Title: Breakout_Session__2__Meta_Magicians
Category: Protocol_Calls___happenings

Author: boris
Date: 2018-10-31T01:50:33.134Z

I was facilitator and scribe, because I am bad at handing off scribing / sharing the HackMD link ahead of time.
I believe anything that is “actionable” (listed under TODO) should get turned into github issues to see who is “assigned” in actually moving it forward.
Long form discussion can / will still happen in forum – but updates / moving things forward / accountability in Github.

Participants
Rhys
Aidan
TJ Rush
Bryant

issuing invoices
Brooke
William
Simona
events - inclusivity
Amy
inclusivity
Jordy
interested in organization, reaching consensus on standards
Andreas
Kauri – getting to action
scale and communicate, keep invluded
?? from St. Lucia
coming from St. Lucia, populaton of 200K
when I wanted to get involved in cc community, used localbitcoin
I was the only user – throughout the Caribean and East Africa, same problems still exist


William

open Q&A – 200 people
about 20 got a chance to speak
as groups get larger – 80% stay quiet
in first ring group – 30min was intros
point from Boris, Aidan – like Linux or Bitcoin
IETF made some mistakes? Hit level of growth – costs of coordination, cause people pushed to the wayside
if every single person has to have input, then each person is added – cost goes into coordination
company called Gore – famous for making Goretex
no managers – best place to work
they found that there need to be small groups rather than large groups – by necessity

TJ Rush

when we will meet next?
instead – push to regions

Bryant


started my own meetup in my own city


no one from community is at DevCon – I’m representing that community


hierarchies of discussion


can continue to have larger discussions


Need better communication – out of in person, to online


Asynch communications


when do we want to meet? what goals do we want to succeed?


succesful rings did pre-work to move forward


others, for alignment in the room very valuable


more onus to do pre-work


lot of rework – tackle the same issue, with a slightly different angle


trying to claim attention space – or physical space


like Security Tokens vs.


not having one canon


better communication method


Boris

example

Kauri

tying things more to an EIP process – measurable outcomes
agreement or not
implement in hackathons

Jordy

one of problem with EIPs
person who writes it is interested parties
good position to start – maybe there is another group – that has a different perspective
competition rather than collaboration
EIPs shouldn’t be linked by interest – more professional manner
leadership of an EIP – not knowing a lot – just to be sure you are hearing all the parties
what are the conflicts, what are shared, neutral arbitration
if the EIP, the owner has that much power

TJ Rush

how do we have forcing functions – that force to not have leaders
keep them fluid

Aidan:

no processes – blow it up to regional areas

Amy

been experimenting
responsibility of coming into a circle, need to do work
observer, or taking action
teach them to someone else
they should be able to get there and ready to run
choose how to be governed
hierarchy - holocracy - consensys
close the gap of alignment
how inclusive trying to be?

Boris

explanation rings
Operations Ring
there is no “volunteers” ring yet – so maybe we need one (we technically have a group & private forum for volunteering)

Jamie

starts with personal responsibility
people feel responsible
create a tension – in order
can’t decentralize everything
have to have structure
can build trust
for example with Operations Ring – there is a multisig
resources need to be managed – need people to help with management
how do you deal with resources as part of centralization?

??

management if there is a lot of money
what if proposals are made to receive funding?

William

large issue around funds
maybe EthMagicians never want to hold funds
money is a horrible thing
money needs a bit of organization – maybe
more pure opinion if are no salaries

Boris

explain there isn’t a lot of money
opinion: can we only use the donation funds for events

William

making an event
how do we give out money

Boris

IETF uses host organizations

Jamie

Internet Society is the partner to IETF
Can we move the money to a separate entity
any resources is power
not just money – numbering scheme on EIPs

Aidan

how do we take whatever we have here – bring it back to where we’re from
how do we support more people like yourself
this conversation is most important for next council
livestreaming is great

