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?
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 
Looking forward to the outcome of the call
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.
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?
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.
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.
My formal stance now is that I’m against this proposal, but I’m not saying that for the purpose of going against the grain or because I have any motive - among all my other points in my previous post, the primary thing is that this feels early, hasty, and not planned out far enough in advance.
I think it could very well be an amazing, healthy thing to reduce the # of working groups and stewards, but I simply don’t know, and I feel that at this point in time there aren’t enough points to make me feel like it would be good to make this change right now, while there are enough points to make me feel like it wouldn’t be good to make this change right now.
edit: Also, like everything else with this DAO, I’ll happily accept the results of this when it goes to a vote even if the result is not in line with my personal feelings about it! This has been quite an interesting discussion and a good experience.
I spent some time talking to @alisha.eth and others, and just got out of the community WG meeting where this was discussed at length. I’d vote yes on this proposal.
Funding vs Execution org There was a good argument made that the Community WG is more of an execution group, but it doesn’t need to be a “funding group”, since that overlaps heavily with Ecosystem already. So having Community as a subWG of Ecosystem makes more structural sense, where it can draw its funding from a combined Ecosystem budget.
Agility of DAO-based structures It’s also easy to spin it out later if the scale turns around such that this is necessary. It was also pointed out Community WG is the one working group that exists right now that isn’t actually required by the constitution, so this change is actually relatively minor. I think reducing surface area, concentrating efforts on making a smaller amount of WGs great, and then expanding out later if necessary is super reasonable!
Timing I also don’t think this is being done in haste. The timing of doing it now seems to be explicitly to 1) respect the electoral process happening at the guaranteed time, 2) disrupt that process as little as possible, while still 3) getting some momentum going on trying to make the DAO more functional as an organization. This is easily the least risky proposal of any decision made or proposed by the DAO so far, in my opinion.
Thanks for putting this together @alisha.eth !
edit: idk why this was set as a reply to someone, it’s just a general post so ignore that 
I am not sure if this is a good idea as stewards are in the strange situation that whoever expresses “Against” will highly likely be voted out on the next election of the limited steward slot (8 → 3) whereas expressing “For” doesn’t affect their next slot as the slot number are not cut down. @spencecoin did express his voice as “Against” because he already expressed that he doesn’t have a horse in this race.
Overall I support the proposal as long as the existing community WG members and stewards remain motivated and keep participating under the new ecosystem WG even if they aren’t elected due to the reduced elected steward positions (8 → 3).
I served as a TNL steward only for a limited period (just 3 months) but I have been impressed with how lively the community WG has been, and I only wish that the transition goes smoothly to accelerate the DAO activity.
if both WG agreed this proposal, I vote for this proposal. (it might be a hard decision)
But before the dissolve, I believe we should praise what the Community WG did in public.
I looked at it the same way. According to that definition, maybe there still exists a strong need for a Community WG? We do have some gaps in good “people focused marketing”. I’m not meaning marketing, like Google Adwords marketing, of affiliate stuff. I mean to support reaching people. As an example, I still see a need for an ENS ambassador subgroup in the near future, also the concepts like the “gifting names wallet” Gifting names to a holding wallet until the recipient is ready - Request for feedback might not fit under Ecosystem as much as it would a “people focused” Community WG.
Both those concepts could fit under Ecosystem, I do understand the overlap and goal to consolidate. But still conflicted myself.
I agree(d) with the above. It seemed like there was a consensus among the existing WG stewards that this change would be the right path forward. It seems however some of that changed. 
I trust @Coltron.eth insights and perspectives on a lot of things, so had originally concluded if he was cool with it as the lead steward of the Community WG, then it’s probably fine since we share a similar mindset most times. I feel like that’s how stuff works in a DAO, by way of signaling. People who are aligned in some way, take notice and signal to others the right paths forward. It doesn’t mean you are mindless going along with things. Delegation is an example of this. You delegate votes to someone you think will vote in alignment with how you would. It’s with an understanding that the delegate you pick may have more time, or insight to make a better informed vote, so you delegate your voting power to them.
@Coltron.eth I’d like to listen to the Community Steward meeting, is there a recording of that? I probably missed some points and insights there, I was not able to attend. Any meeting minutes? I looked real quick and couldn’t find them.
My thoughts concerning people saying this draft proposal was done in haste…
I don’t think the speed at which this was in a temp check, and then went to draft proposal was done ill intent or “boss” like at all. It seems like some have insinuated that within this thread. I think the haste was more a matter of logistics to get this active for the next steward term and not in the middle of it.
With that said we have to consider haste has different meanings to different people. The Draft proposal in governance docs says this
“The purpose of the Draft Proposal is to establish formal discussion around a potential proposal.”
