(Temp Check) DAO Purpose Consensus

Governance
1

Title: (Temp Check) DAO Purpose Consensus

Author: paulitobankless

Editors: Trewkat, Jengajojo, coffee-crusher.eth

Date posted: 2/15/2024

Summary

The Governance Department is working to define what the DAO’s mission should be. This move is sparked by the discussion on brand clarity brought up by HQ. In order to steer this discussion effectively, the opinions of the community are very important.

Background

On December 22, 2023, Ryan Sean Adams proposed a plan for enhancing brand clarity between bDAO and HQ. The proposal suggests establishing a delineation between the missions of the DAO and HQ, stating that this distinction would allow both entities to develop unique brands and mitigate any potential misunderstandings.

The Governance Department is seeking the community’s opinions on this current proposal in order to identify a potential future direction for the DAO.

“The DAO’s current mission is to help the world go Bankless by creating user-friendly onramps for people to discover decentralized financial technologies through education, media, and culture. We create pathways for people to discover, use, learn, and enjoy the benefits of Web 3.”

Specification

Looking at the DAO’s current mission and all that it has been doing so far, which of the following options do you feel describes the DAO.

Note: You can pick more than one option. Feel free to drop the reason for any option you choose in the comment section below.

  • Media DAO
  • Education DAO
  • Marketing DAO
  • Services DAO
  • All of the above
  • None of the above (I will drop my thoughts of what I think bDAO is in the comment section)
0 voters

Next Steps

  • Analyze results of the poll.
  • Based on the results, draft a new mission statement for bDAO and seek further community input before proceeding to a bDIP.
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I am listed as an editor but I do not support this post. I gave feedback on the first draft only, and raised questions as to the poll’s validity and the direction of enquiry, including whether this was truly something the Governance Department had decided together.

From the discussion in Discord it seems there was not clear Governance Department support for the post and I did not see or endorse a final draft.

Given the pause on BANK to be enacted by the DAO Multisig signers, it’s clear we do need to discuss the organizational mission, but this poll is restrictive in my opinion.

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I think that one of the things that we can really do here to separate ourselves while still maintaining SOME brand continuity with HQ (Which I do think is important) Is to allow for a more passionate approach on the DAO’s side. In some of our current content we say “Fight against the Tyranny of the Institutions etc” THAT to me is rhetoric that we can push through the DAO more than something like the Bankless podcast can or should. And I love that RHETORIC!!! THIS is where I think we can really separate ourselves. I’m not saying we start throwing around “Burn down the whitehouse” messaging. But we can certainly take firmer stances than the folks on youtube, spotify etc… I think things like the TECH EDUCTATION discussions from some of the Bankless contact are VERY important, they also need to be approachable and not TOO technical or we will end up with a Polygon ZKEVM type discord across all channels. Not that thats bad but that doesn’t feel like us. I currently think our media outlets have a good balance of that in their education content. Also I feel like a mobilization mindset is an absolute necessities for the DAO. I think all of the selections above are great! But I also think we need to consider these more nuanced items I have listed above as well. Love the last call. Excited to get more involved please reach out to me anytime :slight_smile:

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Gm yeah this is not necessary the final draft. It’s to get community sentiment as to a way forward. There was actually a consensus by the governance department about this temp check. You can attend the next governance meeting to confirm what I say. Then all the edit you have seen so far apart from your input are from the members of the governance department. But this proposal is far perfect it’s just to secure communities perspective in the direction of bDAOs mission going forward.

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Great input @Blindstrom these are definitely things to look into.

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It seemed like ‘Social DAO’ was a popular option on the CC yesterday.

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I propose some alternative ideas, such as “Web3 DAO” , “Blockchain DAO”, “News DAO” or “Educhain DAO”

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It would be sad to see the demise of the name of the first DAO I got involved with. Although my role was primarily in media and education, loosing the Bankless name would destroy the differentiating reason that many of us got into DAO life in the first place through Bankless HQ

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@Paulito

I would take this back to the drawing board.

There may be more facets to your temp check than you think.

You can always research by gathering your thoughts by conversing with others. Research guild doesn’t have anything to do, enlist their help.

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What about being an “Incubator DAO” that launches all kinds of projects (and people/careers) aligned with our mission? Things like Bankless Card and Fight Club seem like good examples of incubated projects that do not fit into any of the proposal’s offered categories.

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re Incubator subDAO, one framework for thinking is what stage are you contemplating within the Wardley map.

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The formal legal entity has desirable traits for persistence … for example, syndicating the content to other media distributors you’d prefer something which is long-lived enough to enforce legal contracts (eg reprints and copyright royalties). Thus town-planners need a certain fixed set of legal + accounting + auditing capabilities.

