Title: DAOisms
Authors: wolfehr#3150
Date: 5/13/2021
Consensus Poll (5/17/2021): Discord Link
What Is This Page?
This page is a living document that attempts to ease pressure on the biggest pain points that BanklessDAO has. It’s a set of best practices that if we generally agree upon, will streamline the flow of ideas to action. DAOisms are very much a work in progress; feedback is welcome (see forum post linked above).
What are DAOisms
One of the very first problems BanklessDAO had was managing the flow of activity and ideas happening simultaneously. Everyone wanted to do things. Some community members started noticing patterns in where people were getting stuck. Places like:
- Where do I submit a proposal?
- Does this need a snapshot vote?
- Is someone working on this project?
- What project can I join?
This led to the formation of the DAOisms. DAOisms define best practices when trying to accomplish a common task. DAOisms are not meant to stifle activity with guidelines, but ease common points of friction by providing infrastructure to quickly go from idea to action.
Consensus
The biggest problem was achieving the appropriate levels of consensus. RSA provided some structure by suggesting that proposals that do not require a budget do not need to go to Snapshot vote. (There may be one-off scenarios, like major changes to governance procedures.) The general problem was that we didn’t know where to achieve consensus.
To this end, the first DAOism suggests the tactic of achieving progressively harder consensus. Progressive consensus is the idea that consensus builds from within a small group of people and expands outwards towards the whole. Harder consensus means more formal methods of voting (read more here).
The path to progressively harder consensus can be broken into three stages:
Gauging DAO Support
The first step is gauging the general interest and support of the DAO.
Use Cases
- Want to workshop an idea
- Want to get feedback from the DAO (e.g., a new podcast idea)
- Includes items that do not require treasury funding
- Has little to no impact on the DAO’s mission, governance structure, operations
Tools: Discord
Methods
- Find the relevant discord channels for your idea. Pitch it, see what people think. Workshop in the channel, or even move it to a private chat. Find people that get excited about your idea.
- Use the #poll channel to get community feedback (Guide TBD). This is perfect if you think your sample size is small or want the community to help you make a decision. It’s important that you include a description of what you want and why. Provide context to help others make the right decision.
- Get your thoughts down on paper and post in the General Forum to discuss in a slower pace environment than Discord
Notes
- Voting options should be more than just a simple Yes/No, but other possible responses. (Think empathy.) Eg.
= Like the idea but needs improvement. or 
= Keep things the way they are.
Confirming DAO Support
The second step is to harden consensus. Here, ideas are escalated to more formal methods of gathering input.
Use Cases:
- You have something polished to the broader community
- You want input from beyond just the core parties interested in your proposal
- Includes items that do not require treasury funding
- Has a moderate impact on the DAO’s mission, governance structure, operations (especially Treasury management).
Tools: Dedicate Discord channels, forums, and community calls
Methods (Often done together)
- Create a forum post using the proposal template. Copy and paste that forum post into a Google document for others to provide comments/suggestions. Make sure you share the Google doc such that Anyone on the internet with this link can comment (If you don’t know how to do this, search for a guide using the italicized phrase.)
- Ask an admin to create a separate channel dedicated to discussing your proposal. This is often done in addition to the forum post.
- Present your proposal during a community call
Formal DAO Approval
Formal snapshot vote
Use Cases
- Requires treasury funding
- Has a significant impact on the DAO’s mission, governance structure, operations (especially Treasury management).
Tools: Snapshot vote
Methods
- Submit a request to the genesis team or admin to create a Snapshot vote (this will become more trustless in time - progressive decentralization)
Notes
Due to the significance of Snapshot votes, we suggest the following as a starting requirement for votes. These can always be changed.
- Voting period: 7 Days
- Voting threshold: >66%
- Voting Quorum: 1% of circulating BANK (benchmarket taken from protocol DAOs)
Going from Idea → Action
Earlier, we said, “[DAOisms] a set of best practices that if we generally agree upon, will streamline the flow of ideas to action.” That’s exactly what this flow from gauging support to confirming to approval. Not all of these steps have to happen.
These three phases are to help you better understand where to start. Because, if you jump straight to a proposal forum post and pitch it on a community call, people are going to want to know where this proposal came from. They’re going to want to know who you workshopped it with, who else supports this proposal, and why it reads like a first draft. But if you feel like your proposal will be widely supported, then you don’t need to go gauging consensus in channels or making polls.
For example: You’ve been listening in on some community calls and reaching Discord conversations. At some point, you notice that a couple guilds are all having the same problem. At this point, you already know there’s a general consensus that a solution is needed, but none has been championed. You can go directly to the forum and you generally know how people will respond.
