Welcome!

This is a 1-time, 1-DASH proposal with a voting deadline of January 19th. 2025 (not the upcoming December superblock). 

Background

Last month AJ, a.k.a. coolaj86 and digitalcashdev (DCD) submitted 3 proposals to fund the development of new open source tooling (see the list below).  The common thread in each of these proposals is to help web developers understand and use protocol-level features of the Dash network.  The tools are designed to make several core features of Dash accessible from standard browsers, which can help with both general education and production applications.

Most community members and MNOs have expressed support for these proposals, some have expressed concern, and yet others have said that they don't have the technical background to evaluate them well enough.  The nature of technical proposals is that some people have to trust third parties to evaluate technical claims.  A few days before the voting deadline last month, Sam, a.k.a. quantum_explorer made a comment on proposal 3 from the list below.  To address the issue I invited both AJ and Sam to join our recent Incubator Weekly episode.  Regrettably, I let the conversation stray too far from the technical merits of the proposal.  I take responsibility, and apologize for letting personal attacks detract from the proposal's important substance. 

I hope that the community, MNOs in particular, can forgive my and AJ's shortcomings and reconsider their votes on AJ's proposals.  It seems many no votes could have been cast in opposition to how the conversation ran rather than the technical merits of the proposal(s), and justifiably so.  I'm asking MNOs to reconsider their votes.  I'm hoping to see AJ funded, because I know how important it is to have excellent tools for web devs to learn about and use Dash and Dash Platform. 

Purpose for this proposal

With that background understood, the purpose of this proposal is to move beyond the personal drama and focus on what needs to be done in order for Dash to succeed.  I'm confident that AJ can help Dash significantly; we need his expertise.  So I put up this proposal to ask MNOs to please keep him funded and working on important developer tooling and products. 

More specifically, this proposal serves two main purposes: 

A) To update MNOs about AJ's three (3) existing development proposals (see Commitment section below), and ask you to consider voting yes on them if you haven't already:

  1. Develop P2P and ZMQ Protocol Explorers
  2. Develop Web Wallet-Path Explorer
  3. Develop Web SDK - Platform Identities & Explorer Web App

B) To ask if MNOs would like AJ (@coolaj86) to continue to propose development work for Dash in general.

Regarding A, as stated, I highly value and support the work that AJ has proposed, and I hope votes will flip from no and abstain to yes.  

Regarding B, there may be some MNOs who want AJ to continue working on and for Dash, but believe that these particular 3 proposals are a net negative to Dash on technical merits.  I'm asking them to vote yes on this proposal so that AJ and I know that he/we should find other more valuable projects to propose.

Commitment

• AJ will start working on each of the 3 proposals as each of them enters passing criteria.  He is happy to start working on them before the voting period ends, before the proposals pay out.
• AJ will make his best effort to bring each passing proposal to a minimum viable product with just 1 of the original 2 payments.
• AJ and I will increase our efforts to work collaboratively, and focus on technical professionalism over non-technical disagreements.  

Vote Interpretation

Votes will be interpreted as follows:

Votes for each/any of AJ's three existing proposals (purpose A):

• Yes - You like the proposal's technical merits (scope, cost, etc.).
• No - You don't like the proposal's technical merits (please comment on other proposals for feedback). 
• Abstain - Any other reason (please comment on other proposals for feedback)

Votes for this proposal (purpose B):

• Yes - You want AJ to continue submitting Dash development proposals, even if you don't support any of his existing proposals.
• No - You don't want AJ to continue proposing Dash development proposals (please comment here for feedback).
• Abstain - Any other reason (please comment here for feedback).
  

Combined interpretation

• If all proposals end with a no vote, it will be hard for AJ (and I to some degree) to continue working with Dash.
  
• If you vote no on AJ's proposals, but yes on this proposal, please comment to let us know what you would like him to research and propose.  We are happy to lead with our own strategies and proposals, but direction and feedback help.

Conclusion

AJ and I both see huge potential in Dash.  We want to achieve that potential.  We both feel strongly that serving web developers is key to unlocking Dash's success.  Each of AJ's proposals are trying to achieve that vision.   We hope the Dash community believes, as we do, that this is a winning strategy.

Note that AJ was aware of the key points of my proposal before I submitted it, but I did not consult him about the details.  He can comment on anything he would like to disagree with or refine.

Many thanks,

Rion