bDIP-07: Set Season Length at 16 Weeks with Designated Downtime

Governance Proposals
1

Author: Trewkat
Working Group: Trewkat, links, HiroKennelly
Date: 2023-02-13T11:00:00Z

BDIP SUMMARY

To date, the DAO’s practice is to set the exact dates for each upcoming Season during the final weeks of the current season, which are then ratified by the community via Snapshot. This has shown to be an error-prone and inefficient practice which negatively impacts planning in teams across the DAO.

This bDIP seeks to set season length at 16 weeks and designate formal downtime between each, to commence in 2024 following two adjusted seasons for the remainder of 2023.

BDIP BACKGROUND

In February 2022, the Forum proposal titled The Super Season: Proposing a 6-month season between April and October suggested a one-off, six-month ‘super season’ to address perceived issues associated with a three-month season, specifically that budget planning “ four times per year … expends tons of bandwidth that could be going toward working on and in the organization.”

While there was general agreement for the concept of a super season, with 52% voting in favour and a further 26% voting for “maybe, with edits”, there was also positive support (10 likes) for a comment suggesting a 16-week season instead.

In March 2022 the original proposal author created a new proposal titled 4-Month Season Proposal: SuperSeason Revisions, which stated that “Based on discussions in the #seasons channel and feedback from many contributors, a four-month season (16-weeks) seems to be a happy medium.” Despite 93% of the 30 voters being in favour, no action was taken.

It’s possible that inaction was due to the timing of the proposal which suggested implementation within a few weeks’ time. These proposals occurred prior to the existence of the DAO Constitution and during a period of confusion around Forum and Snapshot quorum thresholds, which may also be a contributing factor in the lack of progression.

BDIP SPECIFICATION

The textual change to the Constitution is minimal in terms of word count but high-impact in terms of operational change. However, given that this change does not alter the DAO’s activities or priorities, only the way in which our time is allocated, it is therefore designated as a Minor change.

Further, it should be noted here and in any subsequent Snapshot vote that the update to the Constitution will only truly reflect DAO practice from 2024, due to the suggested adjustment period to cover the remainder of 2023.

Therefore this bDIP seeks not only a change to the Constitution wording in two places (as specified below), but also community consensus to specify season dates for the remainder of 2023 and thereafter as listed below. This is to ensure that the DAO can commence the 16-week season structure from January 2, 2024.

Although the Constitution will not specify season dates for 2023, 2024, or subsequent years, the intention of this proposal is to gain consensus to commence Week 1 of the relevant season on January 2 (UTC) of any year, regardless of what day of the week that falls. The season dates do not need to change thereafter, only the days of the week on which they fall will change.

As a global organisation that promotes work-life balance and flexibility for contributors, the DAO does not need to stick to the traditional approach that all working weeks begin on a Monday.

Beginning in 2024, and starting each year from January 2, the seasons would run for 16 weeks, with a one-week designated Gap Week between the first and second seasons, and another Gap Week between the second and third. Between the third season and the first season of the new calendar year there would be a 16-day designated Annual Break.
The Gap Weeks and Annual Break are opportunities to pause official events and encourage contributors to take a break. Teams within the DAO will have the ability to plan for budgeting and operational needs for these periods and may decide for themselves which activities should continue through breaks, if any.

The dates below provide a plan for the remainder of 2023 and the dates for 2024. Thereafter, each DAO year will start on January 2 and the season dates will be the same. The dates are intentionally omitted from the proposed Constitution wording because constitutions should capture high-level principles, not operational details. Please understand that if you vote to approve then you are signalling your approval of the dates as well as the Constitution change.

The Plan
According to the Snapshot vote titled Season 7 Specification and Community-Indicated Direction, Season 7’s designated Gap Week finishes on Sun, May 14, 2023.

