rm-circle-team-router/docs/for-manson-optional-profiles.md

# What changed with member profiles, and why

*A note for Manson before this goes out to the team.*

## Your objection was right

You pushed back on requiring a username and a verified email, and the reason you gave was
decentralization: the whole point of building on a public smart contract is that no company holds
your money and no company holds your identity. The moment participation depends on a database of
names and email addresses, we have quietly rebuilt the thing we told people we were replacing.

That is a fair reading and we changed the build because of it.

## What we were actually trying to solve

There is a real problem underneath. When something needs a member's attention, we have no way to
tell them. If a payout routes past someone because they were not qualified, or a leader needs to
reach their line about something time-sensitive, the only channel is hoping that person happens to
open their page that day. Most do not. That is not a hypothetical, it is why this came up.

So there were two things on the table that looked like one thing. Reaching people is a genuine
need. Requiring identity is not the way to meet it.

## What we built instead

**Nothing is required. Anywhere.**

Holding a position, getting paid, reading your org, the training, the promo tools, the whole
dashboard, all of it works exactly as it does today with no username and no email. Nothing on chain
touches any of this. A member who never gives us a thing loses nothing and is blocked from nothing.

**There is no onboarding gate.** A new member registers, lands on their page, and is never stopped
by a pop-up asking for details. This is written into the automated tests as a hard rule, so it
cannot creep back in later by accident.

**The dashboard makes an offer, once, and takes no for an answer.** There is a small card that says
you can get an email the moment a payout lands in your wallet. It has a "Not now" button that
removes it for a week. The card says in plain language that everything works the same without it.

**One place asks, and only because it has to.** The inbox explains that messages can reach you there
only, and that adding an email means they also reach you off the site. That is not a rule, it is a
description of reality. A message cannot be delivered to someone who has left no way to reach them.

**What we do with it: nothing.** It is never shown to other members. It is never sold. A member can
change it or remove it any time from their own dashboard.

## The part I think you will actually like

Leaders now see one number on their own inbox: how many people in their org can be reached off the
site, out of the total. It is scoped to your own team, so it tells you nothing about anyone else's.

That number reframes the whole thing. Coverage stops being a rule imposed from the top and becomes
a leader's own job, solved the way everything else here is solved, by talking to your two and
letting it duplicate. If a leader wants to be able to reach their team, they have to earn that by
asking. That is the decentralized answer to a centralized problem, and it is the version worth
shipping.

## The honest trade

We will have lower coverage than a mandatory system would. Some members will never add anything,
and when something needs them, we will not be able to tell them. That is a real cost and we are
choosing to pay it, because the alternative costs more.

The bet is that an offer people actually want, a note the moment money hits their wallet, will do
better over time than a requirement people resent. If that bet is wrong, the fix is better
messaging, not a mandate.

## Separately: the "you have to get to level 8" point

You raised this too, so here is what I found when I went through the dashboard code.

Nothing requires anyone to reach level 8, or any level. The upgrade prompt only appears when someone
already has two people under them and money is actually about to route past them, and it names one
next level, never a target at the top. The dashboard says in two places that upgrading is optional
and self-paced.

The one thing that could reasonably be read your way is the ladder graphic. It shows all eight rungs
at once, which does look like a climb you are supposed to finish. That was a display choice, not a
rule, but the impression is fair. It now carries a line saying you stop wherever you like, there is
no level you have to reach, and the "next" marker is only a suggestion based on who is below you
today.

So: no change to how anything pays, and a wording fix where the picture was doing the misleading.

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Nothing here has been sent to the team. If you see a problem with any of it, say so and it changes
before it ships.