Well, Stan introduced a new role that wasn't part of this discussion but it boils down to:
1) Who runs nodes and includes transactions (block producers) which should be elected and have no other roles and how much do they get paid for this one role (just enough to cover costs)
2) Who (if anyone) gets paid, how much, for how long, and how much vesting, and with what priority given a defined maximum budget of 5 BTS / sec for all spending
3) Who gets to set block chain parameters (fees, block sizes, block producer pay, maintenance collateral requirements, vesting terms, referral program parameters, etc)
Answer is these roles are all separate and individually voted on.
Thanks for that Dan, it helps. Would you please label the roles and associate them with the functions they perform? I've seen the term worker used, but that is vague and could apply to all roles. I used manager, assuming a team lead position which you have now dispelled by saying all of the roles are voted into place. Presumably all of these roles are called delegates?
Does a vesting period apply to all of the roles? It doesn't seem to make sense for the block signers if they are only being reimbursed for server costs, nor does that seem reasonable to me. I know you've said the nodes "pretty much run themselves once setup", but that doesn't reduce the time to maintain a delegate node to zero. Besides, in my experience over the last 3 months it's consumed a significant amount of time, far from the claim it runs itself with minimal investments of time.
Stan used "workers, signers & knob turners", just to confuse things even more.
You also said you didn't think these new roles would have much of an impact on existing delegates. The discussion hasn't even addressed cases like Riverhead who acts as the technical arm of several delegates. Will he be paid and voted into place independently for each (worker?) he supports? What about structure / rules to insure a good measure of reliability and decentralization? What about qualifications to roles?
I think any serious proposal should spell out in detail the before and after effects it will have on our existing way of doing things, nominations, delegate fees (the same for all roles?), voting, pay, whether delegate teams will be allowed etc etc. It's not a trivial undertaking to accomplish and get done before the 1.0 release along with everything else. I feel this is a major discussion that cuts to the heart of DPoS, and it needs to be refined and solidified prior to 1.0. The good news is that as far as anyone knows, the date for when 1.0 goes into the wild is not yet public. With topics like this still under heavy discussion, that's a good thing indeed, as it allows time to hammer out these fundamental changes we're discussing.
I am curious why you think it's necessary for all of these roles to be voted into place separately and would like to hear your perspective on that. I also think the point Ander raised about the complexity of our ecosystem and effect on voter apathy should not be discounted.
I do agree the delegate structure needs improvement and that should be done prior to releasing 1.0. So this discussion is on target IMO.