Welcome!

I am a long term investor rather than "a customer". I do my best to look out for the Dash ecosystem.

You make some valid points. There is room for bounties that pay for projects on completion, as well as cases where payments are made via escrow, and even up front. Yes, we are going to have some projects that don't completely deliver (not fun).
Hmmm......a YES from me for flowing your general direction here.

*I was not a voting MNO when Shrem's proposal came through. I was no fan of Shrem prior to that, and remain so.

Thank you for you r comment. As I said, venture funding is certainly appropriate in some cases, and I don't think the rolls of customer and long term investor are mutually exclusive. "Looking out for the Dash ecosystem" in my view includes looking out for value providers who risk their own capital, skill and energy at least as much as we look out for the people to whom we provide financing.

Perhaps it would help if I explained what we are working towards, rather than what I am working against. Here is my vision for Dash: We use treasury funds to build a healthy growing community of developer/entrepreneurs who risk their own capital or get their own financing in an attempt to profitably provide value to the network. If the value provided by that group exceeds the cost to build it, Dash will be virtually unstoppable. a 101% return on investment (ROI) will compound, leading to an exponential increase in value.

I think such a community will almost naturally grow if we just eliminate the Pay and Pray funding model. We can still fund development. We can still fund marketing, just without the on board risk. Entrepreneurs look for win-win. Most ultimately fail, but most don't need to succeed. Consumers benefit from failing businesses all the time, and new entrepreneurs pop up to replace them. Consumers don't care too much if the store they shop at is losing money. They may care if the store closes, but they can enjoy shopping there until it does. Then they shop somewhere else. Some entrepreneurs succeed and get extremely wealthy, and they still provide win-win solutions for consumers. ~6800 Dash are spent by the treasury every month. If we were using it to build a community of entrepreneurs rather than funding pie-in-the-sky projects with no guarantee of ROI at all, I believe investors would pour in money, just like they did with Etherium.

So what if NO proposal owners have provided as much value as they are asking in payment? No real problem. MNOs can pay the ones who provide the best value RELATIVE to the other proposals. All we have to do is keep the competition going until one or more of them do provide >100% ROI. Over time there is every reason to expect the customer (the MNO network) will become a more wise consumer and the providers (proposal owners) will become better entrepreneurs.

Masternode owners are customers. They are the consumers of the things provided by the treasury, along with other stakeholders. There is no reason we need to finance the projects we are doing business with. We can pay them at the time they provide the benefits, or after. That is a common, normal way of doing business. It happens all the time almost everywhere. In my opinion, the Masternode network need to stop playing banker. We are obviously not very good at it, judging by the Schrems, the Swanns, the bitcarts, the air races, MMA fights, conferences at strip clubs, the numerous other projects that failed or disappointed.

We need to end Pay and Pray. We should be building a community of developer/entrepreneurs, not a mob of promise-breaking hucksters and dreamers wishing to get Dash to finance their unsustainable, money-sucking adventures. The few good projects just don't seem to be worth the unintentional negative advertising campaign of the losers.

I disagree on several points :

# Masternode oweners are not customers, they are longterm investors.
# If we stop financing the projects we do business by providing seed money, the grassroot movements in Venezuela and Colombia and similiar countries in the future will stop as they will lack funding to start conferences, meetings etc.
#if we require developers to bring in their own financing or risk their own capital, we would loose a lot of valuable skilled developers.
#your so called pray and pay is actually doing little wonders right now in the third world countries by attracting new users, merchants, increasing our Dash transactions and providing name branch regnonition.

I think it will be difficult to sustain our efforts in Venezuela and other regions without sufficient new or increased investment from investors and speculators. We only have roughly 6800 Dash to distribute each month to DCG, Dash Nexus, Dash Force, Dash Watch, Dash Central, the embassies in Europe and Asia, ALL of South America, ALL of Africa, Bitgo, anypay, Alt36, all integrations, All development and all marketing. Where is that investment going to come from? The segment of the investor community that both thinks saving the third world from hyperinflation is a good business model and ALSO hasn't already invested in Dash? How big do you think that segment is? How big could it possibly be?

I have long been a fan of developing an RFP (Request For Proposal) feature, AKA a bounty system for the Dash Treasury, whereby the Masternode community can request specific items, features, software, whatever. This is a significant difference from our current system where we vote up or down on whatever walks in the door this month.