Proposed Season Dates for 2023 (Seasons 8 and 9)

  • Season 8: Mon, May 15 - Sun, August 27 (15 weeks)
  • Gap Week: Mon, August 28 - Sun, Sept 3 (1 week)
  • Season 9: Mon, Sept 4 - Sun, Dec 17 (15 weeks)
  • Annual Break: Mon, Dec 18 2023- Mon, January 1 2024 (15 days)

Season Dates for 2024 (based on the specification detailed above)

  • Season 10: Tues January 2 - Mon April 22 (16 weeks)
  • Gap Week: Tues April 23 - Mon April 29 (1 week)
  • Season 11: Tues April 30 - Mon Aug 19 (16 weeks) - Week 1 would incorporate bDAO anniversary
  • Gap Week: Tues Aug 20 - Mon Aug 26 (1 week)
  • Season 12: Tues Aug 27 - Mon Dec 16 (16 weeks)
  • Annual Break: Tues Dec 17 - Wed January 1 2025 (16 days)

2025 seasons begin on Thurs Jan 2.
2026 seasons begin on Fri Jan 2.
… and so on.

Current Form (Wording) - Constitution

In the section: DAO Cycles - Seasons:

Seasons are funding cycles (typically 3 months) intended to align the DAO’s collective energy to key objectives. These objectives are in the form of funded initiatives BANK token holders vote on before each season.

In the section: DAO Organizational Units - Grants Committee:

Grants Leads serve a 6-month term and can resign at any time.
and
Grants Reviewers serve a 6-month term and can resign at any time.

Proposal (New Wording) - Constitution

In the section: DAO Cycles - Seasons:

Seasons are funding cycles (each set at 16 weeks) which are intended to align the DAO’s collective energy to key objectives. These objectives are in the form of funded initiatives voted on by BANK token holders before each season. Between seasons, the DAO schedules designated ‘Gap Weeks’ and an ‘Annual Break’ in order to respect the need for contributors to rest.

In the section: DAO Organizational Units - Grants Committee:

Grants Leads serve a 2-season term and can resign at any time.
and
Grants Reviewers serve a 2-season term and can resign at any time.

EXPECTED IMPACT

As noted above, the textual change to the Constitution is minimal but this is a highly impactful positive operational change for the DAO. It is anticipated that hundreds of hours will be saved through the designation of set seasonal dates, particularly in workstreams associated with:

  • Guild and Department role elections and budget planning.
  • Project budget planning.
  • Seasonal budgets assessment and approval (Grants Committee).
  • Seasonal planning (operations).
  • Season launch planning (marketing and design).

In addition, teams will be better able to plan contributor coverage for operational needs during Gap Weeks and Annual Breaks, whilst also recognising that contributors may also decide to take personal time away from the DAO at any time of the year. Having set dates for the year ahead enables productive discussions at team level about appropriate time away.

ANALYTICS

The DAO-wide sentiment survey could be used to collect feedback on the change.

NEXT STEPS

This proposal is presented as a Minor change. Therefore should this proposal reach a quorum of 51 votes with at least 70% approval, the vote will progress to Snapshot for final ratification.

WORKING GROUP BACKGROUND

All three members are long-term Level 2 Contributors to the DAO.

  • Trewkat is Lead Staff Editor / Joint Project Lead for Bankless Publishing, and Co-coordinator of the Weekly Rollup Newsletter
  • HiroKennelly is the Writers Guild Coordinator, Joint Project Lead for Bankless Publishing, and Co-coordinator of the Weekly Rollup Newsletter.
  • links was the Grants Committee Lead from S4-5 and is the Champion of Bankless Card.

POLL
Please vote below regarding the adjusted timeline for S8 and S9 in 2023, the new 16-week structure for 2024 and beyond, and the change to the wording of the Seasons and Grants Committee sections of the BanklessDAO Constitution.

