If stewards propose compensation for a forthcoming term that you think is unreasonable, you can vote those stewards out, ensuring they donāt benefit from the new compensation. This is one of the checks-and-balances that ensures the system is fair.
So it seems that the DAO definitely has interest in distributing more tokens for voting power. Controversially, at the same time the price of the token in comparison to the influence of vote is so good that the issuance of tokens will likely just result in the tokens being sold for cash rather than used to vote.
I thought vesting was a good approach at first but since have changed my thought.
I say distribute and let individuals do what they want with the token. What a recipient does with the token is a personal choice and will reflect their vested interest to this organization. In my opinion, the recipients have already vested time and interest to a point of which they will be issued / rewarded tokens. So why would we impose further vesting on their contributions?
I donāt understand issuance of trust through the weight of influential vote and not at the same time be equally valued monetarily for the measurement of which issuance is decided. If that is the case, then the token is overpriced
Iām going to vote NO on this, its way too much compensation
Its starting to look like those US ānon-profitā hospitals, which pay exorbitant salaries to their execs
also this
I already put a proposition forward to make steward institute more democratic and Iām not getting much traction
Lets start by making sure that there is genuinely diverse crowd of steward candidates from all over the place and they all have proper chances of winning, and only then putting piece of sugar in front of them
Alternative proposal is we vote to change compensation (or its structure (cc vesting)) and if they want to ragequit they can, then we can introduce new stewards as necessary.
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isnāt vesting for an actual job position just a deferred payment? essentially a guaranteed retroactive payment? Who will want to do a job to be paid far into the future? I guess that doesnāt matter much for candidates who have exuberant amounts of cash but for qualified candidates who donātā¦well they wonāt be applying in that case. Wouldnāt that just gatekeep the role for āthe richā only?
Thank you, 5pence.eth, for preparing this funding request! I think it is important for stewards to receive just compensation for their dedication and loyalty in serving the DAO. With regards to the governance distribution, I primarily view the token as a voting utility. However, I also realize its dual purpose as a currency.
As avsa.eth mentioned, implementing a vesting contract for governance distribution is an optimal way to align steward incentives with DAO initiatives in the near to medium term. However, I tend to agree more with James.ethās 1-year timeline rather than the 4-year one, ideally favoring a timeline somewhere in between. If an individual decided to cash out their tokens afterward, I wouldnāt hold it against them.
To reiterate and ensure an abundance of clarity, I am in favor of honoring the $ENS governance distribution as outlined by the preceding Meta-Governance Working Group ā 10,000 $ENS per year, awarded biannually. The current Working Group will ensure that vesting contracts for governance distribution are implemented in 2025, according to the aforementioned funding request, and will incorporate community feedback as well.
Thatās like taking a nuclear weapon to a water gun fight. Easier method is to object to the funding proposal and seek changes.
That is fair. 4 is probably too long, and 2 years is a good vesting period.
I am still unsure why the words āhonourā and ācommitmentā are being thrown around. There are no ācommitmentsā that were advertised (which 5pence failed to provide as reference). The distribution is entirely a matter of Social + Executable vote, and there are no commitments outside of that.
What is weirder is that both you and 5pence seem to be very supportive of vesting from next term onwards and but not from this term. Why should the stewards after you be squeezed for monetary value but the current stewards be allowed an exception? I am yet to get an answer for this. I donāt get this ānot me, but after meā angle.
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I believe you might have just missed the references in the the thread above:
And this was covered here:
(adding a small edit - Iām doing my best to be as responsive as possible to you @NameSys, but letās try to make sure we keep this a mature discussion about policy and not use reactive ad hominem comments.)
That is a recommendation co-authored by you and it is not an accepted proposal. The recommendation itself says:
My guess upon reading this would be that this recommendation will be formalised somehow (via the current social proposal for funding). It also explicitly states that these numbers are a guide for nominees, while suggesting that this distribution is up for reconsideration after two months when the term expires (which makes sense). To me, the language does not suggest that these numbers are a commitment beyond the two month period at that time, and beyond that, it is a recommendation pending approval/vote.
