IMO it is the lack of people on this forum that makes it a poor platform/strategy to present million dollar proposals.
Lets face it this forum lacks traffic and honestly it lacks an infux of punters.
Albeit the much welcomed enthusiasm and energy that those already posting contribute.
Dan
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Yes, would be nice to have more people on forum, but I guess most are on other medias rather than in forum.
Anyways, any entity deciding what to fund needs a proper technical view also, IMO @kodtycoon will be providing this on behalf of NEM technologies and thus makes him proper candidate for this proposal. There could be another technical person also. Other people suggested for candidates also seem to be in order, at least for told qualifications. It is important to look projects from all aspects, not just from financial side - thus not all candidates need VC experience.
4th and 5th candidates will make a difference how the NEM VC is going to be perceived. I hope you will find excellent and fair candidates to present for us. IMO these other candidates can balance what are now perceived as unbalances. I assume that NEM foundation personnel will check backgrounds of this proposals backgrounds? If NEM foundation (or similar entity) sends a green signal for trustee candidates it should be taken as token of trust for candidates.
All-in-all, big kudos for making this proposal and trying to get NEM community forward even with disagreeing voices! IMO all this word-acrobatics is unnecessary until 4th and 5th candidates are introduced.
Disclaimer: I am just voicing my opinions as myself, no affiliations to anything or anyone.
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So far NCF proposals needed a place where the people can read it. Keep in mind those projects where promoted in different channels with more traffic than here, but at the end, only the people interested took a moment to read the WP, provide feedback and vote. As I know more NEM community members are in Telegram, twitter, here and others in reddit or other channels.
Not everybody are interested in read proposals or voting. So I’m not sure if the problem is the forum itself or just the lack of interest.
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I’m glad to see somebody has spent the time to at least take a look at these three proposed general partners’ background. Thanks @Lionheart of your investigative due diligence work. It would indeed be laughable for NEM Foundation to hand over $10 million to these three stooges with zero credibility to manage the money and be in charge of the selections and review of the applicant companies, including somebody who has not even finished a high school degree.
@kodtycoon got himself this job at NCF and tried to bring in the two others now to review the companies before they even staged this coup to hi-jack the NCF. Our company was unfortunately one of those victims they had experimented with together with a few of those so-called “volunteers” such as @leoinker who has zero qualifications in terms of education or work experience but craves to obtain a job from Kailin’s new VC scheme. Likely another person without a high school degree. This person has also even made us to do some song and dance from an assumed fake authority in our company’s NCF review committee. We feel like a fool now that we know what kind of person he really is.
What is it with the NEM management? How could these crooks got so far so quickly to this stage? They are making decisions for the NEM Foundation now. They appointed themselves the general partner roles and had already arbitrarily shut down the entire NCF process in order to get themselves funded with the lavish $875,000 budget and try to call the shots on how the NCF money is going to be spent in the future.
Not only this proposal needs to be scratched and the voting disallowed. These people will have to be removed from the gate keeper roles at the current NCF management immediately if the NCF is going to resume its operations in the same way it has been doing before.
These crooks are really treating the NEMbers like idiots and trying to take us to the cleaners. I have put in a significant investment before in XEM for the love of NEM. I had also devoted our company’s entire future on NEM to build our own applications on it. We use the NEM logos everywhere in our company image with pride. I just can not sit there and watch this kind of management incompetence or corruption going on at the NCF.
For all that matters, my only financial interest in this now is the XEM holding I have like the majority of all the other NEMbers. As for our company, after these people have wasted months of our precious time and efforts to make us jump through hoops after hoops, we have lost faith in the current form of the NCF management under these crooks and we are no longer interested in seeking to get the NCF grant or any funding from the future NEM VC run by these crooks if it ever materializes.
We continue to be proud of being a NEMber and love the networks of all the NEM communities around the world but these crooks at NCF will have to go. They have to stay far away from getting into any management positions at NEM immediately.
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with our NEM Foundation’s Community Fund
Not sure what you are referring to here. Foundation, by charter, is not allowed to have any influence on the disbursements from the community fund.
