ignore as they like. It's simply offering to serve them. I also see the value in preceding such with a pre-proposal discussion so that MNOs can give input on what gets proposed. In this specific case I didn't have time to do that. Because of the high cost of proposals I didn't want to put something up that wouldn't fit in the budget after core put in their proposals, so I was waiting for those to roll in. It started to became more likely that, even if core would submit more proposals, they probably wouldn't fill up the budget, so I decided it was at least possible to get the Community Stipends project passed with the right community support. Again, I simply wanted to give MNOs the option.
He said he wanted to “decentralize” things by centralizing them into his one proposal which also did not make a lot of sense to me.
I didn't say or imply that I wanted to "centralize things into [my] one proposal". I said the exact opposite in my video. The way that this project promotes decentralization is that it gives current and potential community contributors an avenue to work for Dash and get compensated for it even if they are not on the Core team. The last part of my video explains this. In fact, for anyone reading this,
the last 6 minutes of my video is a good summary of my overall vision and intention with this proposal.
Someone stumbling on the last post by mastermined would probably conclude that I'm some kind of troll trying to trick the MNOs into handing over money to me without providing anything in return. I'm hoping to dispel that. My intentions are good and I am more than willing to provide value before getting paid. I respect mastermined for what he has contributed to Dash. He certainly works hard defending against trolls and such. Perhaps I am being treated like one due to that history. I just have a hard time understanding how it is justified for him and his team to publicly oppose an effort that is compatible with and complementary to what DashForce is doing. I have no interest in infighting here. I'd rather focus our efforts on defeating our common opponents, whether that is Paypal, or the State. I am doing my best to help Dash and I'm willing to put in the work to make my efforts valuable here, but I need to have a financially sustainable path to do that. If that doesn't exist I'm going to make it. Many people are ready to work for Dash, but need compensation to continue (or start) their efforts. Everyone doing that on the treasury is not sustainable. it's too taxing on both the contributors and the MNOs alike.
I will be posing more ideas about how I see the Community Stipends program working as well as an updated proposal on the #community channel in the Dash Nation Slack. I have a lot of ideas but I haven't spelled out most of them for reasons I gave in my response to Mark Mason (see 3rd paragraph). I welcome input and feedback from all of you; I don't want to dictate all the details. I want it to be more of an open discussion, since this is a pilot program.
Thank you for your time and consideration. Happy to answer any other questions.
You all decide. I'll make a poll to check community sentiment.