  • Approve
  • Reject
  • Abstain with no objection (this will count towards quorum)

0 voters

11 Likes
2

Thank you for the suggestion. I agree with preplanning and having a fixed schedule for seasons. However, I think seasons should be structured around the time people are available to work according to feedback received on [RFC] bDAO Vacation Policy

Here is my alternative suggestion

Week Title Duration
Week 1 New Years Break 1 week
Week 2 - 14 Season ‘n’ 13 weeks
Week 15 Gap Week 1 week
Week 16 - 28 Season ‘n+1’ 13 weeks
Week 29 - 32 Annual Break 4 weeks
Week 33 - 51 Season ‘n+2’ 18 weeks
Week 52 Christmas Break 1 week

Thus, each year will have 3 season and 7 weeks of vacations

3

Personally. I think the feedback on that proposal supports the plan presented in the bDIP. That vote is currently in favour of 4 weeks in total , not 7.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to have seasons of differing lengths - especially not a difference of 5 weeks.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a four-week break at any time of the year.

10 Likes
4

In addition to Kat’s comments, from a project-planning perspective, esp projects that ship regularly, a 4-week break is a non starter. We have obligations to sponsors to ship. I would expect as more projects earn revenue with a similar model, they will also have those kinds of practical constraints.

Keeping season lengths consistent makes for better budgeting and predictability while we’re still young and learning. Governments and megacorps can mandate summer holiday for their employees, but the DAO is not yet there in terms of operational capacity, attention, and maturity.

Inconsistent season lengths would also make for really odd realities around elections and terms. For example, some GCs would serve for 18 weeks, while others 13. Same is true for Guild positions, and those projects that hold role elections.

I would also wonder how DAO, Guild, and Project onboarding would be affected by a 4-week vacation period.

Now is the time to keep our planning as simple and predictable as possible so we don’t get hung up on all the non-productive work that goes into seasonal transitions. The schedule you outline does not help that, and is not workable from my perspective as a Guild and Project Coordinator.

We should be creating systems that optimize for consistency and clarity, which also maximizes agency and autonomy. bDIP-07 does that.

10 Likes
6

I do appreciate deviating from the traditional weekend structure, as the weekend is a time when some people can contribute the most.

2 Likes
7

This is excellent, @Trewkat. Thank you for posting this and working to move this along.

4 Likes
8

Thanks, this is timely @Trewkat. Definitely agree that:

  1. seasons should be consistent length
  1. Seasons should not have excessive gaps in the schedule

I’ve been coming around to having a 2 week “gap” period between seasons, no matter how long the seasons themselves are. That gives 1 week of actually being OFF off for everyone and then a week to transition roles (which has been surfaced as a trouble point in the past) and do post-seasonal assessments – what worked, what didn’t, what should we focus on, etc.

In this model seasonal budgets and priorities are established before the end of the previous season so as to allow for proactive planning and role transitions (and not making some people work over the break to make things work). The transitory periods may still have some minimal activity to continue shipping regular content as described by @hirokennelly, but majority of “work” activity shuts down – allow for local conferences, more social events in the DAO, showcasing project wins, etc.

Here is the annual timeline broken down into quarter and trimester seasons, with 1 or 2 week transition periods and a gap week inserted in some places to make things even. Use it as you want.

Discourse shrank the image, right click > open image in new tab to get a readable size.

image
image4352×896 155 KB

4 Likes
9

I appreciate the extra effort but I do think that planning and role transitions can take place equally well within the structure I’ve proposed in the bDIP. Forgive me but I don’t really follow the diagram :slightly_smiling_face: .

2 Likes
10

This is an excellent proposal, thank you for it @Trewkat , @hirokennelly and @links.

As alluded to in other responses, we need something consistent. This new proposal addresses key concerns and is definitely a step ahead from previous proposals.

2 Likes
11

Just like the Bitcoin clock which is used to keep track of time in the network. this proposal gives bDAO it’s own clock/Calender with which activities within the network can be planned into the foreseeable future.

I dig it. :clock1030::100:

2 Likes
12

I think I can summarize, correct me if I’m wrong iSpeakNerd.