On the other end, if you want to experiment with a novel project within a season (16 wks) then you don’t want the paperwork and compliance headaches (and trust me, running a solo free-lance operation is hard enough without trying to deal with cross-border AML/CTF reporting). So governance may be contemplating the town-planning side whereas you also want space for innovation and diversity at individual level (whilst also protecting your idea whether in the form of formal copyright or later bragging rights).

The middle-ground is where unincorporated joint-ventures sit and that’s another set of game-rules.

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Just so we are clear this proposal doesn’t mean the name of the DAO is changing; we are just looking to focus on the strength of bDAO and create a mission around that.

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Hmm this makes sense. This is indeed something to consider.

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I have created some branding and Identity work that I would like to propose. The DAO name would be BXNK I have done some preliminary explorations on the style of it. It keeps our ethos. Doesn’t destroy everything but definitely seperates us enough from HQ to elimate confusion

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I keep on going back to what @Icedcool stated about a Social DAO as being the purpose of bDAO. The others on this list are functions or activities (“education, marketing” media").

To me, one of the most powerful values that I see bDAO offers is the ability to learn, grow, and explore in Web3. The ability, permissionlessly, to build, that I have not experienced in other DAOs.

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Putting on my academic hat (used to teach b4 joining the darkside of IP law) I’ll ramble on about semiotics

Ξðpowered by ␢DAO ℠

this is a neoligsm … basically educate + empowered. I replace the capital E with greek Xi in nod to Ethereum was the Layer1 chain providing the infostructure and ð is the lowercase of the latin symbol ETH, so it doubly links the education back to ethereum.

␢ is an anchronism, it used to represent the blank space in old manuals (b + /), nowadays replaced by more graphical conventions. So even if the eye reads/prounces it as be-DAO it can be substituted by whatever actual subDAO or subsequent group you wish to follow.

℠is a riff off ™ which in legal convention was for goods which although claimed, might not be able to be protected. This is because trademarks are a territorial statutory right which need to be formally registered in each country to avail oneself of the courts against imitators (not cheap unless you compare with global patents). It announces to the world you are willing to enforce the qualtiy/affiliation or whatever of that brand.

I refer to “freedom of association” in the legal refactoring of ␢DAO, the freedom to choose your friends (alas have to put up with relatives), means you also have the obligation to disassociate yourself with people you’d not be connected to (eg that co-worker in next corporate cubical who bugs you out). So over time, various symbols get diluted or abandoned as the associations shifted or get readopted.

Symbols have powerful meaning for some … cf the fights over flags and their defacing. As IP specialist, I’ve seen many conflicts because sooner or later, you’re going to offend one group or another since there are so many people and a finite subset of common letters (though unicode is doing damn fine job of keeping up unlike the emoticon committee).

What makes a culture is the rituals, the symbols, the subtle meaning that forms consensus or a world-view. Group identities are separate to nation-states (to everlasting regret of colonial Africa) since there can be conflicting principles … in the later case that post WW1&2 and now warm-war 2.5 territorial integrity matters more as a fundamental principle than split communities. I can point to the example of Sami as how civilised countries try to accomodate vs less so in Rwanda/Ethiopia etc.

So basically the community value is however hard they are willing to fight/not negotiate over their symbols which is outward representation of their values and ethos. As for DAOs … that’s another ball of wax (though for interested I could DM my thoughts separately).

Consensus is hard to build because it also includes what is the boundary / redlines and resulting social approbium or even sanctions. Permissionless exists only in context of a social context, sometimes with tacit rules (don’t shout fire in theatre) … for example in old days, saving a life in China mean you were responsible for them thereafter (Buddhist karma). You can read other excellent examples as to cultural attachments wrt potlach in the Book Debt 5k. So I leave you to think over the distinctions between

friend/amigos of ␢DAO

comped by ␢DAO (complimented)

funded by BanklessHQ

DeFi{nanced} with Bankless

What meaning comes to your mind when you hear/type each of the above?

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I’m curious what you mean about permissionless building. I think we all have a loose idea (even if we might feel like it’s well defined) of what bDAO is and what its composition affords members or contributors. Ultimately, I think of it as a Venn diagram where the area of overlap is what we all believe to be true. So what is permissionless building in the context of bDAO, and why is it important?

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I like ␢ for the ambiguity of relation to what the DAO was (pre-re-org), and its perceived affiliation or relationship to a brand.

What comes to mind from your post:

  1. If we feel strongly about our cultural external representation of “Bankless”, we will (or we should) find a way to retain it.
  2. If we retain it, we should be aware that we are responsible for it, and should understand what those responsibilities entail, beyond those that we most readily see or choose, and
  3. As hard as we try to define this community and its purpose, we are best positioned to be open and accepting of our evolution on the tide of technoculture.

Even if consensus is difficult, documenting our shared beliefs and what we consider to be implicit social contracts, will provide increased cohesion and signal newcomers to the expectations and alignment of the community.

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