Masternode / Community Meeting Notes #1

Governance Discussion
1

Tomo Masternode / Community Meeting Notes #1

Sat June 13th, 2020 12:00noon GMT-4 New York (6pm Paris) (12midnight Singapore)
Format: Informal voice conversation
Purpose: To initiate conversation around how Masternode owners and the surrounding community can structure themselves to best serve the Tomochain project. Discussion to center around what we can DO ourselves.
Who: Anyone can listen-in; Masternode owners and Community DO’ers can speak-up
Agenda Items: 1) Purpose (Community vs MN-only Council) 2) Quadratic Voting App 3) Legal Structure (Masternode Council)
Number of Attendees: 7-8 people

Rules of Meeting

  • 5 min time limit for speakers w/o an Agenda Item
  • Constructive Criticism VS complaining / bashing
  • Chatham House Rule: Notes can be taken; Quotes cannot be attributed

Major themes

  • "Masternode" VS “Community” - we originally started this meeting as a pre-cursor to a ‘masternode council’ of some kind, but do we end up closing off participation from others by doing this?

    • Anyone can attend these meetings and jump in to help us (two non-masternode-owners attended)
    • How can we both support the validation structure (masternodes) and a wider-communal effort?
    • Idea: Started by masternodes, influenceable by anyone

  • Structure of Organization - If we create some kind of org that can enact and do things, how do we structure it?

    • Decentralized vs Centralized flavors
      • Quadratic voting might be used (Decentralized)
      • A non-profit org could be setup (Centralized)
    • Some mix of the two may be needed, as the org will need to interact with traditional entities from the existing world (ex: paying a lawyer; doing taxes). At the same time, how do we push the decentralization tendencies of the network?

  • Scope Determination is Important - Does this org simply make its own dapps and code, or does it effect wider layer-1 chain changes?

    • Consensus in the meeting: Start small
    • Focus at first on small projects to build the community (governance infrastructure; a dApp
    • Build out this organizations structure (legal non-profit status, officers, etc)

  • Dev Fund: 600k TOMO exists in a development fund of sorts; Tomochain Pte. Ltd. holds it for now, but wants to figure out what to do with it going forward

    • “Community Ecosystem Fund” as it was referenced in the whitepaper.
    • Could consider giving it to an org like this or some other arrangement.
    • Came from 10% of rewards accrueing in a special account

To-Do’s

  1. Research & propose an initial governance structure

    Compare various existing governance and organizational structures/methods. Can we combine both decentralized and centralized components? Come up with initial scope+future scopes. Setup a non-profit?

    Examples: Eth foundation, Terra governance is impressive, Compounds governance is neat, Tezos governance claims to be next-level.

  2. Determine an initial development effort

    Some kind of opinion tallying/deciding method? A way to distribute funds and resources that the org has. Or do we want a pure dApp that we build in order to kick-off dev use on the chain? Like porting an existing eth project.

    Governance Infrastructure vs Application-layer… which do we do first?

Next Meeting

  • July 11th, 2020
  • Meetings once per month
8 Likes
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Excellent notes for the first meeting. Absolutely makes sense to start small with respect to initial goals.

In terms of answering what would be the initial development effort, it really depends on the mission. (1) Developer Onboarding (2) Broader Outreach (i.e. Ambassador programs) etc.

Of course multiple initiatives could be run in parallel, but I’m curious if there was a specific area of interest from the group at this point.

Thanks a lot for this update. Looking forward to attending the next one.

2 Likes
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This is a useful piece that offers some insights on the governance topic. https://www.fehrsam.xyz/blog/governance-minimization I have similar thoughts over this year contemplating on the topic.

1 Like