James

making it so that Magicians don’t have to worry about money
separate body? we can do our thing
not mixing them sounds like a good thing, sounds like a compromise

Peter Pan

syndicate model – pledge money to a cause, angel fund
propose things, which people should fund or not
individual organizations decide how much to fund

Bryant

interesting use of money to servic infrastructure
vote with their money, donating to smaller groups that form
end of the day there is a need for infra – including infra to handle money
same thing with resource – take some money to run, common infra we rely on
money is best used for that sort of thing, for any group
everyone has to fundraise themselves

Boris

costs of volunteers $20K

MP

what if one group wants to fundraise for getting something built – eg. signal
can we still trust people to use the name EthMagicians and raise funds

Bryant

scapegoat co that is formed to do invoices

Brooke

if scapegoat takes invoices, then will be taxed
should we non profit? non profits are complexed

Bryant “scapegoat international”
MP

can we use Giveth
non binding votes
fundraising is very difficult

Brooke

getting ahead of ourselves
non financial means of supporting sub groups

James

stuff with fundraising that could be under entity
grant process or whatever
signaling ring – never once thought I’m representing EthMagicians
never said “we’re from EthMagicians” – asked for our project to exist

Jamie

these are resources, affiliation
not all of us have jobs at organizations that can fund things
people that want to participate that flights and things are a big burden
trying to enable process
like signaling notion

Amy

focused on operational budget rather than future funding
have that budget
align partnerships – we do have agreement from these partners

Boris:

ask for consensus on NOT fundraising outside operational costs

MP:

way to express opinions on funded projects – because we are scaling quite fast

Williams:

anyone should be able to do an EthMagicians event?
empower all people

Peter:

doesn’t like voting

Simona:

voting not inclusive

Jamie:

other rings signal

Brooke:

everyone and no one is a magician
no one can and can’t
but … we do need to recognize that people will want to borrow the legitimacy of the name

Aidan

from an open source software perspective
want to have remote / distributed hackathon
Colony has a repo on how to have a remote hackathon
Colony never said no one has to have permission
we have all the best practices out there
make things as forkable as possible

Peter

adding to coordination and borrowing legitimacy
the signal of Magicians is provided by individuals

Brooke

inside the dis-organization
from outside - EthMagicians is being pointed from the outside
potential for abuse

MP

I think that voting and signaling are different things
don’t want to hard vote
there should be signaling to prevent these things
forming an organization – one of my guys wants to do something political
how do we define our goals? what is and is not political?
if rough consenus is achieved

Jordy

if we are an organization or not
if we are, then there are limitations
we need governance – don’t care about democracy or dictatorship
if we act as an organization, need to take those steps

MP

the first form of Ethereum activism
we want to jump on this as activism

Bryant

culture – something between organization and anarchy
if you don’t ascribe to the model
signal that people should revisit
not just a pool of water on the floor

Jamie

as individuals
it is loose
are we an organization? there is a lot of fictional thinking, decentralized vs formal
a human organization is formed – we know how to organize
“an institution” --> those geese are coming to consensus
loose organization
some people want a more legalistic approach

William

one is allocation around resources
beneficial to look at EthMagicians that has some organized parts to it
there is something organizational / institutional
stick with that giant anarchy
centralization around resources – rules around the resources
eg website has rules

Aidan

allow culture to define entries and exits
if we formalize too much

Brooke

shill event?
EthMagicians Shill fest – then we need to solve it

Aidan

will signal that it is a shill event

Bryant

template?

