[Phase-3] HIP-16: Make admin roles of communication platforms eligible

DAO
1 
HIP: 16
title: Make admin roles of communication platforms eligible
authors: @Ludovico @paulaberman @santisiri 
status: Phase 3
created: 2020-06-11
final edition: 2020-06-19
requires (*optional): HIP-5
languages: EN, ES

English version

Simple Summary

This HIP institutes a mechanism to determine the position of admin in the social communication tools that voluntarily want to be recognized as official by the DAO, either social media (twitter, reddit) or communication channels (telegram groups).

Abstract

In order to further decentralize positions of enforcement within the DAO, there is the need to create mechanisms in which channels of communication get the seal of “Community Managed [channel]” (i.e. “PoH Subreddit, Community Managed”).

Motivation

Following the spirit of HIP-5, which creates a framework for management of the DAO without altering the smart contract, I propose a better mechanism for establishing enforcing roles on all recognized channels of communication.

Specification

1. Definitions

  1. Administrative role, administrator, or admin: the position that a person has over a channel of communication, it being social media accounts, forums, instant messaging groups. In this position, the person has privileges to enforce policies of the convened rules of these channels and include muting, removal or admitting the participation of the members of the group, along with other administrative tasks. Although they are free to do so, it is not the responsibility of the person holding the admin role to moderate dialogue or content creation, which is a role more commonly known as community manager, moderator, facilitator, etc. An admin may be assigned the role of moderator by the authority responsible for that (Product Manager, Mission Board), but moderators assignment and mechanisms are outside of this HIP.
  2. Community-managed channel: a volunteer status for any of the channels in the Scope of this HIP in which there is an agreement of the channel owner/creator to be associated with PoH. It is accompanied by a badge or a seal or any piece of text that clearly recognizes them as such.

2. Scope

Roles for admin positions for each of the Community-Managed channels of communication would be temporary roles and elected from the community. These include (non-exhaustive list):

  • Discourse forum
  • Twitter
  • Facebook groups
  • Reddit
  • Discord
  • WhatsApp
  • Instagram
  • Telegram groups, users and channels

Elections

  1. Elections are made separately by platform.
  2. Elections should be done in the Tokenlog platform (here’s the current implementation, new repositories will be created on Github solely for the purpose of the Administrator election on each of the platforms).
  3. Elections are ongoing.
  4. Elections are made using quadratic voting (negative votes are allowed).
  5. Each Human will receive 99 voting credits.
  6. Ideally, there should be 1 elected admin for every 500 users in a channel (since the position is voluntary, there might be less than 1 elected admin per 500 users).
  7. The top candidates with a positive score will take their positions (e.g. on a channel with 2.715 members, the top 5 candidates with a positive score will become the official Administrators).
  8. Each time one of the official Administrators lose their position on Tokenlog’s ranking, the next candidate to come up in the rank will gain the official role as Administrator.
  9. Admin roles should be registered individuals in Proof of Humanity.
  10. Roles are only revocable for security reasons or serious offenses to the community. The Mission Board can call an emergency voting of 24h in Snapshot. Admins revoked in this way cannot re-apply for the role in the next term.
  11. Admin roles are not moderator roles, therefore do not require to suppress their opinions in debates, as long as they follow the code of conduct established for that channel. Mere opposition to that admin’s opinion should not be grounds for the admin to ban that person.

Administrators obligations

Administrators acknowledge that access to communication channels or profiles labelled as “admin” gives them an additional power, which comes with additional responsibilities. They are expected to behave as ambassadors of the project. In addition to following the appropriate codes of conduct:

  • They should refrain from expressing virulent opinions about Proof Of Humanity or related projects with their admin accounts.
  • They are subject to higher standards in terms of good conduct (ex: avoiding excessive profanity, or engaging in debates on topics outside of Proof of Humanity, such as politics or religion).

This doesn’t preclude them from formalizing criticism on Proof Of Humanity. However, it should be done either in (i) a technical and dispassionate manner, and preferably offering constructive solutions, or (ii) using a non-admin account.

