[Phase-3] HIP-7: Institute a "Mission Board"

DAO
1

HIP: 7
title: Institute a “Mission Board”
author: @Mads
status: Final
created: 2021-04-29

Summary
This proposal is to create a board of members with the responsibility of managing the DAO resources (employees, websites, money) in accordance with democratic decisions. In addition, the current group of people managing the website, snapshot, and forum are designated as an interim board for the duration of 1 year after approval.

Abstract
For the DAO to function, it requires trusted members to act as advisors to the management as well as a check on it. This board should handle the access to funds and resources to the management, monitor their performance, and ensure that the technical implementation of voting and other procedures are securely implemented.

These tasks are naturally already handled by the informal leaders instituted by the creators of the Dao. However, this proposal would give them a formal mandate by the community and put a time limit before the board positions would become individually elected.

Since the DAO does not yet have a robust mechanism for voting the second part of the proposal is that the current members filling this task from Kleros and Democracy.Earth will be formalized as the interim board for the period of 1 year after approval.

Motivation
At the moment, the creators of the DAO have control of all resources as a trusted group. However, to have a democratic institution this power needs to be under democratic control. In addition, the employees of the DAO need to be treated consistently by the same group of people to ensure good working conditions.

Specification
The current informal managers, from Kleros and Democracy.Earth are formalized as the “Mission Board” for a period of 1 year after adoption.
The initial board: @santisiri, @Herb @clesaege and @federicoast

Thereafter elections should be held for the positions on the board before the end of the 1-year interim period.

The mission board will jointly manage the following:

  • Technical implementation of voting
  • Access to critical wallets.
  • Access right to funds by management
  • Payment to employees
  • Any resource requiring high trust by the community

In addition, the board will

  • Advise management, administer their payment, and monitor their performance.
  • Adjudicate if the proper procedure is followed on passing proposals.
  • Be authorized to issue mission statements on behalf of the DAO.

Conflict of interests

  • A position of the mission board is incompatible with any other paid or elected position in the DAO.
  • A board member applying or running for a position in the DAO must first step down from the board before they can be considered.
  • A person running for the board can have another paid or elected position in the DAO, while applying or running, but must immediately terminate this position upon entering the board.

Rationale
The proposal is meant to improve democratic control but not disrupt current operations. The role of the board is what is already being done by a trusted group or will be done in the near future. But this group would have some difficulty explaining their special role with no democratic mandate.

We could decide to elect a board immediately, but since we don’t yet have defined voting robust procedures we would run a serious risk of taking a lot of time with this and disrupting the progress on other fronts. This is why the option of elevating the current informal leaders to elected (accept/reject) status but for only 1 year.

Board members should not be allowed to have or apply for any other position in the DAO. The board is tasked with managing the voting systems and could therefore potentially rig it in their own favor. And the same goes because they manage the resources for management.

Implementation
Nothing really changes, except that elections must be held for the board positions before the year is out. If possible the board members should be marked as such on Discourse.

Snapshot

2 Likes
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@clesaege, Dear Clement, would you please provide a list of Kleros and Democracy.Earth members currently managing the resources.
I guess it is you, @santisiri and who else?

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Hi @Mads, great proposal. We had setup a multisig that has @federicoast @clesaege (kleros) @Herb and @santisiri (democracy earth) and it’s a 2/4 on gnosis. Then there’s the kleros governor contract that will help audit that the code improvements voted by the DAO are effectively implemented on chain.

4

Ok, I think I misunderstood what @clesaege said. There are 4 members in total - not 4 from Kleros.

So the 4-member proposed board is.
@santisiri
@Herb
@clesaege
@federicoast

In order to move on with a final vote you all have to accept the proposal in this thread - we shouldn’t force titles on people:)

5

A few thoughts on passing to phase 3

  • Sorry for making the poll so long, was a mistake but I didn’t want to take it down to avoid confusion.
  • This proposal didn’t completely follow the formal requirements for phase-2 according to HIP-5, but since HIP-5 was not passed at the time of poll creation I think it is ok and the proposal can pass to phase-3.
  • I think the proposed 4-member board should not have veto on the creation since they are completely free to decline the position.
  • I will wait with the poll a few days to see if I get any modification suggestions.
1 Like
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We should definitely respect HIP-5. Otherwise its application risks being rejected.

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@clesaege I would only move ahead like this if there were no objections, I will revert to phase-2.

@paulaberman Will add you when I get confirmation.

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If the signalling poll is not going to be valid I think it’s going to be less confusing to voters to cancel the ongoing voting and start a new one.

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I already put up a new one, the old one ran out, but I should have just canceled it to save time.

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New move to Phase-3:
Added that the board members cannot have any other position in the DAO. The board is tasked with managing the voting systems and could therefore potentially rig it in their own favour.

@paulaberman - This was of course inspired by your post, but it is not personally about you - I would happily have you as either board member or PM. But it got me thinking about the role of the board as a check-and-balance on management, meaning you cannot be both.

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The propossal has passed.

The biggest consequence is that we should hold elections for the board before May 27th 2022

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This proposal had very weak participation.

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In general we have a big problem with participation in the government of the DAO.

Too me, saying we cannot decide anything because of low participation is the beginning of an evil circle.
Nothing decided → nothing happens → low participation → nothing decided…

2 Likes
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Kind of sad regarding participation. We need some ideas to increase engagement. Basic marketing / campaigning could work. For example a newsletter (optional subscription popup given right after registration). Not that many follow the forum - you have to be a really active promoter to catch everything now. Delivering highlights in a timed digestible format could increase engagement.

One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. (Plato)

5 Likes
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Se puede solicitar a los administradores de grupos de Telegram, etc., que promuevan aún más esta parte de PoH, muchos solo conocen lo de la renta básica , quizás les interese la parte política también .
Administrators of Telegram groups etc. can be asked to further promote this part of PoH, many only know about the basic income, maybe they are interested in the political part as well.

1 Like
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@Justin yep! community engagement is needed. We are precisely working on that. The newsletter is almost ready and will be released next week.
And @waly_hh a YouTube section focused on discussing the governance threads in both main languages will also go live next week.

1 Like
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I created a telegram channel for polls and Snapshot elections for registered users to check what’s being voted (in Spanish for now, will create the English version today). That way, proposal don’t get drowned in the infinite scroll of messages.
HIP8 Had the highest participation of all proposals so far and it shows that heavy campaigning and participation in those forums work. Perhaps the ones attempting to make some changes should leave the safe confijes of the forum and into the “streets” .

5 Likes
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:heart_eyes: amazing! Let me know if I can help.

1 Like
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Thank you Justin!! We can send you the draft. Feedback will be very appreciated.

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So this HIP Passed, what now?