MP

do we need a way to kill an exit scam

William

Don’t need to de-endorse things
Shillcoin Council of New York
meritocracy – anyone can use it – people would need to educate

Jordy

we are an organization
don’t be afraid of organizing
when I hear the word signaling – I want voting!
when we are talking about decentralized then power – rather than signaling, want voting

Jamie

resources like the twitter account
in general, a lot more loose
sharper edges along other resources
individuals have a way to speak out
let’s not prematurely optimize

To Do
ETHMagicians in the Public Domain
Is the term EthMagicians in the Public Domain? What does that mean?
TO RESEARCH
Permission for Events
No one needs permission to run an EthMagicians event
Asked for consensus: not met in the room – some people said, as long as forked from a template, some people said, no rules or constraints, tackle bad actors when / if they arise.
Support Smaller / Regional Events
Boris: how do we enable / encourage / support smaller regional events around the world? (aka “there is no way I am doing the madness that is 250 people next to DevCon/insert large ETH event ever again”)
TJ + Lane – small regional
Alex / Kauri have people in NYC
This small regional event may be part of developing a template. So action item here is great a template / encourage people to run some events / iterate over template.
Governance of donated funds

link to forum thread
plus operational issues about moving to a better multi-sig

TO DO: who can help investigate / make a plan for this?
e.g. move to Giveth? Aragon? more multi-sig holders
Jamie & Boris both feel they don’t have expertise / need help.
How are Councils run?

Should we follow the template from 2018 for 2019?

Ecosystem Lack of Duplication

Andreas: collaboration across the Ethereum ecosystem, how do we do it better and duplicate efforts less frequently?

Formalizing EIP around Ring Charters
James: Would formalizing an EIP around Ring Charters (i.e Rings exist outside of Ethereum Magicans) be helpful to clarifying Rings and their organization.
TO EIP DISCUSSION
Issuing Invoices
Bryant: can we have a shared entity?
Who invoices as a shared resource?
OPEN
Budget
TO DO: share this, who can help?
Fundraising using Magicians / Use of Funds
Boris: Propose that we do NOT use fundraising for anything other than operational needs for Council events
In the room: William objected, but not “over my dead body”
Jordy: don’t have Quorum!
Boris: yes! we gather consensus in the room, and then bring to forum

Author: boris
Date: 2018-10-31T01:55:07.826Z

@Ethernian brought up a suggestion around tokens here that is related:




Donations to the Un-organisation of Ethereum Magicians Site Feedback


    Hello, all! 
Even I was not able to take part in Meta-Magicians and EIP & Interoperability Discussions, I have listened to it some minutes. As far I could understand, the is an opinion, we need some kind of organization in order to accept donations given to Ethereum Magicians. 
I am a big supporter of an idea of personal membership and would avoid any formal organization so much as possible. Money and payments will make the organization even more problematic in my eyes. 
So I would make a propos…
  

Pulling out some of the notes from above, there might be a separate organization purely to hold funds, or continue to have Host Organizations in different countries, or … something else.
In the closing circle, @GriffGreen offered the Giveth platform.
I have an open issue where I investigated Open Collective.
The EF holding funds be something that works, but might also cause difficulties in holding that organization accountable

Author: kronosapiens
Date: 2018-11-13T10:51:15.788Z

@boris @jpitts
Regarding the management of donated funds, I’ve noticed (from this and past threads) that this seems to be an evergreen issue. I’ve personally learned from past affiliations with various organizations that while actions can be carried out in an ad-hoc swarm-like manner, funding allocations don’t quite lend themselves to the same ad-hoc treatment (the latter is zero-sum, while the former is not).
In addition to Aragon and Giveth, I would suggest taking at look at Colony (the project I am affiliated with). Pitched as “a platform for open organizations”, it is at its core a decentralized budgeting and payments platform. You may find it meets the magicians needs: it is permissive by default, with budgeting priorities determined via reputation-weighted endorsements (requests with higher reputational backing are satisfied first). The reputation system itself is quite dynamic and designed to mirror the way membership in an organization changes over time, allowing decision-making power to be distributed naturally amongst a large group. Inasmuch as “grooves” support sensible behavior for common tasks, I would say that Colony is quite “groovy” (in a technical sense, of course).



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If this is of interest, I’d be happy to talk more about how Colony could be deployed to support the magicians. We have been in development for quite a while now and are looking at a mainnet launch by the end of the year. We are a fun group.