The Steem Alliance working group has decided to treat the pre-registration as a 'test run' and opened voting on the foundation proposals to all Steemians. The vote is taking place on dpoll:
https://dpoll.xyz/detail/@steemalliance/steem-alliance-structure-proposal-election/
First I would like to extend a big thank you to 
Image source: pixabay
An effective foundation will be instrumental in helping Steem mature into a fully decentralized ecosystem with the strength to achieve 'mass adoption', bringing investors and developers that are committed to creating value for their user bases and creating products that have the potential to drive 'mass adoption'.
While foundation goals were not pre-established (each proposal can identify and include their own objectives), I am evaluating each proposal solely on whether I think it can effectively represent Steem to the world in a way that attracts investment and development. The key question I ask of each proposal will be "Do I think this proposal can achieve results?"
This question covers a lot of territory, as there are many pitfalls to be avoided. Does the proposal have effective governance? Does the design have adequate protections against corruption? Would the foundation inspire confidence in smart capital and startups, or would they see it as a giant red flag? Would the foundation be sufficiently representative to keep disparate interests of different Steem stakeholders in mind, or would it quickly become captive to whale interests (or worse, hijacked by parties motivated by politics more than by the stability and success of Steem?)
As I evaluate each proposal, I mean no criticism of any of the great Steemians that submitted the proposals. This isn't about personalities or ego, I just want to see results. I may not spot every weakness, and I might not identify every strength. I apologize in advance to all proposal creators if I missed the details that you think make your proposal uniquely amazing. I have only my own education and experience to draw from, and I make no claims to perfect knowledge.
The most common problem that I have seen in the proposal (and something that would need resolved immediately) is a failure to define 'Steemian'. Is it a person? Is it an account? This is a non-issue for stake-weighted votes (as covered aptly in the original Steem whitepaper) but as soon as you move away from stake-weighted you have to carefully define your terms -
This is the same issue I had with the @DolphinCouncil, which immediately disenfranchised me because I signed their charter from my personal 500 SP account instead of from a Dolphin account. So I'm not a dolphin even though my program is a 'hidden orca' with 52k SP split across 11 accounts? They offered to fix it, but only if I wrote the motion myself to put forward. DOA- why bother?
@alexvanMy biggest concern for this proposal is the explicit choice to exclude USA as location of domicile. While foundation leaders may need to travel to represent to represent the foundation at industry conferences, the domicile for the foundation has no impact on those travel limitations. There is no reason the foundation has to be domiciled where the board can travel to.
A second concern is geographic representation. Geographic representation explicitly disenfranchises stakeholders from continents with stake concentrations. I appreciate that the election process is stake-weighted, but there is no reason to believe that all North American stakeholders would have similar concerns.
The foundation would be organized as a for-profit accelerator; providing funds to projects likely to achieve quick results and then turning those funds to additional projects... a snowball effect. To achieve success on this model, the board would need to develop particular skills and expertise, and the two-year term limits would mean that members are bounced just when they become fully proficient. There is no need to avoid potential dictatorship when the foundation will not have decision-making power over the blockchain, but only projects supported by it
Conclusion, I think this is an interesting model, but it would work better as an independent accelerator initially supported by the stakeholders that vote for it. It would be less likely to succeed as the 'official' foundation closely watched by many vocal Steemians - and more likely to succed as a fully independent project.
@impactnI love the focus on strengthening communities, as I think the existing strong communities are a unique asset that makes Steem stand tall above most other blockchains. The circles seem overly complicated. The review process to start/stop a circle is unclear. As explained, it looks like any cabal of 5 with 10k SP between them could bring any circle to a halt while a review is underway. Repeat this enough times and the 'circle' would just give up. (I control 50k+ SP across 15 accounts and could bring a circle to a working halt myself! Not that I would, but this illustrates how ineffective the model would be in practice.)
So while I like the objective, I think the inherent design makes the circles network least likely to succeed in attracting new investors/developers to Steem.
Conclusion: Great objectives, minimal probability of impact. Circles are so complicated and inefficient due to external review requests that I don't think this model would even be workable as a third-party project instead of as the representative foundation accepted by steemit and stake-weighted majority of Steemians.
@upheaver https://github.com/pauliusuza/steem-alliance
Clear mission statement and vision, modeled after other successful foundations. Membership based with affordable memberships is typically a good model. I even considered joining the Bitcoin Foundation at one point, but I opted to buy more bitcoin instead.
The Chairman of the Board is given veto power, with too high a majority required for a vote of no-confidence. The chairman also has two votes for tie-breaking, which is completely irrelevant if they have veto power. This is my biggest concern, and the veto could be stripped with a supermajority amendment to the foundation design (if not removed before registration of the founding documents).
Board selected by members, with all key positions 'hired' by the board, with additional oversight from Board of Community Advisors. Adequate time is given for the board to act on proposals brought by the community, etc.
Conclusion:
Standard foundation design is more likely to be acknowledged/respected by new investors/developers, and foundation would have the authority/ability to hire whatever advisors and staff the board deems necessary to fulfill the objectives and mission statements. While still dependent on community support (Steemians need to actually join as members) this proposal has a high probability of 'success'.
@shadowspubhttps://steemit.com/foundationproposal/@shadowspub/foundation-proposal-the-merger
This proposal pushes all the right buttons for governance and oversight, and the stated objectives cover broad territory, it raises more questions than answers. The roadmap starts with gathering stakeholder opinions to establish voting mechanisms, etc. Isn't that where we are now? At what point do we 'pull the trigger' and actually take action?
I have utmost respect from the collaborators, as they have a proven ability to get results, but I think that at this stage in the Steem Alliance process we should be expecting a clear framework to get results, not just a promise of more discussion and consensus-building.
Conclusion:
I wanted to support this proposal because I believe in consensus-building, but I think we're at the point where we need to 'pull the trigger' and actually get something organized and funded, then continue with consensus-building within that established framework.
Still, I give this a moderate chance of success and I will vote for it alongside my top choice.
https://steemit.com/thealliance/@thehive/i-made-a-proposal
Waterfall of SP/VP flowing from supporters into core account and from core account into objective-oriented accounts. This is an intriguing proposal, but leaves most critical questions (governance, decision-making processes, oversight) unresolved. Even reading the links to earlier articles didn't really clear things up for me.
Funding only through reward pool is an implicit weakness and there need to be external funding sources, with appropriate oversight, for a representative foundation to succeed.
Conclusion:
Too confused to really estimate likelihood of success. Like the first couple proposals, I think this could have an impact as a separate project but doesn't have a clear enough structure to be the 'face of Steem' and fulfill my success criteria.
Please review the proposals if you think you may disagree with my analysis. Take the time to form your own conclusions, post your own analysis, get out the vote!
The pre-registration only captured 3M SP of stake, and we need much better turnout for the final solution to be considered a representative solution.
At this point I think it's more important to have a 'face of Steem' that isn't Steemit, Inc than it is for that face to be governed by a process that I 100% agree with. I am voting based on perceived probability of success and even if a proposal that I didn't vote for wins, I will continue to support the foundation as the process moves forward.
