Curator volunteers

[nvmr]

I'm doing the jump. And I suggest everyone reading this to at least to consider doing likewise.

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Dear Curators,

accepting Stephan Tual's challenge I'm stepping forward and hereby volunteer to serve as curator signatory to the DAO.

Why?

TheDAO is a big deal. What this community has already achieved is mindboggling, no less the achievements of those who came before: Ethereum, Bitcoin, OSS and many others. Now I want to contribute to give something back and help cultivate the thing we have created.

I'm conscious that performing duties as curator is a considerable committment in time and it will also expose me to personal risk by being a somewhat public figure in the community.

Both individual time demand and risk will decrease as we get more curators on board and that only works when people step forward. You, the "genesis" curators took the first step, now it's time to follow up.

About me

My name is Andreas Raab. I am a German citizen living and working in the Lake Geneva region in Switzerland. My professional background is Computer Science and for the last 20 years I have been working in IT Professional Services. Linkedin.

In 2011 I discovered Bitcoin and consider the blockchain one of the most significant inventions ever made. I backed the Ethereum crowd funding campaign because I think it's a sound concept and one can see that the Ethereum team delivers solid thinking and engineering.

I am also involved as a volunteer in MassChallenge, an accelerator and mentoring program for startups.

Pros

• Degree in Computer Science (1996)
• Up to the task even using the rudimentary tools we have today
• Hand-on experience on both sides of the table in Client-Supplier relationship with its contract types and processes (RFI, RFP, WTO tenders)
• Experience in working with large organizations (yes, this is relevant because the DAO already is a large organization)
• Willing to spend time and some ether (for gas) to fulfil the duties as a curator
• I want this DAO to succeed because I believe it is one more step on the path to something far greater in the future (not quite like in Daniel Suarez's 'Demon' novel, though)
• Brave enough to test uncharted waters and expose myself

Cons

• I am a European middle class white male with academic background and not in the habit to apologize for belonging to this demographic group. That said, I welcome diversity.
• Would want some mentoring by a "seasoned" curator initially
• I am a DAO token holder in case anyone would consider this a potential conflict of interest (I don't.)
• Not part of any cryptocurrency in-group. You may of course also count this as 'pro' point.

Account: 0xd9d95cbbf8ee45191176f73afaac4d70121c14e6
Proof of control: http://etherscan.io/tx/0xddbb9e74f31d7126ecad6a3123a7ea8e1e87b97c7483bf8054f34f1eb5ee4233

You are welcome to get in touch with me personally. In fact, I would expect that to happen as part of your due diligence in case you consider adding me. For example to challenge me to prove that I in fact control the account above.

[Xeno]

You've got my support.

Not because of any of your qualifications or experience, but because of your general persona. I frequently witness you providing the priceless service of level-headed, calm discussion and debate, something that isn't held in high enough of a regard it seems.

I'd apply myself if I wasn't insecure about a lack of formal, relevant 'training'. But you succeed at the traits I'm willing to bring, so this is the next best thing

[nvmr]

Thank you for the thumbs up, @Xeno.

I'd apply myself if I wasn't insecure about a lack of formal, relevant 'training'.

If that is the only thing holding you back, I encourage you to apply!

Why?
Yes, it is very important that you are competent in order to perform your duties and currently that requires a fairly deep affinity to technology because the tools we use are still in an early stage of development.

But:
A crude state of technology didn't prevent Bertha Benz from driving over land from pharmacy to pharmacy in one of the first automobiles. Technology will become less intimidating over time as tools are made better and you are learning more.

We have a very helpful and welcoming community.

Also, the curator role is not set in stone. It will likely change, so will the abilities needed to fill it responsibly. That means everybody needs to keep learning all the time, including existing curators.

Lastly, formal training is no substitute for good judgement, but people with good judgement is what we need to make this amazing experiment a success.

[Xeno]

Agreed.

Without hijacking your thread, I will keep it in mind and judge myself on how I am judged by the community. If I see my input is perceived as valid and my constant surveying and lurking serves me well, I'll think about applying.

Good luck with your application!

[Nink]

Question why do we need more curators. We now have 12. Wouldn't a better method be as Curators fail to contribute anything of value they leave and eventually we get down to say 3 or 4 and then we decide if we even need the role. Is the workload to big for 12 curators that it requires another curator.

[nvmr]

Reasons I see to have more than a handful of curators:

1. Fairer distribution of workload as long as curators are not paid. (I personally believe we should not pay them)

2. Reduce the attack surface. Someone might seek to influence individual curators to manipulate a decision in their favor. Bribes, threats, coercion, blackmail, you name it. When we are more people this type of attack becomes more expensive and thus harder.

3. Reduce the effect from individual curators silently dropping out temporarily or permanently for whatever reason. Today there is even a significant risk for the DAO to become dysfunctional following a catastrophic event, say many curators are at the same conference and a natural disaster strikes.

One could argue that the best number of curators is zero and we should come up with a better way to carry out their current function. I would second that, but on the condition that a superior governance system has emerged.

Replacing a flawed governance with no governance at all and hoping for the best would be not advisable in my opinion.

Now obviously the next questions are how many curators should there be and what is the best threshold for the multisig. Sorry, I have no answer to either of these questions.

[ranford]

agree with all your points, and strongly support your addition

[Hibryda]

You have my sword .

[iamtrillion]

i would support your bid, because i have valued your responses to a lot of the prospective proposals i have reviewed, and you have asked quite a number of pertinent questions,
question about ether plan $5m cap, was a good catch :).

[perry]

I support it as well.

[ranford]

I would just like to add that in light of recent statements by curators, especially Gustav, I feel we need to rapidly identify a solution to remove the need for any centralization such as having curators at all. till then its a necessity I know have to live with, and support your nomination. I would like to ask you though to uphold the original intended scope of curators, encourage other curators to do so as well, and watch for any scope creep on the curator role.

Im hoping to hear ideas about how to eliminate need for curators, a couple of thoughts:
1. If there is a filter of proposals before we need curators to check for whitelisting the reduced workload will help.
2. Maybe a bug bounty / automated auction for doing the validation check with details, maybe some mechanical turk type crowd sourcing.
3. definitely any curator role should be paid

[duniter]

You will have my support too.

[perry]

Could you point me to what statements you're referring to?

And in regards to ending the curator role or at least making it more decentralized maybe we could have a website with mechanical turk-ish front end and whatever needs to be white listed/approved will appear as tasks, this way risk between all the curators is mitigated and as well as the work load.