Contributor Designation
Graduating from Level 1 to Level 2 was previously done in two ways:
- Any member of the Genesis can mint a new Level 2
- And Level 2 can nominate a Level 1 and must receive >50% consensus among all other Level 2s
A slightly updated version of this model involves a broader poll.
Workflow
- Anyone can make a nomination in #polls. The nomination should include supporting evidence for the graduation. (ie how they’ve contributed/why you’re nominating them)
- 48hr voting period
-
66% majority with at least 20 votes.
- If consensus fails, the person can be renominated in the future
Note: This process doesn’t try to define the requirements to be designated a contributor, only a process to gain consensus if those criteria are met. Better defining Level 2 will be handled as a separate workstream.
Determining Projects and Coordinators
Sometimes projects come up that need a coordinator. An example is when Bankless, LLC handed off some projects to the DAO. When this happens, the DAO needs someone to coordinate the project activities and help drive it forward. These projects are added to the appropriate Initiatives and Projects page.
Once a project is added anyone is allowed to volunteer to coordinate the project. Coordinate does not mean lead. The task of coordination is helping information get to the right places. Other DAO members can work with coordinators to learn about a project and how to contribute. Often, coordinators will be the same as the proposal’s author, but not always.
Workflow
- Use the #polls channel (Method #2 of Gauging DAO Support) ← Usually for larger DAO projects (Eg. Mission, Vision, Values)
- Gather soft consensus among core project contributors ← Usually for smaller DAO projects (Eg. Add tip bot to Discord)
Staying Aligned
The Initiatives and Projects page communicates active projects and what their objectives are.
At the top, the DAO collectively establishes high-level objectives, such as developing on-chain cash flows or taking care of layer 0 (i.e., DAO members). These are themes.
Initiatives are then identified that fit those themes. Apparel, NFTs, and Defi products are examples of initiatives that fit the on-chain cash flows theme. Distribution, contribution benefits, and DAO Updates are examples of initiatives that fit the layer 0/community theme.
Finally DAO members contribute projects that help the initiatives. The metafactory apparel drops are an example of a project that helps the Apparel initiative, the BED Index is an example of a Defi project, the Weekly Rollup and Making $BANK podcast are examples of DAO Updates projects.
An Initiatives and Projects includes the necessary information to know
- The current themes (e.g., on-chain cash flow)
- The initiatives supporting those themes (e.g., NFTs)
- The projects that are happening to support those priorities (e.g., creating NFT content or relationships with content creators)
- The project goals and KPIs
- A high level status update
- Who to talk to about the projects
- Where to find more information
This allows guilds to align themselves with the DAO’s priorities and know who to talk to about initiatives and projects. Guilds (and anyone else) can also refer to each other’s initiative and projects page to know their current priorities and look for ways to help each other.
Right now there’s no defined process for how initiatives and projects get added. The goal is to ensure there is consensus for the DAOs goals, while allowing guilds and DAO members to pursue their own ideas and giving them a platform to raise visibility about what they’re working on to get help, prevent conflict, and get recognition for their contributions. It should also allow DAO members to see what projects are in flight and see where they can pitch in.
The DAO will have a template available, but guilds and local chapters should be free to surface this information in a way that makes sense to them. The goal is the alignment and visibility, not adherence to any particular format.
The DAO’s Initiative and Projects page is available here. There is a template page underneath each Guild page. Guild’s are encouraged to use their page using the above framework, but there is no requirement to do so.
At the end of each season, the DAO and each guild will provide a short overview in a community call of what was accomplished the previous season and what is planned for next season.
For example:
Second Airdrop
The DAO has a goal of completing the second airdrop. That might flow down to the finance guild as a project to drop the BANK tokens and marketing to make sure the air drooped tokens are claimed.
DAO Museum
The DAO is launching an NFT Museum. The dev guild flows down the initiative to build the museum, the design guild to create nfts, and marketing to advertise and help get donations for the museum.
Weekly Roundup
The DAO wants to have a weekly newsletter. That can flow down to the writers guild to write and distribute the newsletter and the translators guild to translate it.
- I like the direction
- This needs some work…
- I don’t think this is a good idea
- I HATE THIS
AUTHOR BACKGROUND
- wolfehr#3150
- I am a Senior Release Manager at a large SaaS company. I have experience designing processes, holding people and teams accountable that I have no authority over, and managing complex projects and initiatives with many stakeholders and different opinions.
and 
. Formal voting happens within the read-only 