[PROPOSAL] Rescind the Snapshot Vote for the S10 GC

Governance Proposals
1

Title: Proposal to Rescind the Snapshot Vote for the S10 GC Election
Authors: Rowan
Editors: 0xZFi, Icedcool
Date: Feb 3, 2024

Summary

The Season 10 Grants Committee (GC) Election Snapshot Vote is live, in accordance with the responsibilities and authorities of the GC, per the bDAO Constitution. While there are a number of reasons this may not be the best course of action for bDAO, two are of particular concern:

  1. The future of the DAO’s brand, structure, and contributors are uncertain. As a result of recent community discussions, there may be some big changes coming to the DAO in the near future, both in terms of structure and operation.

  2. Only one of the Season 9 GC members will remain and none of the Season 10 applicants have GC experience.

Moving forward with the Season 10 GC election is a requirement of the current GC, per the bDAO Constitution, but it is a governance action that assumes the DAO is functioning without issue, which is not currently the case.

Completing the current election does not serve the best interests of the DAO in the current circumstances and could be a significant liability until the DAO has a better idea for the future.

Background

In November of 2023, Bankless HQ (BHQ) was the target of criticism on X due to the conflation of membership and overlap between BHQ and bDAO, when DAO units sought funding via Arbitrum grants. This resulted in a desire for BHQ to establish some form of brand clarity between the two organizations.

While initial steps have been taken to establish this clarity between the two organizations via a governance post, the details of any arrangement have yet to be completed. These details will determine the future of the DAO, both in terms of operations and structure.

Historically, per the bDAO Constitution, the GC is tasked with “vetting all funding proposals and ensuring funded organizational units provide ongoing transparency.” Per the Constitution, this is the only bDAO unit tasked with evaluation of funded organizational units, in any respect.

Currently, there is no organizational unit with the mandate to evaluate appropriate or legitimate brand usage. In the absence of any such unit defined and tasked with this responsibility, day-to-day operations of the DAO lack sufficient clarity to continue, and the GC can no longer fulfill its purpose with the necessary legitimacy or alignment with the Constitution.

Specification

  1. The GC rescinds the current Snapshot election.

  2. The DAO establishes a new status quo, subject to the details of any brand clarity agreements and processes established between bDAO and BHQ.

  3. Existing DAO units may seek funding directly from the bDAO multisig for day-to-day operations provided these operations don’t contribute to any real or perceived brand or organizational conflation between bDAO and BHQ.

  4. An election for the future GC (with the same or different mandate) is held once new parameters and processes for organizational and brand distinction are established.

Success Metrics

Consensus on whether or not the existing GC S10 election Snapshot vote should continue. This has impacts on bDAO funding mechanisms, which can be clarified through future governance proposals aligned with aspects of organization and brand clarity with BHQ.

Useful Documents / References

bDAO Constitution
S10 GC Election Snapshot Vote
Discord Discussion
Brand Clarity Between DAO and HQ

POLL - Should the Grants Committee Rescind the Snapshot Vote for the S10 Election?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Abstain
0 voters

Whatever your vote, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. Input beyond what is collected through the poll is both meaningful and valuable.

3 Likes
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I really appreciate your concern regarding this topic. Although I have my bias with it. Working on the rebranding policy and other issues that have come up from the twitter backlash has nothing to do with individuals who have volunteered themselves to assist the DAO. “That’s what I see serving in the GC as”. Most of the individuals who raised their hands have a reputable track record working in the DAO this also showed in the L2s that sponsored them.
I agree that the DAO is in a rough state but it’s people who care about it that will be able to fix it. So in my opinion I don’t think what we need is to rescind the S10 election but to come together and come up with a better way considering the current state of things.
Also with the way the election is if anyone feels any of the candidates aren’t qualified there is a No option to vote against sure person. And at the end of the day if there is a vacant seat old members of the GC can be recalled to join the current GC and ensure things are in place.

8 Likes
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Thank you for taking the time to comment and share your perspective @Paulito . I have a few questions that I’m hoping you might have thought of as well:

As the only remaining member of the GC from previous seasons, do you feel you have enough understanding of the role and mandate of the GC to guide a new group to make the best decisions possible for the DAO? We’re in a complex situation and I’m curious how you plan to approach it as a member of the GC.

If the GC were to continue as-is, without the DAO having a clear solution for the branding issue, how does the GC make decisions and administer funding? Who gets funding, who doesn’t, and why?

What if one or more of the candidates is not voted in? Would the GC have enough votes for quorum according to the Constitution?

5 Likes
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For me this is the appropriate course of action even though it is likely to be unpopular.

Pretending everything is normal and that status quo operations is something we can just keep doing is the very reason we got into the BHQ/Crypto-Twitter vs. BDAO situ to begin with. We can keep putting our ‘head in the sand’ or we can put all our energy into a solution and take-pause until we have one.

