The xGov Council: Shaping the future of xGov

I agree with council needs to be running their own node, node running is a very important part of being a member of the network.

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I am fine with KYC to Algo Foundation (as it’s clearly necessary in the event of any compensation). However, I do not think the “publicly doxxed” element is unnecessary and will keep people from participating (myself included).

There are many reasons why a person would want to stay pseudonymous and not want their name (which immediately makes other personal information a Google search away) tied to their online identity.

One only needs to look at the grief that Aaron Bumgarner has caused to certain people in our community to see some examples (from calling people’s work to try to get them fired, threatening lawsuits, publishing personal details including photos of family members, to thinly veiled threats of physical violence).

This is even more problematic when proposing a doxxed wallet in connection with a doxxed person. Knowledge that a specific identifiable person holds crypto can make them a target for crime, in the form of both cyber attacks and physical violence. Broadcasting that a person holds a specific amount in a specific wallet makes that even more dangerous.

Basically, I am struggling to see what practical benefit a “publicly doxxed” element adds beyond the AF KYC requirement and why that benefit outweighs the costs.

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Doxxing seems like a reasonable way to keep people accountable. Also helps everyone understand the reviewers experience, skills, biases, and conflicts of interest.

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I believe this needs to be structured into verticals of expertise like tools, wallets, defi, onboarding etc. This allows for better reviews of the proposal and help distribute the load better.

Council members should be able to submit proposals. If you’re asking some of the best builders to spend time reviewing for the ecosystem, it hampers their ability to improve the chain as well.

The council should also be able to post bounties to fill areas of the eco they feel are needed.

Last thing: we shouldn’t require people be publicly doxxed.

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I support the first point. We need experts from a diverse background including management so that a well rounded discussion can happen.

I have a difference in the second point. Best builders (most of them) are part of a team. There are very less devs who are working independent. If they have a proposal, another team member can propose. Having a seat on the council and having a proposal will not be good for xGov program in long run

I strongly agree with GhostOfMcAfee’s opinion regarding the handling of personal information.

If the purpose is to instill a sense of responsibility in council members, personal information should be submitted only to the foundation and should not be made public.

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Once again, all depends on the use case…

If the use case is few anonymous people (with little verification) to reject grants for others then the anonymity is probably ok.

If you want to do real expert algorand committee that would approve/veto the direction where algorand is headed or can publicly tell that for example we need to take over the source code of the algorand protocol from centralized entity, then its quite crucial to know who the people are… Lets say John also have public name in the game, so does Staci and other AF employees…

But real question is what is this xgov council going to do… If it is just for grant why call it xgov council? why do you need to have the xgov (expert governor) in the name for the grants program? Call it public grants program. You may get even better awarenence from people who are seeking grants which will lead to better competition and better final products. People will understand perhaps that this public grant program is just the 5% of the AF expanses and will not chill against the projects that gets publicly some money.

Is algorand governance going to be in long term replacement of the management body of the AF, or are we just playing the governance to tell people look we have governance in place, but in reality you run the corporate model (CEO,CTO,CFO,CMO without governnace elections)

While doxxing can help people evaluate things like credentials, it’s not a necessary component.

A person that otherwise is not known to the community who claims to be some cryptographic genius may find that voluntarily doxxing helps their chances.

But, for those whose actions and history in the community speak for themselves, it adds nothing. I didn’t need to know D13’s name to know he is a wizard and a good guy. And knowing his name would add nothing to my calculus of whether he would be a competent xGov Council member.

Nor do I see that it adds much to accountability, unless “being held accountable” means the type of harassment I mentioned. Can you give a specific example of how you see this aiding accountability?

For example, if the reviewer works for a business built on Algorand, producing a conflict of interests that biases their reviews in-favor or against certain projects.

I don’t feel strongly pro doxxing, but it seems reasonable. Crypto is a hellhole of scams and manipulation, so we should aim for transparency wherever we can.

One more thought, without doxxing, the same person with 2 identities can get elected twice.