Proposing the idea of Term Limits for Role Holders

Governance
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Thought: As we get ready for Season 5, most guilds across the DAO are going through Role Holder Elections.

Doing a bit of researching across the DAO has led me to believe that there are some guilds that do not have term limits, and those guilds have had the same members holding the same positions for 3 seasons or longer. I’d like to propose a discussion on the pro’s and cons of having term limits (or not having term limits) on role holders for guilds across the DAO.

In BanklessDAO, I initially was a part of the Research Guild. In my time in Research Guild, I held a role called the “South Wind Role” for the past two seasons. I had realized that after my second season, it was likely time to move on. Watching the elections occur, I noticed that there were two other role holders that have held on to their role for a third season.

I begin to think as to whether this is a good practice when dealing with a new organization style. I noticed role holders that have held on to their roles for more than two season in other guilds. I’m curious as to whether this is a good idea. Would this be something that would be fair for other members?

Some could say that I am wondering this because I did not share the opportunity of holding my role for a third season. I will admit that I had contemplated running for the South Wind role again. However, seeing that someone else was interested in the role, made me realize that it was likely my time to hang up the South Wind hat.

Personally, I believe that it would make sense to have role holders have term limits for their respective positions. I have this belief for two reasons. First, having a term limit on the position will make the membership more fair across the board. More members who have an interest in running for a role will be able to do so without being concerned about running against a multiple time incumbent. This will also lead those members to being motivated enough have a greater engagement in the guild.

Sometimes having a goal in mind will help a person become more interested, in more engaged, since they are working with a goal in mind. Second, I having a term limit will lead to having a greater variety of philosophies, and mindsets when it comes to ways to perform their role.

For example, a person who runs as governance coordinator, or talent coordinator, for 2 seasons, can have a more relaxed approach to a person who is brand new to the role.

I’d like to see if other people have opinions on whether term limits would be a good idea for guilds going forward.

Are term limits a good idea for role holders?

  • Yes, I believe that Term Limits are a good idea for Role Holders
  • No, I believe that Term Limits are unnecessary for Role Holders

0 voters

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This makes a lot of sense and will definitely give more people the chance to become more active. In my personal xp members are oftentimes intimidated to even run for a role against someone who’s already held it for a season.

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Awesome idea, i totally support your move to bring this out homie… role holding is supposed to be timed…

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This is a brilliant idea

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Thank you for bringing up the topic and Ive recently been thinking along the same lines. The conclusion I arrived at was I think this should be left up to each individual guildto decide and it should then be incorporated into their respective governance docs. Setting DAO wide rules like that would be to restrictive and over reaching imo.

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Posting my reply to this idea in Discord here as well:

Interesting but I don’t think this would work for every team. Our team is an example of where this would not work well as InfoSec is a very specialized skill that is in short supply in both Web2 and Web3. Additionally the existing team has a lot of hard earned trust and access. In fact those of us with expanded access (Such as domain/DNS/GitHub control) are self doxxed to the DAO administration in order to gain that trust and access. Rotating those members out would be extremely difficult, not to mention would make such self-doxxing something we might have considered against if we knew our time was limited for artificial reasons and not performance.

As a personal anecdote for myself: InfoSec/DevOps is the skillset I can bring to the DAO, if I had a hard term limit on it, then my time contributing would come to an end here for what I consider no legitimate reason.

11 Likes
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Term limits are important but they should also be of sufficient duration for meaningful change and impact to be had by role holders. The WG Governance docs limit role holders to four consecutive seasons. In my opinion, each guild should be responsible for determining this duration.

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Project Management is a skill like that. We should have training/education for new frens and encourage them to take up roles when they are ready. Time is of course a factor here, we don’t know if they will hangout with the project to the said time, but we are looking for the ones that stay right ?

3 Likes
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All the roles i am in are decided by elections and all the elections had different people in it. We spent some time with the new joiners in this season and they decided to elect me in the next season also.

What i did while i was re-applying for a role was to wait until the last hours of the application period and be sure the role was still empty. I would not apply for the role if there were at least 1 applicant. The role i hold is important and shouldn’t left empty.

I think we should know when to leave space for other contributors as a cultural thing and we shouldn’t need a governance document dictate us when to leave.

11 Likes
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Yes, but with the caveat that Guilds with a very low number of members shouldn’t be subject to this (like infosec)

However, if smaller guilds were subject to this, perhaps that would be an incentive for them to seek out and grow talent.

And I think consecutive terms might be more the metric to think about than forever term limits.

2 Likes
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I agree with everything you mentioned. Though I am still learning about what each role does.

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I absolutely agree! Considering the rate of growth of bDAO healthy competition to hold or relinquish your role to allow new members with fresh ideas… bravo idea
, mho. Though, I do see how this idea won’t work for some guilds but they have their own way of operating. As a general platform for starting new guilds I think it’s brilliant.

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I agree with you considering the fact that this will give opportunity for new ideas and adminstrative structures to be set up. It will also encourage the exploration of new talents.

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Seconded!

Terms limits must be practical, here.

If there are no candidates for a role, then it seems a bit crazy to deselect a sitting role holder.

Data might help us here, if a list of sitting role holders and length of tenure were published.

That would show which guilds need the most effort in recruitment and onboarding.

Even then, as mentioned above, some guilds and neo guilds may have a very niche specialism, and struggle to get new talent.

Role holders might note the workloads though, and recognise the benefits of bringing in new blood.

Great discussion, @homie , thanks!

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I generally like the idea of term limits. Looking at the previous seasons however, I also see that there are often times not enough applications of qualified people which makes it hard to enforce this rule.

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Yeah, I can see where you are coming from here.

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I noticed this too.

So there could be a few reasons why that is the case, but I wonder if one of those reasons deals with the worry of not wanting to go against the incumbent.

Some people may be apprehensive, either due to them seeing the job that the seasoned role holder has done, or perhaps because they’re just apprehensive. Not sure.

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Now that is interesting! Thank you for the insight here

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I generally agree with the idea of term limits, but just having limits for the sake of having limits makes little sense. We’d end up with the same flaws as nation-states where folks are elected with term limits. The challenge is that term limits are helpful when the person incharge is not very good at their job, but when someone is very good at their job, the group/org/state actually benefits from this person staying longer in the position.

A good way forward (IMO) is to have apprentice roles for each ‘main role’ in a guild and in each season there could be 2 apprentices for each ‘main role’, this way, at the end of the ‘term limit’ there are atleast 2 qualified people for the role

7 Likes
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this is a good idea and I’m in support of this homie however, I think this should not be a DAO wide discussion but individual guild and should be in their constitution or governance doc.

Also, on a general note, I think some developments have started in Research guild and Daolation guild where Apprentice roles are being formed. I think this will really make sense having apprentice roles for each role so by the end of two seasons there are two people qualified for this role.

4 Likes