CIP-62: Q3 Bundled Guild Proposal

We propose reorganizing CityDAO’s guild structure to smooth out execution and clarify responsibilities. In Q2 2022, CityDAO introduced a new guild structure with the knowledge that it would be an iterative process. In this proposal, we will outline improvements to the guild structure. A few highlights from Q2 include:

Full text:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jTrTYXeHCcZAn5gWHdIwUifoMPALrptz3mW1vt27f2Q/edit

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I would like it if we could find a way to open up opportunities for others who have not had a chance to be a facilitator. I am not saying we need more facilitators - I am saying we should consider who is staffing these roles and whether there may be others who are qualified and interested.

Not speaking for any of these people or their interest level, but @zeno @will @John_TV_Locke @wdclapp @kkopczyn @DenverCitizen9 @Nick123 @Tradesman @bentheninjagoat @ScottA come to mind as potential options after just a few minutes of considering it anecdotally.

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Keen to change the structure to this: New Guild Structure - Q3 (With edits) - Google Docs

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I agree with @DAOvolution that in the proposed structure its not clear either how others can contribute or what incentive there is for others to contribute.

In my participation in CityDAO over the past little while, it appears that challenges include:

  1. CityDAO is both too centralized and too decentralized at the same time. There is a core team that makes most of the decisions, but within that team, any person can veto a path forward which leads to a lot of discussion and no action.
  2. Given decisions are made primarily through core team and not CIP, not much happens. This is related to #1, as core team members will not be aligned on a path forward which keeps a path forward from being taken.

An alternative to the proposed Guild structure is to learn from MakerDAO, one of the most successful DAOs, and operate in a core unit structure. Where each guild, project & parcel needs to set out its own goals, team, and funding and be individually approved by the greater DAO. Each of those core units can then operate in a centralized fashion and move quickly to achieve its goals.

By bundling so many decisions in one CIP we are going towards a dysfunctional “democracy” that resembles the current US congress. Bills so large that things are snuck in and everything is “take it or leave it”. It also encourages anyone who benefits from one part of the proposal to support other who benefit from the proposal again centralizing decision making.

A proposed alternative is build on the “CityDAO as a Factory” concept from @scottfits expanded on here: CityDAO as the Factory - Google Docs

Under this framework, each guild, project, and parcel would write up their goals, team, financial impact and mission alignment to the DAO.

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I seem to be missing from media guild in your version? Was that intentional or could you add me in?

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Agree with that. Really hope we can make each guild present its own CIP and has an internal discussion with its own members first and then get to vote with clear direction, cost break down, fully guild-acknowledged facilitators , and list of clear tasks on the table to be separately vote guild-by-guild–it’s surely better than bundled everything up like this. However, I’m not sure if we have time for that at this stage with only 13 days left before the next season comes :thinking:

Maybe we can let each guild create its own CIP using one distinct template, present it by 22th June, pass them all to vote immediately after that. If any guild struggle to pass, it’ll need to rework its structure and pass as soon as possible. However, if we want to do like this, it’ll surely goes against the charter that require 20 likes for any proposal to be bring to snapshot (we surely can’t get 20 likes on 8+ separated proposals in such short amount of time in the bear market) and also a one-week minimum timeframe too. :exploding_head: At the current situation of the market, it might even be hard to reach the minimum quorum in any of the snapshot if we have more than 3 snapshots put to vote posted at a time too–and most people, who are now focusing more on the collapsing of the market, won’t even read any of those in details. We need to find a way to circumnavigate all these if we choose to go with it.

I personally don’t think we can change anything at this time as it just got so many obstacles on the way with so limited time on the table, but we should definitely “clearly” adopt this separated guild proposal approach for the next season’s guild proposal as it’s clearly better than the current bundled one. Each guild should start discuss with all its de facto members at the start of the last month of its term, present its own proposals with full goals, KPIs, and detail at the 15th of that last month, and these proposals might have lower quorum to get to vote and to pass. However, if we can find an effective way to implement this now, which I doubt will be possible without at least one and half or two months delay of everything, which is too much in my opinion provided that we already spent 3 months reforming ourselves earlier this year, I’m totally in support for this.

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Wasn’t sure what your role in media was ?

To respond to both yourself and @DAOvolution.

This is the concept behind the Guild Structure I proposed. It is the same as 'CityDAO as a factory" and empowers projects and not guilds.

In my proposal, guilds are torn down to bare minimum and I am working on a process to try to empower people who want to create projects etc. , whether that be a parcel, website or research and so on.

The issue is a lot of things were organised by guilds last quarter and this led to guilds trying to create tasks and things to do even though people could of proposed projects.

This new structure is completely focused on trying to facilitate people like the list @DAOvolution has mentioned to create, lead and fund their own projects in CityDAO.

