[Discussion] CoE Facilitator

Wanted to start up some discussion on thoughts by the CoE about choosing one among yourselves to be the CoE facilitator. To me, it does not make sense to have a leader since you all have equal voting power but as we have seen in recent discussions in the rocket chat and in the forums, things have sort of stalled on some proposals that have not been voted on the gnosis wallet(OHwA/DSC, 1729 and open satellite.) I am thinking we need someone to facilitate at least monthly public CoE zoom meetings, take meeting notes, keep a log of the wallet transactions separate from the individual proposal threads for easy reading(maybe this can just be as simple as a rocketchat announcement only channel), and other action items to keep the CoE running smooth. Maybe the monthly meeting can tie into what @objectscience proposed about having a proposal idea contest where the CoE and the public can have an open dialogue of ideas in the live zoom space.

I do understand that for someone to choose this type of position will take some extra work than the other 6 members and I feel like that person should be given some sort of compensation for the work. The problem is that this sort of touches on the touchy subject of if CoE members should be paid/if CoE members can propose their own Ideas and be paid/etc. I think that as long as the CoE does a 4 of 6 vote that if members of CoE are producing quality content or helping facilitate the CoE such as what im suggesting that payment to individual CoE members is OK.

It sort of does not make sense to me that any CoE member should not be paid whatsoever no matter what. If someone from the CoE wanted to help put in the work on a current or future proposal that should be compensated. Work = Compensation.

The no salary thing for just being a CoE member I do agree with! To me its all about work being put out that counts.

Please discuss your thoughts below!

3 Likes

I agree!
If we expect valuabe work, we should also pay them.
They generate value, we compensate them.

2 Likes

I think we desperately need this and I think it should be a salaried position with an expectation of working a pre-decided average number of hours per week.

I don’t have a strong preference for whether it should be someone from with the members of the CoE or another community member. This is what I would propose:

  1. We create a thread for folks to announce their candidacy for facilitator/chief of staff.
  2. After a week or two, all candidates get put into a multiple choice poll (every forum user can approve anywhere between 0 and all of the candidates).
  3. The CoE members then hire their selection from among the top 5 vote getters.

I also think the other top vote getters should get official leadership positions, but since we wouldn’t be able to guarantee any salary, they wouldn’t have any expectation for dedicated hours per week. We would always want to retroactively compensate people for meaningful work put in regardless.
Lastly, I think that anyone that who puts their name in as a candidate for facilitator should get a position in the CoE as well. The current 7 members solely control the treasury, but we’re not the only ones that have ideas for what this organization should ultimately be and we’re not necessarily the ones with the time to organize an unruly group of internet folks. The 7 members of the CoE should be the senate, controlling the budget. This should be the start of an executive branch, led by a salaried facilitator and a number of deputy positions.

2 Likes

I like this a lot. Lets get this going!

Is there a reason the COE does not vote? Does not voting mean a negative vote?

If there is a proposal in the forum, how do you see the associated vote?

I think things are just still getting worked out so things are not as streamlined yet. This was my reasoning for possibly having one of the 6 CoE to sort of facilitate processes to smooth things out a bit more

Couldn’t agree more. It’s looking more and more like we do need some sort of paid facilitator role(s) to actually keep pushing things forward and I don’t think that person should have to be in the CoE multisig. @objectscience suggested in RC to “have a base of say, 200 a year, with up to an additional 200 in monthly/quarterly retroactive pay, based on hour put in and the quality of work that’s been done.” I like that idea too and it can be formalized with more guidelines as this role gets put together.

Proposals should likely go through quick gated periods so they don’t sit stagnantly. @uuazed suggested states like “new - under review - community vote - approved - in progress - rejected - done.” The facilitator should be monitoring and progressing that on a predefined timeline. It seems like if someone wanted to take up this facilitator role, this would be a great proposal to make.

Perhaps we are over complicating it and adding layers of bureaucracy.

Couldn’t it be as simple as

  • someone submits a proposal,
  • comments and debate happens on forum
  • COE vote, say within some predefined time eg 14 days of submission

If a COE member can’t or doesn’t vote regularly then they should step aside so a replacement can be installed.

If fulfilling the COE role is taking significant time and effort, then by all means they should be compensated to some level. I’m sure they are the best judges of that and are also in a position to make it happen.

It’s a shame that an initiative that was intended to be positive and enable the community feels like it is pulling it apart.