Meeting #1, 3rd March 2022, 05:00 UTC

Meeting recording

Minutes of Catalyst Circle v3 Meeting #1

Present (in order of first speaking)

Nori Nishigaya (facilitator); Mercy A (representing Funded Proposers); Joey Chessher (Toolmakers and Maintainers); Nadia Hopkins (Community Advisors); JP (secretary); Rhys Morgan (stakepool operators) Harris Warren (representing IOG); Bullish Dumpling (representing Cardano Foundation).

Apologies: Dimitri Fernando

Speaker percentages

Nori (26%), Harris (25%), Mercy (13%), Joey (13%), Nadia (10%), Rhys (9%), JP (3%), Dumpling (1%)

Abbreviations used / Glossary

API – Application Programming Interface (a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other)

ATH – After Townhall, breakout rooms after the regular Wednesday TownHall meeting

CA – Community Advisor, a role open to anyone in Catalyst, to assess proposals in each funding round

CC – Catalyst Circle

CF – Cardano Foundation

CTC, Catalyst Technical Council, a proposed body that will be appointed by IOG to be involved in bicameral governance alongside the Catalyst community.

Catalyst School – https://thecatalyst.school

d-Rep – delegation representative, a proposed new role; people to whom a voter will be able to delegate their voting power. See the registration form

DID – Decentralised identifiers

ETH – Eastern Townhall

Gimbalabs - https://gimbalabs.com/gimbalgrid

IO – the overall organisation that comprises IOG and IOHK

IOG – Input/Output Global

NFT – non-fungible token

QA-DAO – Quality Assurance Distributed Autonomous Organisation

SPO – stakepool operator

VCA – Veteran Community Advisor, a role open to those who have been a CA in previous rounds, to assess the CAs’ reviews

Voltaire – the next phase on the Cardano roadmap to decentralisation

1) Opening, agenda (0:00)

Check-in (0:03)

Announcements (6:31) – none

Agenda and align expectations (7:15) Items added to the agenda: discussion of meeting time; Fund 8 proposals from Circle.

2) Circle Stand-Up (11:01)

NOTE: The Stand-up is a go-round using the Prioritised Problems GitHub board, where each Circle member in turn says

  • what they have worked on since last meeting

  • what they will be working on next

  • any blocks, or anything they need help with

Joey (11:32)

  • Attended Swarm meetings, and has brought topics from them to this agenda. Met with June Akra to discuss formation of a sub-circle for Toolmakers and Maintainers. Met with the Philadelphia Cardano group, and some of them have submitted proposals.

  • Will be working with June as sub-circle representative, and deciding on approach. Will meet with Circle mentor [Tevo Saks], and with Aharon [Porath, who also stood for election to CCv3] to discuss Problems Board cards, and overall approach.

  • No blockers; but challenge is how to fund sub-circle activity – to be discussed in this meeting.

Nadia (13:37)

  • Creating a prioritised problems board for the community/CA subcircle to raise problems; has worked with QA-DAO to discuss. Has created a CA subcircle group, which is working on comms and workflow. Held an After Town Hall

  • Will continue to work on bringing the CA subcircle to life; 3 or 4 smaller groups have formed to work on specific issues e.g. onboarding, VCA criteria, communications process for subcircle. There will be an ATH for VCAs next week.

  • Not a block, but an opportunity – would be good for all Circle members to discuss how their individual subcircle processes are working, so we can align.

Rhys (16:55)

  • Reaching out to other SPOs and inviting them to get involved in Catalyst, submit proposals, become CAs, etc. Links to Prioritised Problem of how to involve SPOs in Catalyst. Has also written several proposals together with community members.

  • Will be helping people submit Fund8 proposals - the extended submission deadline has helped.. Will also have meetings with several different groups of SPOs

  • No blockers, except that SPO community is large and quite disparate – considering using Twitter ads and Reddit to reach people better, would welcome advice on that.

Harris (20:35)

  • There have been some changes to IOG teams, to support more community outreach. Been working on defining requirements for governance pieces. Still working on open governance APIs; most are now available but there will be some new ones coming, connected with dReps. Also working on interfaces for direct registration; and on the concept of delegated voting

  • Will be sharing details of these things with the community

  • Main blocker is lack of time, and amount of time spent in meetings

Mercy (24:18)

  • Taking note of issues raised in the various Telegram groups; working with Stephen [Stephen Whitenstall, Funded Proposer rep on CCv2]

  • Will continue conversations with funded proposers, and how to go forward with a sub-circle. Will be presenting regularly at the Catalyst Co-Ordinator meetings.

