[EP15][Social] Dissolve Community Working Group

DAO-Wide Archived Proposals
29

Because the proposal may not pass.

This is very unlikely, but if that was the case then new elections for the Community WG would be held.

1 Like
30

:saluting_face: One does not open nominations for a position that one is actively trying to dissolve. This is blatant disregard for rules & nominees’ time (who have to arrange for 10,000 votes). I have no words left.

I can see that consensus, process and DAO ethos have gone out the window. You have made up your mind about the results before even the community call tomorrow. I will show myself out.

31

The nomination process is set out in EP 4. It takes a few minutes to nominate yourself. I will make sure that all (human + genuine) nominees of the Community Working Group election receive 10,000 votes.

I wasn’t going to run as a Steward, but if there are no nominees for the Community Working Group I will nominate myself and find two others to do the same.

Is there anything else you would like to criticize?

1 Like
33

TNL stewards including myself don’t get paid for doing stewards as it’s part of our job as TNL.

It is your right to express concerns but I think you are stepping the line again.

If you are against dissolving community WG, it is on you to get enough buy in for the vote gets rejected and have enough candidate for community WG stewards , not the responsibility of @alisha.eth who is proposing for dissolving it.

2 Likes
34

Just want to clarify. If I - hypothetically of course - want to run for what is now Community, should I instead run for Ecosystem?

35

I have a lot of thoughts about this.

First of all, I only heard about this by stumbling upon this thread - it was not discussed with the wider Community Working Group (and I presume it could be the same situation for the Ecosystem WG). That feels like an oversight, but I don’t really mind all that much because I trust @Coltron.eth as our lead steward.

Originally I agreed with this proposal, and I’m not really sure where I land right now but I do want to share some thoughts:

Personally, I haven’t done a ton of work in the Community WG during this term. Sometimes I wonder if that’s a bad thing, but sometimes I think it might be a good thing too, because:

  • The stewards theoretically should not be doing the footwork, that’s what the subgroups are for.
  • I chime in when I’m needed and provide perspective and thoughts on things that I can provide value to.

I think viewing this proposal from a lens of “how much work is being done” is unnecessary because again, the role of the steward is not to put in the footwork, it’s to enable subgroups to do things and make sure they’re getting the support they need. Stewards are, from my perspective, merely here to be a concierge that answers questions, directs people to the right places, and makes sure people can access the tools (and the funds) they need to be able to be successful.

So, knowing that, I see the reasoning behind lowering the amount of stewards and folding this into the Ecosystem Working Group. Objectively it’s a sound idea, because why have extra stewards if you simply don’t need them?

HOWEVER, an important counter-point here is that stewards, contributors, and everyone else are compensated according to the time and contributions they put forth. Unless people are wildly under-or-overestimating their contributions, the number of stewards doesn’t matter all that much - if it’s more stewards doing less work, that’s fine. If it’s less stewards doing more work, that’s fine. That’s why I think viewing this from a lens of “how much work is being done” is unnecessary.

Another counterpoint is that this is the first term - I don’t necessarily see value in making sweeping changes like this so early, even if it’s realistically low impact. And if it is low impact, why does this change need to happen at all? On a micro level it’s not that big of a deal, but on a macro level this is changing the core infrastructure of one of the biggest (arguably the biggest) DAOs in the industry.

I heavily, heavily agree with @vegayp’s thoughts above:

On the other hand, I feel 3-4 months of roughly work for each of this WGs is not enough time to know what work and what didn’t. One clear outcome of this term is our poor coordination, and I think this proposal is trying to tackle this. But I am afraid, this comes out to soon: we haven’t have enough time to learn from our previous practices and try to adjust the current model, and this feels more like an aesthetic change rather than an improvement based on previous results.

My hesitancy comes, if, from January, another proposition for organisation comes, and then we will have to change again.

As someone said before, there isn’t enough people for so many pods. It’s not about having enough stewards, is about awareness of the time bandwidth that will be required to support this. One Lead for Ecosystem seems too short.

My last thought is that being a steward is fairly symbolic, and I think giving more people the opportunity to represent the ENS DAO as a steward is a good thing. Being a steward comes with a sense of responsibility, pride, and ownership. Being a delegate is one thing and delegates are proud to represent the ENS, but being a steward is another thing and stewards are almost higher level advocates for the brand and the mission.

All that being said, I’m still not sure where I land.

I’m trying to further understand all the various perspectives of this proposal and appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts.

As a disclaimer, I know I’m a steward right now but I don’t really have a horse in this race. The first term is almost up and I have not been planning to run again, so it won’t impact me if a community working group does or doesn’t exist after this. I’m doing my best to view this objectively.

