Make DAOStewards an official Meta-Governance Delegate of BanklessDAO

Governance
1

Summary:

This proposal seeks to officially designate Bankless DAOStewards as the official meta-governance delegate from BanklessDAO. The objective is to streamline the delegation process and eliminate the need for separate delegation proposals

Background:

Bankless DAOStewards is a metagovernance group formed in late 2022, with the goal of representing BanklessDAO in other DAOs. Our hope was to gain reputation in other DAOs, and translate that into revenue for banklessDAO and its projects.

Since inception, we have helped BanklessDAO and it’s projects earn over 130,000 OP via optimism, claim 701275 collab airdrop and over $30,000 via public good projects such as gitcoin, daodrops, clr.fund etc…

We have actively participated in governance of the DAOs where we have received delegation from banklessDAO or via banklessDAO members. Our voting rate remains over 80% and we always communicate our voting rationale via our notion page.

The proposal aims to address the time-consuming process of making individual proposals for delegation and maintain DAOStewards’ focus on assisting BanklessDAO

Mission & Values Alignment:

DAOStewards have a proven track record of helping banklessDAO project earn revenue, thus enabling contributors to be focused on the mission of helping the world #goBankless

We have always voted keeping bankless values in mind, our members are the most value-aligned people one can find in the DAO. In the coming season we will incorporate tlBANK as a requirement for our governors, thus further cementing our relationship with banklessDAO and its values.

Scope of Work:

In practise this will have the following implications:

  • If approved, DAOStewards will be the official meta-governance delegate from BanklessDAO, thus streamlining the delegation process, eliminating the need for separate proposals.

  • DAOStewards will incorporate tlBANK into its membership requirements

Financial Implications:

There are no immediate costs associated with this proposal.

Success Metrics or KPIs:

  • Revenue raised for BanklessDAO and it’s projects
  • Voting weight

Next Steps:

If the proposal is accepted:

  1. DAOStewards will be officially designated as the meta-governance delegate from BanklessDAO.

  2. Efforts will be made to streamline the delegation process and promote delegation for specific airdrop opportunities.

  3. tlBANK will be incorporated into participating requirements to strengthen alignment with BanklessDAO.

Squad Background:

Current active contributors of DAOStewards include:

@0xbaer : L2 member, Project champion: Bankless wallet, active governor at SAFE, 1inch, ?

@links L2 member, Project champion: Bankless Card, active governor at SAFE, ?

@hirokennelly L2 member, Project champion: Bankless Publishing, Writers Guild Coordinator Newsletter project, Active governor at Optimism, ?

@thinkDecade L2 member, Project champion: Bankless Africa, Active governor at Optimism, SAFE, ?

@LiviuC L2 member, Active governor at Arbitrum

@Jengajojo L2 member, Project Champion: IMN, Global Events, DAOStewards, Governance Dept coordinator, Active governor: SAFE, Optimism, Arbitrum, Gitcoin, 1inch, AAVE, VITA

POLL

  • Accept
  • Abstain
  • Reject
0 voters
2 Likes
2

What does this actually mean?
What delegation processes will be streamlined?
What separate proposals will be eliminated?

Thank you :slight_smile:

3 Likes
3

It means that bvault will delegate gov tokens without having to make separate proposals like:

2 Likes
4

Thanks for making that explicit.
I voted against because I think for transparency, record keeping, and knowledge sharing, the DAO community should continue to see and have the opportunity to comment on the plans for such tokens.

3 Likes
5

This is a very important proposal that will represent the DAO in many ways.

Diversity is a key factor, I respect and appreciate all of the members that are part of the squad background but I only see men in the group mentioned above. I believe there should be a clear statement and commitment to diversity before moving forward.

@Trewkat are you involved in DAOstewards? I would love to but I haven’t gone down the governance rabbit hole yet.

Are there any other DAO members who identify as women contributing to the workstream?

5 Likes
6

Diversity definitely is an important factor! While we already have members from different cultures and places represented here, I wonder what we should do as a group or as a DAO to ensure any such commitment can actually be implemented. Until now we have not been able to find dedicated contributors who self identify as women. We announce open positions on each CC and is available on the bounty boards too.

Gender has never been a barrier to joining the squad https://www.notion.so/bankless/How-to-become-a-DAOsteward-eb13381edbc2443f87861ef39512c563 and anyone on the server is free to join our weekly calls, contribute and earn their L2 tag to formally participate. What can we do make this project appealing more appealing to groups not represented in the squad?

3 Likes
7

I echo @Trewkat 's concerns. I’m concerned that this shift represents a centralization of important (if time consuming) aspects of our governance processes, and more importantly, bDAO external governance representation. While I have confidence in the current DAOStewards team, what is being proposed could incentivize efforts to capture this bDAO unit. So while I’m generally in support of efforts to improve efficiency in any of our work, especially governance, at least based on my current understanding the risk would not be worth the efficiency gains.

3 Likes
8

Hey @Trewkat, @chunz, and @Ornella, thanks for to your feedback, I’d like to address some of your concerns.

  1. lack of transparency if tokens are automatically delegated to DAOstewards - @Trewkat and @chunz

DAOstewards is a not-for-profit, public good project that comes to bDAO for its funding; we always provide information on our activities in other DAO through seasonal proposals or on our notion.

  1. DAOStewards S9 Proposal
  2. Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

WDYT, if we have to renew the terms every season either as part of our seasonal proposal and / or as a stand-alone every season.

This will ensure that the DAO can revoke the permissions to DAOstewards without a proposal or a snapshot.