We the NEM community members have no any other NCF-turning-VC project alternatives to consider and vote for.
Feel free to propose any alternatives that address (1) current months long backlog, (2) lack of resources for proper vetting or proposals, and (3) lack of sustainability of funds.
What kind of democracy is this?
The change is up for a vote. It is not a dictate. You are free to vote no if you feel strongly against it. Not sure why you think voting is undemocratic.
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you forgot problems with sensible evaluation and verification of milestones…
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This is what NCF needs! Much better solution! Well done!
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It is not that we do not know the details of this process Jaguar. It is not as simple as you put it in these few sentences.
We ourselves have been going through the entire process from a to z for months, having satisfied all the requirements and jumped through all the hoops. There were only about 3 or 4 other applicants in the NEM Main Forum at the time. Then on the eve of that weekend our voting campaign was supposed to launch, we were suddenly informed that everything should be on hold because there would be new guidelines. We held our horses and jumped through another numerous hoops. That may be the time when Kailin got the job at NCF.
Then weeks later, we were informed that we were number 2 in the line under the new guidelines. Sernez was number one in the line and there might be another handful other applicants in line under the new guidelines. Kailin then started asking us to make drastic changes to our milestones. We complied diligently. Kailin then claimed he was busy traveling and had no time to review our revisions. Until today there had not been any response on what we revised for him to answer his request. Leon started to make us jump through even more hoops. Another one or two weeks past.
Then came this sudden NEM VC Incorporation as Kailin’s personal project to take over the NCF funding process and immediately stopped all other applicants without any legitimate response or a proper voting process to stop the pending applications. Isn’t this a hi-jack of the entire NCF process for personal gains?
What was the real cause of the application backlogs based on the experience I described above that we have had with NCF since March? Isn’t that a man-made phenomenon to purposely ignore them and try to stop them? Did these hundreds of new applicant backlogs they claimed NCF has now just emerged since two weeks ago? Us included?
The undemocratic part is that they stopped the existing process at the expense of all other applicants who have put in months of work without voting. Instead of doing the work the he was hired to do at NCF, Kailin put himself as the only running candidate with his new outside friends from Solo Energy to seek $875,000 annual budget for themselves from NCF funding now.
Nobody else can go to the voting to get to the NCF funding. Only Kailin’s proposal is allowed to seek voting at the moment. I would really like to find out who gave him the authority to make this decision at NCF? Can you help us find that out?
Is anything I described above new to you? Please kindly do not confuse the need to fix NCF and this current proposal by these totally unqualified people to use this opportunity and his crony influence to enrich themselves under the disguise of a grandiose cause of revamping NCF.
Please feel free to let me know your thoughts and suggestions. Thank you.
Interesting thread, any clarity on the questions below …
Will this new proposal of managing the funds remove all community voting for approvals going forward?
Or is the NEM Ventures coming in after community voting/approvals to manage expectations/milestones/payouts etc?
The different funding tiers seems to imply community vote is only for 1 funding tier 50 - 750k and no other voting is required for the other tiers.
This new proposal seeks to manage a portion of the NCF, what happens to the other chunk of funds and who manages that?
Seems the vote is for the change of governance of the NCF fund through NEM Ventures AND the initial funding of $875k for year 1? Who approves the funding in year 2 and beyond?
Will the trustees also be put to a community vote as well?
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I think it’s really a shame that you got so personal in your attacks since you have raised a couple of interesting points. I don’t expect the team to answer them all directly when they are busy defending themselves from your other character based accusations. One of the better points being: can the VC team show the community any evidence of the consensus on the proposal that they have achieved behind closed doors.
On the one hand, the NCF is pretty much a black box to outsiders and when you see conversations like this, you have to wonder how much the power is concentrated in the hands of a few. On the other, if this really was a coup and not supported by the NEM organisation, there would likely be high ranking NEMbers in here supporting the opinions of @Lionheart and @Mulechain and furthermore, the proposal would never make it through a vote. Look at the voting outcome of GreeOx. Whales came out and used their very powerful votes to squash the proposal, even in the face of apparent popular support. Absolutely, the whales will be watching this and they will crush this too if has not come about from an internal consensus. This isn’t a certainty, but a pretty reasonable assumption.