“Community-managed” status implementation

  1. The owner of any channel of communication within the scope of this HIP can contact the Mission board and apply for the “Community-managed” status.
  2. A call for volunteers is offered in the channel and those members participate in the election process.
  3. Once that process is finished and the elected members are occupying their roles, that channel receives the “community managed” badge, and a link to that channel will be provided in Proof of Humanity project site, and referenced throughout the rest of the channel’s ecosystem.
  4. Failure to comply with any aspect of this HIP would trigger the removal of that channel from the “community managed list”

Special first condition

For their significance, and to spearhead the value of having the “Community managed” status, the following channels should enter the admin selection process effective immediately:

Rationale

Currently, the admin positions in communication channels that have grown to the thousands of users, were subject to the initiative of the person that first created the channel, (telegram, reddit). These roles right now are virtually permanent, without rules that govern their time in that position, or how or why their roles were assigned. This creates space for centralization and the possibility of indefinite perpetuation in the position, among other issues that arise from this permanence in their role (silencing opposition, pushing a specific agenda, creating a hostile environment, etc.). Some object that this is not an important role to be considered for election, or that this will lead to voting fatigue. There are enough reasons to believe that this proposal will not lead to this sort of problems.

Version en Español

Resumen simple

Esta HIP instituye un mecanismo para determinar la posiciĂłn de admin en las herramientas sociales de comunicaciĂłn que voluntariamente quieran ser reconocidas como oficiales por la DAO, ya sea medios sociales (twitter, reddit) o canales de comunicaciĂłn (grupos de Telegram)

Resumen

Con el fin de descentralizar aún más las posiciones dentro de la DAO, es necesario crear mecanismos en donde los canales de comunicación tengan el sello de “Community Managed [channel]” (Por ejemplo, “PoH Subreddit, Community Managed”)

MotivaciĂłn

Siguiendo el espĂ­ritu de la HIP-5, la cual crea un un marco para manejar la DAO sin alterar los contratos inteligentes (smart contracts), proponemos tener un mejor mecanismo para establecer los roles de administrador dentro de todos los canales de comunicaciĂłn reconocidos.

Especificaciones

1. Definiciones

  1. Rol de Administrador, administrador o admin: La posición que tiene la persona dentro de un canal de comunicación, siendo cuentas en medios sociales, foros o grupos de mensajería instantánea. Esta posición, la persona tiene los privilegios para asegurarse de que las políticas definidas para ese canal se cumplan incluyendo, silenciar, remover o admitir la participación de miembros de ese canal junto con otras tareas administrativas.

  2. Si bien son libres de hacerlo, no es responsabilidad de la persona con el rol de administrador de moderar el diálogo o la creación de contenido, siendo estas responsabilidades de lo que se con el nombre de “Community Manager”, moderador, facilitador, etc. Un admin puede ser asignado con el rol de moderador por la autoridad responsable (Product Manager, Mission Board), pero las tareas o mecanismos del moderador no están cubiertas por esta HIP

  3. Canal de Community-managed: Un “estado voluntario” para cualquier canal dentro del marco de esta HIP donde hay un acuerdo con el dueño/creador de ese canal (asociado a PoH). Se acompaña con una insignia o un sello o un texto donde se lo reconoce como tal.

2. Alcance

El rol de admin para cada canal de comunicaciĂłn dentro del Community-Managed sera un rol temporal y elegido por la comunidad. Estos incluyen, entre otros, los siguientes:

  • Foros de discurso
  • Twitter
  • Grupos de Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Discord
  • WhatsApp
  • Instagram
  • Grupos de telegram, usuarios y canales

