[TEMP CHECK] - BanklessDAO Citizenship Upgrade v1

Governance
1

Title: TEMP CHECK - BanklessDAO Citizenship Upgrade v1

Author(s): @Icedcool @defibeats

Squad: Ops, Treasury department

This is a follow up to this temp check: TEMP CHECK - Guest Pass V2

TL;DR

  • We hear you! The ability to join bDAO in a low-friction, inclusive, permissionless way is important and is what makes us bDAO strong.
    • We still have an issue around BANK distribution, values alignment, and overall community health that needs to be addressed in order for bDAO to thrive.
  • Based on some of the challenges we think itā€™s time to restructure the bankless DAO leveling process to enable a progression of time/knowledge and skills at the DAO.
    • We propose allowing Guest Pass holdersā€™ to cnmtinue the ability to infinitely renew, and migrate the right to roles and voting to L1 members (citizens).
  • This is a first step to focus on Guest pass and L1, with revisions to L2, L3 and L4 in the future.

Current Levels (GP, L1):

1600Ɨ426 36.9 KB

Currently Guest Pass and L1s share the same rights and responsibilities.

Additionally, progressing in roles is minimally discerning, and doesnā€™t indicate alignment or changes.

Current eligibility/access requirements:

Guest Pass - Discord Request

L1 - 35,000 BANK

Updated Levels (GP, L1):

To enable a citizenship progression that supports contributor alignment, involvement, skill building, and knowledge of the DAO, we propose the following changes:

  1. Guest Pass holders are eligible to join and be a part of the DAO, with a renewal period. (Currently 2 week renewal)

  2. Vote below to decide on the renewal period.

  3. Guest Pass holders are eligible to take on bountyed work in any org unit.

  4. Role Holding is a right of L1 Citizenship (minimum), as befits someone with skills, knowledge and experience of the DAO.

This will allow Guest Pass holders to continue to have access to the DAOā€™s educational and onboarding resources, with the ultimate goal of enabling progression from GP to L1.

Tech Specs

We have found a couple of integrations that allow us to mirror our Discord roles into Discourse (forum.bankless.community) which will allow us to gate voting to L1s and above. More info to come, pending the outcome of the polls below and next steps.

Polls

Do you agree to this change to the rights associated with the Guest Pass and L1? BanklessDAO Citizen (L1) and above are only ones eligible to vote on DAO matters
  1. Yes
  2. No (I will leave a comment)
  3. Abstain
0 voters
L1 (BDAO Citizen) is the minimum requirement to be eligible to hold roles in the DAO (e.g., Guild or Department Coordinators, Work Stream Coordinators, Talent Coordinators, etc. )
  • Yes
  1. No (I will leave a comment)
  2. Abstain
0 voters
How many weeks should a Guest Pass be valid before renewal is required?
  • 2 weeks (current)
  • 4 weeks
  • 8 weeks
  • 1 Season
  • No renewal necessary
0 voters
3 Likes
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  1. Is a assumption that does not take into account the strides that people have made while being a guest
    Pass.

How are you able to decide on votes for others for people who cannot afford to be a level one.

What are the integrations?

And where in this are we looking at revenue drivers for the group?

For how much fanfare has been around this, I donā€™t understand how this plan does anything but has less people engaged and wanting to vote for leveling.

3

I think this post gives ample consideration to those who have made great strides as Guest Pass holders. Your commitment to advocating for people who canā€™t afford to hold the BANK required for L1 membership has been a positive and necessary influence on this discussion, for sure.

The situation with BANK is critical for the DAOā€™s future, and - while I donā€™t speak directly for them ā€“ I believe the members who support this proposal are aware and willing that some engagement and involvement may be reduced as a result of the changes.

Editing to add: I agree with 0xZFi about Snapshot voting - I believe any BANK holder should be able to vote there. Iā€™m in agreement with gating Forum votes and Discord votes if they are to carry decisions forward but welcome some input from non-L1 contributors on other kinds of polls.

9 Likes
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  1. Iā€™m 100% on board with the role holder gate being set to L1. I would even further support subgroups adding their own tlBANK requirements, incentives, or compensation splits (x% BANK/y% tlBANK), depending on the nature or qualifications for particular roles.

  2. I am not cool with the vote gate. BANK is a voting token. If you hold >0 BANK, I think you should be able to participate in our Snapshot votes. Thatā€™s the purpose of the BANK token, right? Telling people their BANK has no other utility, besides conversion to another asset, until they have 35k, feels like an unnecessary barrier to entry.

  3. Letā€™s bump the renewal period up. I donā€™t know about yā€™all, but I remember my Guest Pass days. That two week renewal grind was annoying for both me and the L2s I had to bug to get my re-ups. I support reducing the friction here.