But there are a number of non-trivial technical problems that prevent us from just waving a magic wand and poof, having an RFP or Bounty feature. My impression among the community is overwhelmingly in favor of changes along this line. But, so far as I can tell, this proposal doesn't actually solve any of the technical problems. Show me a specific novel technical solution to the problems which you and I have discussed, and I will happily vote yes. Until then, still a no.

With regards to your larger question, do I want the Dash Treasury funds spent more effectively? Absolutely. But you have to show me how you are going to accomplish that.

Respectfully,
solarguy

Thanks for your comment. The guys at Dash Nexus are working very hard on RFP and related improvements, but in our opinion these improvements are only part of the solution. An important part, but the general thinking of the Treasury as PRIMARILY a source for seed funding is a big mistake. MNOs are customers of Proposal Owners as much as financiers. We need to think of ourselves as customers more, in my opinion. Financing is available many places, but who else buys the contributions that make Dash function and grow, if not MNOs? We are customers, but we seem to use our funds more for placing bets than paying bills. That is in my view and the view of many many critics unsustainable. That which is unsustainable will not be sustained. Either we fix this ourselves, or the market will likely force it upon us at some point. I am fighting for an orderly transition. The transition will come in my view one way or another.

Some context seems to be missing. Who are you and what do you plan to do based on the results?

Do you represent Dash Core and will this affect future development focus?
Do you plan to put in a future proposal based on the voting results?
Do you just hope that someone will see the voting results and act accordingly?

I'm not sure what personal info you want. I'm a 48 year old full time investor living in Louisiana. I've been in Crypto since 2011 and Dash since last year. I'm really hoping this prop wouldn't be about me. I'm just a guy who wants Dash to be the best it can be, and I think this "Pay and Pray" funding model is getting in the way.

1. I represent only myself, the people who contributed to the wording and funding of this prop, and I guess now the people voting in favor to some degree. 2. If successful, I will reuse the prop fee to attempt a treasury reward for measured, observable results. 3. I do hope, but I don't just hope. I have reason to believe that the vote results will be a signal that will mean more to some than others. As there are more non-investors in Dash than investors, with more discretionary money to contribute, I expect the impact will be larger there, despite the medium of the message.

Who exactly are "the people that contributed to the wording and funding of this prop" ?

I'm not at liberty to say. Going against the status quo can sometimes provoke hostility.

I suggest someone makes a specific detailed plan for a bounty funding mechanism from the tresury. That is needed and would be a great improvement.

Thank you for the proposal. I have gone with Abstain for the simple reason the budget is very full at the moment and a vote for "lets improve things" seems like a waste of 5 Dash at this time. Also, more specifics would have been nice.

I apologize for not having more specifics, but without knowing the degree of support MNOs have for attempted improvements, I don't know how ambitious of an effort is appropriate. My normal method of operation is to conduct small experiments and scale up if they work. In this case that would mean floating a proposal to compensate an unpaid or underpaid person or group for starters. There are many, such as Eric Sammons who runs dashvotetracker.com which he built himself on his own dime and continues to maintain with no help from the treasury. I hope however this vote turns out that we can show Eric and others like him the gratitude they deserve. Thanks for your comment.

With all due respect, this is basically a non-proposal, and in my opinion a waste of the treasury mechanism.

You may not be considering the potential investors who could be watching. If you are too busy wasting money to address a spending problem then you shouldn't be surprised if those investors stay away. With all due respect.

It's seriously doubtful that a serious investor is waiting for exactly this proposal to dive right in. Anyone can, in the vaguest terms, say "we should spend money on projects that deliver ROI," which no one would reasonably disagree with, and yet provide zero in the way of concrete proposals on how to change this.

Serious investors won't be impressed by someone proposing that other people do something unspecific about maximizing ROI for Dash, while taking zero personal responsibility for effecting this change himself. In fact, my money is on smart investors seeing proposals like this as a sign that the network is too amateurish and immature to be taken seriously, and consequently staying away.

Please stop chasing away investors, sir.

Your opinion is noted. Thanks. I'm looking forward to your proposal so you can show me how to do this better.

Sure, I will: I'll vote for projects that provide measurable solutions to growing Dash, with proven results in the past. There's plenty of options this month, thankfully.

The wisdom of your past decisions and those of the other MNOs are reflected in current Dash trading price.

