CIP-137: Outward Facing Team

Proposals (CIPs)
23

Except we would go to jail since we are known people. It’s not like I could just run off with 2m and people go oh well that sucks.

Honestly, this is an absurd response to legitimate criticism of a mechanic that REQUIRES people to get paid in perpetuity unless they themselves take an extraordinary vote not to receive payment. With the community having zero oversight. That is a self-dealing circle jerk.

If the others had legal problems there’s no way this passes legal muster.

Just pay yourself for a quarter and stop trying to get cute with the perpetual contracts and reverse votes.

24

What mechanism would you propose?

ps. literally not implying anything with the treasury comment other than some element of trust is required at all levels. Web3 aims to minimize the trust required, but I don’t think that ever goes to zero, in a DAO anyway.

25

So I’m working with Melissa to cover legal & governance considerations for the compenstation strategy we are all building, but perhaps some of the content would be useful for this conversation?

  1. Limitation to Exceed Budget
  2. Limitation of Term
  3. Subjectivity to DAO Approval
  4. Limitation on Team Structure Changes
  5. Limitation of decision-making powers
  6. Limitation of authority

I know we are aiming to build automated processes, but would a piece of policy defining the expectations and limitations of paid roles within the DAO provide those concerned about governance and dedication from the team gain some peace of mind if we have a piece of DAO made ‘legislation’ to refer to if there are obvious major infractions of duty? At least in this earlier stage?

If so I can put it together. :slightly_smiling_face:

Edit: I think $64k p.a is pretty reasonable for the proposal though. I also believe building an initial network based on mutual trust and cooperation is an important aspect of the image we all project publicly.

I just finished tidying up the draft, if you scroll down you’ll see the governance & policy section : COMP FRAMEWORK, GOV&POLICY.docx - Google Docs

26

This was definitely not my intention. The whole circle idea doesn’t work if the circles aren’t flexible - if people can’t be added or subtracted. If the circle is made of bad actors who refuse to let others enter and just reward themselves, the circle should be shut down after one epoch by whoever is funding the circle (in our case the multisig signers).

It’s a 5-month proposal, not forever. It would end at the end of Q2 no matter what. I’m not sure why you said it’s “indefinite” or “in perpetuity”. I see your point about the conflicting language. I just meant that the team could choose to reduce the monthly total comp. I agree that’s probably unlikely.

We just had a very good community call where we took a collective look at what functions are really necessary to “keep the lights on” and whether it includes some of the things in this CIP. Shoutout to @lyons800 for leading that discussion. The goal is not to pump the DAO if there’s nothing to market at the moment. These are valid criticisms. The accusation that we’re just trying to find a way to get paid by “being cute” with perpetual contracts and reverse votes is pretty unkind and, I think, untrue. I am surprised you would say that.

27

I’m being a little flip, and maybe I misunderstood - but the proposal implies that there will be a vote of the circle to see if the program should end. That’s a reverse vote. If the vote is to see if we should end the program the implication is that it continues indefinitely until it’s rejected. That’s a perpetual (aka evergreen) contract.

I understand there is a fixed date on there but there’s conflicting language throughout and you could make a strong argument this is not rejected so therefore it continues.

So that being said, and I’ll repeat, maybe I was a little fast and loose with the language when I said stop being cute because it suggests that you’re not acting in good faith and I want to be clear that wasn’t my intention.

Maybe I misunderstand but do coordonape circle epochs choose the next circle? I just feel like the overall community involvement in these epochs are low for something of this nature. It just seems like another way of saying this is the core team.

My point is overall I think this is a distraction. Just pay yourselves fairly. At the end of the day there is the same amount of money.

28

I have thought about this post in great detail and remained silent so as to hear everyones opinions and voices.

Here are some of my observations: (Please not i do not have any analytics on other forms of media such as Twitter, WeChat, WhatsApp etc.)

Community:

CityDAO discord statistics show that we currently have 21 weekly communicators.

While moderation is incredibly important, the statistics clearly showcase that the operations of internal discord communications can be managed by a very small collection of people given the low level of participation.

Wick bot takes care of majority of risky accounts etc. so that is covered.

With Discord welcoming and new member greetings, i will refer back to the statistics again and question the proposed team if they deem it necessary that this is a paid role. One of the amazing things about early days .

