The Ardor and Nxt Group (ANG)

Structure

Membership

Other Action Items

With the emergence of Jelurida as a more public entity, the role of the Nxt Foundation has been put into question multiple times by both new and long-time members of the community. This is a valid question since the Foundation was originally created to be a point-of-contact for businesses interested in using the technology, which Jelurida will now be as they themselves are the developers. However, the Foundation has expanded its role in the past few years, such as providing and supporting community tools, such as Nxtforum, the Nxt and Ardor subreddits, and multiple others, in addition to helping users directly as well as working on expanding the community itself through outreach, both online and offline, all in addition to still speaking with the projects interested in using Nxt. With the decline in the role of speaking with interested parties, we believe that the shift to focusing on the community is a natural progression. To reflect these changes, the Nxt Foundation will create a project called the Ardor and Nxt Group, to be called ANG as it is easier to recognize, which will be an initiative to provide the community with a better environment, such as organizing meetups around the world, as well as to provide a better ecosystem for the projects that use Nxt and Ardor blockchain technology or are involved in the community.ANG will initially form as a project under the Nxt Foundation, though it may become its own entity if the need arises in the future. However, it will be the only project of the Nxt Foundation as all current projects will move under ANG. Employees or contractors will also be hired to better address the tasks at hand. With this, all Foundation resources will be dedicated to the development and growth of ANG. To keep ANG sustainable, membership fees will be charged in a similar way to the Supporter Program. However, basic membership will be free for companies until January 15, 2018, as ANG gains traction and Supporters of the Nxt Foundation, both Individual and Corporate, will automatically get relevant membership for at least one year from January 15, 2018, regardless of when their Supporter status ends. More details about these membership tiers, as well as other aspects of ANG are explained below:To provide the users, project owners, and businesses around the Nxt and Ardor ecosystem with a better environment to collaborate, communicate, and utilize Nxt and Ardor blockchain technology and be more active while maximizing the benefits gained by the community.ANG envisions an active Nxt and Ardor community that is constantly growing in terms of users, projects, and businesses and would benefit from a complementary structure that further enables all three to achieve their goals while improving the community as a whole.A full governance structure will be created for ANG with top-level positions elected by its members. However, to begin the structure, the Nxt Foundation will appoint the Preliminary Director of ANG in charge of executing the creation of the structure as well as developing it further and setting other roles. This appointment is given to Travin Keith, the most active Nxt Foundation Board Member at present, and the general architect of ANG. He will have a term as Preliminary Director until January 15, 2018, at which point the first proper Director will need to be in place via an election voted in by Premier Members, General Members, and Business Members who have paid for their membership. Details of this election will be disclosed by November 30th. The Director position will be paid and will be a full time job with the pay level determined during the interim period. However, Travin will keep his Nxt Foundation stipend of EUR 2500/month unchanged during the interim period.All remaining Nxt Foundation funds, such as those acquired from the CFC and the TNSEE fundraising, as well as other donations, will be used for ANG. As all tools and support currently under the Nxt Foundation will transfer to being under ANG, there will be no cessation with these tools and support. However, during the interim period, each of these will be looked into to determine what will be handed over to Jelurida and what will be kept under ANG.As the Director will be unable to handle all tasks alone, they will need to hire people who can help on a regular basis, as well as designated contractors. There may or may not be regular bounties for other community members to claim. However, focus will always on establishing long-term participation within the community.All employees of ANG will need to be known by the public for transparency. However, contractors may choose to remain anonymous to the public, but cannot be anonymous to ANG and the Nxt Foundation, due to security reasons.The interim period will begin immediately and last until January 15, 2018 at 00:00:00 GMT. During this time, changes to this structure may be done by the Nxt Foundation, and users may submit feedback and suggested changes.The business membership program is a membership program that is free until January 15, 2018, for businesses and projects that are using or are interested in using the technologies developed by Jelurida, namely Nxt and Ardor, as well as those that are involved in the ecosystem, including, but not limited to, service providers, news agencies, such as Nxter Magazine, and community tool providers. However, businesses and projects will be categorized appropriately in order for users and other businesses to have a better experience when searching through members, as well as for members to be exposed better.After January 15, 2018, members will either need to pay a yearly fee for the Business Membership or upgrade to the Premium Business Membership. This fee will be determined during the interim period. However, some categories will either remain free or have a nominal charge, and perhaps have a different membership category. These will also be determined during the interim period.The premium business membership category is targeted to larger businesses and projects that qualify for the Business Membership, though is by no means restricted to them nor is this category the only one available for larger businesses and projects. Additional benefits, such as better positioning on the site, as well as potential special press release, will be available for these members. The fee for this category will be considerably higher than the Business Membership, and may or may not take into account the amount of employees of the business.All Corporate Supporters of the Nxt Foundation will automatically become Premier Members and retain this benefit for one year starting January 15, 2018, regardless of their remaining months as a Corporate Supporter. Until the fee for Premier Membership has been announced, no new Corporate Supporters will be