The diagram illustrates 4 choices (reading bottom to top):

  1. 4 seasons; 11 working weeks a season, with 2 week gaps weeks (44 + 8 = 52)
  2. 4 seasons; 12 working weeks a season, with 1 week gap week (48 + 4 = 52)
  3. 3 seasons, 15 working weeks a season, with 2 week gap weeks (45 + 6 = 51)
  4. 3 seasons, 16 working weeks a season, with 1 week gap weeks (48 + 3 = 51)

I’m a little lost with #3 & #4 and how you get 52 weeks in the diagram, is it that one of the transition periods has an extra week?

I do like the way 12 workings weeks divides perfectly with 4 gaps weeks (per the RFC for vacation time), plus all 4 weeks are spaced out evenly. However, in practice we as a DAO do still take the same time off around Christmas and new years any way as we did the last two end of Calendar years. At least I’m pretty sure there was one in 2021-2022.

In that case the 16 working weeks in 3 seasons, and only the 2 week gap period over Christmas & New years. 14 days evenly spaced over that period is December 22 to Jan 4. Coincidentally December 21-22 is often the Solstice. Additionally, 17 weeks from Jan 5 gets to May 3 (119 days). So the second day of the first week of the second season of the year is when bDAO’s bDay would land.

So the timings also have some nice natural alignments with that option. So that #2 or #4 from my summary of iSpeakNer’d diagram. My first choice is, because I am leaning towards 3 seasons a year to cut down on seasonal overhead (such as budgets) is #4 and second choice is #2.

A possible augmentation of 3 x 16 weeks seasons and a 2 week gap period over the holidays, would be to also make the April-May gap period be 2 weeks, this way bDAO’s bDay is also on a vacation time slot. This unfortunately would make the second season of the year a week shorter than the other 2. In this scenario we would have 5 weeks a year of time off, splitting the difference on the RFC vote because it was pretty close, 40% & 30%.

There’s also 2 more irregularities to consider. First, 52 x 7 is 364 not 365. Second is a leap year, in 2024 we have 366 days. So this presents a choice, we can either have consistent days of the week when seasons end, or we can have consistent days of the month when we have time off. In the case of the later, every year the work week end would drift one day a year (Thurs, Fri, etc.), on leap years 2 days. In the case of the former we wouldn’t be able to time things like bDAO’s bDay.

Based on my first choice and accounting for these irregularities I’d suggest shifting dates as follows for 2024:

  • Dec 21, 2 week & 1 day gap period, starts a day earlier than the previously mentioned 22 to account for the 1 extra day a year that doesn’t divide evenly by 7 days
  • Jan 6 Season start (instead of my previously mentioned 5th to account for the leap year), this is a Saturday (other years this would normally be Jan 5)
  • April 27, 2 week gap period
  • May 11, season start (Or May 4 if it was a week gap period to keep the same 16 week season length, May 5th is the bDay)
  • August 24, 1 week gap period (just realized this also lines up with end of summer break for any contributors who are parents)
  • August 31, season start
  • Dec 21, repeat
  • Jan 5 2025, season start

We would never have to change the dates on seasonal specs again and the way this lines up with school, holidays, bDAO’s bDay, the Solstice. This would maybe be my ideal, open to making every gap period 2 weeks, 6 total, and having only one 16 week season and the other 2 15 working weeks.

Again this would then create the drift of seasons ending on different days of the week but the calendar dates would all be the same except for Jan 5/6. In order to adjust seasons 8 & 9 we could simply extend the gap week to Sept 6

1 Like
13

Thanks for all this work, but the voting is for the bDIP spec, not the one put forward by iSpeakNerd.

This bDIP specifies that the DAO year starts on January 2 and includes three seasons, each 16 weeks long.

I know there will be leap years, but I didn’t see it as being worth worrying about seeing as the dates are set.

