But you know, if someone proposes that we have a in-person Numerai conference this fall, everybody might think that’s a great idea. But Numerai is doing that anyway, why should the CoE be expending resources on it? So it isn’t solely about whether it is worth doing or not, it is about whether it will happen or not without the help of the CoE. Your proposal is somewhat the same – you are already being compensated by Numerai, so why change that unless they are firing you? Well, then you can do this & this that is different from what you do now – those differences are really the meat of the proposal because if the proposal is not taken up, presumably OHwA and DSC will still continue just as before, right?
So proposals for things that just won’t exist without the CoE are the natural focus of the CoE, right? That seems like common sense to me. It also seems natural that they’d be doing something a bit different than stuff the company would naturally do itself and/or are already doing – either ideas so experimental that the company just can’t be bothered with that until they prove themselves, or very user-centric things like acting as user advocates to prod Numerai to place more priority on things that are important to users (i.e. to actually challenge Numerai at times that they are neglecting something important), as well as stuff like a predictions marketplace (which seems like will go forward) where Numerai doesn’t really even want direct involvement in that kind of thing.
I believe the streams are valuable. Numerai made a good choice by investing in you. The archived episodes are great to have on-hand. But I agree with those who have pointed out the CoE should be funding things that wouldn’t exist without CoE funding.
Also, as I watch the payout factor approach 0.5 I remain unconvinced of the value of bringing in new participants. That may just be me but I’d be happy seeing the number of participants go down. Note I am not on Numerai’s payroll; maybe I’d think differently if I was.
As for the spirit of cooperation argument: what do the streams provide that’s above and beyond the forums and rocketchat vis-a-vis the spirit of cooperation? If typing a question into a live chat on twitch is markedly better from typing it into a forum post and/or rocketchat I haven’t witnessed that yet. Indeed, I see more thoughtful backs-and-forths on the forum than on the stream chats.
Regarding the “certain topics” that have not been discussed because Numerai has been funding the streams: this is the most interesting part of the proposal. If the one problem with OHwA is the gag order, why not propose that the CoE fund the creation of an unrestricted stream (the exclusive “certain topic” stream) for a few episodes to see if it indeed adds something to the community that is currently absent?
If the CoE can spend less NMR to beta-test a new un-gagged stream I’d be more supportive of the proposal. Though I suspect that to have you running both an un-gagged stream and the sponsored streams might not be something Numerai will smile about.
I don’t quite agree with your first point, aren’t you just incentivizing Arbitrage to just suspend all streams / pull his content off Youtube and then create a CoE request ? Surely there’s value in the content and could be worth investing in to create more content / engage the community.
I find a ton of value in the OHwA and DSC content and maintaining a strong community presence outside of the forum and rocketchat. To suggest that anybody can do what arbitrage does hosting a livestream (attracting an audience, asking the right questions, keeping the conversation going, preparing guests, scheduling, etc) is just plain wrong. It also seems fair to assume that Numerai is no longer funding this with the expectation that the CoE would end up doing it. I’ve also been wondering how many social media content proposals should be supported by CoE, but this does gets a vote from me to get funded, contingent on the conversation of pricing that I feel needs to continue.
As I just posted in the proposal for Signals development & streams, the decision about how much to pay does matter. At this requested amount for the year, it consumes close to half (?) of the current treasury. This might unfortunately be the proposal that acts as the test grounds for how we determine a fair price to pay and how we logistically go about doing that. In that Signals content thread, I suggested somewhere between $40/hr - $60/hr marked to market at time of funding and paid post-hoc (whether on a bi-weekly or monthly basis) would be fair. I also feel the need to add that there is no intention here to “convert human beings into commodities.”
Lastly, it may make sense to separate the proposals between OHwA and DSC since I do think they’re fairly different.
In my opinion OHwA and DSC bring tremendous value to the Numerai community. For many newcomers is gateway to the tournaments as they see real people doing real community effort.
Nobody is disputing the benefits or Jon’s efforts, rather, (1) the payment source and why is Numerai so keen to offload it to an initiative they claimed they have nothing to do with… and (2) how do you ascertain a value given a very limited (in comparison) token treasury.