  • Blockers – funded proposers are a large and busy group, and tend to be most focused on their actual projects; so figuring out the best ways to reach them and include their opinions.

Dumpling (27:49)

  • Met with Nadia and Felix [Felix Weber, CCv1 rep]. Presented future work and plans at Town Hall

  • Will set up regular meetings with CF and possibly with Ambassadors’ Guild representative.

  • Blocker – identifying what issues can be worked on.

Nori (28:51) Note that none of the problems on the board are tagged with CF yet.

ACTION POINT: Dumpling to start to bring issues from CF onto the board.

Harris (30:01) Maybe Challenge Teams could help as mentors to Funded Proposers.

3. Consent Agenda (31:05)

CA incentives - (31:21)

d-Reps letter (Joey, 33:37)

Joey (34:38) presented an open letter from the Catalyst community to IOG, covering three key issues:

  • Questions about the proposed d-Reps

  • Treasury structure

  • Treasury transparency

(34:11) Although the letter is addressed to the IOG team, Joey invites CCv3 to also embrace the concerns expressed, and take ownership

(35:40) Joey’s observations of the meetings where the letter was drafted:

  • the community was taken aback by the announcement of d-Reps

  • people were concerned that the community had not been brought into the conversation, and that decisions are being made without community input

  • the people at the meetings were thoughtful and professional in their approach.

Harris (38:43):

  • IOG welcomes this type of feedback

  • The letter has been shared widely internally at IOG

  • I welcome the idea, requested in the letter, of workshops to clarify the specifics of d-Reps, tho I cannot commit to a timescale.

  • IOG likes the concept of “one vote, one heartbeat”, and are looking at solutions, including using Atala Prism, but currently we are working with wallets, and how d-Reps will work with wallets.

  • D-reps are to address the problem that voting is time consuming with 1,000 proposals; many wallets don’t vote; and those which do, only vote for 7 or 8 proposals on average.

  • IOG’s goal is also to be more transparent about the Treasury

  • But we need to do that with care, to ensure the Treasuries are not compromised.

JP (45:44) Glad IOG liked the tone of the letter [JP took on responsibility for drafting the letter based on the community’s notes]

Subcircle roles and stipend - Joey (46:47)

Joey (46:47) There is a lot of work for each Circle rep, and they need a subcircle to support them. I have selected June Akra to help me. Is there a way that we formally announce the members of our subcircle? And how do we fund them – does it come out of the Catalyst Circle Funding Mechanism? And can Circle members align on a rate of stipend that we will give? Nadia (48:43) The CAs group plans to have small temporary groups, with a named Champion, for specific issues, rather than fixed roles. They may be voluntary at first, but incentivising people is important – hourly rate, or project-based, or something else? Nori (51:45) The Catalyst Circle Funding Mechanism is intended as a rapid funding mechanism, $7,000 per Circle member that you can decide how to use. But there are 3 possibilities for incentivising: 1) use that money now and experiment 2) get your groups to submit fund 8 proposals 3) fund it via a change to Catalyst parameters when Circle and the Technical Council are able to do that, which is more long-term. Note, it only covers 3 months, so as your Circle tenure is now 6 months, you would need to submit a fund 8 rapid funding proposal or similar to fund the 2nd half of your tenure. Rhys (55:35) We don’t all have to use our funding in the same way. We have the opportunity to experiment; but we should report back how it goes. And we still have time to submit fund 8 proposals to have another iteration in the next cycle. Nori (57:41) Note, the Catalyst Circle Funding Mechanism only covers the 5 elected seats; although the Ambassadors’ Guild has a small treasury that Dumpling could use. But for next funding round, maybe consider including all 7 seats. Joey (59:56) I will go ahead and appoint June Akra as my subcircle representative. We also need sensors in different places, to be sensitive to different time zones and languages. Nadia (1:01:21) CAs have a visioning document about the subcircle idea; and the CAs communications group have a prioritised problems workflow Nori (1:02:08) Circle members are only funded for the next 3 months – Circle Admin is submitting a proposal to fund the following 3 months, but is the current $1,000 enough? JP (1:03:00) CC Admin is drafting a more comprehensive Fund 8 proposal in Open Source Development Ecosystem challenge, covering the Admin team, Circle members’ stipend, and mentorship – everything needed for governance, all in one proposal. Although we could separate it out again if preferred. Joey (1:05:36) Circle stipend is taxable income? Nori (1:06:03) Depends on local laws; Circle Admin can’t give tax advice. Another issue beyond the scope of this discussion – we may need to pay Circle reps immediately; if we wait, and the price of ADA drops, you will not get your full $1,000 Mercy (1:08:10) Can Circle as a proposer request whole funding upfront, to give more control over how it is disbursed? Harris (1:09:39) There is the issue of milestones and demonstrating that the proposal is making progress. Nori (1:12:06) Circle Fund 7 proposals are:

ACTION ITEM: Admin team to ask IOG if Circle can get the full funding for the Catalyst Circle Funding Mechanism proposal, rather than in tranches.

