Thanks for laying out your reasoning Matai. This is exactly how good decisions are made. It’s far easier to vote without explaining yourself, so I can tell from your effort here that you care deeply this.
I must admit I’m surprised to see you go 100% Reject. That says to me you see absolutely nothing of value in this proposal. I thought I had some sense of what you valued, but now I’m left wondering what (if any) version of the NAP would you support at all?
A few thoughts:
Impact
Three of your eight concerns mention lack of impact or pursuing growth over impact. I’m really confused by this. @savkruger has done a great job documented the impact the NAP has had:
- on the Campfire podcast
- in her monthly updates
- in her reflection post
- in the Supernuclear newsletter
If you want primary sources, here are some:
- @Dahveed on twitter
- @KathiInPorto on twitter
- @bethanymarz in her newsletter (one, two)
- @ChristineU on the blog
You can also look at the Celebrating Wins chat, the discord, or ask the NAP participants directly.
If this is not your idea of impact, then what are you looking for?
That said, I do agree with you that focusing solely on growth is a mistake, and I’m sure Savannah does too. We would much rather have a few dozen amazing neighborhoods than hundreds of lackluster ones.
But growth over impact is not what’s going on here. To me it seems clear that the NAP is already having a very positive impact, and it’s now time to offer that to more people. Growth and depth go hand in hand for the NAP. The fact is that we cannot know in advance which neighborhoods will flourish. No matter how hard Savannah tries, she does not have direct control over outcomes — she can only guide and support stewards in their own work. And even with their best intentions, it doesn’t always work out. Sometimes life gets in the way. So to have more thriving neighborhoods, we need more neighborhoods total.
Passing proposals in silos
I share this concern too. Savannah’s work is somewhat intertwined with mine and @jon’s. I sometimes think a single proposal that encapsulates all our work would be a better way of understanding and funding it.
On the other hand, one of your concerns is decentralization and power hierarchies. Cabin Labs already takes up too much of the space in Cabin (relatively speaking). From that perspective, doing multiple individual proposals is better. It creates the norm that not all work is done through Cabin Labs, makes it easier for others to contribute to the DAO, and allows for more dissenting opinions.
Would love to hear your suggestion on what alternate proposal-making structure would best balance these concerns.
What’s next
I love seeing the What’s Next section. It’s easy to reject others’ ideas and much harder to offer a different vision. I firmly believe that the best way to criticize is to propose a concrete alternative. Thanks for taking the time to do that.
This feels like the start of a proposal. But the devil is in the details, and I would love to see your fully fleshed-out version of it. Right now I’m left wondering how this would look in practice. Most of all, I’m curious what metrics you think are most important and how you’d measure impact.
A competing proposal would be a big help to our collective decisionmaking process. Right now Cabin is basically deciding between the Cabin Labs vision or no vision at all, and “A or not A” is the worst way to choose. Picking between “A or B” would help us make a much better decision.