Thank you for pointing it out. It is now added to the near.org events page: Proposed DAO Structure AMA (Community Driven DAOs)
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Agree.
Who will control it?
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If underlying reason for rotating every three months is to provide an opportunity for more members to serve as Council Members, then one could also consider a setup of continuous delegation. Then you could do away with the timeframes and let people serve on the Council for as long as the community deems them worthy to do so - with every person in the community having equal opportunity to become a member of the Council while still reaping the benefits that experience/tenure provide.
Some of the issues I envision with a three month turnover and enforcing three month gaps between serving on other DAOs:
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it takes people time to get accustomed to a role and become efficient with the work, with three month turnover, you are constantly invoking a state of chaos in the system as transitions occur and new Council members learn how to be Council members;
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if you donât do something like stagger the rotations, you may end up with a completely new Council every three months. That could cause large shifts in direction/how things are run with every new Council that will inevitably cause friction in the community; and
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limited tenures and gaps between eligibility poses risks for participation and community retention. People drawn to leadership/managerial/council positions are the same people who are not necessarily going to wait around for three months or another shot - would suggest there is high potential they will go get involved in something else and youâll lose their experience.
Potential Recommendation
Consider a system of continuous delegation. For example, if the Council is going to be nine members, then give every member of the community nine votes. Allow them to assign their vote to any nine members from the pool of eligible/identified potential Council members at any time, including switching at will. Automatically designate the nine members with the highest number of delegated votes as the Council members.
The council will change as people delegate their votes to other people (including themselves if they desire). That may better reflect the will of the community and if council members are doing incredible jobs, that will be recognized and theyâll remain council members (why shake it up if itâs working really well?). Likewise if someone isnât fulfilling the role, no need to wait three months - once the community decides they leave, their vote delegations make it so.
Vetting Candidates
Do think this is a good idea - at very least to determine a minimum level of understanding of the community prior to being involved in decision making for it. Would suggest some of the criteria include:
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minimum length of time as a member of the community. Whether they participate or not, hopefully they are observing/learning the culture and purpose/values of the community
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maybe a threshold knowledge quiz that confirms both working of governance mechanisms (Astro/tools used) and understanding of the goals/vision of the community
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no anonymity - if someone is making decisions for the group, those votes should be public and should be a minimum level of transparency required otherwise probably find little accountability for decisions taken (should be a reputational hit if they do something malicious)
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good standing reputation in the community (although this is something that vote delegation helps confirm anyways).
Just some thoughts. Hope theyâre helpful.
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Thank you Grace for leading such an important discussion! Just wanted to articulate one point belowâŠ
This probably wouldnât work because itâs a significant vulnerability for NF. Letâs imagine someone sends 100 NEAR to a Community DAO with 6 of 9 council members who are not NF employees. They could approve payouts without following the rules, and NF might be responsible. Furthermore, we canât guarantee our team will ever be removed from the council.
Alternatively, if we start with a majority of council members from NF, then we could let others vote first in order to gauge community approval. Or if it has to be 6 of 9 members from outside NF, we can simply raise the approval threshold to 7 of 9.
Thoughts?
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Thank you to all who participated in todayâs AMA on this subject.
Great questions on council composition, responsibility, fund distributions, conflict of interest, etc.
Hope you found it informative, there is still a lot of work to get done but with your feedback we are confident we will get the process started.
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I second this idea. 
I agree with you on that. With 6 of 9 The Community DAO has 100% more voting power, and thatâs def. an issue and makes the NF vulnerable.
I think the ratio should be more like 5 NF members and 7 Community DAO members, which would give the Community DAO only 30% more voting power over the NF.
Thanks @Grace et al for the AMA. Good to discuss/learn from others on these topics. Couple of my thoughts/summarizations based on the conversation:
Separation of Payouts and Governance
Understanding the legal/compliance issues it is a shame to have to move to a system that separates governance from payout disbursements. I would rather see the platform whether it is Astro, Catalyst or any other DAO platform build in processes/tools that enable DAOs to be compliant or help them setup a legal entity and manage KYC either at platform or DAO level. You lose some of the benefits of the DAO/automation when you canât finalize an action (in this case payout). I think weâll also probably lose some inter-DAO operability.
I donât have the legal background necessary to know what all the compliance controls NF must adhere to, but if it is strictly a KYC thing - that is certainly solvable by having DAOs regulate membership to their DAO. If the DAO then went through some kind of vetting/audit process with NF to confirm they are operating within the controls - perhaps NF would be satisfied compliance is being met? (NF acts as a regulator).
The other option is to require DAOs to form legal entities if they intend to disburse funds on behalf of NF. For instance, Iâve incorporated Vital Point AI in Canada. I use a DAO to coordinate work, but itâs up to Vital Point AI to comply/do KYC for payouts. Thus, should not really be an issue with NF transferring funds to Vital Point AI (a legal entity) and then Vital Point AI disburses as part of payout proposals. If I understood correctly, I think this is similar to what Audiato (Alex) from the AMA call has setup.
Councils
Vetting Process - YES. It should set the minimum acceptable standard to be a council member. Community should decide what that minimum acceptable standard looks like, but achieving it needs to be as objective, quantifiable, and automated It should not require any type of community vote or discussion as to whether someone is suitable or you introduce subjectivity and potential nepotism. Getting into the pool of potential candidates should be open and equal access to everyone. Once in the pool, then one can assume any individual in there is capable and thus subjectivity/weight can be thrown behind someone (ideally in form of delegation/election).
Conflict of Interest - serving on a Council anywhere typically comes with responsibilities to remain impartial and objective. I see zero issue with people serving on multiple boards, multiple communities, multiple DAOS/councils, as long as they exercise a degree of integrity and recuse themselves from participating in/influencing any decisions that they may personally benefit from. A system of checks/balances/accountabilities should exist to help those holding power, use it responsibly.
Community Direction - letâs not confuse decentralization and community ownership/governance with complete dissolution of leadership. Communities need leaders and direction and if a community/DAO is setup to achieve NEAR objectives, then it only makes sense to have an adequate level of NF representation on the council to ensure the community stays aligned to purpose - one could argue it should actually be a controlling interest. You can counter this somewhat by putting a community signalling effort (advisory vote that occurs prior to a deciding vote) to at least identify when proposals that might pass due to a NF controlling interest are going against the wishes of the majority of the community.
Composition - need to consider size, composition (NF/community), quorum. However, if the DAO can be compliant on its own, then composition may not even need NF/community split. Iâm still a fan of continuous delegation.
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@jlwaugh - please correct me if Iâm wrong - believe the issue is that NF requires the controlling vote in any ratio to meet the responsibility requirements. Thus, any ratio where NF falls below community members isnât going to work in this scenario.
To confirm - in this statement - of the 7 approvals required - would be 4 NF, 3 community correct?
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@ALuhning I meant 4-6 votes by external contributors and 1-3 votes by NF. This can represent a stronger signal from the community, but may not be the most practical solution, as it would require a higher approval threshold.
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Last thought @Grace I think 9 councils is too much. I Reviewed over 100 proposals , some members still waiting for marketing dao decisions over 100 days. I donât realize how can we will have enough consensus if even 5 councils are not able to find one unifying solution.
DAOs work will be paralyzed. Will be chaos.
I think 3+3 or 2+2 model is great.
About rotating, i propose mandatory rotation for not-active councils only. Who are not involving in active discussions on the forum, skips voting, violates reasonable deadlines.
Please, look at this table , The post got 20 likes.
Also preparing the same table about participation in voting. Who voted , who skipped and how many times.
Since last Friday (6 days) Only two councils on duty here me and @David_NEAR .
Thank You
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Honestly I think that if there is no turnout and the community ends up working like a meritocracy, like many above suggested, than there wonât be decentralization of the decision making process.
About turnout:
There are easy ways to solve the turnout process: In my proposed solution, every 3 months some numbers of council members are removed. No need for that number to be 100%. And it can at the same time reward merit.
For example:
There are 9 council members.
There is a system to rank them (like I proposed).
Every epoch (3 months), x (for example, 3 out of 9, or 5 out of 9) number of council members (the ones with the lowest ranking) are removed and new members join.
The following epoch, only older members can be selected to be removed, etc.
This can be automated.
About the number of council members and consensus:
Even though I understand the reasons for @Dacha and others to say that 9 people is too much and the time needed for evaluation of proposals will increase, I think they are looking at the problem from the wrong angle.
Imo, consensus is NOT something the community should strive for. Consensus is, in a way, anti-democratic (not accusing anyone of being anti-democratic, this is just a philosophical suggestion).
Consensus demands that council members talk to each other and, eventually, convince each other of the validity of a proposal. This will be business as usual, with traditional power relations and lobbying.
If we limit the power of council members to onchain (or offchain, whatever) voting, instead of gate-keeping and demanding 1-on-1 explanations, then every proposal can be voted on time.
We will never be decentralized if we keep the same traditional structures that we see everywhere around us.
If there are 9 (the number is not important, but itâs important that it is high enough) council members, and if their only job is to vote, each one has exactly 1/9 of the decision power.
If we strive for consensus, then, by default, some council members will have power over others, either because they are veterans, or because they are in a lot of councils and therefore have higher reach, or because they are really tight friends with some other important person. Then, some council members have 0/9 decision power, because the voting power will be stripped (not actual, but only virtual), and others will have 2/9 or 3/9 responsibility in every decision.
I think this is a huge mistake.
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Good morning,
My vision - Marketing DAO (like OWS) is a service guild, and proposals should be reviewed in adequate time frames. YES or NO. We cannot allow demagogy and infinitely proposalâs reviews like now.
Would you like to get payment for marketing activities in Incubadora DAO today or waiting up to 179 days for decision? I think you gonna choose the first one.
Not active councils should be able to resign anytime and propose to community another person on his/her sit.
By the way, here is Aurora governance structure
Ps: Thanks guys who support me. I see your reaction. We chose hard way of struggling for transparency, equal access, Web3 against traditional web2 models of behaviors which still present here.
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I agree with you, but I think the reason for the 179 days delay is not the number of council members.
You are an incredible worker and cover a lot of ground. I donât think itâs possible to have 100 Dachas reviewing everything, nor do I think it would be the best outcome for the community.
And the feedback you gave in that proposal is a fraction of the council, unless Vertical council speaks in a unified voice (which would take even more time and effort).
Imo voting, when happening onchain, is a easy thing to do. Astro already allows for different groups (core council, for example, larger council, community, etc), polling, etc.
Why not let every council express their opinion by voting?
Council is a way of curating choices. Having a council is, in itself, less decentralized than allowing for a general community vote. I propose that allowing for a vote from a council is enough power (1/9 in this case).
Then we demand turnout and put a system in place (easy to do; my project Brutus had a positive development in the last Hackathon) to guarantee some kind of expertise, using tokens or some sort of automated mechanism (also already created last Hackathon).
@Dacha Do you think, in the long term, we should always maintain personal oversight?
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I appreciate the new form of management and the new replicas here on the forum. I think weâre getting down to a nice decentralized path, reading all the replies
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Hey. I am sorry, but just to clarify.
@mecsbecs is no longer council in the Incubadora DAO: She left last month. We are not using sputnikdao, but astro. We never updated the previous tool, for lack of use. @mecsbecs was also in the Creatives DAO council, and no longer is, precisely to guarantee the impartiality you talk about.
I (and we @ Incubadora completely agree with what you are saying), and thatâs why in my 1st reply to this topic I spoke about myself being in the Creatives DAO council and agreeing I should leave* (because I am in the council that reviews some of my own proposals), unless the community progresses to a point in which decision making is less focused on specific individuals (but still with turnout, meaning even if it was ok for me to say, it has to be for a specific period).
*problem I raised is that ALL council members have various DAOs in each they are council, and that we need to create a system to prevent such concentration of decision making. I really think you undervalue the difficulty of getting enough council members who are not already active members in DAOs. Simplifying the voting mechanisms would make that process easier, and more people could participate.
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Agree with you . @Grace is it possible?
No , we shouldnât, but I do, because my goal is give equal access to opportunities for everyone.
For Incubadora DAO and NPK guild 62! Days (@Kareemc2 are you still waiting dude?) and other other who can be discriminated here because donât have councils cell phone number in address book.
Iâm preparing huge infographic about relationships between councils, DAOâs
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One more idea.
Probably NF needs âNF volunteer council guildâ. Each guild will get a council (1-3) from this guild randomly. These councils will monitor the activities in the guild and provide reports to NF (I think NF will compensate them for their time). Also, they will get the experience and will provide the best practices in DAO and communities.
What do you think about it?
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I donât think there should be any such situations.
I mean what happened. Many guilds may have been planning some kind of events and activities for Christmas and the New Year.
There needs to be a specific deadline for reviewing proposals.
If consuls are busy, it means involving other people who can do the same thing.
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Sorry for getting here too late (especially considering that we are 1 day from the new year). To be honest to everyone, I ready most of the comments, but not all. So sorry if what I will say was already said in the comments above.
I can see that most discussions are about how to organize the management system, but almost none are about improving the learning curve and pontentializing talents/skills. To be totally blunt, I am against any kind of voting, ranking or points system as they are the ones that support meritocracy and the ârelevanceâ model. We already know how they ended up.
What we didnât see is a system that empowers individuals in the fields/skills that they believe are their strongests or they are willing to improve. I can be a very good manager: doing amazing reports, organizing tasks, detailing processes, etc; but it doesnât mean that it is what I want to do for my life or explore in an environment that we are building together.
We are not equal. And this is a good thing! We should consider our differences as a strong and important part of the managing process. So my suggestion is to not think the DAOs only from the managerial perspective, but also bottom-up. How can we empower a person that someday wants to be part of a council? Or, if they donât want to have this responsibility, how the other activities in the DAO can have the same importance or even more?
I believe we are trying to think descentralization from a hierarchical point of view.
I also believe this number can be high for DAOs in their early life. Maybe thinking in ratio with a maximum instead of a fixed number (eg 1/3 NF, 1/3 new counselours, 1/3 old conselours with a maximum of 18 people)?
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