I am grateful for Adam's proposal which encouraged discussion and clarification. Any discussion is good if it is not taken personally. Having business development in such an open form like within this forum is a game changer in terms of transparency but also a challenge as people have to change their perspectives a bit:
(1) You can not expect the ready made products like you can expect with closed development
(2) It is natural that proposals, time tables and other plans are not perfect because they are in development
(3) The community which is involved in this open development has to lower its need for unified consensus because everything is discussed openly and it is impossible that all agree.
Having to lower expectations for a uniform consensus doesn't mean to give up on it. The opposite is true. The most effective way is to acknowledge the valid points other's make and emphasize the consensus and the dissent alike.
If people expect full consensus or expect to always get approval of their proposals everyone tends to highlight the dissent. This is a challenge for everyone's character and part of the bigger process of shaking of the total guidance of individuals by society/by an outside force. This is what societies had to learn when "democracy" / freedom of speech was introduced to the political realm (this challenge is not that present in the US because the US had more or less always freedom of speech (at least compared to European monarchies...).
A discussion culture that allows to efficiently work together in the presence of dissent might be something that has to be learned within businesses that have open development and community involvement. This doesn't mean I3 can not improve on their communication with the community and on involving the community (!) and might be well adviced to not develope
everything openly to not disappoint people. Overall though open development might have some positive implications for efficiency. I wrote about this here
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3099.msg39175#msg39175 I could not agree more with Stan on that all is a balance and that if one thing is perfect a lot of others would be inferior. So one of these conflicting oppositions CAN BE open development (as described above with its ad- and disadvantages) and leadership / effective decision making; less of an opposition though if people acknowledge the realities of open development (see above). I think it is a fact (correct me on that if applicable) that I3 produces decentralized solutions as a centralized entity. Altough I3 is being driven by community contributions/discussions a lot more than any centralized entity I can think of; the Bitcoin Foundation and all (?) altcoin developers are also a centralized entities; a centralised entity is an entity making decisions finally by their own judgement rather than having a fully democratic stakeholder vote on every decision.
Decentralization is a huge buzz word within the crypto community and for a good reason as it is a central part of the consensus/blockchain technology. The decentralization part is not what makes the consensus technology more efficient, it makes it trustless. With the goal of getting to the best DACs as fast as possible we have the same trade off again. If you opt for complete trustlessness you opt for a free DAC market like we have it right now (the altcoin market with a lot of pointless DACs. I am not making the point of abolishing this market!!). A less trustless and less democratic solution is to give someone control over your funds which has a better judgement than the average investor (and possible also a better judgement than yourself) plus can make use of the donations to offer legal consulting and his own technical consulting (by employing developers that make everyday development tasks which gives him time for technical consulting in the case of I3 / Daniel) and other services which have to be purchased just once or are relatively easily reproducible plus will actively attracted DAC proposals and non crypto players to get consulting. This of course is not a political decision that is forced on the market as a whole. Anybody can contribute funds (AGS/PTS in our case) if he trusts the model described above.
There are ad- and disadvantages of the (de)centralisation of decision making in terms of efficiency:
[Application in mind for the following description: Deciding which DAC proposals qualifies for I3 consulting/support. A totally centralized model regarding regarding judgement would be: I3 decides. A totally decentralized model would be: Stakeholders decide depending on their stake size. But this is transferable to all decisions made regarding the utilization of AGS]
The advantages of centralized decision making are:
(1) An individual or group with an understanding of the matter that is above the stakeholder group average can be chosen by the majority.
(2) The individual/committee can go through the material more in depth than every single stakeholder could by himself. If all stakeholders would go through the material with the same depth the system as a whole would consume a lot of time. More likely is that the whole group would research the topic less in depth which results in a lower quality of decisions.
The disadvantages of centralisation of decision power in terms of efficiency are:
(1) Many different perspectives are a plus for making a good decision.
(2) You have to trust the individual / commitee to not run away with your donations, put into their own pockets or get hammered the night before the shark tank event etc.
Overall the decision whether to opt for more trustlessness respectively control of your stakeholdervote or for more efficiency depends on the application and whether interests are aligned. I am not proposing that one thing is better than another by default. But for our case I think having I3 decide how to utilize AGS donations is in the best interest of all. Although there would lots of room for the ulilization of skills and efforts comming from the community. But WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HERE is a discussion that is aware of the trade of character of a lot of things.
A DIFFERENT MODEL FOR ACCESSING DACs than the shark tank model would be to have a community vote by stake size where stakeholders can vote or not vote. A yes is a vote for the DAC being incutated, a no is a vote against the DAC being incubated. A "not vote" is not a no but is given as a vote to either I3 / Daniel or a group that would be elected by all stakeholders (could be I3 again if that is the vote). I actually think the shark tank model is better but this could be an add on for daily business as opposed to the event character of the shark tank model. The shark tank model also creates publicity which is a plus. The partly stakeholder voting system would encourage discussion which in return could also help I3.
I would like to encourage everyone to discuss this without being biased just by seeing the word centralization not having a negative connotation. Centralization and decentralization should not be a fashion and not a goal in itself. Decentralization as a goal in itself would be highly missleading and dangerous to the degree that it prevents people from thinking THEMSELFES about the mechanics of things which again lets others exploit those mechanics. Two examples (reading through it again I see these examples are not perfect but also not totally bad): MMC advertised its DAC/coin through "decentralizing business administration decisions" which surely sucked some people in that believed in decentralization as an end in itself applicable to every problem. An opposing example is: Any charismatic leader that advertised the centralization of power, culture and worldview as a goal in itself. Those ends in itself (ideologies) give you a warm feeling because it is simplifying the judgement of the world and it frees you from thinking on your own but it is dangerous. I am not saying that either the MMC creator or some charismatic leader acts knowing that it won't work. Regarding the MMC example: I didnt look into it too closely and decentralising decision power might even work depending on a lot of things. The point I wanted to make with this example is that judging on whether (de)centralization is a good idea or not solely because society which produces fashions and 'narratives that are a solution to EVERY problem' tells you so is missleading and possibly dangerous.
I value Adam highly as a member of this community and believe and hope he keeps contributing under the the conditions of open development. Again I think I3's decision making is far more open to comunity contribution than others. The solution is TO KEEP ON STRIVING FOR UNITY AND COLLABORATIVE CONTRIBUTION ACCEPTING YOU WILL NEVER REACH TOTAL CONSENSUS OR TOTAL ACCEPTENCE OF YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS.
love and peace
*BA in the title is Business Administration
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