[Season 3] Reduce Membership Threshold

As someone who has been working hard to get to L1 and the goal being so close, (less then 7k BANK to go) I feel like the amount for L1 could be reduced, but maybe not to 10k. I will continue to earn bank and won’t feel like my goal hasn’t been met even if it is lowered. I’m proud to have earned it 10k or 35k.

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Hey hey i totally agree with everything you say.

I’m gonna say it in a cruder way.

I always felt that in the banklessDAO, there is the farmer class and the elite class.

The farmer class:
Work as a guest pass, put 101% into BanklessDAO, keep grinding and grinding. Initially, nothing happens for a long time, because we just don’t understand what’s going on. Suddenly, all the stars align, and the farmer suddenly learns how to write governance proposals, starts getting rained $BANKs, and suddenly has loads of $BANKs, and earns a contributor status. What we lack in money, we make up with blood, sweat and tears.

The elite class:
Whales up 35,000 BANKs or large innumerable amounts of BANKs, and enjoy member perks. And enjoy the nice parks and infrastructure and all the benefits of having the large bags. However, can be rather confused about how to further the DAO in a meaningful way. Most are happy to vote and participate and watch from the sidelines. And listen in. People in this class, don’t have to sell $BANKs to support a living. We just keep buying $BANKs and provide a liquid market to trade.
We are still very important people who continue to support the market liquidity, so that farmers can have a place to sell their tokens.

I can be crude, cos I do belong to both of these worlds. It’s nice to see how these “unspoken” classes actually mix.

Ultimately, I think it may be more beneficial as mentioned to clearly define the “tracks” and rename them to a better name than what i used. And definitely both of these tracks are important.

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Lots of great points have been made on this topic so far. I love @angyts comment. His point of the two classes was a better written explanation of what I was trying to say in the temp check proposal comments.

I strongly disagree with the argument that 35k BANK is fair/achievable by associating 35k BANK with 35 hours of compensated work. Regardless of what the default wage is…1000K per hour or 286, making “compensated work” the requirement doesn’t seem like the right measure. There are endless ways to deliver incredible value to this DAO, and not all of those ways are funded projects. Someone can spend months being heavily involved here and create significant impact without being on a funded project. If we all tracked 35 hours of work in general…not only compensated work…I’d be more supportive.

I also strongly disagree that the hourly wage should be proportionate to the threshold of BANK needed for membership, which is how the 286 number was arrived at. The hourly wage should be linked to the same things that determine a salary in the traditional world. If DAOs are the future of work, the wage needs to reflect that.

With all that said, I think the only way to solve this problem is to eliminate the BANK requirement for membership. Membership and benefits should be earned via nominations from your peers. Earned by the amount of value you provide to the DAO. Not how much you have in your bank account. Your earnings in the DAO (how much BANK you have) whether it’s bought or given by salary, is not equal to the value you provide because not all value given is paid.

Ironically, if I had to vote, I’m leaning towards keeping it at 35k. I’m still thinking. I want to understand the long term effects of dropping to 10k. For me, the potentially negative long term effects on the DAO are more important and significant than me being level 1. I want to think about what those long term effects could be before I vote. The only thing I’d like to be level 1 for is to have a leadership position. Other than that, I’m not really motivated to be level 1. I’m sure there are benefits I don’t know of that come with level 1. So maybe being aware of those might change that. But I just want to do great work. And I can do that regardless of my title or rank. And if there is a gate to do certain work based on your level, that gate should be opened by peer nomination, not by money.

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I second this and love how it’s explained.

I’d like to ask what’s the main purpose of reducing the membership threshold. Is it only to onboard more people? If so, are we looking to have more quantity than quality?

Personally, I really like how you have to work your way up and contribute in any way you can because it shows that you’re not only here for the money. We are building a future so different from what we’re used to, and we have to attract people who have similar values, drive and passion. I also do not really care if I’m level 1 or whatever, what I care the most is how we are moving forward, how we’re building it, and what kind of value we’re giving out to the world.

I also don’t understand why we have to reduce the threshold as we’re already proposing for guest pass members to receive coordinape, even from 500k to 1.5M BANK in S3. What are we really doing? Is this something we can sustain?

I’m voting to have it unchanged as I am more worried about the quality of people coming into Bankless.

In the previous proposal, having it unchanged was already voted for by the majority, so having this resubmitted again sounds to me that having the membership reduced is what you really want to go for - which is a little sad because it doesn’t seem like our decisions are respected.

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The above point needs to be amplified. Regardless if anyone here believes the threshold should be reduced or stayed the same, the community voice is the top priority.

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I’m also in full support of reducing the membership threshold in order to onbaord more users into the community!