Media

Like community , media has also played an important role in CityDAO over the past 9 months.

However, a similar question prevails. Is CityDAO’s current content on twitter etc. aligned with CityDAO’s mission or is it trying to fill a gap that may not necessarily exist right now.

A lot of the content put out (Not at all the fault of the media team) is filler text that is often not related to CityDAOs perceived “mission” and instead explores other realms of interest from Community members and the team. This is fantastic but is it useful towards any idea of CityDAO’s mission? For example; “The network state” talks and similar are pretty aligned with CityDAOs vision, however, we should be a speaker talking about what we have done related to such vision and not being the consumer of other projects success stories and the platform/community for them to broadcast those to.

I think CityDAO should try to focus on delivering a product before marketing one we don’t have, or worse, pretending that we have one that is of value.

Education

Education is a crucial aspect of any organisation, as it helps to empower individuals and communities by providing them with the knowledge and skills they need to make informed decisions and take meaningful actions. However, when it comes to CityDAO, the focus should be on research efforts that are directly related to our vision and mission.

While it is important to provide education of CityDAO, resources and funding should be directed towards research topics that directly align with CityDAO’s goals and objectives. It would not make sense to focus on educating users on topics that are not directly related to CityDAO’s vision and mission as it would not contribute to our progress and could distract us from the main objective.

So far education has been a hit, but with a very small group of people. I encourage people to still participate in small groups like this, but I don’t see the logic behind CityDAO funding education efforts.

CityDAO should not be teaching people to do things in the Web3 Space and should instead focus on people that are already knowledgable on topics that can perform research efforts to bring us closer to our actual mission.

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29

I think a lot of these are second order tasks and we have a lot of processes to clean up internally. Media is about awareness which is onboarding which is having clear asks from new members. We don’t have many clear asks right now before we do some foundational work.

Refining governance mechanisms and making that path more clear and allowing more people to execute smaller projects supercedes all the outreach and media presence in my opinion.

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30

So thanks for this Lyons; this is well drafted and articulated.

So here is the rub, and really I think the important point. I think we all agree that this stuff goes with the price of Eth (which is up as I type). Let’s just accept that. From a business perspective, it often makes sense to lose money and maintain employment to lower the costs of starting up again. So there are two routes 1. lose more money now but start up with fewer costs, and 2. Cut costs more now, but incur higher start-up costs.

So let’s agree that this CIP, while not a huge part of the budget, would be a move to 1 over 2. I really don’t know which is higher, I don’t think anyone does, as it depends on market trends. Personally, in a growing area like Web3, I think tons will go to those that show confidence in downtrends. I could be wrong; just my honest guess is that when things turn around, it will be the DAOs looked at as builders during the downtime that will thrive.

I would genuinely be curious about your take on the above. I think we agree on most things, I think we just disagree on the relative costs of shutting down.

31

Really respect your opinion here Alex. We will discuss it. My two cents is if you feel this is the best route, then I am fine with it. All hands on deck to resolve governance issues.

32

can’t stress enough - not trying to pick a fight or do anything wrong - This is an example of a conclusory statement that I find a bit problematic. You state things as if you have real life experience and I don’t believe that you do, nor do I agree with the statement you made, at all, based on my ten (10) years of living on the front line of business operations - including multiple restructurings. I think this statement is just wrong and wonder aloud what experience you are basing this on…

Then (this is more of a stylistic critique I suppose) but the post then goes on to say

Its just weird, one second you are the business expert, the next second you state you “don’t know” about the very same thing you were just discussing and throw out a market trend buzzword salad. LOL.

Making the case for on-chain credentials based on irl experience ever more obvious with each post!

33

This is disingenuous from you, we have been trying to talk about fixing governance for months and you have several posts in this forum noting your lack of willingness to put any hand on deck, let alone all of them :rofl:

I do agree however - I really respect @alexthims opinions as well. So you are right about that much as well, we don’t all disagree about everything…

34

I have been very active and vocal about potential fixes to governance. I am skeptical of relying on an IRL meetup which, realistically, very few could attend. That’s my stance.