Elecciones

  1. Las elecciones son realizadas separadas por plataforma
  2. Las elecciones deberan ser realizadas en la plataforma Tokenlog (aca esta la implementación actual, nuevos repositorios serán creados en Github solamente con el propósito de la elección del administrador para cada plataforma)
  3. Las elecciones están en curso
  4. Las elecciones se realizarán usando el voto cuadrático (quadratic voting) donde se permitirá los votos negativos
  5. Cada humano recibirá 99 créditos de votación
  6. Idealmente se deberá elegir un admin por cada 500 usuarios dentro del canal (hay que tener en cuenta que como la posición es voluntaria, puede existir menos de 1 admin cada 500 usuarios)
  7. Los candidatos con más votos positivos tomaran su posición como Administradores (e.j. En un canal con 2.715 miembros, los primeros 5 candidatos con más votos positivos se convertirán en Administradores)
  8. Cada vez que un administrador oficial pierda su posición en el ranking de Tokenlog, el siguiente en la lista subirá de rango y ganará el rol de Administrador oficial
  9. Los roles de admin serán solamente personas individuales registradas dentro de Proof of Humanity.
  10. Los roles son revocables solamente por razones de seguridad u ofensas serias a la comunidad. El Mission Board puede llamar a una votaciĂłn de emergencia de 24hs en los Snapshots. Cualquier admin removido de esta forma no puede volver a aplicar por el rol la siguiente vez.
  11. Los roles de Admin no son roles de moderador, por consiguiente no se requiere que se abstengan de dar opiniones en los debates, siempre y cuando sigan las pautas establecidas dentro del cĂłdigo de conducta de ese canal. Cualquier oposiciĂłn a los pensamientos y / o opiniones del Admin no puede ser tomada por ese Admin como una justificaciĂłn para banear a esa persona

Obligaciones de los administradores

Los administradores reconocen que el acceso a los canales de comunicación o a los perfiles etiquetados como “admin” les otorga un poder adicional, que conlleva responsabilidades adicionales. Se espera que se comporten como embajadores del proyecto. Además de seguir los códigos de conducta apropiados:

  • Deben abstenerse de expresar opiniones virulentas sobre Proof of Humanity o proyectos relacionados con sus cuentas de administrador.
  • Están sujetos a normas más estrictas en tĂ©rminos de buena conducta (por ejemplo: evitar la blasfemia excesiva, o participar en debates sobre temas ajenos a Proof of Humanity, como la polĂ­tica o la religiĂłn).

Esto no les impide formalizar críticas en Proof of Humanity. Sin embargo, debe hacerse o bien (i) de forma técnica y desapasionada, y preferiblemente ofreciendo soluciones constructivas, o bien (ii) utilizando una cuenta que no sea de administrador.

Implementación de status “Community-managed”

  1. El propietario de cualquier canal de comunicación en el ámbito de este HIP puede ponerse en contacto con el consejo de la Misión y solicitar el estatus de “gestionado por la comunidad”.
  2. Se ofrece una convocatoria de voluntarios en el canal y esos miembros participan en el proceso de elecciĂłn.
  3. Una vez que ese proceso haya finalizado y los miembros elegidos estén ocupando sus funciones, ese canal recibe el distintivo de “gestionado por la comunidad”, y se proporcionará un enlace a ese canal en el sitio del proyecto Proof of Humanity, y se hará referencia a él en todo el resto del ecosistema del canal.
  4. El incumplimiento de cualquier aspecto de este HIP desencadenaría la eliminación de ese canal de la “lista gestionada por la comunidad”

Condicion inicial especial

Por su importancia, y para encabezar el valor de tener el estatus de “Community Managed”, los siguientes canales deberían entrar en el proceso de selección de administradores de forma inmediata:

JustificaciĂłn

Actualmente, los puestos de administrador en los canales de comunicación que han crecido hasta los miles de usuarios, estaban sujetos a la iniciativa de la persona que creó el canal por primera vez, (telegram, reddit). Estos roles ahora mismo son prácticamente permanentes, sin reglas que regulen su tiempo en esa posición, o cómo o por qué fueron asignados sus roles. Esto crea un espacio para la centralización y la posibilidad de perpetuarse indefinidamente en el puesto, entre otros problemas que surgen de esta permanencia en su rol (silenciar a la oposición, impulsar una agenda específica, crear un ambiente hostil, etc.). Algunos objetan que este no es un papel importante para ser considerado para la elección, o que esto conducirá a la fatiga del voto. Hay suficientes razones para creer que esta propuesta no dará lugar a este tipo de problemas.