Also I don’t really understand you accusing the Nem Ventures team of having no VC experience. Aside from their advertised experience (which has been been called into question in the thread), they at least have the work they have done at NEM. You, as the CEO of a logistics project, leading a team with no logistics experience, surely you must think it is a possibility to learn the ropes as you go.
I don’t intend to use this as an attack on your project, or you, but this is one part of the benefits of blockchain. Namely, the money that has been raised to be invested into people and teams that are capable of thinking outside the box. FedEx are never going to launch something like Mulechain, it needs a team of diverse backgrounds to develop these new solutions. For NemVentures, they are not running an investment fund. They do not need to balance their portfolio or generate annual returns for investors. They actually don’t need a strong finance background for this. What they need is a diverse range of experience and analytical skills, as well as a strong pool of advisers to draw upon.
This thread should be more focused on discussing the details of the proposal, such as are there caps for compensation for the team, or the idea introducing an annual public vote to maintain funding for NEM Ventures. You’ve said your piece, let’s move on.
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Give me a break Andrew. Let’s stop pretending and acting like no ethics have been broken in their conducts and in their intention to privatize the power to the management of NCF going forward. Let’s take off everybody’s mask to start talking like a human being on an equal basis. We started treating Leon like a decent professional and answered his request on our project on a professional basis and little did I know he is simply a person with no job, no income and no education or any other qualifications but acting as a volunteer to waste everybody’s time on their projects and doing active comments on other people’s blogging all day long. Regarding Kailin I happened to be the one person who interacted with him closely since February leading to his current NEM VC project now. I witnessed every step of the way and suffered deeply from his characters and behavior during this time.
My role now is not to win popularity contest through any voting anymore since they themselves have killed the NCF already anyway but rather to do my part as a concerned XEM holder to report what exactly has happened to these people who want to take a public good into a private interest and how they got here. Shame on you to try to make it as though I have to apologize by being personal simply because I laid out exactly what had happened in our own experience to let the NEM communities to become adequately informed. What is the reason you wanted to silence me so that the communities would not know what had happened?
If you continue to pretend that characters and ethics are not important to decide whether to let certain people to handle public money then I would have to ask you to either come down your high horses or to come out to the lime light to show us what you have been doing professionally in your life before so that we could understand who you really are and what makes you to make these naive comments. I do not want another episode like what Leon played on us before to make us do song and dance. Please show us your qualifications to offer some credibility please.
Outside of this thread or outside of the NEM environment, no matter what you say, you will be able to find very few people who would not laugh at you if you want to play dumb to let somebody without a high school degree to handle not just $10 million to invest but also to control the future of the entire NCF.
The analogy you made are apples to oranges. Perhaps you really don’t have any knowledge on what a VC or a banker does. The point is, why would we need to turn a decentralized vote based community system back to a VC controlled by a few individuals? Especially when these individuals clearly do not have the qualifications to do so. Are you really asking everybody to play dumb like you did?
What was the initial purpose of NCF to help build a great XEM eco-system? Do you think by simply turning NCF to become a VC in the hands of some crony individuals will automatically make more money for NCF? What kind of projects do you think will end up coming to NCF for VC money? Most likely those who have no credibility, no business value, no hope, outcasts and rejects by the outside VC world would end up here, and most likely, funded through their crony connections with the general partners.
If the general partners (GPs) of the NEM VC have no credibility or qualifications themselves, how can they attract the top quality start-ups to come here?
As I have said over again above, whether NCF to go VC could be one vote. Who gets to be the GPs to manage the fund and build credibility for us should definitely not be lumped into the same vote. It should have its own separate voting from a few carefully selected credible candidates. That is how we could avoid cronyism here at the NEM Community.
