Meeting #8, 23rd June 2022

Meeting recording

Minutes of Catalyst Circle v3 Meeting #8

Present (in order of first speaking)

Nori Nishigaya (facilitator); Mercy A (epresenting Funded Proposers); Joey Chessher (Toolmakers and Maintainers); Quasar (General ADA Holders); Nadia Hopkins (Proposal Assessors); Steve Lockhart (Funded Proposers Sub-Circle); Harris Warren (IOG); Felix Weber (Cardano Foundation); Kriss Baird (IOG); JP (secretary).

Apologies

Rhys Morgan (stake pool operators).

Speaker percentages

Nori (22%), Quasar (17%), Harris (14%), Felix (12%), Steve (11%), Mercy (8%), Kriss (8%), Nadia (4%), Joey (3%), JP (2%)

Abbreviations used/Glossary

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

CA – Community Advisor, the old name for a role open to anyone in Catalyst, to assess proposals in each funding round - now renamed PA

CATH - Catalyst Africa Town Hall

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

CGO - Community Governance Oversight, a F7 and F8 funded proposal that has created a team to discuss and provide oversight of key Catalyst governance processes

dRep – delegation representative, a new role that will be introduced for Fund 10; people to whom a voter will be able to delegate their voting power. See the registration form

DID – Decentralised identifiers

ETH – Eastern Town Hall

Gimbalabs - https://gimbalabs.com/gimbalgrid

GPS or Catalyst GPS - an F8 funded proposal, run by previous and current Circle attendees, Nadia and Tomi

IOG – Input/Output Global

LatAm – the Catalyst community in Latin America. Comprises a regular Town Hall and several other community initiatives.

NFT – non-fungible token

PA - Proposal Assessor, the new name for the role that used to be called CA

PACE – "Projects Accelerating the Catalyst Ecosystem": Catalyst organisation that has pioneered funding categories

PBL – project-based learning

QA-DAO – Quality Assurance Distributed Autonomous Organisation

SPO – stakepool operator

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

VPA - Veteran Proposal Assessor; the new name for the role that used to be called VCA.

Voltaire – the next phase on the Cardano roadmap to decentralisation

1. Opening, agenda (0:00)

Welcome and check-in (0:02) Announcements (4:09) - Felix announced that Catalyst GPS had held an ATH yesterday, 22nd June. Agenda and align expectations (7:52) - added "Circle structure and legitimacy".

Nori (9:46) Circle agreed in the last meeting to refocus around the CCv4 election planning, and not to use the GitHub board until CCv4. Is that still the consensus?

Summariser's note: it's unclear where this agreement happened; it wasn't in the last meeting. Summariser has asked for clarification; at the point of writing, nobody has been able to point to when this decision was taken. It appears not to have been in a Circle meeting; so possibly, an offline discussion? Since part of Circle's role is to look at and prioritise problems sensed in the community, there is a sense in which this group is no longer operating as Circle if it is not doing this. This decision may have been a response to the fact that several members are now unelected - but if so, this is not clear.

Harris (10:19) We should address the CCv4 election; but should also discuss what the makeup of Circle should be. Quasar (10:53) I want some clarification on Harris's comment about not focusing on the problem statement, but on legitimacy of Circle. Which one is priority? And what counts as doing that, and not doing that? Nori (11:39) I'll add "Circle structure and legitimacy" before "Election planning". Mercy (12:20) A roundtable discussion [i.e. on Circle legitimacy, structure, and CCv4 election] would be good to figure out what everyone feels is a priority.

2. Circle stand-up

There is no Circle Stand-up in this meeting's agenda, and the Prioritised Problems Board was not addressed. As noted above, summariser has asked when this decision was formally made, but to date, did not receive an answer.

Funded Proposer subcircle formation and funding clarification (Mercy, 13:44)

Mercy (15:14) How the FP subcircle emerged, with a focus on global perspectives and inviting representatives from different Town Halls (17:21) Used the Fund 7 Rapid Funding to set up the SubCircle, get it going, and run it from Feb to May; then submitted an F8 proposal to fund it from June to Sept [summariser's note: actually October]. Then we have used £600 of our F8 Rapid Funding to fund translations of the proposer guidance notes into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic and Swahili; the Rapid Funding is being held by Treasury Guild and released when we need it. (18:46) Outline of the work the Subcircle has been doing - extensive problem-sensing via regional TownHalls and day-to-day interactions; collating sensed problems on our Miro board and working through them; regular presence at Coordinator meetings to hold discussions and get feedback from proposers; working with IOG to get a more definite calendar for funding release; writing guidance notes for Ideascale proposal submission form, and getting them translated; liaising with Nadia and the PA group, and contributing to the PA guidance notes. Happy to take any questions; and there have been some comments on GitHub that are unclear, but suggest someone disagrees, so happy to hear suggestions for how this could be done better.