6 Likes
2

What is the relationship and role breakdown between ADMIN and MODERATOR?

3

Eligible /for election/?

Oficial *= Official

4

ADMIN is defined in the scope of this HIP. Moderator is not, but I’d say is the one that guides the conversations in a group, suggesting subjects to talk about, mediate in conflicts, etc.

5

what is a better term for “be elected by means of voted”?

6

I cannot accept this proposal without a clear delineation of Admin and Mod roles.

Admin roles are not moderator roles, therefore do not require to suppress their opinions in debates, as long as they follow the code of conduct established for that channel.

On a lighter note, this makes it sound like the role of mods is clear: suppressing opinions :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

7

“eligible for election” is probably correct.

8

that is the reason why the scope of the admin is in the HIP and the moderator is not. There is no need to define everything that it is not in the scope of the HIP, if you know what I mean.

Actually, my recent experience shows that in practice, the act assigning an admin role may appear as the way to suppress their opinion (something in the lines of “your dissenting opinion cannot be expressed, since you are an admin”).

9

Hi @ludovico ,
I think the proposal is being rushed through as there is no point in the Elections section on what to do if an admin goes missing and a new admin needs to be assigned, do you suggest an emergency vote gets triggered? You have to remember admins are volunteers and can churn pretty quickly, this would lead to voter fatigue as @clesaege and @Justin pointed out, I don’t think this proposal addresses that completely that is why I am voting to make no changes, YET!

2 Likes
10

Perspective I guess. IMO (having managed large communities, ran a social network, so hundreds of thousands interacting in channels) admins shouldn’t express opinions as Admins, or use their power (just posting as an Admin carries power) towards personal opinions. It is why you often see anonymous or protected admin usernames, and participation of the personal side by a regular account (sometimes disclosed, sometimes not, I prefer not).

4 Likes
11

Thanks @iafhurtado and @Justin.
@iafhurtado if you’re familiar with HIP-5, this proposal is currently in phase 2 and it is not binding, so there is no rushing. The voting on this phase it is just a signal to say that this is worth or not worth a discussion. Do you still think it is not? Now it is a chance to make amendments and reach a consensus. A modification could be made to have a list of equal amount of applicants and substitutes admin, in case something like this happens. I don’t see the current admins getting churned or even willing to leave their roles, and they’ve been there from the beginning.

@justin, I totally see your point. How do we prevent something like the silencing-by-admin attack? (making the most vocal person of a community an admin so that he is able to control the troll attacks, but at the same time they coincidentally being called to suppress their opinion due to the role they occupy). I also see that current admins (other than me) manifest their opinion very openly, should this be banned as well? I also purposedly added a segment that prevents the admin to ban on reasons related to opposing opinion. This would protect the common user to express differing opinions of a particular admin.

Let’s think of an alternative version of that segment of policy.

12

The idea could be good, but the details are not practical.
After discussing with the creator on the previous thread, he explained that preventing elected people to delegate their admin power was the intention of the proposal.

Admin roles are generally not high position of power but work done by volunteers (either individuals or workers paid by organisations which are volunteer organisations). Asking to make an election anytime a new admin come and limiting their numbers (currently com access are given easily to workers and volunteers on a need-based basis) would result in unnecessary administrative process which would:

  • Slow down the DAO communication.
  • Consume team time.
  • Consume governance attention.
  • Prevent newcomers from participating from day 1.
  • In fine, reduce the amount of communication work performed for the DAO by making it harder to do so.

A simple sentence allowing delegation would have solved those concerns but the proposer refused to allow delegations.

Moreover I believe that admins should adopt an attitude either neutral or supportive of Proof Of Humanity. If they wish to criticize it, they should be allowed to do so but either do it in technical terms or if they want to express virulent criticism about POH, resign from their admin status or use non admin accounts.