  1. inclusion, DAOstewards needs to be a more inclusive workspace. - @Ornella

Yep, i vibe with you here. This is not a challenge that just we are facing, but in web 3 as a whole, we have, we need to onboard more women and Diverse+ to the space.

just as @Jengajojo said, our members come from a wide variety of backgrounds, both socially and culturally; we had women in our extended team till last season (@Jasuu)
we are also working with other DAOs to induce cultural diversity.

the requirement to join DAOstewards is to be an L2, and women L2s who are interested in governance is a rare.

3 Likes
9

Personally I am not for this proposal until I understand the full scope of what you are proposing. It’s not really specified what “official meta-governance delegate” means.

  • Does it mean that the bDAO multisig MUST delegate any/all tokens to DAOstewards that it receives?
    • What happens if another group wants to be delegated tokens and they successful gain consensus to do so?
  • What affect would this have on DAO sub units, if any?
  • Where would we document that DAOstewards is the official delegate? In the constitution? Because then we would need a bDIP

I’m for delegating tokens to DAOstewards, but also feel the DAO should be informed when it happens. What about if we asked for the burden of delegation to be reduced to “forum-only consensus” or something like that (i.e. no snapshot required)?

5 Likes
10

That’s good.

So as a follow up to this to maybe have some more support.

There’s a TON of wire cross governance DAO stewards centralization going on here, which maybe gives illusion to this being centralization/a power grab with the cover of efficiency.

Ironically this is an issue I have at a greater level. Sometimes, you want to branch out beyond the idea that having 1 woman in a group covering you for the diversity angle, because if you use that as your answer, you look like your virtue signaling.

So there’s a greater issue here. How are we truly being diverse? How are we covering from all different cultures, backgrounds socioeconomic standards, and the like. If there is a valiant effort towards at least recognizing this, then having decisions like this can be easier to swallow. As it stands right now, it’s a big ask.

Perhaps there are ways you can work with different guilds/departments for cross guild measures to upskill members. Because saying “we just don’t have the right talent” can only take you so far, and considering the state of the branch, it’s taking people away from the DAO.

Aside from my word dump there,

I agree with @Trewkat , I see a need to have an avenue where we can see what decisions are being considered.

1 Like
11

Thanks @0xbaer, you’ve touched on a couple of points that help address some of my concerns.

While I feel I can trust the current cohort representing DAOstewards and their intentions, I can’t say that for future cohorts, and I think a move like this requires this kind of trust.

So even if we were to renew the terms every season, like many other aspects of governance, I’m concerned that it will be a “set it and forget it” scenario. I’m also unsure how a regular renewal of terms alleviates concerns around transparency.

IMO, part of the role of DAOstewards would be to contextualize each delegation process. Not every delegation carries the same weight or importance, so if we were to delegate all to DAOstewards by default, we would be doing a disservice to bDAO and its members.

Recognizing that DAOstewards is a not-for-profit entity and public good project, I still consider it at arm’s length from bDAO. I know there are gaps in my knowledge and I appreciate you taking the time to help me understand, but any unit fundamentally separate from bDAO (not-for-profit, public good, or otherwise) doesn’t necessarily represent the best interests of bDAO by default.

4 Likes
12

Here is the crux of the issue:

Im noticing a ton of attempts at these set it and forget proposals, and the same people tend to be in the forefront of these proposals, with the best intentions! It may not necessarily be a bad thing that we’re trying to streamline things. However, if we are trying to do so, we have to do this with a proper plan.

In order to properly enact a set it and forget it structure, that doesn’t turn into you have to have a general understanding of what burden we’re trying to alleviate. There also has to be a proper plan that helps the set it and forget it structure not be a cover for doing whatever the f* you want.

1.Do we know who the current DAO stewards are? (Yes, because they’re in squad background)

1.a Did we know before it was presented in the proposal? I knew of 3 of them.

2.Do we know how long the current DAOstewards are going to be in place? (I have no idea. It would be helpful if it was presented in this proposal)

2.a do we know how they became the stewards? (I believe it was a proposal, but I’m not sure. Another thing that would be helpful to post in the proposal)

  1. Is there a lot of cross pollination of governance roles? Definitely.

3.a are there efforts to mitigate this in the future? :woman_shrugging:t5:

So in order to have this all work in a way where we can all have this be in the best interest of the DAO and the ideal, it’s going to need a lot of work.

1 Like
13

Hey Jenga, I didn’t realize this was ready to go up. As we’ve talked about before, I do support some form of automatic delegation for DAO Vault tokens, but this language isn’t clear enough as to its scope and I really like some of these suggestions so it may be good to work on a v2.

3 Likes
14

I sat on the fence on this on, because I understand why you would want the auto delegation to ease the governance around this for operational speed.

Ultimately, I voted against because, while I dig what you all are doing and believe in you all, I think it should be a case by case delegation for similar reasons shared by @Trewkat and @chunz and mine listed below.

My Reasons:

  • Increase awareness around DAO assets and each delegation
  • To validate DAOstewards have the capacity to manage the delegation
    • To raise awareness around DAOstewards positions and votes they are taking
2 Likes
15

I really like this idea:

That would switch my vote to positive.

16

@0xbaer @Jengajojo though this proposal may be getting more friction that you anticipated, I am grateful for your efforts here wrt streamlining processes, and your numerous contributions as a whole. Thank you for being a part of bDAO! :heart:

3 Likes
17

It’s always important for proposals to elicit discourse. @Jengajojo and @0xbaer , you’ve succeeded in eliciting the discourse. In my opinion, you can say that you’ve been even more successful than the proposals that just pass by without any conversation

2 Likes