Quasar (22:37) I don't have any questions for Mercy. The comments I made about Mercy in Slack and in GitHub were not intended to question how funds were used, and were not meant to be personal. Dimitri and I were trying to figure out how to request funds from Rapid Funding.

Nadia (26:19) It's really easy for us to go to the source with each other and respectfully request information of someone if it's if it's needed. I think it's it's really challenging to have a team operate like a team, if we're not treating each other like we're all on the same team.

Felix (28:03) As well as having an agenda of topics we will talk about, we should consider how we want to address those topics and what we want to achieve. Being unclear about that, to ourselves and to the community, makes us ineffective.

Kriss (33:20) If we want clarity, maybe we should follow the GPS approach as presented in the ATH last night; or have SMART goals.

PA updates (Nadia, 34:59)

Nadia (35:14) As I suggested in last week's working meeting, I approached the other nominees for CCv3 to see if they were available to function as PA rep when I leave. Filip is not, but Tomi is. It makes sense because he's very involved in the PA community. He is on holiday this week, so I have come to this meeting to announce it; when he returns, he will pick things up. I will be available to hand over, and then I will be moving to other work in the PAs' working groups.

Circle structure and legitimacy; and CCv4 Election planning (37:34)

Key points:

Nori (37:34) We began this at last week's working meeting: there is a Miro board with notes Nori (38:05) Although the CCv4 election is a priority because of the urgency of the timing, there is a lot of discussion around Circle's structure and legitimacy, so let's start there.

Election methods/process Harris (38:35) On the election - we can use any method to collect candidates' names and platform information - IdeaScale, Google form, or any other way - and that information can be loaded on the back end [i.e. of the voting app], so it could still be part of the F9 vote even though we have missed the deadline for doing it in the same way as we submit proposals. We could even have separate ballots for different purposes. But I think the biggest discussion is, are we going to let each respective group run their own elections, in which case we don't need this more general election? Steve (40:20) For legitimacy and to satisfy criticism about how Circle is elected, we should ask anyone who wants to be on v4 to submit their name in the DAOs Love Cardano challenge. It's easy, and would solve most of the criticisms. Joey (43:12) I also like Ideascale, because people are familiar with it; but best to keep it separate from the Fund vote. Another idea - the software used by the Project Management Institute; it uses video where the candidates answer questions. Nori (44:22) We could add a template to Ideascale for candidates to answer questions. Felix (44:39) Let's avoid circling back over old ground - let's pick a solution and make it happen. It doesn't have to be be the best solution. Kriss (49:56) Subcircles are all different; so maybe we don't need to define the size of a subcircle. I feel the Circle election is for these specific seats; but the subcircles can be more dynamic. Quasar (51:31) Should we change the cadence of when Circles are elected? Harris (55:56) To reiterate, we don't have to stick to the deadline of the 30th. We could side-load the information for the Circle election, and have it appear in the app as part of the F9 vote; or we could wait until the end of the F9 vote, and then load the Circle voting information, via Ideascale or any other method, and have a separate voting event.