ACTION ITEM: Admin team to add this issue to the Board as a Prioritised Problem

New Prioritised Problem: “Achieve clarification on exact timing of release of funds each month to funded proposers" – Mercy (1:16:01)

Mercy (1:16:01) Timing of release of funds is a big issue for funded proposers for good fiscal management. It’s currently done in a labour-intensive, manual way; it’s OK if it’s slow; but s it possible to have a definite date and time, so that funded proposers can plan for it and for the volatility of ADA? Could we form a subcommittee with IOG to work on it?

Joey (1:19:52) Some proposers have not even done Proof of Life yet, and challenge teams have not been able to contact them.

Harris (1:20:39) Agree – let’s assign IOG to that problem. We are working hard on being less manual; and we are working to ensure the system is not being gamed.

Rhys (1:23:35) Should not be too difficult to build something t do this – could involve the Plutus pioneers, open-source it to the community? I’m happy to help.

New Prioritised Problem : “Permanent allocation of treasury to support admin, community & governance projects” - Mercy (1:24:50)

Mercy (1:25:08) In fund 8 we don’t know if proposals for ongoing governance and admin work, for the benefit of the ecosystem, will be successful. Is there a way to fund it outside of the proposals process, for consistency? I know many people have been thinking and working on this..

Nori (1:28:00) Very important. The Fund 8 proposal JP is writing is a baseline budget for Circle and the admin team governance layer. There could be a conversation about Catalyst parameters around this.

Joey (1:28:43) Harris mentioned there would be permanent funding for d-Reps; maybe there could be the same for this.

Harris (1:29:16) I support it being on the board; IOG, and maybe CF, and other voices from the community, could be involved in discussing: where would funding come from, would it be in perpetuity or just for a certain period, .

Livestreaming Circle meetings (Rhys, 1:30:24)

Rhys (1:30:24) I plan to livestream Circle meetings, to help with transparency, and publicise Circle’s role – part of my wider initiative to promote Catalyst to SPOs, ADA holders and the wider community – and I wanted to check it’s OK with everyone. Everyone has the option to turn their camera off if they prefer.

Joey (1:32:12) Since we are being recorded anyway, it should be no problem. But if we ever need to discuss human resources issues, we might have to take those offline.

Harris (1:32:40) Agreed. The expectation is that everything we say here is already recorded.

Nori (1:33:14) Any objections? [none] Question on longevity once Rhys is no longer part of Circle, if the community has come to expect livestreaming, how will we transition – but we need not solve that now.

Harris (1:34:06) Do we have an agreed process for how we vote on decisions like this?

Nori (1:34:59) Circle originated from a sociocratic approach; but it has changed since then, so we do need a group agreement on how we should reach decisions.

ACTION POINT: Rhys will livestream Circle meetings in future.

ACTION POINT: Methods of reaching a decision to be discussed next Circle meeting; Nori and Admin team to prepare something as a starting point for discussion.

Time of next meeting (1:36:58)

Nori (1:36:58) Currently scheduled for 17th March, 5pm UTC; is this OK for everyone? Also suggest we do not keep it bound to UTC once Daylight Saving time begins; although that might not work since not everyone switches to Daylight Saving at the same time.

All Discussion of various time options

ACTION ITEM: Next meeting will be 17th March 5pm UTC; at that meeting, will discuss time of future meetings.

Circle-specific funding proposals (1:42:30)

Nori (1:42:30) We don’t have time for detailed discussion now, but can discuss on Slack any ideas for further Circle proposals beyond the core one that JP is working on

JP (1:44:34) The main proposal will include paying Circle, but will not include anything to pay subcircles, so that might guide what additional proposals are needed.

4. Close (1:46:41)

Feedback form (1:46:44)

Checkout (1:47:14) – each member in turn briefly says how they are feeling

Meeting ends 1:51:22

Key words from this meeting

Appendix

Intelligent-verbatim transcript of this meeting

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Agenda for this meeting

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