[5.4.1] [Social] Funding Request: ENS Meta-Governance Working Group Term 5 (Q1/Q2)

[estmcmxci]

This conversation has shown me that I made the right choice by first participating as a contributor in January 2022, and it further reinforces my decision to have stepped up and nominated myself as a Term 5 Meta-Governance steward. I am grateful for this position, and I take the responsibilities that come with it very seriously.

If there’s one thing we can all take away from this discussion, it’s that we genuinely care about the long-term good of the ENS Protocol, its developers, contributors, stewards, and everyday users who passionately advocate for this technology in their everyday lives.

My intention is to continue holding this conversation in good faith and to extend the benefit of the doubt to comments that appear to undermine, trivialize, or disparage the efforts of the Working Groups in upholding and executing the mandates outlined in the ENS DAO Constitution. However, I will quickly call out any discourse that is inappropriate or crosses the line.

As a steward, I feel it is my responsibility to address some of the misrepresentations that have been circulating throughout this discussion. As a contributor, I see this as an opportunity to further strengthen the bonds that have been made throughout our journey together as we work tirelessly to ensure the success of the ENS Protocol.

Below, I will highlight a few comments that are personally upsetting to me or that I view as uncalled for:

@lightwalker.eth

Not bad for part-time work.

This is a callous and sarcastic remark — while I partially agree with your technical evaluation of historic steward compensation, what makes you believe that stewards aren’t putting in their 100%? On the other hand, lightwalker.eth, I view this as an opportunity for Working Groups’ to more thoroughly communicate milestones they have completed throughout their term, as I suggested in the discussion for the Term 4 Funding Request Discussion.

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@Griff

I would love to see each steward be paid well for their position but $400k (which could easily become 500-800k) for part time work is a hard pill to swallow

There is currently no objective method to determine the level of each individual steward’s commitment to their responsibility based on signals alone. Thus, writing off the steward role as ‘part-time’ without any empirical or verifiable data seems brash, honestly.

If we want to justify steward compensation, then we should formalize a compensation plan, guided by a set of KPIs, that has been explicitly voted on by the DAO. We can talk more about this when discussing the DAO Bylaws which are being prepared this term.

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@snowdot

From my understanding, the salary of a steward reaches up to a 25k salary per month compared to entire teams that are working within a 10k grant budget.

Thank you for your participation in this conversation, but I encourage you to think more carefully before posting about circumstances that you may not be privy to. Stewards are certainly not earning $25,000 per month.

A standard monthly salary for a steward is approximately $4,000 in USDC as @5pence.eth mentioned above, and governance distribution should not be framed strictly as compensation. Instead, we should all begin to frame governance distribution primarily as a voting utility, which in truth it has always been.

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@SpikeWatanabe.eth

This post by @katherine.eth might be seen as a troll or some bad joke maybe, but I actually think that there is a lot of truth to it.

I believe you are taking this out of context and misleading the readers. Katherine is speaking from her firsthand experience as a former Meta-governance steward and she may be alluding to previous disparaging and unnecessary commentary. To me, this includes your recent attempt to single out an Ecosystem steward on baseless claims.

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@lightwalker.eth

Let’s compensate stewards well, but stewards should be proactively taking on responsibilities for the good of ENS, not looking for opportunities to dodge them.

Sorry to bring you into the line of fire again, lightwalker.eth, but I have to disagree with your comment. Just because stewards will not freely divulge their works in progress to you, it doesn’t mean they are ‘dodging’ your inquiries. Each steward has served the DAO well, and it does not bode well for you to throw shade on them based merely on an unfounded suspicion you harbor.

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@NameSys

I have only asked for justifications which are lacking. I have not called you names. I have not alleged a crime. I have not alleged a wrongdoing or criminal activity. You haven’t been insulted or disparaged. Can you please point me to an attack on you?

First, you state that you are not accusing the stewards of any malfeasance…

@NameSys

In traditional and semi-sane organisations, this kind of self-dealing is a very quick invitation for audit, lawsuit and fines (and potentially a very painful legal discourse ending with minor jail time). It is fraud by all definitions.

Then you quickly rebuke and even go so far as to allege fraud? You assert that you are holding a conversation in good faith, but I do not believe you.

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I would like to remind everyone participating in this discussion that governance distribution is NOT strictly about compensation; it is far more nuanced than that. Governance distribution is about putting dedicated, hardworking, and competent people in a position to shape the future of the ENS Protocol.

As for the next steps, I agree with the approaches of both @nick.eth and @AvsA, and I look forward to helping coordinate the proposal from @James and discussing it during next week’s Meta-Governance call.