On a side note, if the stewards have earned this monetary value, then they shouldnāt mind having a vote on this. It will once and for all settle this issue and everyone can rest in peace. Such a proposal will also remove this bug ā
Instead of stewards deciding salaries at all (whether for themselves or the next iteration), let a vote formalise and settle it.
My primary concern is simply that this distribution is too lopsided toward monetary value and too little toward voting value, and I am sensing avoidance in correcting this. By the way, as one of the more active developers in the community, we will likely also receive an equal amount of ENS tokens as a steward (which is also wrong because we are teams not single individuals). So my own proposal for vesting hurts me more than anyone else since we are running on fumes ($10,000) since September 2023. Thatās ethics from my side. Iāll do the right thing even if it means rekting myself. If I fail, I guess Iāll take the monetary value 
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Another talking point to be discussed is the method of how each recipient is chosen. Is it fair that people should just expect to receive voting weight or should each person(s) who believe they should be a recipient self-submit a review of their contributions publicly?
Also I believe that the compensation table is incorrect according to the math how I see it figured.
How is it that you approach evaluating to compensate or reward individuals who are very outspoken on the forum, active in discussion (wheter you agree with them or not) and or providing the DAO and the community with development progress? There are only handful of people that are perpetually providing input to conversation. If some of thiose individuals were to stop engaging, there would seem to be no conversation. Also to mention, those individuals have a measurable contribution via discussion, tangibles, proposals, invoke talking points that spark DAO proposals, etc. while some who are voted in as a steward have little to alnost zero input on topics for months even. Really, Iām curious to know where the separation exists between being graciously paid $300,000 and nothing except a "thanks for your participation:? This applies across the board and not just to meta-gov WG. Itās also important to be sure that people are just compensated for their contributions and not if who and who are friends or not, or whatever voice you give to certain people when you read their postsā¦ friendship is irrelevant Work hard, play hard. bidness comes first. just my 2c
Does vesting incentivize to not rotate as a steward?
this
also frankly vesting or not, compensation is compensation and its a lot of money
At least in one the discussions @AvsA was drawing a comparison between academic circles compensation. He was comparing amount of grants distributed to the amount of costs incurred when those grants are distributed. I think this makes sense.
So metagov stewards object to spending more than 25kUSD on Bylaws service provider, moreover professional legal firms which offered to do the same work, but charge by the hour were rejected together. Did this ever occur to you, based on the nature of this industry, itās not possible at all to hire a quality team to do this work and not pay by the hour?
On the other hand metagov stewards are looking to spend more than a million dollars at the time of writing on own compensation. If anything maybe spend this money on a qualified bylaws service provider? (no offence Lemma, Iām just making a point and I havenāt seen you at work just yet).
I object to this
It was an accepted proposal that forced the Metagov group to set and announce these values ahead of the nomination window.
It was Avsaās proposal, and it passed with 99.4% approval.
Again, you seem to be attacking me and representing these as personal decisions, as opposed to acknowledging that it is the DAOās rules that dictated the actions of last termās Metagov group.
I am the one responding to your comments here because I am the current Metagov lead steward, and as such it unfortunately seems to fall to me to clarify confusion as to the DAOās rules.
Again, please try to avoid criticizing individual people with your comments.
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Avsaās proposal only amended the term length and made no explicit or implicit mention of the compensation amounts. I am more than happy to be proven wrong if you can point me to the part of the proposal where the compensation is explicitly mentioned. Your interpretation of Avsaās proposal is wrong (I think). It only states that Meta-Gov is tasked with defining āFair Compensationā and the text in no way mentions what that fair compensation is.
