Join the Consideration Advisory Board (CAB) community

A new beginning in improving Stacks blockchain in a decentralized way

1. Where does the CAB fit in the Stacks blockchain improvement process?

What is a Stacks Improvement Proposal (SIP)

Stacks Improvement Proposal (SIP) is a design document that provides information to the greater Stacks ecosystem's participants concerning the design of the Stacks blockchain and its ongoing operation.

What is the SIP Process

SIP Process facilitates the means by which SIPs may be: Proposed, vetted, edited, accepted, rejected, implemented, and ultimately incorporated into the Stacks blockchain's design, governance, and operational procedures.

*Consideration Advisory Boards (CABs) play a key role in the SIP process by providing their professional expertise to review the relevant SIPs before they are ratified and incorporated into the Stacks blockchain.

Currently there are 3 CABs officially activated:

• Governance

• Technical

• Economics

The other 2 not activated but on standby to offer any advice for the 3 activated CABs:

• Diversity (to-be-activated via another format in the SIP Process)

• Ethics (to-be-activated via another format SIP Process)

*More boards can be proposed and added following the SIP-000 process.

*Full SIP process workflow chart

In summary, these are the main steps of the SIP approval process:

• Anyone can submit a SIP document to change Stacks core

• SIP editors must pass the SIP

• CAB teams must review and Recommend

• Steering Committee must vote to approve

• The SIP's activation criteria must be met (some of which consensus breaking SIPs may require public voting from all Stacks community)

• Depending on the SIP, relevant stakeholders must recognize the SIP, which may involve upgrading to a new software version.

*If you would like to see the full detail please read SIP-000: https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/blob/main/sips/sip-000/sip-000-stacks-improvement-proposal-process.md

2. Consideration Advisory Boards’ goal, roles and responsibilities

Goal and purpose

• To provide greater vetting process from specific domain of expertise

• To provide Stacks ecosystem and community greater transparency and accountability 

Overview of a CAB board's role

• The roles of the Consideration Advisory Boards are to give Accepted SIPs a deep read, and provide expert feedback to the Steering Committee, author(s), as well as the greater Stacks community

• Transition Accepted SIPs to Recommended status if they meet the Board's consideration criteria, and Rejected status otherwise

Responsibilities as a CAB’s chairperson include:

• Maintain a list of members: Each Consideration Advisory Board shall appoint a chairperson. The chairperson shall be responsible for maintaining the Board’s public list of members’ names and contact information as a supplementary document to the SIP that the Steering Committee ratified to recognize the Board

• Point of contact: serve as the point of contact between the rest of the Board and the Steering Committee

• Copies of discussion: For transparency, maintaining copies of all CAB discussion and feedback on the SIPs under consideration, whether it be video recording of a meeting, group messages or other accepted documentation

Responsibilities as a CAB board include:

• Feedback: Each Consideration Advisory Board shall provide a full, fair, public, and timely evaluation of any Accepted-status SIP that lists the Board’s consideration in its preamble. The Board may decide to move each SIP to a Recommended status or a Rejected status based on whether or not the Board believes that the SIP is feasible, practical, and beneficial to the greater Stacks ecosystem. Any feedback created shall be made public. It is the responsibility of the Board to store and publish all feedback for the SIPs it reviews. It shall forward copies of this feedback to both the SIP authors

• Consultation with the Steering Committee: The Steering Committee may need to follow up with the Consideration Advisory Board in order to clarify its position or solicit its advice on a particular SIP. For example, the Steering Committee may determine that a Recommended SIP needs to be considered by one or more additional Boards that have not yet been consulted by the SIP authors. The Board shall respond to the Steering Committee’s request for advice in a timely manner, and shall prioritize feedback on SIPs that are under consideration for ratification

• SIP conversation engagement: actively engaging in relevant SIP conversations on Stacks Forum, SIP Github, Twitter, Discord’s #governance channel, etc, whether it be early stage SIP or later stage SIP

• Weekly SIP Call attendance: One member from each CAB to attend SIP call wherever possible