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Thanks @corporal_clegg, we are trying very hard to ignore the incessant attacks, drivel and all caps posts in order to focus on valid discussion points and appreciate the support in trying to bring that focus.
If any of the points you mentioned have been brought up and we haven’t covered, they will have been lost in the noise - very happy for you to re-ask stuff we have missed at any stage and we will aim to provide as full an answer as possible.
To that end - if anyone wishes to discuss any questions in private, directly with us without fear of being made a target for this nonsense by airing genuine questions, do please feel free to message any of the team directly and we are happy to discuss directly if you feel it is easier for you.
As you rightly mention and was alluded to by @Jaguar0625 above, there has been no coup or dictate, a proposal has been put forward. We believe the proposal will help bring transparency, governance, legal entities, a positive return and viable projects to NEM by building on the good work the NCF has been doing but that has become difficult to manage.
There has been no coup because this is a proposal that requires public support in the form of a vote. The 10 day pause in reviews while this is discussed, in the scheme of things, doesn’t seem a particularly long period.
Discussion has occurred with various senior individuals prior to bringing this for public comment, including said 10 day pause, if they wish to speak out they are free to do so, however I do not intend to put anyone in the line of scatter gun fire this thread is drawing by removing that choice from them.
The team has sufficient and varied experience to manage this proposal, the notes highlighted in bold earlier are lies in various cases and people are free to check our profiles as listed in the proposal to form their own views. Shouting lies as fact, does not make them truth, it just makes them loudly shouted lies. As has been mentioned previously - where necessary, legal advice will be taken in relation to some of these in due course.
The proposal is not a traditional VC and frankly the team would have significantly less interest if it were, the three objectives are far more interesting than an unrelenting focus on profit. Where there are areas that support would be beneficial, we have reached out to relevant senior people who are interested to support this, IF the NEM community commits to it. If not they have several other offers most of the time and naturally are getting less keen to be involved in this the more unprofessional certain parties become. Frankly I’m glad we haven’t put their names into this cesspit as they are valued friends and colleagues of ours who I don’t with to expose to what is essentially Troll behaviour.
To respond on a point raised earlier @leoinker is not named in the proposal and is not part of the Ventures team, otherwise would have been named as the rest of us has been. The comments of support he makes are as a member of the NEM community, a volunteer on the NCF committee and an individual. The level of disrespect shown to him is unwarranted, unjustified and unbecoming of someone who wishes to be member of the community. The committee members are and will continue the good work done to date by managing the funding for projects that have been previously approved. Several members are naturally likely to be interested in assisting NEM Ventures since this is an area they have all been passionate about or would not have volunteered their time - that collaboration will be welcomed gladly and similarly we have said several times we are very happy to support the ongoing processes if the committee wishes to draw on that support.
As has been stated on two occasions already, anyone is free to propose a solution and always have been, there is a problem let’s get on with trying to fix it for the good of all XEM holders and the community in general.
This is a further attempt to be constructive, I’m fully expecting a further barrage of nonsense we will keep trying to work constructively around it.
Hi guys,
I have read all above comments and have thought about it a lot.
Firstly we must recognize that there is a backlog of funding proposals and this needs to be resolved quickly. The lead developer indicates this.
Kailin has already been a big part of the proposal process and has done a great job up till now. Its not his fault that there is exponential interest in funding proposals and he is seriously addressing the issue of backlog.
Obviously people need proper renumeration for doing this very important job. I dont see anybody else taking up the baton with any initiatives. I have known kailin from before Nem actually when he was enthusiastic about NXT and then wisely directed himself to NEM like so many of us. He has done massive amounts of work already on NEM with no payment whatsoever so I wont let his character be bashed by some here.
I have looked at the qualifications of those involved and I have not been convinced that they are UNDERqualified. Im not one of those that goes by the mainstream criteria for suitability as it is invariably wrong anyway. I would rather have a committed NEMBER anyday of the week to some disinterested so called professional.
