Governance Council Activation

Draft Proposals
1

Summary

Over the past three seasons, our governance system has evolved through learning from our community’s distinct needs, leading to improvement in our governance framework. The governance council, initially established to “ensure that the community has a voice today while preparing for a future when the community takes over the majority of voting power,” has encountered several challenges:

  • Insufficient participation in forums by the governance council.
  • Insufficient communication to the community regarding the rationale behind decisions.
  • Low engagement in review processes.

This proposal aims to comprehensively improve the operations related to the governance council by employing a more merit-based approach and relying on social proof. Adopting this proposal would effectively supersede the provisions of CUIP-004.

Motivation

  • To enhance the existing governance framework

  • To prepare the council for the next step into our path to decentralization

Details

A. Structure of the Governance Council

The council will comprise of 11 members elected by the community, meeting the specified eligibility criteria below. Their responsibilities include ensuring the accuracy and completeness of proposals, identifying potential risks, and recommending corrective measures to proposal authors before Snapshot voting.

B. Eligibility Criteria

Candidates must:

  • Have been an active member of the DAO and community for over two months*.
  • Maintain their membership status during their term.
  • Have participated in at least 50% of the previous term’s votes.**
  • Not have served on the council for two consecutive terms before the current one.
  • Not have been previously removed from the council.

*DAO membership is defined by sRBW/lsRBW holding, whereas community membership will be identified using Discord handles, subject to future changes if the DAO adopts different tools for monitoring social proof and participation.
**New DAO members’ vote count will start only from the first stake.

C. Council Responsibilities

Councilors are expected to:

  • Conduct a Preliminary Review by publicly commenting their positions on new proposals on the forum within 48 hours of their posting.
  • Perform an Official Council Review, stating their positions on proposals and the rationale behind. If a proposal is rejected, they must provide recommendations to the author.
  • Participate in bi-monthly meetings to review the proposals and any other important topics related to the DAO. Eligible proposals are forwarded via the governance facilitator in accordance with the proposal funnel.
  • Engage in ad-hoc meetings to review urgent proposals.
  • Express clear positions on agenda items during meetings; abstentions are not permitted.

D. Transparency Measures

The Council must publish reports detailing deliberations, providing insights into individual views on proposals and other relevant matters. Once completed, these reports are to be shared with the governance facilitator for dissemination through the official governance channels.

E. Term Duration

Councilors will serve a six-month term, with a maximum term limit of 2 consecutive turns. Elections are held in the final month of the preceding term.

F. Election Process

The election involves four stages: candidacy filing, qualification checking, campaigning, and the actual election.

  • Candidacy Filing: Filing of candidacy happens over a period of 3 days. Candidates must file their candidacy by submitting the following information on the designated channel - to be announced prior to the election period.
    • Discord handle/the handle the candidate is known within the DAO
    • statement expressing the intent to run for the position
    • attestation of having read the responsibilities expected of a councilor and a declaration of willingness to abide
    • number votes participated in in the last term
    • number of proposals authored and the links to them (if applicable)
    • existing project/s within the Crypto Unicorns ecosystem and the links to them (if applicable)
    • existing project/s within the space and the links to them (if applicable)
    • any other relevant qualification (if applicable)
  • Qualification Checking: For a period of 24 hours, the Governance Facilitator verifies candidates’ eligibility based on Section B. Eligibility Criteria. This may take longer than 24 hours depending on the number of candidates.
  • Campaign Period: This stage lasts three days, allowing candidates to campaign without causing inconvenience or spamming other DAO members.
  • Voting: This stage takes place over five days using Quadratic Voting. The top 11 candidates will be elected for the term. Ties for the 11th position will be resolved through a DAO vote using the same voting method.

G. Vacancies:

In the event of a vacancy due to resignation, loss of eligibility, impeachment, or other reasons, a special election following the term election process will be initiated.

  • Resignation: A resignation is official when a councilor formally announces their departure to the governance facilitator, the council or the community at large.
  • Automated Removal: An automated removal happens when a councilor no longer meets the membership criteria of the DAO, fails to uphold the eligibility criteria, or neglects their responsibilities as outlined in Section C, such as missing two official council review sessions or failing to provide preliminary feedback on at least two proposals. Councilors removed due to this reason may no longer be reelected.
  • Dismissal Motion: If a councilor becomes inactive or acts against the interests of the CU DAO in ways not covered by the Automated Removal clause, a dismissal motion can be initiated. This involves writing a dismissal motion. A dismissal motion skips the council review and goes to an official vote, following a Temperature Check with a 10% sRBW support. Councilors under review continue their duties until a decision is reached. Dismissed councilors may no longer be reelected.

    • A dismissal motion is filed by submitting a draft proposal in the following form:

      Title: Council Performance Review Motion
      Summary:
      Name of the Councilor for review:
      Rationale for the motion:
      Detailed description of the incidents leading to the motion (including dates and evidence if necessary):
      Conclusion:

      • A dismissal may be filed only once for each councilor during the same term.
      • If the motion is passed, the councilor will be relieved from the position; if the motion fails, the council member will continue serving in the position.