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  1. Who is “we”?
  2. I was repeatedly promised a facilitator spot by three different current lead facilitators. No role for me appears in this document. Rug pull if I have ever felt one. I still have hope despite this personal slight.
  3. We need a staff developer/engineer before any of the three staff proposed. Developers/Engineers are the core of web3 - they need to be cross-pollinating as well, more so than legal or finance.
  4. There should be discussion/outline of building public goods, which is at the heart of any City. The word “public goods” must be in our mission imho, or we will fail.
  5. There needs to be discussion/outline of how staff and facilitators will be evaluated every quarter. At a minimum, other facilitators/staff should vote on how the other staff/facilitators are doing. People must also be rewarded for risking social capital when reasonably criticizing others’ ideas.
  6. We need to be applying for grants simultaneous to all of the proposed large spends. CityDAO is perfectly poised to receive grants if we are trying to build public goods. CityDAO is leaving money on the table every quarter that there is not a person at CityDAO getting paid to search out and apply for relevant grants.
  7. I think you have Parcel 2 and Parcel 1 in reverse of optimal order. I guess everyone is not patient and thinks we need to keep the momentum by buying something, anything. I disagree. I think we should buy a staff developer/engineer, and then focus on making the other next investment perfect. Not a frat house, imho. There is no explicit mention that the proposed Parcel 1 will not be a continuing drain on the treasury, or provide revenue, at all. This should be explicit, at a minimum.
  8. Structure. Structure. Structure. The structures of governance is where DAOs live and die. The ability to fundamentally alter Governance with a single CIP that gets 20 likes off Discourse is wild and not stable. Once we find something that works, we must make it more difficult to change.
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I get your concerns on timing, a few thoughts:

  1. The guild proposals only need be a page or two according to the structure proposed above.
  2. We’re talking about full time funding for salaries for 3 people, 30 hours a week for 4 more and another 10 people at 10 or 20 hours a week. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for them to spend a day creating clear goals and for each of their roles.
  3. What is our “limited time”? I know season 1 expires end of June, but it’s an arbitrary deadline set by the expiration of the last period that had no clear goals attached to it. The DAO shouldn’t fund ongoing salaries for guilds that don’t have clear goals (in my opinion).
  4. In terms of getting 20 likes to get to CIP, 20 out of ~4k unique citizen holders seems like a very low bar, not a high one. Just the people who have funded payments in the above CIP are already 17 people, they only need 3 more people to like the proposal to send it to snapshot. It feels like a matter of poor communication of the proposals that there are not more comments already on here. You’ll notice that this thread only has 77 views. It was just posted in the mission public channel and potentially discussed in calls but has not been communicated out on twitter, nor as an announcement in discord even though it affects the future funding and progress of the DAO.
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Agreed this is a step in the direction I’m proposing!

My suggested modification would be that the guilds in your proposal should have clearer objectives and metrics they can be measured against and that each should start its life as a CIP as well instead of a grouped CIP.

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  1. Yeah, that’s not hard to do at all
  2. Sure, and I’m with it
  3. I think we can also ask the operation guild to require all guilds facilitators presented in the docs to create a special docs and attach them to the bottom of this document too. That should work the same to reach your goal without having to go with separated vote.
  4. My point is here. Although it might seem hard to get 20 likes on one, two, or three proposals at the same time, getting it for 8 separated one is not that easy tasks to do. The 17 people you said will be separated and not all of them are that popular with the community at large to rally people. But, yeah, I agree, it’s not that hard for this one, so I’ll just leave it here for others to discuss, but somewhat agree that, if we really want them all to pass this stage, it’s not that hard. However, what is more important for me is the require quorum of 500 citizens “each” snapshot according to our 4.3.4 (f) in our charter. Even larger DAOs with 10k+ members on snapshot still struggles to achieve such a quorum in any single vote. It’s possible to reach that for one or two or even three at the same time–and we’ve done a good job on that, better than 98 percent of all DAOs in the term of voting participation I would say–but it still posses a considerable risk to me to rush all 8 to the snapshots on the same time and hope they all separately pass that 500 quorum imho. The more proposals we put there, the less people want to read any in detail, or even vote on them all. You can go see the snapshot website Snapshot. AAVE, Bankless, or even OlumpusDAO with all 10k+ members still can’t achieve more than 400 at all, some still struggles to get more than 200 to turn up, and they all haven’t had any 8 consecutive streak, which should average down all participations even more, too. MakerDAO still struggle to gain more than 50 unique voters to show up on most of their polls at the current stage. It’s not that we have done a sub-par communication I think, we’ve done a decent jobs, but it actually is DAOs’ universal weakness of unlikely get more than 1 out of 20 participations in any voting at all. And I don’t see any way we can lower this quorum as outlined in the charter as of now.