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I want to make sure I add that I donā€™t think that anyone is ignoring the affordability situation. I donā€™t think that has been said by anyone but it might be interpreted so I want to make sure that is understood before I move forward.

As you say,think we are all aware of this I believe. Itā€™s a hard decision for anyone to make.

My ultimate reflection is that there is a hope to look at all efforts to try (not necessarily succeed, but at least try) to keep everyone on this ship as we move forward. No matter what, people are going to move on. I realize that.

Sometimes you can weed out whoā€™s truly not here to move forward. Iā€™m just worried that this isnā€™t the way to go about it with out some pre work for the pre work.

However, I donā€™t mind my opinion being changed because I am here to learn above all else. And bank is dwindling. That is true.

As well, regarding revenue generation, I also acknowledging that Iā€™ve seen efforts to change investment strategies, focus on self sustainability, and reaching out for grants.

In my comment, I am curious about whatā€™s next. Iā€™m curious about who could end up being discouraged from onboarding into governance, into web3 education, and the like. Simply by stating that the cannot vote from DAO matters.

I have more thoughts I donā€™t want to clog this up with any more babbling :joy:

I changed to abstain regarding role gating because while I donā€™t want to necessarily vote yes with my spirit without answering some questions, I will acknowledge the bank situation as @Trewkat mentioned as being critical.

My question is. Does that situation change with tlBANK? I thought it did! Hasnā€™t it been presented as such? Iā€™m confused about the role gating due to that particular aspect. This is for @defibeats @Icedcool

Follow-up question.

Any way to auto lock? Or at least to choose to auto lock and not sell for like half the lock period? Iā€™m not sure if I understand the whole encouraging to lock situations versus auto lock) we arenā€™t requiring at least a conversation about revenue (which I swear I saw in discord but it disappeared) then why not protect from that side?

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Just want to point out that currently being L1 does not required having been a guest pass holder and gathering experience in the process. Therefore, if you say:

it excluded people who buy their way in outright. Probably one could add here: ā€œas befits someone with skills, knowledge, experience of or a stake in the DAO.ā€

Fully agree with @0xZFi.eth here concerning the GP term. If its offered for free in the first place, there is little sense burdening GP holders and community members having to constantly renew. A longer period would be desirable.

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I hadnā€™t considered those types of votes at the time I posted. I support L1 gating for both Discourse and Discord voting at the DAO-wide level. I think subgroups (guilds, departments, projects, committees, etc.) should be able to define their own gating mechanisms for their own votes.

3 Likes
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You could indeed be right.

Iā€™d just like to see a solid plan for a person to move from guest pass to l1 before Iā€™m convinced about starting to lock down member abilities

But. Perhaps itā€™s the guilds where the biggest focus could beā€¦ maybe

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A Guest Passer who earns an average of 2,500 BANK per week on bounties, over a 16-week season, can go from zero-to-L1 within just that one season. That would be a total of 40,000 BANK that could then be time locked for 6 months to unlock L1 membership. The following season, the member qualifies for roles, which can further supplement or replace bounty work.

Alternatively, 40k BANK costs just under 120 USD right now.

This commitment of locking BANK tokens speaks to a memberā€™s values-alignment and acts as proof-of-contribution to the BanklessDAO mission and ecosystem, at large. I think both of these paths seem reasonably achievable.

5 Likes
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I remember when L1 cost 3.5k. So yeah, itā€™s a bargain.

So I suppose weā€™re now back to the general conversation of affordability for products around the world.

Thereā€™s always the possibility that 120 is still steep for folks out there.

To solve that:

Thereā€™s a chance that if itā€™s clearly stated somewhere (expectations) when a person begins their journey (possibly during a new joiner session) that if you are interested in fully interacting as a member of banklessdao, you should be able to work towards reaching level 1 by the end of said season, people can better budget to lock that 120.

As well, guilds are generally losing bank. The tactic youā€™ve stated would tend to lead to some folks working in 4 or 5 groups, diluting the engagement and attention to those groups. Perhaps in 2 seasons you can see the person reach l1, and have a meaningful experience in the process.

1 Like
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L1 for forum votes + >0 BANK for snapshot votes makes sense.

4 Likes
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True. This does.

For clarification this is because people have earned this governance token, but people havenā€™t necessarily earned the right to advance due to them not earning L1 status?

I keep harping on the guest passer that may not be able to afford an L1 point.

I wanted to ask a different question that is along the same lines of the point but slightly unrelated.

Due to the price of bank being where it is, could you propose that people who have not reached L1 BANK, ā€” whether they have worked on proposals, did whatever they can be considered to do in their hearts to be ā€œbanklessā€ ā€” as not aligned with the mission of being bankless?

