2018 NEM Foundation elections

Announcements
#1

Notice is hereby given that the 2018 NEM Foundation elections will take place on Friday, December 7th, 2018 with the purpose of electing the new Executive Committee (ExCo) and new Council Members of the NEM Foundation.

You can find a detailed overview of all the information in the following NEM Official Medium article: https://medium.com/@nemofficial/194b2dc2b350

This thread can be used in case of questions. Note: The NEM team will answer questions as quickly as possible but not always immediately.

Helpful links:

Elections Guide Blog: https://medium.com/nemofficial/guide-to-the-2018-nem-council-elections-194b2dc2b350

Agrello website: https://www.agrello.io/

Agrello ID in Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.agrello.agrelloid.android&hl=en_US

Agrello ID in iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agrello-id/id1337675165?mt=8

NEM Foundation Membership: https://nem.io/about/foundation/individual/

Candidate Policy Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BU2LexEeK3QAj6_Q-N0uMYAf-aIKZrLT-l7Jkzpc6L0/edit?usp=sharing

On behalf of the NEM Foundation, we want to thank you for your support, your participation and for helping us build a better and stronger Foundation.

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Foundation FAQ (Core Dev Perspective)
#2
#3

To start the questions:

  1. will the vote be measured by PoI, or every vote will be of same importance?
  2. What is the purpose of membership fee? How will it be used?
  3. How long is the voting cycle (when is the next vote)
  4. What is the salary of council members and commitee / are there any benefits?
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#4

Solid questions.

#5
  1. will the vote be measured by PoI, or every vote will be of same importance?

Every vote will be treated equal. Individual members will get one vote for each position. Corporate members have five votes for each position as defined in the constitution. This setup was defined when the foundation was established.

  1. What is the purpose of membership fee? How will it be used?

Again , this was how it was foreseen when the foundation was established. The main reason to actually implement it is to prevent manipulation of the elections. If there would be no membership fee it would be easy to motivate random people that don’t care about NEM to become member and let them vote. At least with the membership fee there is a barrier that should make it more difficult to manipulate the elections.
How the fees will be used has not been discussed yet.

  1. How long is the voting cycle (when is the next vote)

Each term lasts 2 years. The next term will start Jan 2019 and will last till Dec 2021.

  1. What is the salary of council members and commitee / are there any benefits?

I’ll get back on this later.

#6

What are the high level expected responsibilities of the Council members ?

#7

Will this budget be public and voted by members?
What will be the new benefits of new members?
One benefit could be to get free testnet XEM to accelerate adoption of NEM blockchain in proofs of concept.
Free certifications.
Free online trainings.

The problem many times is not the fee itself, but the destination of this fees. As a non profit org, it would be very ethical to publish balances (done, they are public in blockchain), use these XEMs to support other projects in XEMs only, and let members vote some of the proposals for this funds (work to do).

#8

While planning the election did you discuss a minimal amount of XEM each foundation member has to hold in order to be able to vote?

Its good that there is a annual fee, but i think that alone is a too low entrance point. There wont be ten thousands of people voting so its not that expensive to buy a majority of votes.

#9

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So as a whole ( by means of quorum ) the council can take decisions.
In practice this means the council may vote on certain strategic and some operational decisions.

More info can be found in the Constitutions and By-laws which will be provided (by email ) upon membership approval.

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#10

I realised I made a mistake with the number of votes for corporate members.
Corporate members have two votes in stead of five.

Sorry for the confusion !

#11

Budgets can be made public but that’s a decision that would have to be made by either the council or ExCo. In any case financial statements will be made available to all members during the AGM since this is a legal requirement.

By default the members do not have the power to vote on budgets.

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#12

The planning took into account being in compliance with the Constitution and By-laws as they were drafted upon establishment of the foundation.

The annual fee was foreseen at that time but no other mechanisms were/are in place.As the elections had to take place before the end of the year there was little time to explore additional mechanisms.

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#13

Still no response here

#14

Maybe I’m wrong but existing Council members are receiving a salary as a employees of the NF. (Some of them are Head or regions) but not because they are Council members.
I expect no salary for new council members, same as other organizations out there.

#15

I will get the response when we have had a proper discussion with the council on this.
Until now there has not been a proper discussion about this. I’ll remind everyone.

#16

What is the current funding of the NEM Foundation in XEM & USD?

#17

Who is the election commissioner?
Who are the members who manage elections?
Why are there so few preparation periods?

#18

I think it’s better to use the POI to weight the voting as it has been done in the past rather than paying a yearly fee. Paying to vote is open to corruption of the vote. Or grant votes based on how long XEM has been held and POI. Open to discussion.

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#19

PoI in fact means that we have to stake some XEMs, but to transfer XEMs to some address to vote, is a corruption in itself.
To have the collateral in XEMs would be ok, but we are mixing different things, IMHO they have messed up.

Voting is one thing, paying fees to be a member is another.
If voting is available only for members and it is written in the foundation rules, ok, but telling people that to vote you have to pay, … I think it is not the correct strategy.

#20

The fees for membership are in the NEM foundation bylaws. As such they cannot be changes UNTIL a new council/exco is elected and goes through the process of changing them. Verified votes for Council/exco positions are only permitted by verified members. Hands are tied by the bylaws. That’s why its so important to vote to change it!