[EP13][Executable] Support the Protocol Guild Pilot

It seems sufficient. I again would draw parallels with scores of internal contributors who have gotten 0 USDC (.eth subWG for example). I am sure $20,000 is one of the many streams of income for these devs. By the time vesting period ends, $20,000 will likely be worth more

I agree that it looks bad to fund people not working for ENS before those who do, but I don’t think it’s an either-or proposition and it doesn’t mean that people working for ENS won’t get paid.

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Isn’t a dividend where you pay your own shareholders part of your company’s earnings?

This is the opposite, we are not distributing ENS tokens to the current tokenholders or .eth name holders. We are distributing ENS tokens from the treasury to external developers for an external, non-ENS project (core Ethereum).

That distribution will put more ENS tokens into circulation, so if you’re talking about the $USD price of tokens, then if anything that would have a detrimental effect for current tokenholders, not a positive one.

So I don’t know what you mean here by “dividends”.

The rest is hyperbole and not arguing the merit but the tone (or perceived tone).

This doesn’t just fund a public good (the core Ethereum protocol/network), but it also does so in the form of ENS DAO governance tokens, distributed to well-informed skilled developers. Seems like a good extension of the DAO voter base to me.

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I appreciate and respect your conviction @serenae. I don’t have anything constructive to say so I’ll leave this to the rest of you. If the traditional definition of dividend is what you’re focusing on, let’s say “monetary bonuses” instead.

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Yes, sure, tokens are being distributed, that is the point of this proposal. But not to us, and not to current tokenholders or .eth name holders, rather to the developers of an external project of some importance to the web3 ecosystem. If you don’t like how the term “public good” is used so generally, I definitely sympathize with that. But I’d struggle to come up with another candidate more public and good for web3 than the core Ethereum protocol itself.

So is your main complaint just the mere fact that tokens are being distributed at all? Or you just don’t agree with the choice of recipient candidates? Or you just don’t agree with the amount and/or method of distribution?

Again, your use of the word “bonuses” sounds like we’re paying ourselves, like a company that pays its current employees bonuses. But that is not the case here, just the opposite.

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My primary problem with it is the conflict of interest. The proposal is written by and for the people it stands to benefit, and their associates. My secondary problem is this is presented under the justification of being for a “public good.” That is vague at best and insulting at worst.

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Okay thank you! I feel like I’m getting closer to understanding you now.

I don’t think it’s a conflict of interest, because Trent/Tim are not the ones deciding whether the proposal passes, the ENS DAO does.

It seems perfectly normal to me that projects/teams in search of funding will actively reach out to VCs, crowdfunding platforms, or DAOs in order to request such funding. What’s wrong about that, as long as they are not the decision makers for that VC firm or DAO?

Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them (and others in the PG) are already ENS tokenholders. Is this what you’re concerned with? Would you like to see an edit to this draft with a social contract stating that nobody currently on the PG should vote on this proposal? Would that solve this primary problem of yours?

Hmm, well, that problem you state is also just as vague then, I’m afraid. Why is this not a public good, in your opinion?

Barging in. The way I define ‘Public Good’ is a service or an infrastructure or a commodity (= Good) that directly (or at least tangentially) benefits the public (= Public, in context of ENS users). The vagueness is in the term ‘public’. This proposal funds developers who are building on the Ethereum ecosystem in which ENS resides; this proposal funds the developers, not the public through any tangible service or good. There are four degrees of separation between the Guild members and ENS/Public. One interesting thing to note here would be that how many of the 110 odd developers among the Guild are building directly or even tangentially for ENS? I wish the OP could provide an answer to that. Having said that, I still support this proposal because I want to see how this pans out although I have my internal concerns. Public Good is a very vague and loaded term, and it is being twisted by different organisations to pocket money from DAOs. We have already had Nomic Foundation and now Protocol Guild asking for multi-millions for ‘public good’. Gitcoin will soon be at our door again asking for money as well; all in the name of ‘Public Good’, which still has no rigorous definition.

Addendum: A quick search for ‘ENS’ or ‘Ethereum Name Service’ yields no result in the quotes by the Guild members. In the end, I am afraid we’ll be funding 110 people (possibly 150) out of which 0 have anything to do with ENS.

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Interesting points, perhaps @trent or @timbeiko would like to comment/rebut.

I would say that the core Ethereum protocol is clearly a network/infrastructure that is open to and directly benefits the public. Nobody anywhere in the world needs to ask permission to use Ethereum (though they may run into roadblocks if certain providers like Infura get in the way, as we’ve seen).