accepted at this time.The General Membership program will mimic the Supporter+ program, retain all its benefits, including the choice of emails, as well as other new benefits to be announced during the interim period. At the time of this announcement, no new supporters will be accepted into the program until a proper fee has been set. However, all Supporters, with or without the + attribute, will be given this membership for at least one year from January 15, 2018, depending on their initial contribution. They will also be given this status during the interim period.DisclaimerMembership in ANG does not entitle the Member to an official status within the Nxt Foundation.In order to foster community engagement as well as community growth, ANG will be sponsoring selected meetup groups around the world on a case-by-case basis, though some minimum requirements will be set. Sponsorship will be in the form of assistance with the meetup organizers, payment of the Meetup.com fee, as well as for some of the snacks given to attendees. Templates for materials such as brochures and leaflets for those new to Nxt and Ardor will also be given out, though printed materials may be sent as well as supply allows.There have been some requests in the past regarding the creation of a Nxt Foundation branch in other parts of the world, though things were not able to move forward, for one reason or another. However, with ANG, this will be one of the primary goals as localization can be a great benefit to the community as well as to promote decentralization. Affiliate organizations, perhaps with the ANG name and the extension of the region of the members, will have some set requirements as well as benefits.These Affiliate Organizations should not be confused with the meetup groups that ANG plans to organize. Though larger meetup groups may end up creating an affiliate organization for various reasons, this will not be a requirement.Throughout the past few years, a few Nxt and Ardor community members have spoken publicly about the technology, both to large and small groups. The effect of these public presentations or speeches have been quite beneficial to the community, so ANG will be dedicating resources to providing those interested speaking about Nxt and/or Ardor the necessary tools to do so, such as presentation templates, graphics, templated statements and some training courses, both curated from reputable external resources as well as ones customized for these topics.As attending events related to blockchain have become increasingly important, ANG will dedicate resources to assisting Jelurida with finding community members to provide support at events, such as assisting at the booth, or coordinating with local organizers, especially if a specific community member is around the area of the event itself. Additionally, these members may be called upon to have a presence at an event on their own, though they will be doing so as part of ANG or one of its Affiliate Organizations. Some training resources will also be provided as with the Speakers Corner.Providing educational resources as well as being available for collaboration with educational institutions is an important aspect for community growth. While Jelurida will largely be sought out primarily by these institutions given that they are the experts with the technology, other opportunities may arise where community members who are knowledgeable about the tecnologies can fill in instead. ANG will seek out these opportunities and connect them with appropriate and interested community members, as well as these community members with the resources necessary in order for them to be able to succeed.As mentioned, ANG will also strive to create a better ecosystem for businesses that use Nxt or Ardor, whether they are using the public chain or a licensed private chain, as well as regardless of their size. These will include hosting collaborative projects, such as plugins that are needed by multiple businesses but are not able to be worked on by a single business, as well as hosting roundtable discussions. Businesses that use Nxt or Ardor however are not required to join as doing so is completely voluntary. Additional services to businesses will be explored during the interim period.ClonesFor projects that are clones of Nxt and Ardor, they will only be permitted into the Business Assembly if they comply with the license of the latest non-experimental release by Jelurida of the respective platforms. However, their admission will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Official members of projects complying with older licenses are, however, still welcome to join as General Members.ANG can, on a case-by-case basis, provide emergency funding, if necessary, for essential tools and services in the Nxt and Ardor ecosystem. However, all other funding options must be sought before ANG is considered as ANG will not keep a large reserve for this purpose.Over the past few months, research was put in to decide whether or not creating another organization was ideal. At the moment, it was decided to have ANG as a project of the Nxt Foundation. However, during the interim period, more research will be conducted.Interested parties in Business Membership as well as Premier Membership may contact Travin Keith at travin@nxtfoundation.io. A preliminary website will be created by November 1st that will highlight the businesses and projects that have expressed an interest in joining ANG.The domain name for the website will be ardornxt.group and a preliminary website will be built containing these information as well as the interested parties and the members carried over from the Supporter program.All active Nxt Foundation Board Members and Partners moving forward will be credited with respective roles as part of ANG. Their status as Partners or Board Members of the Nxt Foundation will remain, but their specific titles transferred over. All inactive Board Members and Partners will, moving forward, just be known as Board Members of Partners, to avoid the confusion of any active work done by the Foundation outside ANG. Additionally, no new Partners or Board Members will be added during and after the interim period.Those interested in taking on the role of being a Director of ANG after the interim period may contact Travin Keith at travin@nxtfoundation.io so that necessary preparations can be made. All inquiries will be treated confidentially within the Nxt Foundation.---This post is posted on behalf of the Nxt Foundation and has been approved by members of the Foundation.Thanks for reading. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask here. I'll check the forums a bit more often than usual over the next week or so to answer people's questions. Please note that quite a lot of things might just be answered with, "This will be decided during the Interim Period".