Pure speculation with no factual basis. Remember What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen and don't fall for the broken window fallacy. Also, you're condemning your own self by blindly blaming all MNOs for what you perceive to be misplaced votes. Who voted for which bad proposal? Who has been a masternode operator for long enough to be blamed?

This gets to the heart of this proposal's problem: price-related dissatisfaction blamed on an unfocused "masternodes screwed up in the past" idea, with a similarly unfocused "let's just fund things that deliver results and the price will go up" solution, with no details and no follow-through. I would suggest coming up with something more complete and informed, and then you won't lose another five Dash without reason.

That is very shortsighted.

It does not really explain the adoption that is happening in Venezuela and Colombia, now does it ...

nor does it take into account the current 9 months bear market that hit all crypto markets.

Didn't hit all equally, however. Dash lost market rank as well as market cap, and underperformed many other coins with no treasury at all. These are not the only useful metrics to use, but it is a mistake to ignore them.

This Obstinate refusal of MNOs to see the mounting evidence that this "Pay and Pray" funding model is a FATAL flaw that will doom Dash to irrelevance if not corrected is taking a toll on my health and sanity. In my opinion, and the opinion of crypto experts such as Tone Vays, this model is UNSUSTAINABLE. That which is unsustainable WILL NOT be sustained.

You quoted Tone Vays, a known Dash hater who called it a "scam," as an authority? It seems to me that you made a mistake in your investment, and if it's taking a toll on your health and sanity I think you seem to agree. I'm sorry. I don't think anyone will judge you if you walk away from Dash.

The validity of claims are independent of the person making them. Why would Vays hate dash? Why would anybody? Paying before work is done is less likely to produce the desired work than paying after in most cases. That is why it is the most common way of paying in the world. Few people get a paycheck on the first day of work, but almost all Treasury recipients do and it's not some great leap of logic to think is has something to do with why Evolution is taking so long and why so many projects produce disappointing results.

This is the guy you are defending right now :

https://bitconnect.co/bitcoin-news/490/bitconnecting-with-tone-vays-evan-duffield-dash-is-just-a-scammer

I'm not defending anyone. I'm discussing a funding model that needs improvement. The biggest army of haters in the world couldn't stop Dash if we had a sustainable funding model.

Wow, did someone just waved their magic wand and turned billy into a troll ? So Dash is doomed, Tone Vays is an expert and masternode owners that voted no on this very very vague polling proposal are all just an obstinate bunch of people ?

Interesting...

Forget about the troll part, but i do think you are letting your emotions cloud your justgement right now and that you perhaps misread this community, when you played with the idea of creating this polling proposal.

Also be informed that Tone Vays has been dishing on Dash a long time now. He is not an export with regards to Dash, nor its budget system.

Forgive me for my frustration. To me this is an obvious fix and I am confused as to why it is not obvious to everyone. Just stop paying for stuff before you get it so much. These projects that vanish or disappoint over and over don't seem so surprising to me. MNOs are acting like Charlie Brown thinking Lucy will let him kick the football this time. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I don't see an obvious fix here. I see a desire to make it better, which is....nice I guess. But show me the actual fix. solarguy

This is a non question.

Do we want better ? Do we want more a efficiency and effectiveness n which treasury funds are awarded.

DUH ! Yes !

Without giving a choice how to improve this.
You may as well ask people if they want free money

This proposal is a waist of funds and time.
You should have donated the 5 Dash to one of the underfunded projects instead.

Are you saying my this 5 dash proposal to address a spending problem might interfere with spending? That's kind of the idea.

I think I agree with this enough to the point where I will vote for it - but in the off-chance that this 5-dash makes or breaks another proposal near the end of the cycle, I will switch my vote to no.

Thanks! If this discussion is carried over to the next budget cycle, that would not be in my view a totally bad thing. I don't think there are going to be any easy fixes, but as long as there is observable meaningful progress, I'm ok with that and I suspect the market will be ok with that too. I know you're not claiming that we're too broke to discuss how we spend our money. That would be silly.

These topics have been discussed and affirmed ad-nauseum, with teams in place actively working on implementing the infrastructure that would allow us to carry them out, so I'm not really sure why this was put up to proposal other than to commemorate this fact as a DGBB Letter of Intent or something...

At any rate, there probably won't be too many people that disagree with this, but at the same time, every Dash counts, so I'm abstaining until I know for sure we won't need that 5 Dash in some other proposal.

Have you considered the possibility that one of the reasons we have so little money to spend is because investors may have in certain circumstances thought that we haven't been spending as wisely as we could?