35

We (those named in this proposal) have taken a vote and decided to halt this CIP and not try to move to a vote. While we have received some positive support, there are also some strong voices against this proposal. We hope we can come together for the betterment of the collective DAO to forward our shared mission and vision. To paraphrase Ab3 L1nc0ln, “A DAO divided against itself cannot stand.”

We still believe that Coordinape is an interesting way to try to address the DAO’s issue with compensation and value provided, but it seems that the circle idea needs to have more support and a clearer mechanism to prevent misuse. We look forward to continuing to work towards positive governance as an ideologically aligned community of equals.

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36

You can attack the argument or the person. I don’t see any refutation of my argument. It is 100% true that companies will work at a loss. Governments, in fact, do it all the time as well (why they run deficits). Particularly in expanding market, it can make sense to incur losses for long periods. This is true in practice and true in theory. My personal background is more on the theory side, but I don’t see why that is relevant.

Anyway, being honest, a lot of this is getting too pessimistic and personal for my taste. I am more than happy to discuss and help facilitate improvements to governance. But, if the replies aren’t constructive, I am out.

37

Governments may (on limited scale) but businesses do not - hence the everlasting layoff culture of business america. This has been prevalent in crypto lately as well across the board.

No pessimism here - I think on chain reputation/credentialing will be an important part of the web3 movement forward. Regardless of how I say what I say I think you are a valuable contributor at CityDAO - and I do agree that we need everyone to think a little further about what we are here to do and how we will do it (i.e… governance).

I’d say finding a better way to connect, for the people who are interested - instead of discord - is a worthwhile pursuit. I believe in the power of irl and everyone else who has met in real life does as well. The returns are exponential if you ask me. We can find a way to be virtually inclusive, and if you are serious about an all hands on deck effort, you should collaborate with the proposers of the IRL proposals and make them a reality.

Don’t get discouraged. Work harder!

38

The Great Emancipator of Finances

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39

Although I love in person collab and agree it is very effective (insert impassioned whiteboard pen noises), wouldn’t using that as the main method just alienate the vast majority of people in the DAO?

Flight costs, food, lodging, etc not withstanding, is it feesable or a good use of treasury funding?

Sure if we had baby parcel set up with a modular unit like we discussed here it would be easy, but we don’t.

As for unifying discussion - Discord works great. Folks just need stop using DMs to communicate ideas, and stop splitting discussion between the forum and Discord. Choose one, no need to have 1/3 discussion on Discord, 1/3 discussion in private dms, and 1/3 on the forum.

I think the only thing this space needs to be used for is formal CIP proposals that have already been discussed in Discord. That way we have a clear CIP history, instead of multiple irrelevant proposals.

Reduce work-duplication, improve openness, and the time it takes to retrieve information and pick an engagement platform and commit to using it.

40

Good question, my statement was out of context a bit as I know this is not the thread for the proposed governance conference… I think one of the ideas was to have nodes around the globe and a format that allows for maximum participation, but as an idea is only WIP and not proposed as the panacea - just an opportunity for coming closer together as humans and trying to fix governance.

As for alienating others, again I think if given the proper amount of advance notice and planning time, it could be done. Not easy, but worth it for sure. Also, someone like @kkopczyn can do a better job pointing to the data, but the participation on CityDAO’s key tools lately is not so significant that we couldn’t bring the vast majority of “regular” contributors together in a reasonable way!

As for the effect it would have on CityDAO’s treasury - I think the goal would be to minimize expenses but still fund it to a level that would properly allow for participation. I think it could be a great use of some DAO funds but I am just one person :slight_smile:

41

All this aside, this is just great!

This just isn’t true. There are countless examples of companies losing money to maintain market share in downturns. Also, not sure I would call the insane amount of government debt “limited scale,” but that’s really neither here nor there.

In a broader sense, this is just what investment is. By definition, it is incurring a loss now for future profits. All this is due to a post by @lyons800 suggesting media and community aren’t worthwhile now. But, if you look at it as an investment into a growing space, well the picture isn’t so clear. That’s really all my point is. Yet no one seems to have really countered it. Do you believe Web3 is growing? It is really a starting point for which model should be adopted. Yet we seem to skip around the point.

I do too, which I was why I have always been for it, just not necessarily for stopping projects and spending a ton of money on it.

42

Its weird to say community is not worthwhile right now where #NFTCommunity is like the most used tag at Twitter.

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