• Monthly Steering Committee update call attendance: All CAB members from all boards to attend monthly Steering Committee update call wherever possible, scheduled for the last Friday end of each month

Time commitment

• Estimated to be between 3 ~ 5 hours per month on average over time. Though it will depend on the number of SIPs coming through and the complexity. Some SIPs may require deeper read and more discussions, which can be more time consuming, whereas some SIPs are much simpler in nature. Some months may be quieter period, some months around major upgrades may require more coordination and time

3. Suggested requirements for a CAB Member:

• Established and trusted member of Stacks community who has been active in Stacks for at least 6 months+

• Sufficient domain expertise: members shall have sufficient domain expertise to provide the Steering Committee with feedback pertaining to a SIP's consideration

• Communication Skills: Members shall possess excellent written communication skills

• Code of Conduct: Good standing with the SIP Code of Conduct and in accordance with the individual Board’s bylaws

• Understands Stacks: members shall have sufficient understanding of Stacks community and technologies at least at an intermediate level

• Understands Bitcoin: members shall have sufficient understanding of Bitcoin and how it relates to Stacks at an intermediate level

4. Consideration Advisory Boards’ guide to publishing official SIP review commentary

• A member of the CAB to publish their official minutes and decision using this template https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/blob/main/considerations/minutes/TEMPLATE.md and file it under the corresponding https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/tree/main/considerations/minutes folder.

Steps to joining a CAB:

1. Read Review the contents of this document to ensure a full understanding of the duties entailed

2. Confirm with the SIP Resident or the Ecosystem Program Manager Jenny Mith you would like to contribute. We will give you recommendation on the process and suitability

3. Submit a CAB member request (Name, email and 50 words bio) as a Pull Request on GitHub under the board you are interested in: https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/tree/main/considerations, relevant personnel will review the submission accordingly.

Guide to complete this step here: https://app.sigle.io/herogamer.id.stx/07Y29YKGseE95r0IUGOqm

4. Join the #governance channel in Stacks discord server and your CAB DM group if there is one

5. Nominate a “chairperson” in your CAB group as per responsibilities described in this article

6. Agree with your CAB members a list of what would be “in-scope” & “out-of-scope” when a SIP comes through, this will determine if a SIP will be reviewed by your CAB group, for example https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/blob/main/considerations/governance.md, and publish it by submitting the CAB request as a Pull Request on GitHub under your board

7. (optional) Agree with your CAB members a list of minimum of 5 Review questions that might facilitate your when reviewing SIPs, for example for Governance CAB, questions could be things like *Does it improve the current governance decision making without potential side-effect? Does it allow ease of participation? Could it cause centralization?

8. Add weekly SIP call calendar invite to your calendar using the Stacks Community Calendar https://community.stacks.org/events#calendar

9. Make announcements on Stacks Forum https://forum.stacks.org/ and Github https://github.com/stacksgov/sips/issues to communicate the formation of the board or any additional CAB member

10. Get engaged in SIP conversation from early brainstorms to late stage SIP across all platforms!

Any questions please feel free to let us know!

Q&A

Q: How many boards can a member serve?

A: A user may serve on at most three Consideration Advisory Boards concurrently.

Q: Who can officially appoint the CAB members?

A: A Steering Committee member can formally approve a CAB member into the board.

Q. What if the chairperson becomes unresponsive or left Stacks?

A. The Steering Committee may ask the Board to appoint a new chairperson. Alternatively, the Board may appoint a new chairperson on its own and inform the Steering Committee.

Q. What if the CAB member acts in bad faith?

A. Any user may serve on a committee. However, all Stacks committee members must abide by the SIP Code of Conduct and must have a history of adhering to it. Failure to adhere to the Code of Conduct shall be grounds for immediate removal from a committee, and a prohibition against serving on any future committees.

Q. Can a CAB member(s) review his SIP which he/she was a part of or an author off?

A. Ideally not. However in the event if the SIP author who is also a CAB member does not participate in the CAB review, and that leads to the number of CAB members fall below 3, then the person should attempt to try to find another qualified, suitable CAB member as temporary reviewer. If all attempts fail, then the SIP author can review its own SIP as a CAB member.