1 Like
14

I’m not so sure this should have gone strait to a bDIP with non-negotiable dates without having reached a soft consensus prior to. But the votes are pretty telling already and I’m not too concerned, the goal would still be achieved to prevent the mix up that happened recently.

15

Hey Austin, if you look at the bDIP, it actually references soft consensus on a prior proposal dealing with season lengths. 4 weeks was the soft consensus.

16

@Trewkat This is simply wonderful; I can’t overemphasize how simplified this has made the DAO calendar. This will also help align a lot of DAO activities as well.
Kudos to @hirokennelly and @links as well for working on this as well.

4 Likes
17

I read both links Four weeks of gap week time on it’s own would be just fine I think to advance to bDIP already because of that previous forum poll earlier this month as is pointed out, but that’s not what’s being proposed in this bDIP from my interpretation.

The change to the constitution for instance states a definition of 16 week seasons, which does imply 4 weeks of time off(52-48=4), but it jumps to the conclusion that we’ve reached soft consensus around having that long of a season. For instance, iSpeakNerd’s comment and mine show that we can have 13 working week seasons and keep the same 4 weeks of time off. If this bDIP is about the 4 week vacation consensus shouldn’t that be the wording that’s being proposed instead of the 16 working week seasons?

You referred to “4 weeks” but linked to the 4 month season proposal. I did see that one too, and even though I did happen to vote to in favor of 4 month (16 week) seasons, I just don’t think a poll from almost a year ago counts as soft consensus today. It wouldn’t have met quorum by our current standards as is.

Plus the date of Jan 2, I’m not sure that’s been discussed elsewhere. Happy to to be pointed in the right direction though, I’m not the greatest at keeping up with everything.

That’s all. I think this is good, very well put together, and a good idea(a few days offset from the dates I’d have liked isn’t something I’m gonna sweat about); just felt like it’s jumping the gun a bit on those other points is all.

I think the biggest possible point of contention is we haven’t ever tested out a 16 working week season. And there is something to be said for having 4 gap weeks spaced out evenly across the year, just more opportunities to take a week for camping or what ever you’re into. A march gap week for skiing maybe?

There’s also exactly 31/32 weeks left between the start of S8 and that week of Dec 17-21. So we could do a trial run 16 week season this year and see how everyone feels before committing to a full year of it.

Idk, the vote’s pretty clear already, and the dates themselves aren’t being added to the constitution so the worst thing that happens is if we don’t like the first season of 2024 after all, then we just vote to go back to 13.

18

yes, 4 months, not 4 weeks - apologies for the typo.
otherwise thank you for your thoughts fren!

19

Hi @Trewkat This is great, it will definitely decrease confusion. I have a question:
quote=“Trewkat, post:1, topic:5140”]
In the section: DAO Organizational Units - Grants Committee :

Grants Leads serve a 2-season term and can resign at any time.
and
Grants Reviewers serve a 2-season term and can resign at any time.
[/quote]

Are these 2 sentences replacing the entire Grants Committee Section?
I am wondering why you chose not to use the bDIP Template which includes:

BDIP SPECIFICATION

Explain the textual change to the community handbook in detail.

Current Form Proposal
“Old text in section X” “Revision in section X”

Include a detailed breakdown of the rationale and research into the proposal and any other comparable DAO communities who have tried the same.

Would it be possible for you do this, so that the impact of this can be clearly visualized.

20

I did use that template - but I didn’t know how to get them side by side.
I have included the 2 separate sentences that would be replaced - it’s not the whole section.

1 Like
21

Thanks for the effort in putting up this proposal!

I see the proposal mentions one of the impacts would be “Seasonal budgets assessment and approval (Grants Committee)”.

Since bDAO is currently facing a draining treasury, I wonder if a longer season thus larger budgets would speed up this issue as the Grant Committee would have fewer reviews on the project budgets. According to the current spending pace(bDAO Treasury Report 2022), the runway for the treasury is not that long.

If our community passes this proposal, Grant Committee definitely needs to pay more attention to this.

3 Likes