But does that definitely mean that a POI vote is against the by-laws? The by-laws as quoted by r3n3 don’t state in which form the vote should happen…
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after reading jaguars post here (The Foundation "Bylaws") i assume you didnt wanted to vote to allow PoI for election-voting in the bylaws? Or did you not know that the bylaws can be changed with a special resolution?
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NEM blockchain during this election registration process. There are lots of way how to start this investigation, but i’ve chosen the best one. During this investigation I’m going to use 3 parameters: Block ID (time).
I am writing this statement in response to the questions raised in the NEM community about the PoI vote and why it wasn’t used in the 2018 elections.
A few months ago, when the planning for the elections started, a list of members was shared with the Council. This list included names of over 600 individuals, of which over 60% were from the same nationality. As members are instrumental in the elections, this raised lots of concerns in many of the Council members. Some Council members (including me) questioned the legitimacy of these members, as the Council was never made aware of who they were while each membership application was supposed to be subject to approval by the Council. However, it was also out of the question to just reject these applications and have the elections with only the 14 founding members.
Discussions followed to find an amicable solution. Even the core developers and Jeff and Lon were included. One side of the Council wanted to hold on to these over 600 members, while the other side didn’t find this membership base acceptable, as the Foundation would have had to find approximately 20 000 new members in a very short time to make the membership base fairly distributed around the world. Several suggestions to find common ground were made, including a PoI vote (suggested by me on July 3rd following several discussions with Kristof), in which every XEM holder would have been able to vote. With PoI vote, there would have been very little or no issue with the membership base. A PoI vote may have had required an amendment to the current bylaws (if every XEM holder was to be included, not just members), which is why nearly every Council member’s support was required. Sadly, this suggestion was rejected or ignored.
The discussions went on and on, and it became clear that either side wouldn’t get what they wanted. The compromise was to not approve the approximately 600 membership applications, but to leave their membership status as ‘pending’, while re-opening the membership to all people, and emailing every past applicant to finish their membership application process, as the membership application process was initially foreseen ( or as close as it was to ). This way there was at least a chance for a fair election.
Niko Mäenpää
Council member and a founding member of the NEM.io Foundation
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So how’s the distribution now in terms of geography ? Is it any more balanced ?
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Thanks for your statement and the insights 
why was the PoI suggestion rejected or ignored?
isnt it a bit shady that bylaws were changed, over 70 members had their vote sponsored and some council voted against poi voting. its easy to think its all connected and planned by the same group.
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I am also interested in this.
Would be interesting to see of we can have a report based on member tally from which countries. I think due to KYC this would be easily possible.
Seriously, thanks for the information. A lot of the issues these day was due to lack of communication and information, now it is improving. Thanks for stepping up to the plate.
Thank you for statement.
I would also like to know what the reasons were why the other council members rejected PoI. I hope each of them will issue a statement and give their position on this.
And I agree with Biocrypt’s post that it does look very strange, that PoI was rejected, the registration phase was only about a week, and there are a large number of sponsored memberships. I’m not saying there is malicious intent but it is … suspicious.
Like Jaguar already posted in another thread:
The bylaws can be changed with a 75% council majority and HAVE been changed for this election process. So the bylaws are not an excuse for this anymore because if the council would have been willing then PoI could have been used. So certain council members must have blocked it because of … reasons.
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But how can you join an foundation if we don’t even know the constitution or bylaws (not related to you, Rene, but in general ) ? Only after I know a constitution or bylaws, I can decide whether I want to enter at all.
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Community has no business in this unless they are members of the foundation. There was an open call for members and the subscription was pathetic. There should not be arm chair critics. If all those who commented are members, then it is all good, otherwise there is no point in making something heard if one is not a member.
A foundation premise on one member one vote. All members pay 500 xem to have their voice equally heard. If poi is to be initiated, then members should pay differing fees, just the same.
so screw everyone who doesn’t want to pay 500 xem and handover a lot of demographic details, none of which are the foundations business ?
it’s this kind of arrogance that has everyone up in arms you know. I know you don’t care and frankly I don’t either. You’re just personally pissing me off Lon.
With all due respect Lon, but the registration numbers are pathetic, because it was open for only 1 week. The election guidelines were only released on Oct 31st and deadline was Nov 7th. It’s the foundation’s fault, that there aren’t many registered voters. The guidelines should have been released at least 2 month prior and so should have been the registration period.
What if people were on vacation or didn’t have time? Sorry but this is seriously a joke.
Also to blatanly disregard the community only because they didn’t sign up in maybe even purpously short registration period and with a deeply flawed election process, where you are required to give your personal information to an unknown estonian startup, is pretty disrespectful and doesn’t acknowledge the big mistakes the foundation made on this.
The foundation got a mandate from the community and should work for the community. Not for it’s own sake.
Many community members, among them a lot of original stakeholders, are pretty angry at this process right now. Not only how it was handled but also the responses we get to our critizism. Either no responses, deflections, or now in your case disrespect.
Great.
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aka business as usual at the nem foundation…
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Well said.
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Yes, cant understand the short time-frame to register.
I missed the deadline so am unable to vote in the elections…
Really hope these elections change the face/direction of the NF
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what exactly is the purpose of being a member? other than voting on foundation appointments.
should the foundation not represent the community?
Very well said.
Lon your complete arrogance at this whole situation is disgusting, I have not seen a single credible explanation from any of the foundation as to why this was chosen, saying it ‘isn’t community business’ just makes it clear what everyone already knows - that the foundation is 100% interested in only serving itself NOT the mandate it was designed to deliver.
I totally agree that the deadline for registrations and the discussions around them were pathetic, by the time I even noticed this I was basically at the deadline (and couldn’t register anyway because of the KYC requirements and my ID being unavailable due to procuring visas).
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It is not about complete arrogance. It is about merely stating a fact. It is about how an organisation is run and about how the matters of an organisation should be managed and abided by based on a set of rules. If the constitution and by laws are for show, then, why should there be an organisation?
The numbers are pathetic and I am frustrated because, during my tenure, I had open up for membership and encouraged everyone to join, promoted this throughout, and even allowed membership subscription to be free for one year.
Nobody was interested, and I had about close to 600 members of which they were approved and given memberships.
These people were rejected by the current council after I left, giving the excuse that they did not see those members, did not approve of their memberships and they were not privy to it, which was utter rubbish.
They did not reject of their memberships either and did not bother to ask for the list. They simply did not care.
Time and again, i have encouraged people to be a member so that their voices can be heard.
Shouting profanities and calling me arrogant won’t help. But the reality is that I am talking about the forest ahead of us.
I am also not protecting the council members for whatever they are, just merely stating a fact. In fact, I have been very vocal against what the council has been doing and no one bothered in the council what has been said by me and continued to do their own things to suit themselves. I have been diplomatic not to bring this matter to the public about the toxicity of the foundation in the nearly 8 months since I have left them.
This whole thing is so bad, to the point that nobody trusts no one and everyone seems to want to exert their expert opinion.
My resentment is on both sides of the divide (foundation and community) who are simply making demands that are not going anywhere. Both sides think their right but both sides forget that whatever it is, the by laws should be protected with sanctity and abided by.
The foundation is a legitimate representation of the community. The foundation should be patronized by the community, but much of the community chose not to but want to make decisions for the foundation. They are not willing to shed their anonymity but at the same time they want a say.
If you think it is the voice of arrogance, then so be it. But the reality is that this is not going anywhere. Too much emotions, too little rationale. If my voice is seen as an expression of arrogance, I should think that it is time to really call it a day, not show any more interest at all, don’t care anymore and declare my official dissociation from the matters of nem and walk.
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