However, based on your point, I think your main argument is that all guilds should come with separated documents to outline their goals and tasks, right? Not much about the vote (although preferably, of course) If so, I think we can also ask the operation guild to require all future guilds to create a special docs and attach them to the bottom of this document by 23th this month too if you see my point about our possible bottleneck above. That should work the same as to provide a clear goal, responsibilities, and KPIs for the next quarter without having to deal with all the charter improvement stuff, which would take a lot of time as we might need another CIP to amend the charter itself. Until we lower the 500 quorum next season, we can then go with what you suggest that all guilds or projects must come with an elaborated proposals to be voted individually. (And I’m actually a big supporter to that, just don’t want to go for another CIP for another 15 to 20 days to lower the quorum at this moment lol) I would say, as a community person who involve in a lot of DAOs, if we still have 500 minimum quorum according to section 4.3.4 (f) in our charter, we run a risk of not getting any of them pass if we put 8 guilds separately :sweat_smile:

Yep that all makes sense. If operations wants to facilitate more detail on each, then sounds like a good idea.

One correction on the CIP process, it appears (looking at snapshot) that quorum is 100 participants, not 500. The most recent facilitator reimbursement CIP should pass with just 248 participants.

Just throwing this into the conversation for consideration because I think it’s super relevant to what so many people are discussing.

For me personally, I like to just get shit done, then come back to the DAO and see if y’all like it 'er no. If ya do, great I’ll keep going in that direction. If ya don’t, k give feedback and I’ll go that direction instead. And if it’s a ton of work I’ll ask for some comp then if ya give it, I’ll do more. If not, then that’s fine.

If anyone has great ideas, then go do them. Just get it done. In baby steps so you don’t burn yourself out and so the DAO has a chance to provide feedback before going too far.

If you don’t have good ideas, then go think of some :slight_smile:

I know this doesn’t specifically address this CIP for bundled guild details. This is to hopefully inspire good action by everyone in the DAO and to see if we can cut out any and all other noise.

Anyone can DM me anytime and I’ll help you wherever I can.

Let’s get shit done yo

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Love the idea, with a few conditions. I would propose to amend this CIP to call for an election to fill the positions, which is required by our current charter (4.2.1 (b) Term of Guild Facilitators) that calls for a election at the end of the term. This would just be a discord meeting like we did for our city council elections and then put it up for snapshot vote. As i mentioned in cip 59, the citizens should have the right to participate and core team and mission guild should not get any special treatment. We could hold the election at the next town hall…this is urgent.

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Adding Parcel 1 and Parcel 2 into this made this too big and too monolithic. This should be focused just on funds and how to keep functioning with a call to scaling back spending that doesn’t achieve a high bang for your buck.

Glad to see consolidation into a leaner guild structure.

I’m sorry that I haven’t been very engaged recently, work has been really busy and will probably stay that way. I will try to do my best to participate as a Citizen and offer my two cents here and there.

Comments below.

  1. I don’t think that citizen days spent at a CityDAO property should be the North Star metric right now. Why? We don’t have enough properties. Citizens are also distributed around the world, and there is a burden of physical travel in order to meet this metric.

Instead, I would suggest an alternate engagement metric built around engagement with our community via Discord. Or at least the addition of this metric as a mechanism for digital engagement.

  1. What are the performance metrics for each of the newly proposed guilds? How will Citizens know that the guild is doing their job well? I would request each proposed Guild Lead to suggest at least 3 metrics / KPIs that they will publicly present at weekly calls.

  2. Community Guild seems overstaffed, do we really need 70 hours a week to run the CityDAO community? (Please note that I believe this is an awesome guild and plays a critical role for CityDAO.)

  3. Did we just kill Events or merge it into Media & Public Affairs? I don’t see any reference to events in the new structure.

  4. In comparing Lyons structure to the original one Scott proposed - I like the idea of having an integrated “Product” guild which includes Dev and Design. These can be broken out again in the future if needed.

  5. I don’t think we need to break things into “Functional” and “Resource” guilds right now. Each guild can play both roles and we should work with Guild Leads / Facilitators to encourage them to think about growth and engaging available internal and external resources to achieve their goals.

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I agree that “citizen-time” should include citizen participation in forms besides only physical presence, especially since we don’t actually have a physical location for presence. Presence is not necessarily physical. In this sense, a “metaverse game” might actually be in line with this metric, if it achieved “citizen-time”, that is, citizens participating and being “present”.

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@lyons800, @DAOvolution, & @kkopczyn

LFG/role/project that gets me building things please!:hammer_and_wrench:

RE:Guild may not be the best way to go, but I have a hard time believing that holding license in RE and Construction does not qualify for some additional consideration in the space. How is the org using me as an asset? Forgive the blatant disregard for permissionless workflow, but where do I take 10 years jobsite and asset management to find value here?

#verifiedcitizen

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The purpose of functional vs. Resource is that we do not need to create onboarding etc. for functional. They are there to serve a functional purpose, they will not have many bounties, nor members.

Resource guilds have a clear onboarding process, their goal is to maximise participation. They will have bounties and act as the main source of resources for CityDAO Projects.

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