7 Likes
36

Ecosystem WG had a call couple of days ago and this issue was on the agenda. But no one spoke on the issue at all; the call lasted 5 mins (on the topics on the agenda). Was it because no one cares? Not really. One of the most active subgroup in Ecosystem WG has already dissented to this proposal; so has another one in Community WG. The issue was that this proposal did not come as a Temp Check but as a notification of a decision. At no point it felt like the contributors had been requested serious feedback. This was proper backchannel discussion between 3 people and completely against the Rules of Governance which explictly state that the stewards must ‘actively solicit discussion and feedback’. It needs to be given more time as we always do. We have multiple calls and twitter townhall/spaces. I am failing to understand the rush behind it.

1 Like
37

This proposal is difficult for me to digest. I can’t imagine which kind of sane persons will nominate themselves for a position that may not exist 24-48 hours later.

Edit: I realized that maybe the phrasing was too directly translated from my mother tongue. My meaning was simply to say that I expect fewer people to apply for a position that may end up not existing, so if the proposal is rejected, we may end up missing some good candidates. Hence I would personally prefer to have this voting done for Q1/Q2 2023 and not for the upcoming term.

Also, I think that this whole proposal should be made by the meta-governance working group, with more information to back it up. If it’s done without them, as it is now, then their whole function is unclear to me.

I apologize, but this is simply not true. For me to write a good nomination text takes much more than that.

1 Like
39

In my mind, I always equated Ecosystem WG as a technology focused “product” group, and the Community WG as a people focused “marketing” group. Most companies have different departments for these responsibilities, so always thought it natural that ENS DAO would as well.

That said, I’d defer to the stewards of the Community and Ecosystem WGs on what the optimal org structure should be.

2 Likes
40

I can’t comment on all stewards, but for a few of us it’s been a decent amount of work and far from symbolic.

One part of being an active steward is coordinating with other stewards. The more stewards there are the more work that is. I don’t know if this is the perfect structure, but it does attempt to address some of the issues that appeared this term.

The DAO will continue to evolve. I look forward to the next term.

5 Likes
41

Most definitely! I understand this completely, and like I mentioned earlier in my post people should be compensated for their contributions so I hope the stewards that are putting in the extra work are getting that extra comp!

2 Likes
42

I think the more important question is: what benefit is there from Community and Ecosystem WGs being separate. I think the experience from both WGs is that there’s a lot of overlap, and often confusion as to which WG is appropriate for what work. Given the high degree of overlap, and in the interest of removing unnecessary overhead, it makes sense to combine them.

3 Likes
43

I think it would be less confusing for the upcoming Steward nominations if we say “combine Community and Ecosystem WGs” instead of dissolve Community WG.

2 Likes
44

I’m hoping to dedicate the majority of tomorrow steward’s call this this topic.

Community Steward Call - Every Friday at noon EST. 12pm EST (5:00pm UTC)

I’m conflicted. In my mind this is mostly a structural reorganization, but there’s no way to tell how this will impact the work being performed in the existing subgroups.

As highlighted by @spencecoin, we should be aware that this does reduce the number of positions in the DAO. I was looking forward to seeing contributors elevated to Steward positions next term, but there will be less opportunities for this to happen.

2 Likes
45

But they are different, no? So maybe the task should be to make this difference clear instead of dissolving one of them?

I really like this explanation about the difference between the groups:

Besides, the proposal doesn’t really “dissolve” the Community WG, it just shifts it to be an SG. So if there is confusion about what this group (WG or SG, doesn’t matter) does, then it will still exist, no?

1 Like
46

Finally there is some serious sitting down on the table and proper discussion on this issue. This proposal wasn’t as straightforward as it was made to appear. I thank everyone who took the time to put their thoughts down diligently, and also those who have agreed to listen to the community and their feedback. This is how it should have worked from the start :pray: Looking forward to the outcome of the call

1 Like
47

I agree, that, that’s an important question to ask.

But we are trying to come up with an answer when we don’t have enough context to provide it. Asking this question doesn’t feel wrong, but the answer should be built in consensus and with more time.

48

It seems that this proposal would most directly affect the stewards and subgroup leads, so I’d certainly like to hear other opinions:

Elected Community WG Stewards:

Elected Ecosystem WG Stewards:

I don’t have any consolidated list of subgroup leads, and the podarchy pages don’t display anything about the sub-groups, unless I’m doing it wrong: ens-community (cc @julz)

Another thing I thought of is the weekly calls. Aren’t both the Community and Ecosystem weekly calls already pretty packed every week? What is the plan there? Will the Ecosystem weekly call take on all topics now, and if so will the call be extended to 2 hours? Or multiple calls per week?

6 Likes
49

I’m in favor of this proposal. I think the ENS DAO sense of community is defined by its members and not by the working group. While I do think we promoted the community in certain aspects, I think those aspects can be handled by the Ecosystem WG.

5 Likes
50

If this problem exists, it means that there is a need to separate the working groups and to define their short-term or long-term tasks, such as the “technical department”, “sales department” or “a temporary project team” of a traditional company, etc.

1 Like