Yes, and I summarily rejected that possibility because it isn't the case, at least not for the most part. You continue to engage in post-hoc fallacious thinking. As I said, most of us do not disagree with the implicit premises of this proposal, so much so in fact that people set in motion the plans to implement aspects of it and began work on such even before you became a MNO. I'm still not really sure what the purpose of the proposal is other than to self-center a topic that is widely discussed among many.

Well, clearly we disagree on the importance of reassuring investors that we will cut enough IF required to ensure Evolution comes out. Of course there remains the possibility that we may NOT cut enough, in which case the outcome of this proposal vote may indeed have significant relevant bearing to investors, myself being an example. Thank you for your continued discussion.

I would like to see a switch to a more technical type of proposals, I think one of the reasons for DASH relevance to diminish is the lack of engineering power in the community. I would be more confident if beside Core we can have a truly descentralized community of the protocol.

in a pay-for-performance model, Developers projects may have an advantage over marketing projects because devs can build and submit their contributions without permission. Both developers and marketers would be entrepreneurs risking their own capital to serve the customer, which would be the network. Many types of develope projects require less startup capital, so there lays the possible advantage.

May i suggest next time someone creates a polling proposal, they do that at the start of the voting period. 8 days left to vote is not exactly at the start...

Now with regards to the actual polling proposal, which i summarized for myself as follows : do you commit or re-affirm your commitment to improving the Dash funding model, while understanding the possible yes outcome will not be endorsed or enforced ?

First of all i'm not ready to make above commitment right now. Also i'm not convinced yet that this polling proposal tackles the shortcomings of our Dash budget system, as its currently the view of just one community member. I want to see a lot more discussion first, so i can see other people's opinion about this matter.

So consider me "abstain" for now, with a leniency towards no.

Thanks for your response. The current trading price is in the low $140s and I don't believe there is any time to lose in attempting to reassure investors that we recognize this as an important issue and we are working on it, if in fact enough of us are so that those investors can reasonably expect meaningful improvements. Obviously you have every right to feel differently. I appreciate your consideration.

Weird that you find our current trading price more valuable then providing masternode owners the time to discuss this polling proposal in details.

A draft of this proposal was up on the dash.org forum for a week. I wish as you apparently do that someone would have done this or something similar earlier, but nobody did. Unfortunately I can't do anything about that. The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago. The next best time is today, right?

I just read that draft (pls link to it in this polling proposal) and i came across the following post from you there :

"My plan? if this passes, continue to make small experiments and to scale up when they work and to support anyone else working to fix this problem. If this or other or better decision proposals DON'T pass, then the plan is to reduce my exposure to Dash, as in start selling my MNO service rewards and stop recommending it so enthusiastically to others and eventually if nothing is done look for a better project."

Basicly this polling proposal is all or nothing for you?

The point is that it doesn't have to be my ideas that work, but it has to be somebody's ideas, and it has to be soon enough that investors aren't lured away to other projects. Different people have different time horizons, but few if any have infinite horizons, so there is some measure of urgency.

i'm sorry but i disagree with your stated "measure of urgency", our longterm investors are growing by the day (we just had a new ATH of active masternodes) and adoption is growing under both merchants and users. I really dont see the urgency of having to improve our budget system under such vague terms and in such a short time frame.

I'm starting to feel you started this polling proposal out of anxiety and fear over the Dash price under this tough bear market. Which is the wrong reason to start a polling proposal on such an important topic.

I decided to vote no.

hmmm interesting

Dash's time frame is not dictated by me, you or the people who I am very grateful have contributed to the wording and the fee of this proposal. It is dictated by our ability to obtain and maintain funding for vital operations and improvements. I agree that Dash is doing many wonderful things. Dash is the best crypto project In my opinion or I wouldn't be here, but it may not remain that way if we don't constantly strive to improve. Thank you for voting in a way you believe is in the best interests of Dash.

I'm getting curious : who exactly are "the people that contributed to the wording and fee of this proposal" ?

I believe you are in the right direction and yes, I would like to see more funding allocated to pay those who have already contributed and/or us be doing RFPs, hopefully Nexus can help us with that.

Voting NO, for now, because I am not convinced spending treasure funds to answer questions is a good use of resources. I understand others disagree with me. I am planning to think more about it and may change my mind.

Thanks for your consideration. I am encouraged that you think we are headed in the right direction.