Circle seats, and whether they should change to be based on categories defined by GPS Nori (57:41) I've noticed, from facilitating several Circles, that some seats struggle to connect with their communities. So perhaps we are approaching things backwards to elect a seat and then expect them to go and find their community. If a community is strong enough to self-organise and select a representative, then that rep doesn't need to "problem-sense" - the group is already doing it, so they would be "problem-reporting". In a holocratic model, there's no "election" for who comes in - each group decides who the link person will be, and sends someone to the Circle. Felix (1:00:34) We could do it the way that Catalyst GPS says. Instead of functional groups, use topics, such as "Community and outreach" or "Governance and identity". So Circle could copy what has already been pioneered with the PAs and VPAs, instead of trying to reach a decision ourselves. We should give it a try, because they have spent a lot of time working on it. Harris (1:02:52) That was the idea of the Wiki survey - to hear ideas from the community, from the PAs and other groups. Felix (1:03:18) We should invite people to vote using the categories defined by GPS or George Lovegrove. Steve (1:04:23) I like the GPS categories, but I will always want SPOs represented in Circle as such. Circle seems self-absorbed. Harris (1:11:17) The original Circle roles were meant to identify pain points in what people do in Catalyst, e.g. being a proposer, being a PA - and fix the human element. Moving to categories / topics means we are focusing on things - like "how do we make better NFT libraries?" - and maybe this is already being done by Challenge Teams. Yes, we should include Challenge Teams in Circle - but by using categories, do we lose that focus? Also - Circle's original intent was to focus on Catalyst, so let's not lose that focus. And bear in mind, there are some experiments coming, on Voltaire-related things - IOG will announce more details soon. Felix (1:13:41) If we do as GPS says, and organise Catalyst by categories, it is easier to track who is working on a particular topic. Kriss (1:18:00) But trying to incorporate categories now, at this late stage, is a misstep, when there is a pressing need to create a sensible CCv4 process soon. (1:18:56 - 1:24:30) Felix and Harris discuss the relative merits of categories vs roles Nori (1:24:48) We are still quite divergent on next steps for the election. Do we need more discussion? Are we saying that we will not rush to do anything in Fund 9, but will take however long it takes, so it could be December, when the next vote happens? Or will we make a decision, quickly and try something? Harris (1:27:28) It's my understanding that we've decided we don't have any urgency to do it in Fund 9. And I agree with Felix that we want to experiment, try something. But on categories versus roles – we would not have had such an improvement in the CA /PA process if we hadn't had Kenric then Nadia in that seat; and the same with Funded Proposers. Improvements were driven because those seats existed. So do we want to continue with that, or try something else? I liked the idea of reaching out to the community, because maybe we're not the ones to decide this, to achieve legitimacy. Twitter Spaces and Pol.is are good ways to do this.

ACTION ITEM: Felix, Rhys and Joey to coordinate an ATH on 29th June to get community input on how to do the vote. Main Town Hall to be truncated to half an hour. ACTION ITEM: All to suggest questions to seed into a Pol.is poll; Nori to create the poll next week; everyone to share it. ACTION ITEM: Quasar to how Twitter spaces to raise awareness of Circle andx collect community input, and feed it back to the Circle. ACTION ITEM: Circle to discuss CCv4 election in future meetings - no longer aiming for this to take place in Fund 9.

Fund 9 proposals (1:36:53)

Nori (1:36:59) Until now, the Admin team has submitted proposals for Circle, but we will not be doing so from now on. If Circle needs funding, we want Circle reps to propose, and manage it; and if Rapid Funding for each seat is needed, each seat should put in its own proposal for that. So we're raising it so that you all have time to put in proposals if needed. Nori (1:39:29) The Admin Team is rebranding to Governance Services Guild. We are submitting our own F9 proposal, which covers us offering our services to any Governance group in Catalyst that wants them, and also creating a PBL to enable anyone from the community to learn how to do these admin tasks and join the Guild. JP (1:42:33) Within that proposal, we are including that the Circle can commission the Governance Services Guild to continue to provide services such as agendas, facilitating, and recordings, assuming that you want them. Quasar (1:43:27) I think Circle can take care of itself. Harris (1:44:58) I think your services are very valued and important, so we should find a way to do that as a Circle.

Opening up Circle meetings (1:45:11)

Nori (1:45:11) As discussed last week, is there still agreement that the next Circle meeting will be open to the public as observers, with participation limited to the Chat? Steve (1:45:57) Participation in Chat can be distracting. People should be allowed; but it needs another Admin member to manage the Chat. Even though we are all co-hosts, we should concentrate on the meeting itself. Quasar (1:47:43) Nobody wants to come to Zoom. We should stream it to Discord or Twitter. Nori (1:48:00) Rhys already streams it to Youtube; if others want to stream to Twitter that's OK as long as everyone agrees - but this experiment is about inviting the community in to the Zoom. Felix (1:48:27) We have a beautiful community, so it won't be too wild. Only those who are really interested in governance will come, so not many people.