We dont want to be a “boys club” we want fair and equitable access to financial services from all

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Hi all,

As a guest pass holder and DAO newbie. So far, here are the comments that have resonated with me:

  • @0x_Lucas’ point of “How to earn a Bankless DAO membership” guide - echoing @Nym’s point of “how the hell do I actually start accumulating BANK to become a ‘real’ member here”?
  • @Homeless’ point to automate and keep consistent the sweat equity to reach Level 1; and
  • @RunTheJewelz’s Questions for Discussion, especially “…some other onboarding operation create a clear path to BANK earnings”

Based on the above, I propose that each guild have a DAO Membership roadmap - to continue the First Quests onboarding and facilitate working + earning the value required to gain DAO membership.

If no path exists, then I’m in favour of a lower benchmark to become a member and understand these would require measures to manage the quality-quantity concern @Steff raised.

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Definitely a step in the right direction. Thanks for the initiative!

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I am strongly in favour of creating a relationship with amount of BANK needed to achieve L1 with hourly BANK rates

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I’ve changed my vote based on what @Steff and @ManuelMaccou have said. We’ve had more people vote to hold at 35,000 BANK in the S3 temp check than we’ve had vote on this proposal:
135 total voters * 65% voting to hold at 35,000 = 87.75 voters to hold at 35K > 77 voters on this proposal.

Overall, I’m seeing that whole guest pass/L1/L2 (contributor retention) system needs to be overhauled… I’m working on a forum post that addresses activating a team around a similar topic… My gut now tells me to hold at 35,000 for this season with the assumption that, by the end of S3, we’ll have a new proposed model.

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20,000 BANK seems fine to me.
35,000 BANK was a bit too much; I think it’s pretty clear why after we realise that not a single Guest-Pass made even close to 35k BANK in December Coordinape Round.
Edit: Yes, I do know that we’ll have another 150,000 BANK Coordinape round for guest passes in January.

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I think that it is better to introduce L0 membership level, that is between guest pass and L1, than to reduce membership threshold for L1
it is open to discussion what should be excluded from L1 level for L0 to be initialized

main argument for this is that we want to have members that are aligned with BanklessDAO strategy, and for that matter, one has to be invested in the project (held solid BANK amount, which 10k is not at the moment).

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That’s a great summary, I agree that we should have a contributor path and investor path within Bankless DAO.
And for the contributors as mentioned above by @Homeless and @Nym, there should be a clear pathway how to earn your membership by contributing to BanklessDAO. Within the Bankless Consulting practice, we have outlined a sponsorship process to become an “L2” - That means that any new contributor will need to find their sponsor within the consulting. And by helping with various tasks and contributing to the projects they earn their way to become “L2”.
This has 2 benefits - all contributors get’s almost immediately involved and they get mentoring from more experienced participants. That mentoring relationship can last forever and creates good working structures within the team.

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Hi all,

While I agree that we must continuously onboard new talent to prevent staleness and bring in new ideas, the challenge with this type of proposal is two fold:

firstly this assigns the cause of the issue as the threshold #$Bank as opposed for example to the way onboarding is currently organized and managed pushing the problem down the road; and secondly it is presented as binary all or nothing approach without considering alternative solutions : for example we could design an onboard pathway that contributes towards actual issues for the DAO that rewards $Bank to new talent programmatically so that it’s possible for new talent to deliver value and to accumulate the threshold $Bank. So for example they can see a path that shows if the contribute and complete the road map at the end of the season they will accumulate #$Bank 30k. (Example only).

While lowering the threshold $Bank will increase the DAO numbers , without changing something else there are just more people wandering around with less to do with preexisting unresolved DAO frictions.

This will also more likely than not dump enormous amounts of $Bank.

Further, as a matter of censorship resistant ideology, there was clearly a representation of significance that opposes this proposal. Period.

This renewed proposal does not outline the risk of members leaving the DAO outlined in the KeeperDAO white paper for example . So there are both ideological issues ie a small group will disregard the majority sentiment and re-jam a rejected idea hoping different persons are in the server in addition and above not addressing the preexisting operational frictions within the DAO.

Obviously I am disagreeing that lowering the threshold $Bank will be value accretive to the DAO.

My alternative proposal to respond to this proposal would be to create onboard maps that have rewards in them for delivering value that enable a new person to accumulate $BANK to reach the threshold and to keep spammers and out.

Our DAO is big and complex and pioneering and that comes with challenges that I recognize we are all trying to resolve. There will good ideas and better ideas and not so good ideas. It’s normal and expected. The explanation was not good enough the first time and it still is not.

I am open to and invite comments and welcome alternative views on the solution to getting $Bank in the hands of new members because that is how we tease out good solutions, but I do not support this proposal for a SECOND TIME.

well put question is how do we make both ends meet at the same time keeping both clusters happy?

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