Or do you perhaps consider that they arenā€™t aligned as they could be? If so, could they still be considered in a sense as part of the mission IF they couldnā€™t afford the bank?

In a sense - this is the way that a contributor could make their way towards being able to make changes in governance?

Locking down basic voting rights for people will likely lead to contributors leading. However, Is it an acceptable loss for those who are not able to participate in governance due to their guest pass status?

@Trewkat I copied you because your comment (and @NFThinker ā€™s reply to you struck me as interesting. Forgive me for constantly asking you guys this sort of question.

Ive been at a bit of a crossroads lately when it comes to truly being bankless and truly feeling apart of this community. But perhaps this is helping me see my way.

I am not lost to the fact that Iā€™ve seen a fair number of guest passers who are mostly here to earn funds (I canā€™t even go as far as to say bank) and expect me to walk them through how to do this. Thatā€™s not why I am here.

I just wonder about those guest passers, for one reason or another, wind up taking their time for legitimate reasons to level up, but have experience in governance, leadership qualities, and the like? (Would these be the antithesis of each other? Taking your time to level up, but wanting to have a say in governance?)

@Icedcool , is the loss of those members actually as many as I seem to think this is? Or is it less of an impact on the total makeup of banklessDAO?

Do I feel that this practice of boxing folks out of any form of governance by way of being allowed to vote is practicing decentralization? Not in the least.

But Iā€™ve been apprehensive to even call most DAOs decentralized due to the paradoxical nature of any human organized situation to not have some
Sort of centralization by default.

13

None of these changes prevents people holding a Guest Pass from being involved in governance. They are not being ā€˜boxed outā€™ of the entire process and would still be very welcome to contribute ideas to the discussions.
These changes are in fact meant to incentivise such interested and talented people to get to L1. The infinite renewals ensure that it is entirely possible to earn that much over time, or they could decide to buy.

The DAO should not and cannot be someoneā€™s only source of income, so Iā€™d be encouraging people who are in a ā€˜must-sellā€™ position to be looking at other sources of income rather than having them spend time here when their livelihood is at stake.

As Icedcool often points out, weā€™d love to get to a point where the DAO provides a source of income, but we are not there yet and wonā€™t get there if we donā€™t incentivise people to hodl BANK.

6 Likes
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Itā€™s possible that there may not be that many people that are in this position, and I could just be waxing poetic to an empty room.

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I understand. I wish you all the best with the way that this will inevitably land.

While I did not say that they are boxed out. I think it may have been interpreted in that way.

In my opinion. Blocking the chance to vote, when theyā€™ve had it before, is concerning. 2 years to be able
to vote, and now you canā€™t. Can either encourage people to earn L1, or it can discourage them. While I believe that the latter will occur, I hope for the former.

I decided to abstain, because (personally) I donā€™t feel right to take away voting rights in any position. Iā€™m stuck on the idea of rights that were available are now taken away. That for some reason hits too close to home for me. Thatā€™s my ultimate issue behind all of this.

I can concede to the forum votes being locked. because that tends to be less formal and more prone to problems., im very concerned regarding taking rights away in a formal manner such as snapshot with being rewarded in voting rights.

I wish that perhaps this could have been decided back in season 1, but hindsight is 20/20.

However, I truly hope that this is the best.

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Do I feel that this practice of boxing folks out of any form of governance by way of being allowed to vote is practicing decentralization? Not in the least.

I responded to your use of ā€˜boxing outā€™ - I am not sure what you intended to say if it wasnā€™t that folks will be boxed out.

1 Like
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I need to learn how to reread :sob: I apologize for missing that, @Trewkat

My intent regarding this was voting and strictly the voting. Trying to peace this thought out loud and the general concern about this has been rough for me.

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Agreed, that we WANT people to use and hold BANK and exercise their governance rights, and to enable that on snapshot.

The snapshot limitation we had discussed but decided against, and was an artifact of previous versions of the doc.

Removing shortly :+1:

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Removed!

(I need at least 15 character to post a reply)

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This is important.

Those who work for BANK in order to sell it are inevitably shorting and extracting from the value of those contributors who invest their time into this ecosystem over the long term in an effort to grow it stronger. While it may not be the intended message, this action signals a lack of perceived value in the DAOā€™s future.

Alignment with bDAO isnā€™t simply agreeing to accept BANK token in exchange for tasks or time. True alignment with bDAO looks more like co-creating a healthy and thriving organization and being rewarded with voting tokens, accumulating a stake it its future, in the process.

As has been the case so far, HODLers are essentially absorbing the costs of treasury emissions that are being used as meatspace UBI. This can have a place in an economy, but I donā€™t think we are producing the surpluses to support such a program quite yet with our own.

5 Likes