This is a difficult line of questioning but I havenāt attacked you anywhere. 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 havenāt been insulted or disparaged. Can you please point me to an attack on you? You are in the firing line because you chose to get elected in the position of lead steward. Your answers are at best excuses to my ears (from ācommitmentā to āAvsa forced us to declare and take the discretionary salaryā) and this is not an attack on you. Itās simply what this conversation objectively reflects. Everything that makes you uncomfortable is not an attack on you; some of it is a side-effect of leading multi-million payouts. Consider it like a congressional or senate hearing in the US. When you are responsible for big things, you are also answerable for those big things. Plus, only you have spoken so strongly against vesting; questions are inevitable.
I rest my case. I have said what I needed to say and so have you. I will seize my input on this matter.
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Posting some numbers from some basic digging that I ended up doing:
Steward Salaries (this term)
| Category | Lead Steward | Second Steward | Third Steward |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta-Governance | $4,000 |
`` | $3,000 |
| Ecosystem | $6,500 |
$5,500 |
$4,000 |
| Public Goods | $4,500 |
$4,500 |
$4,500 |
Steward Benefits ($ENS)
In EP 4.4.2, Meta-Gov requested 52,300 ENS tokens out of which
- 40,000 ENS tokens were distributed to the stewards themselves
- Each steward except Nick got 5,000 ENS
- No other meaningful tokens were distributed to developers or contributors from the Meta-Gov pod (balance roughly 14,000 ENS); Ecosystem WG internally gave some teams 1,000 ENS
- This is an increase of over 10x from previous ENS token allocations to stewards
Link to this information: https://etherscan.io/tokentxns?a=0x91c32893216dE3eA0a55ABb9851f581d4503d39b
noway, so you are saying that theyāve distributed 40kENS as compensation for the previous term?
I donāt know about you folks, but this doesnāt read as Steward compensation. Also I read though this thread again, people were questioning very carefully what the compensation would be, for example this here
and suddenly it turns out there is a āsecret bonusā of 40kENS.
Also I have a question about conflict of interest here, at the time of writing @simona_pop @Coltron.eth @5pence.eth @slobo.eth are effectively voting in favour of own compensation. So much for COI management, how about best practices and reclusing from COI decision making @nick.eth ?
I know that technically they are voting for metagov compensation, but ārising tideā raises all boats, arenāt they supposed to recognise that there is conflict of interest and recluse themselves from that decision making?
Iām also going to vote NO on Public good budget, at this stage I donāt fully understand what is going on with money part there, maybe there are some hidden compensation there as well.
Thatās what the blockchain says. Unvested 40,000 ENS tokens totalling $1 million today. If someone wants to go ahead, they can check who sold and who kept the voting power. I will skip that otherwise Iāll be accused of attacking individuals instead of talking on policy.
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Thereās no secret here. The data youāre mentioning is available in previous termās forum posts, budgets, funding requests, discussed on weekly open Metagov calls, and also clearly mentioned above in this thread. (And, itās onchain)
This is incorrect. The Term 4 Metagov group undertook a task to make this data consistent, transparent, and trackable. Thatās why youāre able to find what did. Prior to Term 4, these processes were opaque and difficult to track, so youāre not finding the data.
But I believe this has already been described in the various linked posts from prior Metagov groups.
I understand the analogy, except your posts donāt ask questions or seek to understand, they just contain various inaccurate supposition that Iām forced to correct.
Previous budget clearly indicates that there is Steward + Secretary Compensation and other items, one of which was Governance and included c.52kENS tokens.
The description for Governance Steward + Secretary Compensation reads as follows - Working Group Steward and Secretary compensation totalling $276,000 USDC.
The description for Governance reads as follows - Fee reimbursements and initiatives related to reducing friction in the governance process. This can also include $ENS distributed in order to lower barriers to the governance proposal process.
This was the budget everyone voted for and approved. You canāt just take money from one category of spending and throw it into another one, especially into own compensation. Itās called misappropriation of funds.
By the very least this money should be refunded, because they were never approved by the community.
I object to this arbitrary spending of money and would like to invite all delegates with common sense to reject this budget as well.