It’s true that there are degrees of separation between the developers of the protocol and the “public”. Certainly the most direct way to “directly benefit the public” would be to just give out ENS tokens to the public haha. But I don’t think that would be a good use of the ENS treasury obviously.

There are always going to be such degrees of separation, but in my mind there’s no doubt that the continued funding of the people working on the very core of web3, will benefit the public that uses web3.

This reminds me of the very things you chided me for, and rightfully so (being too pedantic and challenging “vague” wording) when it came to the Code of Conduct. Ultimately it will be up to each and every voter in the DAO to decide whether this constitutes a “Public Good” or not, so we’re really just playing with semantics again here, right? :slight_smile:

You’re “afraid” of that? I rather think that is a good thing. Not only does that help to dispel notions of “conflicts of interest”, but it also means that such ENS token funding will bring new voters into our DAO! And expert, well-informed voters at that (I presume, anyway). You do want the DAO and its voter base to grow, right? This is part of the reason why a portion of the ENS tokens was set aside for the ENS DAO, so that the DAO can decide to distribute that responsibility to potential new voters!

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All very fair points, which is why I am still more positive than negative on this proposal! I am happy to see the DAO take a risk, and even more interested in seeing if the Public Good thesis plays out :slight_smile:

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It’s important to remember that we’re talking about tokens drawn from a pool which under ideal circumstances wouldn’t have been returned to the DAO in the first place. They’re unclaimed airdrop tokens that were destined for someone.

The intention behind that airdrop was to spread votes around and draw attention to ENS, and spreading votes to and drawing attention from Ethereum core devs I think is in the spirit of the original airdrop.

We also have a self-interest in seeing Ethereum (and by extension their core devs) succeed because we have a symbiotic relationship with the blockchain we exist on.

From a purely monetary perspective, I think that ENS will benefit indirectly from the attention from core devs (maybe they participate in governance, maybe they talk about it more in public, maybe they start using .eth on twitter if they don’t already.)

I don’t see a lot of downsides personally :slight_smile:

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The way I define ‘Public Good’ is a service or an infrastructure or a commodity (= Good) that directly (or at least tangentially) benefits the public (= Public, in context of ENS users).

all in the name of ‘Public Good’, which still has no rigorous definition.

I wish the OP could provide an answer to that.

While I agree that the term “Public Good” is often misapplied, wouldn’t the core Ethereum protocol (and its maintainers) which ENS depends on be included pretty easily in your own definition? If it’s not included, I’m not sure what else would.

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In favor. I think it’s a great idea to reward long-time contributors. I agree with @nick.eth too; this initiative will help to retain talent and motivate new contributors to join ongoing work streams within the ENS Ecosystem.

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200k ENS split evenly among 110 people is 1818 ENS (or just under $20k) per person

as a small clarification related to how much each contributor will get: weighting in the split contract is time based (the longer you’ve been around, the larger your share). so some would get more than 1818, and some would get less

Read more on weighting here, and what the first quarter of the Pilot distribution would be here. this will be updated quarterly as the membership and their respective weights shift.

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You are right. It does count as Public Good in this case; you have to thank your organisational structure for that. I had commented the same in support of this proposal here. I would be against such a proposal if the value addition wasn’t being cycled back to the developers directly. For instance, if Gitcoin or Nomic Foundation had made a proposal for discretionary funding of $1,000,000, I personally would find that equivalent to money down the drain.

@alisha.eth: Could you please open the TempCheck thread from locked state? While a proposal is still in the pipeline, we should keep the relevant threads open. Thank you!

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Yes, I used the even split more to illustrate that the sum isn’t too high. I understand that it won’t be split evenly in the proposal. Clarification is always great, though :slight_smile:

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The contrast between the reaction to this proposal, and my proposal which sought to reward community contributions speaks volumes.

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I am refraining from going there on this thread since Nick believes we are going off the road a lot in our discussions. But your concern goes at the heart of things to fix in ENS DAO. Our subWGs are not funded, community is one step further away yet. That discussion is for another place and time :handshake:

No. The temp check has concluded. The proposal has progressed to a Draft Proposal. All comments related to the Draft Proposal can be posted here, so as not to fragment discussion. Please note, if posts are off-topic and not related to the original post they will be removed.

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I disagree. TempCheck doesn’t mention the 100k ENS number which it should. It is a point of contention. It should not be in comments of Draft but in the main body of TempCheck.