H. Honorarium

Councilors receive a non-transferrable NFT Badge and access to a private Discord channel. Additionally, we aim to promote participation by offering an allocation of 1000 USDT (paid in RBW) at the term’s end for councilors with flawless participation record.

Conclusion

These comprehensive process improvements ensure that the governance council remains functional and effective, even in the face of unexpected changes in its composition. It maintains an effective, accountable and transparent governance process that enhances the decision-making and operational efficiency of the CU DAO.

3 Likes
2

100% agree with everything here.

3

Full support with this proposal. Very welcomed.

4

Nice, detailed proposal here!

A few thoughts/questions:

  1. 11 feels like a lot of people for a meeting, and might make it quite hard for everyone to engage meaningfully in the review process during the bi-monthly syncs. Especially if there are also DAO updates to cover. And the bar is already set pretty high for candidates, so a smaller group will ensure that there is ample competition for roles. I would advocate for a smaller group unless there’s a strong case for 11.
  2. Transparency measures. Definitely some added work for whoever takes on this role within the council. I’d suggest that maybe the council itself votes to designate this task to a councilor and perhaps their stipend is doubled. Alternatively, include the gov facilitator in the meetings so they can compile the report. Perhaps specify that these reports should be produced either quarterly or at the conclusion of a term.
    If you leverage something like NotebookLM, you could almost automate the reporting process if you have access to the meeting minutes, deliberations etc…
  3. Election Process & Vacancies. Adding a bullet point around re-election might be helpful. Something like, Councilors should strive to submit their intentions to run for re-election by 6 weeks prior to the end of the term. Having some confidence in the number of open seats will be really helpful for everyone in terms of planning etc…
  4. Quorum for cancelling meetings and timezones. 2 weeks can come up so fast, and it’s very very very often the case that there is no real business to attend to. I’d suggest that the council can at their discretion cancel an upcoming meeting through a vote in their gated Discord. The reason can be captured for posterity, and this could be limited to not cancelling 2 consecutive meetings. This allows more flexibility and should improve engagement/sentiment and just breathing room for those necessary ad hoc meetings.
  5. Automated removal / dismissal: I’d consider this carefully, since life happens and it’d be a shame to boot someone with an exemplary record because of a minor infraction. I would advocate for some intermediary step that requires an action by the council to enforce here. Perhaps something like a formal reprimand, that is basically a warning that an additional infraction will result in removal from the council.
  6. DAO topics - will it be the responsibility of the council to cover these or will the gov facilitator bring these to the council as a recurring agenda item?
  7. Honorarium. Definitely in favor of this, and I actually like how you’ve structured it to come at the end of the term, though I’ve wanted to see someone use streaming payments since this is uniquely blockchain! My only thought here is that every councilor should receive this so long as they haven’t been removed, and should still receive maybe half the amount if they are removed after the 3 month mark.

Exciting proposal and hope to see this move forward!

-Grand

5

Hello @grandmarquis! Happy to see someone from the Nation chiming in. Thank you for taking the time to review and comment on the proposal.

  1. I understand your perspective, but I believe that a council of 11 members adequately representing our diverse community. Given the multifaceted nature of Crypto Unicorns, we encounter a variety of participants ranging from core gamers (who themselves are divided into farmers, jousters, breeders, etc.) to community members like spreadsheet warrior, app developers, programmers, and content creators. Our participation spectrum includes players of the core game, secondary party games, and those engaged primarily in staking. The council’s objective is to assemble as varied a group as possible, avoiding an echo chamber. The success of previous seasons in achieving gathering a diverse set of community members suggests that the system in place is working as intended.

  2. To clarify, the transparency measures has always been part of the existing responsibilities and was written here again as this proposal mentioned that the approval of this proposal nullifies the previous proposal.

  3. As for reelection, G. Vacancies states that it will adhere to the same procedure as the term election process. Would it be better for it to be written elsewhere?

  4. Agreed with not holding the meeting when not necessary! The good news is this is already in effect. The Governance Facilitator assembles the facilitators for the meeting. In the absence of proposals, an announcement is posted informing the council of the cancellation. Also note that meetings are text-based and async so timezones barely has any effect. When we voted, none of the councilors from S1 wanted a synchronized/voiced meetings.

  5. On the issue of defining a “minor” infraction, it appears we have differing views. Addressing councilor absences with seriousness is essential, especially considering past instances where councilors failed to attend without notice, prompting community members to demand accountability.

  6. The council uses their council discussion room on Discord when they want to discuss topics with other councilors. This is totally fine. Proposal reviews though are initiated by the Governance Facilitator.

  7. Finally, our approach is inspired by the practices of Illuvium. I’m open to experimenting with this model for Crypto Unicorns to evaluate its effectiveness in our context. Perhaps we also explore other models after viewing its effect on our community.

6

I am in favor of these revisions to the DAO in full and glad to see them considered in this proposal.

7

The Snapshot voting for this proposal has ended with the following result:

Yes: 36,510,986.56
No: 100,690.22

With this, we will be implementing the content of this proposal from the Season 4 Governance Council.