Continuing normal operations is a wasted opportunity to take recent events seriously and address them for what they are imo, a true existential threat to the DAO that has already generated substantial attrition

Speaking for myself only, I’d argue my exodus seasons ago is a symptom of bDAO’s sustainability and identity issues being unresolved and the pressures of the bear not being adequately leveraged as an opportunity to apply corrective action. Let’s stop ignoring our reality and just continuing to prop up a broken system that bleeds BANK (and our reputation/vibe) into oblivion w/out self-reflection or meaningful improvement no matter how uncomfortable it is to face it.

8 Likes
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At some point the community is going to need to look inwardly and decide whether it’s time to just refresh the whole playing board, or keep trying to move as status quo:

Grants committee is hard.

Does it make sense to have a leader who was in GC for one season? Probably not.

Does it make sense to have members who have had a short period of time in the DAO as members of the grants committee? Probably not.

I also gather that grants is still in need of some fine tuning to right that particular ship. This decision can be a detriment towards the GC, and furthermore, the DAO.

It’s better to take your time, and either have the current cohort stay on as GC members until this branding issue has been decided. Or have a pause on grants committee to put it under construction for a season, and have the bDAO multi sig instead decide on grants.

1 Like
6

Thank you for your questions.

First, I would start by saying that to change or improve a bad system, you need people. Systems don’t just change themselves. I have been in GC for a season. I can’t say I have all the knowledge to make things work, but I definitely have the drive and determination to see things improve and become better, and with the right team, this is very possible. Also, there is room to recall old members of the GC who are willing to complete the number that is part of the options I intend to implore. I am aware that there is a pending issue the DAO is having, but that’s all I have been hearing. I am yet to see someone come up with something to make it better and be ready to spearhead it as well. Change is cheap to talk about, but the real work is in implementing what has been said. I would rather move with people who have no idea but are willing to put in the work than with people who have the idea but are not willing to put in the work.

As regarding funding, we will work on a clear part of what should continue and what shouldn’t, and the entire DAO community will be the judges of that, not just the GC.

Needless to say, the current GC has been able to reduce grant requests from over 20M BANK in S9 to less than 6M BANK in S10. If we don’t see that as progress, then I don’t know what it is.

So your concerns are justified, but my point is that we don’t need to shutdown an entire system just because we want to fix it. We can keep the vitals running while focusing on the major issues and solving them. The DAO won’t fix itself; it will be fixed by people like you and me who are willing to put in the work and not just talk.

5 Likes
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I voted no because I feel that if there were objections to the process itself or to the applicants, a recommended period to take action would have been during the nomination period, before the election.

Whatever the challenges we face with the current status of the DAO, I believe the elected members will take action with integrity, knowledge, and wisdom. This is a learning process for the whole DAO.

For any extra support, I’m here as soon-to-be former Grants Committee member to give guidance in the capacity that I can.

4 Likes
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This Proposal is not an objection to the process or the applicants. To be clear, I’m not trying to circumvent established governance processes. If you feel the Proposal suggests otherwise, please point it out and I will do my best to address the issues.

In the Summary, I identified two significant problems and indicated the following:

The Constitution is written in a way that assumes the DAO is functioning without issue, not facing existential problems, which I believe is currently the case.

In the Background section, I described the issue we’re facing around branding and our relationship with HQ and ended the section with some additional context:

Given the problems that exist and the ambiguity and legitimacy around brand use and the implications it has for funding eligibility, there is no GC cohort that would be in a position to effectively and legitimately operate.

I hope this has helped clarify my intentions about the Proposal and I welcome any additional questions or feedback. I, too, hope that any GC cohort would take action with integrity, knowledge, and wisdom, but in order to take such action, the DAO has to resolve some of its outstanding problems.

Finally, with respect to timing: Yes, ideally a Proposal like this might have come during the nomination period. Like everybody else, I’m doing the best I can, and to my knowledge there’s nothing in our governance processes or the Constitution that indicates decisions made can’t be objected.

1 Like
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Why is this progress? (Honest question because o would want to know if it’s because there has been a process that was put in place to cut funding for a positive reason, or is it because people just don’t want to pay out, or is it because you didn’t have enough times to have quorum to vote on items that gave funding)

3 Likes
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This is a good question. I also wonder to what extent the reduction is directly related to GC efforts versus a decline in requests due to a decrease in the number of active contributors and projects (i.e. people just leaving the DAO).

2 Likes
11

Great questions, Homie.

Generally, the idea here is to use these weird times, look back and see what things we can improve. If GC is paused, that does not mean pausing the funding of DAO units - it’s a pause of a unit, but the funds still can be asked from the multi-sig directly.

This “downtime” is actually a great to reflect and improve because not many things are happening and makes it easier to work on and implement changes.

GC next version can only benefit the DAO, not be detrimental. Issues GC has are detrimental to the DAO, not attempts to make things better and more functional.

2 Likes
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It is progress because we were able to cut down on things we could clearly see were not working. This was done even before the branding issue and the idea to pause the funding. Hope this answers your question.

1 Like
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Also, we took our time to go through all the proposals that were submitted. So that was not a rushed outcome.

1 Like