Proposal: enable the new TogetherCrew functionality: Free* summarizer and Q&A for delegates telegram chat

Considering that the telegram group is not a communications channel created or maintained by the DAO as highlighted by @paulofonseca and @raam our suggestion is just to create a poll in the forum for everyone to decide if they want the bot included or not.

On scraping the website, a discussion with OCL or AF would be a better course of action.

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We appreciate @danielo for the proposal and recognize its potential to alleviate information overload within the Arbitrum DAO delegate community. As a team operating primarily in the Asian timezone, we often find ourselves waking up to extensive discussions that occurred overnight. The depth and quality of these conversations are commendable, but catching up can be challenging. A summarization tool would be valuable in helping us stay informed and engaged, ensuring we don’t miss critical updates or insights.

However, we also understand and respect the concerns raised by Paulo, especially regarding the privacy and ownership of the ā€œArbitrum DAO Delegatesā€ Telegram chat. This chat has been a cornerstone for delegate coordination, and any changes to its structure or functionality should be approached with caution and consensus. It’s essential to ensure that all members feel comfortable and that their privacy is respected.

We believed these are some of the things that could be done to help with the concerns:

  • Before implementing the bot, conduct a poll within the delegate chat to gauge support and obtain explicit consent from members.
  • We also think that transparency about the bot’s capabilities, data handling practices, and any third-party integrations is crucial. So providing clear documentation on how data will be used, stored, and protected.
  • Delegates should have the option to opt-out and have their data excluded or deleted upon request.
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Like many others have mentioned the Arbitrum DAO Delegates isn’t owned by the DAO, so there’s really no need for this proposal

Also @danielo, fun fact, but you can export the full chat history from the Telegram group right now directly from Telegram into a single < 40MB folder with all messages spread out in 7 HTML files, so it’s not like the chat is private or even remotely close to being so now :sweat_smile:

thanks, will do

absolutely! Please see at the bottom of this page, within the FAQ the section " How do you manage privacy and data?" https://www.togethercrew.com/

100% agree. Any delegate that contacts us/me with a request can have the their data deleted and never accessed again (unless they request so).

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I value the current private Delegate Telegram group. It has an intimate and ad hoc feeling, less formal than the forum.
I feel adding in data capture and AI analysis will change how I and others express, like how people change how they act and what words they use as soon as a video camera shows up at an event, it puts people into a different mode.

I get all the rational reasons being offered here under the claims of increasing efficiency and responsible handling of data, however I can’t get past the feeling that the Telegram group is a unique cultural space and asset for Arbitrum contributors to speak. For me this is more valuable than, getting AI summaries or more efficient searching of links and I want to cultivate and protect it as is.

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At the moment we have 3 sources of information:

  • Forum
  • Telegram (it is not necessary to use the DAO chat, which has so many problems with access)
  • Calls
  1. We discussed that it is necessary to fulfill requests from the owners of the information, but unfortunately there were no requests, although the offer has existed for 16 days
  2. There is no information whether this AI will be able to collect data from calls that provide more prompt information

We agree a summary tool could help digest info from the Delegate TG group, which at times can feel overwhelming. Ideally bot requests are sent to the asker in a DM not to populate even more the group with bot questions and answers.

Regarding privacy, we agree the bot to access the same information as the rest of the group members, with any potential delegate deciding to opt out having the right to do so.

As the TG group is not currently owned by the DAO, we don’t think this needs to go for a snapshot vote.

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Hey Klaus,

For context, the Telegram chat is not quite private. Anyone using 3rm could be capturing that data already (non consentually but anyhow…)

And also

Note the data will only be used by those in the chat. So it’s not being made any less private than it already is.

sorry, what do you mean?

In the current stage of development, we’re not able to collect data from calls fully automatically. However, with a bit of manual work, we could make this happen easily. Telegram will give us a nice interface to query the data.

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What I mean is that we have been discussing the need to survey information owners for too long, but we don’t conduct the survey itself. Nothing fundamental.

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We support adding the TogetherCrew summarizer and Q&A bot to the Delegates Telegram chat, as we think it is a useful tool. Because the chat is an informal, privately owned space—not a DAO-governed asset—a Snapshot vote is unnecessary. A quick sentiment poll inside the chat should be enough. The bot’s back-end processors would gain access to members’ messages, so each participant must explicitly opt in, and any messages from those who do not consent should be excluded from indexing.

I am largely neutral on whether a bot is actually necessary or not. I’d also imagine if one wanted to get caught up they could export the text and parse it in an AI product separately.

That said, I don’t agree with most of the privacy concern arguments here. I echo several others in saying that the idea that broadcasting to 200+ people is a bit silly to consider private in any context (with or without a bot).

However, I do think this resurfaces a trend amongst some recent integration requests (Together and Huddle01) regarding privacy at large. It seems we as a community have no concrete definition or consensus on matters of expected privacy or lack thereof.