The proposer has already behaved this way (creating FUD using his admin account of telegram). I believe this not an acceptable behavior for an admin and the proposer got comments about it by multiple team members. I believe this proposal is in fine made by the proposer to “secure” his admin status despite his questionable use of it (and as a side effect create unnecessary burden to DAO workers and reduce volunteer participation).

Moreover combining the “election” + “forbidding delegations”, this proposal would have for effect of kicking out members of the current team from communication channels due to HIP-7 which forbids board members from running for elections. This could at best lead to significant disorganization in the DAO communication and at worse to some communication takeover (if there isn’t enough people currently working for the DAO and not being board members to fill the slots).

Due to all those reasons I would advise to vote against this proposal.

1 Like
13

Considering it’s only a few hours left now until the proposal closes, I will abstain from voting considering that even though I agree in spirit, the implementation might bring unnecessary conflict and bureaucracy to the DAO right now.

Even though @clesaege warns about the behaviour of the proposer on Telegram channels, the same should be said about the community bullying and attacking him without any necessary reason. Luis in my opinion has been one of the most helpful community members with newcomers on Telegram helping them make sure the don’t lose funds when they do a PoH… needless to say the initiatives to correct the issues with the submission guidelines for jurors.

In that sense, as long as Luis moderates his behaviour and takes into consideration the feedback he received, I hope he can remain as admin regardless of the outcome of this vote.

5 Likes
14

I second that Luis is a gem for the community, and also this proposal is not ready.

Vote no, with the intention to see this proposal re-written.

1 Like
15

Rewriting of the proposal:
Replace

Admin roles are not moderator roles, therefore do not require to suppress their opinions in debates, as long as they follow the code of conduct established for that channel. Mere opposition to that admin’s opinion should not be grounds for the admin to ban that person.

with

Admins acknowledge that access to communication channels or profiled labelled as “admin” give them an additional power which comes with additional responsibilities:

  • They should refrain from expressing virulent opinions about Proof Of Humanity or related projects with their admin accounts.
  • They are subject to higher standards in term of good conduct (ex: avoiding excessive profanity).

This doesn’t preclude them from formalizing criticism on Proof Of Humanity but it should be done either in a purely technical manner or using a non-admin account.

And add

Elected individuals can allow access to communication channels to individuals helping them managing communication channels. Access to those assistants can be revoked at any time by the elected individual who granted it or by a majority of elected individuals.

16

I would like the candidates to burn UBI to become eligible.

17

The proposal can go to next phase.

I found out another issue with this proposal which is the following paragraph:

What does this mean?
It looks like it’s making an election system but it doesn’t specify how. Is is a proportional list system where the winning list cannot get more than 3 (or 1)? And where the winning list cannot get less than 3 (or 1) seat?
If so we’d need to specify the electoral method as here there would probably be some dispute about electoral results.

Moreover giving executive power to the minority conjointly to the majority is a really weird thing to do. Because it means that as long as a list gets 1 seat they gain executive power (having more than 1 admin does not give any extra power as all admins get access). This could have disastrous effects where a side want an action to be done while the other side doesn’t (we could have some sort of publish/unpublish ban/unban wars).

This (assuming it guarantees an opposition seat) would again seems a way for a proposer to guarantee his position as admin (since even if he loses the election he’d get the minority seat, unless there are multiple other lists running and he doesn’t end up in the largest minority which seems unlikely).

That also something I’d change on this proposal.

18

I would oppose the creation of “lists” to elect admins. I believe it could fracture the community. I would rather vote in individual candidates.

Is it possible to implement some kind of quadratic voting for this?

2 Likes
19

Agreed on first amendment proposed.

Disagree on the second, for the same reasons as before: if elected officials can choose others, then it would be senseless to make the role elegible. The vote in the DAO represents the will of that person to exert that position. Also, it would lead to proxy candidacies in which a “famous” person is used as a bait and then that person does not do anything in the role. That is completely against the spirit of this HIP.

20

Example of quadratic voting with PoH just launched: