Dear Creatives,
Due to the ongoing difficulties arising from our collective transitions, we are immediately implementing as PAUSE on:
- Using the V3 Creatives DAO
- If you are uncomfortable being included in the V3 even while it is in its experimental and paused phase, please feel free to create a poll to request your removal.
- Moderators DAO
- This was created out of urgency to move forward with making Creatives DAO self sustainable. Now that we understand we do not need to move with that type of urgency we are pausing this project to allow for more discussion, community input and trust to be built. We still believe many of the ideas within this project should be pursued but only when the projects are decided on by the community so everyone can feel confident and hopefully excited about it!
- Creatives DAO Grant Writing
- This is still a possibility but not top priority at the moment.
- Monthly Proposal Application Forum
- Some of us thought this may be helpful to collect all info for better reporting but quickly realized it’s too much labor for the community and not effective. We are looking for new ways to report, feel free to give your input!
V3 Governance Structure
We would like to propose an election period for all community members to submit their ideas for the V3 governance set up between July 8th - August 31st. This gives the community almost two months to envision which governance system to use moving forward.
Please note that this is a PROPOSAL, meaning this is not a concrete decision. If the majority of the community decides that this election period needs more time than 2 months, then the community can vote to extend the election period. The community is free to submit any ideas they believe would best serve us as a whole.
For all proposals we are asking for everyone to please continue:
- Following the usual guidelines, plus reporting: [GUIDE] How to submit a funding proposal to Creatives DAO
- Filling our the DAO inscription form so we can have better reporting overall: [PROPOSAL] Metrics for Creatives DAO
- Again, you do not have to fill out the Monthly Proposal Application Forum
Background
The urgency for the shifts we have all been discussing for many weeks began at the end of April. The moderators team did their best to gently ease everyone into discussions around this in May. As we progressed, we did our best to move quickly on developing a grant application for Creatives DAO to ensure this entire community could continue to receive support for their projects.
June 6th @FritzWorm posted a Community Draft with his ideas for the next steps for the Creatives DAO.
After our community call on June 27th, @FritzWorm made a poll on the creatives DAO telegram gauging acceptance of his proposal for a new V3 setup. Many have expressed that
- This poll was not on-chain so therefore cannot be used as an official decision maker.
- The amount of folks who voted were not enough compared to how many people are a part of this community.
- Due to the influx of information and lots of misunderstandings, the poll may have not been fully understood by many community members.
After 31 votes with 24 approvals, @FritzWorm took initiative to set up the V3 as a test, without using it officially, as he was envisioning to learn by doing. Majority of community members added to the new DAO had not given their consent to participate and majority of the community did not understand the new setup nor even know about it.
People began to notice and felt very uncomfortable with the DAO being set up in a new format without their knowing. Although @FritzWorm stated many times that he was intending for this to be an experiment it is understandable that many members of the community felt deeply uncomfortable.
So there are some issues here to address:
Understanding Positional Power
Positional Power is defined as the power or authority that is assigned to a person because of their position or rank in an organization. While us moderators are not councils of this DAO, we make a lot of decisions. The community looks to us for direction and answers to our requests. When we speak (or type…) our words make an impact. Even when we do not mean for something to be concrete, often times the community interprets it this way. So we must be careful with our words and our actions. This does not just go for us moderators (past, present and future) but to all council members and DAO leaders! There are nuanced layers to leadership that we all need to explore, which leads me to…
Recognizing how we indirectly or directly contribute to creating environments of harm or care.
Operating in a decentralized way within a community of people that exist across the globe comes with many challenges. It is not easy to understand class/race/gender/language/cultural differences, especially through a computer screen.
We all have lives outside of Creatives DAO and can not be present in this space 24/7 but after going through this experience we can learn that absence can indirectly and negatively impact our environments. Using myself for an example - as I was taking care of many personal events during June, I found it hard to show up fully for all the changes happening here. I was hitting a bit of burnout and by the time July came around collective confusion was peaking because I did not take the time to voice my opinions in stronger ways. Other indirect damage can be seen by all the people that got left behind in the speed of everything. There was not enough care given to make comprehensive decisions more accessible and inclusive for everyone. Not taking action to include and comfort the community resulted in disharmony blocking our growth. Also, community members lacking in participation during the last fews months contributed to other members overcompensating with their contributions as they felt there were not enough people truly invested in making positive changes for our community.
We all play a role.
More directly, I have seen a handful of folks quickly resort to harmful ways of dealing with their discomfort. It deeply saddens me to witness community members that I have been growing beside become negative in their communication or allegations. None of us need the extra stress so I encourage us all to take one big BREATH. The world is not easy for many of us. This space should be one of support for us all. Please be good to one another, even if you don’t agree with them and use kind communication to express your beliefs. Let’s not take the easy way out here by making huge divides between each other. Let’s use these opportunities to deepen our understanding of one another and learn how we can better operate together in this large community - our world would benefit from this work. Please be good to yourselves by remembering that it is okay to take a break from this - no changes are going to magically happen when you take a rest away from the screen.
With gratitude,
Adrian & the Moderation Team @ted.iv @Monish016 @hevertonharieno @blusw @Paul @kc_sollano @Cryptonaut @williamx