I would call for a broader discussion on what privacy really means to us as a DAO. Personally, in the context of a delegate channel, (beyond being limited in privacy already) I’m not sure that walled garden chats are necessarily beneficial. And, who is this private from exactly? If effectively all 200 individuals who even tangentially engage with Arbitrum are already there, then I can’t really imagine who this comfort notion of ā€œprivacyā€ is actually providing us separation from? (Other protocols? Search engine logs from posting on the forum? – genuinely curious).

In the case of recorded meetings, I’ve said before, but Sinkas does a great job to announce before records start to allow participants to prepare accordingly. This is a matter of procedural privacy which does make sense to me.

But ultimately, we regularly discuss privacy without ever having had a conversation of the core ideas therein: what is our standard of privacy? who are we maintaining privacy from? when should things not be private? what are our processes to uphold the privacy standards we eventually land on? etc…

Thank you @danielo for the proposal
Here’s my two cents:
I sometimes find it challenging to keep up with Telegram chats, especially due to time zone differences. While this isn’t a major problem (I can simply export chats and analyze them with an AI bot or follow discussions on the forum and accept that I might miss some points) I believe this tool could significantly ease daily participation and help ensure everyone stays updated, especially since it also integrates information with the forum.

From a UX perspective the tool seems to be very beneficial, since access is limited to those already in the group, it doesn’t change who can see the information. As I mentioned, it would be particularly helpful for those in different time zones or with too much spam on Telegram. Since participants can opt out if they want there’s very little downside for current members.

The option to opt out is crucial, if the most active Telegram contributors choose to opt out the tool’s value would diminishes significantly. Making sure that these members feel comfortable and included is key.

Despite some delegates suggesting the proposal shouldn’t go to snapshot (and while I’m aware there are formal criteria for what should be put to a vote) I believe achieving consensus is important. A snapshot vote would increase visibility and allow more people to weigh in, which is especially relevant given the need for transparency around data handling.

My suggestion is to run a trial for a few months. I feel the most active Telegram contributors and potential bot users would be different people: those who need the bot aren’t typically the ones active in chat, and vice versa. After a few months, we could assess usage and whether active participants feel their communication has been negatively affected (addressing concerns like @KlausBrave s). The goal should be to keep the Telegram chat as it is, only integrating tools if they help without changing group dynamics. If that changes, the tool should be removed.

One concern I have relates to public versus private queries. Most users will likely prefer private queries, and if this becomes a premium feature, usage could drop and create unnecessary gaps between users.

Overall, I support giving this a try with clear evaluation criteria and a focus on preserving group dynamics.

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In Coordination with Paulo and following a recommendation from the AF, we have agreed to run a poll here to approve the use of TogetherCrew in the telegram chat as per the proposal above.

Should we enable TogetherCrew functionality (summaries, Q&A, etc) in the delegest Telegram chat?

  • yes
  • no
0 voters

If this proposal passes and you want to opt out, please DM me in telegram and we’ll add you to the Apps blacklist

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Because the Telegram group is not an official Arbitrum channel, the process here is a simple poll with the members of the chat. I think it’s clear now for everyone involved that this is not a DAO proposal, as we discussed this a few times in public calls and has been mentioned in this thread.
However, to be super safe, @raam could we move this thread to General and remove the proposal tag to avoid future confusion?

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@GensDAO @TodayInDeFi @KlausBrave please vote your conscience :slight_smile:

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For the 171 person TG group (at this point in time) I don’t feel I have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that chat, so for that reason I’m voting yes.

It is however my preference that the TG-derived data is only accessible to TG delegates participating in the group, to prevent the service from becoming a way for ā€œoutsidersā€ to monitor and easily derive data of delegates that they would otherwise not be privvy to.

This vote is made under the assumption that delegates participating in the TG, being essentially the source of the private data that is to be monetized, are themselves exempt from the monetization scheme. If that’s not the case my vote is instead ā€œNoā€.

Indeed the approach is for the summaries, Q&A, etc to only be available to those already in the TG group. So only those who already have access to the data can use the functionality.

The data will not be monetised. We do not sell the data to anyone. The service offered is summarisation and search, and the plan is to make it free in the telegeram chat.

Note the above does not make us sustainable. There are costs for infra, staff, etc etc. So we’ll need a path for sustainability. The plan is to develop in the future (pending adoption of the basic functionality and further user research) some sort of premium functionality and have power users pay for that or alternatively request for the DAO to pay and make the service sustainable. The premium functionality will, in either case, NOT include giving access to unauthorised people.

The Foundation manages the TogetherCrew account so they can administer the settings for access.

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We’re supporting this. No concerns on our end.

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Poll closed with 91% approval and 67 votes (39% quorum).

No member to date has expressed their desire for their data to not be included. The option to have your data removed/excluded remains open indefinitely. Please DM me your telegram/discourse handle if you’d like me to black list them.