@of_s , they are offloading because they are trying to decentralise; not because they don’t see any value in it, or don’t want anything to do with it. Decentralisation is a major reason why I think it’s important for the CoE to be self-funded (eventually anyway).
Regarding your second point, I completely agree but I also think it’s very difficult to determine the value obtained from any given proposal. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try (I can think of a number of ways), rather than just approve the first asking price of any proposal that is deemed to have some sort of value. The CoE treasury is not bottomless.
In my view, everything is negotiable. If there’s no agreement on price, there’s no trade.
I think I understand your comment. I believe the end goal is to decentralise. Currently however, the CoE at least appears to be very much influenced by Numerai. For example, I don’t think it’s appropriate for Numerai people to voice their approval (or disapproval) for CoE sponsored projects. Or for people to serve on the CoE while also being paid by Numerai.
It’s early on and we have a long way to go. Hopefully we’re on the right track.
Everyone is saying “it’s early”, to which it obviously is. In that spirit, what’s the rush to fund content that is indeterminate on additional value or was already being paid for by Numerai?
CoE needs to get its act together on a whole host of issues before considering these proposals (which should be desk rejected anyhow because the CoE is not a clandestine marketing arm of Numerai).
There were a lot of tools built and contributed (API, Rnumerai, dashboards, etc.) that have clear value distinctions over the murky seemingly crony content proposals.
I think you made a good point that I want to underline and then question: I don’t think it’s appropriate for Numerai people to voice their approval (or disapproval) for CoE sponsored projects. Or for people to serve on the CoE while also being paid by Numerai. So my question is why? Well the answer is that the CoE should be 100% independent of Numerai and serve as the preeminent advocate for staking data scientists and getting paid creates a conflict of interest between serving Numerai and serving the staking community.
I want to add that the dichotomy of interests between Numerai and its staking data scientists is real. In rocketchat one can find examples of people discussing this dichotomy. There is one conversation that I have found particularly interesting. The participants of the chat are discussing the valuation of NMR. I think everybody should read and reread this conversation again and again because it is highly instructive. I will link just one portion of one thread of that conversation, part of a statement by @robot.army:
The way I see it that conversation kind of dodged a bullet. Because if the first phrase of the first sentence is correct – and I think it is – then that has to be the number one dichotomy of interests between Numerai and the staking community. A high and increasing NMR price is essential to the success of the endeavor of the Numerai activity for staking data scientists (and as @jackerparker has noted, borrowing NMR in no way reduces the token risk).
The mandate of the CEO of Numerai to the CoE is that they can do whatever they want with the treasury. According to that mandate they are free to just pay themselves and come up with any reasons for that. But in doing so they would not have our bests interests in mind. It’s their choice to try to really be as independent as possible from Numerai and represent us – or not.
This alludes to additional demand streams for NMR. The most logical being a percentage of the profits of the fund on an ongoing basis. The legal limbo of these purchases (regardless of treasury levels) needs to be reconciled conclusively on behalf of the data scientists.
The current proposals hope (at best) to secure an indeterminate amount of additional participants, while decimating the payout factor further if they actually do stake. How does this represent us?
The question is why the author of the present proposal did not disclose the fact that he is being funded by Numerai prior to the vote for Council of Elders members in an appropriate place. An appropriate place to make such a disclosure would have been here: Elder Candidates Introductions. Unfortunately he made no such post there and the question brings to light the fact that under the present composition of the CoE, it cannot be said, with all due honesty, to be an independent body w.r.t Numerai or for that matter strictly represent the community.
I loudly applaud the one CoE member who has claimed elsewhere that he will not accept payment – if I may infer – from any source Numerai related except the tournament itself, which would place him squarely beside the rest of the community members and therefore able to represent the community without reservations.
I voted no, but basically on the technicality that it is not clear whether money flowing from Numer.ai → CoE → Arbitrage actually allows Arbitrage more freedom to talk about whatever than when money flows directly from Numer.ai → Arbitrage. Without clarity on that point (which will be hard to get without lawyers), the whole point of the proposal in my opinion becomes moot.
Maybe an option is that Arbitrage somewhere has a deposit address that whenever it has received enough donations he can make a no holds barred episode that isn’t sponsored by numer.ai in any way.