Governance Process - ENS Documentation
I don’t want to derail the conversation of the thread, but want to quickly ask if it would be beneficial to define a minimum time a draft proposal should be up? Maybe 7 days? Anytime after 7 days the draft proposal could go to vote? In case users want to re-delegate votes, it would be good to know a “deadline” to do so.
@spencecoin I really enjoyed a lot of the points you brought up in your posts here. I also am not running for any steward in this term(I’m not a steward currently or planning to be one in near future). You and I didn’t do too much together in community WG, we worked on different things, but I feel your insight into process, and being “matter-of-fact about things” might be great for meta-governance? Maybe you should consider? Just my last thoughts on this thread. Don’t want to derail from the dissolution of Community WG topic, but did want to address a few asides in this thread because they are important.
I never expressed my actual opinion on this idea, but I will now. I am against it for the simple fact that it eliminates Steward positions, and therefore makes the decisions of both the current Comm and Eco WGs more centralized. Maybe if the new combined WG still had five Stewards, I would be for it.
I think this is a dangerous framing. The number of stewards is not what makes a DAO (de)centralised, their accountability to DAO voters is. If more stewards → more decentralised, would doubling the number of stewards make the DAO twice as decentralised? Why not have 100, or 1000?
The decision to dissolve an entire working group is not an easy one, however it is important that the DAO is able to objectively ascertain the utility of any of its organs and determine if it is accurately serving its purpose.
From the author’s view it is not difficult to see the need for the dissolution of this working group, the first time that I heard about the Community Working Group, my first thought was whether there would be a conflation of responsibilities between Working Groups, as I read the docs, I realized that there were similarities in the responsibilities of Community WG and the responsibilities of the ENS Ecosystem WG, the primary similarity is that in essence they both serviced the community.
I believe that this dissolution is overdue and I am glad that the author had the bravery to bring up such a decisive suggestion, it takes bravery and objectivity to optimize a DAO without bias.
keneeze.eth🔥_🌱 (Wildfire DAO, Public Goods Operator)
That’s not what I’m saying, but I get your point. I’m speaking only about this situation, going from 10 to 3 Stewards. As you know, Stewards are multi-sig keyholders, trusted with handling DAO funds. Ultimately, trust is placed in them to have the final say on what gets funded and doesn’t. There is also the “soft” power they hold, being trusted to make decisions that are in the best interest of the DAO. This proposal is too perfect an example to not use. I’m just saying I would prefer more Stewards in this circumstance. Not hundreds or thousands, but more than 3. I understand you just asked that hypothetically to make a point, though.
We’d be going from 12 to 9 total stewards across 3 working groups, idk what you mean by this.
This doesn’t change the amount of signers for any of the working group multi-sigs, it just eliminates one multi-sig.
There are currently 5 stewards for Comm and 5 for Eco. On paper anyway. That’s what I was talking about.
What’s “at risk” here? If the proposal doesn’t pass, is the feared outcome that the DAO isn’t as productive as it could be or that people are working over each other creating frustration and waste?
I feel we are more focused on the amount of stewards, and making a point without any data to make objective decisions.
I don’t think having less or having more stewards would be beneficial o bad, we also have to account that the WGs, their contributors, and the subgroups within should be able to express their decision of requiring less or more stewards.
Right now, if the fusion happens, the amount of work that needs to be put on the Ecosystem WG would be too much. Because not only would be adding work from the current subgroups, but also, there would be a need to update, make everyone up to speed and making sure everyone is on the know, and that takes time.
I’d say, this is a good proposal for January, when with valid information, we can now for certain:
Transition from current work stream and continuity in what has started is more important for me than the amount of stewards or dissolving a WG.
I don’t think that’s true, having observed meetings for both groups and talked to stewards in both, for what it’s worth. We have a lack of active contributors DAO-wide, not too many to handle.
I don’t think it’s prudent to act slowly simply for the sake of acting slow. We definitely do have valid information already. I think there’s an impression that DAOs should act slower than other types of organizations. In my view, the whole point of a DAO is its ability to act quickly while still ensuring consensus.
From my conversations with current stewards, there doesn’t seem to be a strong need for Community to be a full-fledged working group. The only hesitation people seem to have is whether or not this changes in the future. To that I say, it’s just as easy to spin up a working group as it is to eliminate one. I think being able to spin up and down groups quickly is a superpower DAOs have over traditional organizations!
I think one big risk is we have a lack of active contributors that are known quantities to fill those seats that wouldn’t also want to fill seats in Ecosystem. Also, just the risk of not acting means waiting longer to iterate toward a better organization, losing valuable time.
Community definitely seems like something that would fit better as an Ecosystem subWG, given the amount of overlap. Having them under the same umbrella makes coordination easier, in my view.