The project is requiring around 10 million dollars which is about one third of the total community fund. In my opinion this is a worthwhile risk. Even if it was a complete disaster we would still have enough Xem to continue on as before albeit very slowly. On the upside if this project does well it will serve to completely put the whole NEM project on a trajectory upwards.
We cant stand still guys, we have proven NEM people trying to take us forward…its not a time to be taking a negative attitude…sure there is a need for trust…but there is an element of trust in everything…
I will be voting FOR the project !!!
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I do think that having to go through the community vote again every year to retain funding is a fair request. This is a huge thing to sign off on with just one team. It seems to me an unnecessary risk to take with the fund. Even apart from protecting the fund from human error, it would create an appropriate incentive structure to keep the Nem Ventures accountable to the community.
It always amuses me that most posters on here spruking the goodness of Nem more than often have their finger in a funding proposal pie…(umm yes of course Nem is the best as long as it throws a cool million your way).
Is this what Nem has come to?
Hence my criticism of the forum or lack of as a platform, there appears to be very few community voices here to at least state the obvious.
Dan
Well I support the idea and I’m not in a funding proposal pie…
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We ourselves have been going through the entire process from a to z for months…
I am not involved with evaluating any community fund proposals, so I cannot comment on that process in general or your specific experience with that process.
What was the real cause of the application backlogs
The community fund is run and managed by volunteers unaffiliated with NEM Foundation. My understanding is that are only a few active volunteers and they could not keep up with all the applications.
The undemocratic part is that they stopped the existing process at the expense of all other applicants
My understanding is that this was approved by the NCF committee, which is composed of volunteers.
Someone involved with the NCF committee can comment on the correctness of my understanding above.
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Hi @corporal_clegg, i like that idea and i’m sure we can look at how we can include it. But there are some practical challenges we need to address in order to incorporate the idea:
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If Nem Ventures has existing obligations and liabilities, and approval were denied, it would essentially result in a vote of no confidence, which is fine for removing the mgmt or stopping the fund, but the obligations and commitments would still exist without anyone in place to manage them, go to board meetings in investment companies, offload equity positions if needs be etc. We could request the trustees to step in but there is a risk that they may not have time right when its needed and it could be a problem for portfolio companies etc. There would need to be some kind of SoP put in place in that instance. Any ideas on how to get around this?
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The trustees would have legal control of the funds, so the vote would be largely symbolic, like a non-binding national referendum. We can write it into the articles at the time of inception and indicate the intent to manage the case in which the community loses faith in the management team, but ultimately if the trustees decided not to accept the vote result, legally its unlikely it would be binding. This one concerns me less as the trustees would impictly be trusted members of the community, so it is likely that similar to a non-binding referendum that the leadership would accept the guidance and enact the communities wishes.
It is a really good idea and we are keen to integrate it, open to ideas if you have any idea on how? We may need to agree in principle in the interim and then seek guidance from the audit/governance advisors planned in Q1 for exactly how we can make it a reality it but happy to discuss further and see if we can come up with something in the next few days.
Its intended to release accounts and progress reports to the trustees quarterly in order to continue operations and continue to secure investment and operational budgets, while an annual audit will be performed, summarised and released to the community as well, which would be a logical addition to a public vote if we can include it in a fitting way with the planned governance structure.
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Kailin?
Hi, well for the first point, there could be an exit plan in the case of a vote of no confidence, so the fund could be reduced only to a few key members who would be kept on salary to manage the investments but without access to future funds to continue to invest.
- This does concern me. I don’t have any faith in politicians haha. How are the trustees to be appointed then? It’s interesting, I was explaining this situation to my wife today (trying to train her on blockchain for MarginX) and she asked me how this is different from EOS consensus. Now I realize she was right on point. You have a typical byzantine generals problem here. With those resources, it would be simple to overwhelm the NEM community and have them agree with any appointments made to the board of trustees. It could even be benevolent at first but get out of hand via human error. Whether it is likely or not based on the character of the people taking the office doesn’t matter, security flaws are security flaws. The fund shouldn’t be open to that risk. I will need to think a bit more on a solution for this, unless you have one already.