I would love to see the ENS DAO represented at conferences to encourage ENS ecosystem growth and supporting public goods as outlined in the constitution.
However, if the DAO wants to fund DAO contributors to attend events or conferences, those participants should do so as representatives of the ‘ENS DAO’, not ‘ENS’.
You are proposing that the DAO funds DAO contributors to attend events as representatives of ‘ENS’ — this is not something I support.
Why would a member of the DAO need to represent themselves as being from ‘ENS’ when they are in fact from the ENS DAO?
If Coltron.eth was participating on a panel at a conference, he would be ‘Coltron.eth from ENS DAO’.
I don’t see this as being controversial — participants of the Uniswap Grants Program attend conferences as being from ‘Uniswap Grants’, not as being from ‘Uniswap’. Team members of Uniswap Labs, the maintainer of the Uniswap protocol are referred to as being from ‘Uniswap’. This is similar to how I imagine referencing would work for ENS.
I currently pay for the majority of the costs associated with conference attendance out of my own money. When you criticize ENS for not having enough representation at conferences or not spending enough on marketing, you are literally proving my point. TNL simply doesn’t have the budget for it.
I request to be a speaker on panels to minimize costs associated with attending events. Beyond the fact that TNL doesn’t have a budget for events, I go out of my way to save dollars (and I mean literally 1 to 9 dollars at a time) to minimize costs for TNL.
TNL doesn’t gatekeep DAO members from contributing to the development of ENS. Anyone can submit a PR and contribute. There is no gatekeeping on that front (see Raffy’s ongoing contribution to name normalization).
All revenue from the protocol, which Nick started and TNL develops and maintains, goes to the DAO. That is why TNL is going to request funding, and that is why TNL should represent ENS at conferences and events.