Formation of NEAR Digital Collective (NDC) and call for participation in the Community Working Group

Formation of Community Working Group on NEAR Ecosystem Governance

Following NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin’s talk on NEAR ecosystem governance at EthCC (video here), we’ve had a lot of questions from the community about how they can get involved in this critical initiative.

We are creating a new framework and implementation plan for an ecosystem-wide self-governance structure and treasury called the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC). ​​The purpose of the NDC is to further decentralize NEAR’s ecosystem governance and move decision-making on-chain in order to make our community more resilient, transparent, and fair. The sooner we do this, the likelier we are to succeed.

A Community Working Group is now forming to take the next steps to launch and implement the NDC. We want the community to lead and shape this process. Building better, sustainable self-governance at a global level has to start with our own NEAR community. Every voice matters and we believe that, with our collective contributions, the NDC can serve as a model approach across Web3 for the creation and implementation of truly decentralized, on-chain governance.

This Community Working Group will produce a detailed roadmap and key milestones for NEAR governance implementation, focusing on the following areas:

  1. NEAR Constitution. Creation and ratification of shared values and basic rights for all community members. NEAR ecosystem’s north star.
  2. Governance Framework & Proposal Process. Vision for a decentralized governance system & core governance components confirming structure, responsibilities, participation rules, and dispute resolution process.
  3. Technical Governance Development Plan. On-chain practical implementation of the governance framework.
  4. Legal Framework. Legal structure for the governance structure to ensure sustainability, risk mitigation, and true community ownership.
  5. Community Engagement Guidelines. Standards to encourage positive, sustainable community behavior and interaction consistent with the values of the NEAR Constitution.

If you would like to join the Community Working Group, please apply here. We would love to have you involved!

Signed: Pagoda, NEAR UA, NEAR Foundation, Proximity Labs, MOVE Capital, NEAR Balkans, MetaWeb, Orderly, NEAR Vietnam, Satori, Open Shard Alliance, Open Forest Protocol, Human Guild, Aurora, HAPI Labs, Calimero, OnMachina, Kikimora, AstroDAO, and NEAR Office of the Co-Founders

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I’m ecstatic, elated, and, well, just beside myself. This initiative will be one of the most progressive ideologies of our time. It will for sure be hard work that will require a commitment by those that choose to join.

Creating the First Major L1 Framework to transition to an On-Chain Ecosystem-Wide Self-Governance Fund managed and governed by the NEAR community is nothing short of Revolutionary! :boom:

Specific grants, projects, or communities will continue to be addressed via current processes until the new framework is fully implemented.

Please sign up or recommend others to contribute and be part of this revolutionary process. :raised_hands:

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Sua resposta foi registrada. :v::innocent:

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What is your experience in Near Community?

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hi friend :green_heart:
an example how (u can see on screenshot) in case when there is no planet-button
usually impossible to understand nothing from your messages :blush:

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Oh, I thought :globe_with_meridians: always showed up. Sorry. There it says: your reply has been registered :sweat_smile:

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This account was made specifically to post this thread.

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it’s great. cc @marketingdao-council @creativesdao-council

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ok, it’s clear
but i have no idea how to discuss such a topic with person, that not concerned to the community, that has no portfolio,
where is transparency of

“community working group” – if since the start there is a lie ?

how can i trust the idea if i don’t know, where it came from and who will hold it?

@David_NEAR i see you like it - probably you have enough information to reply any of questions? would be great for the community to know - who is going to make “working group” from them

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Hey! Did you watch the video? This (the NDC) is from Illia and co.

The purpose of the post is really just to encourage discussion around it without anyone getting caught up (or persuaded) with/by who was posting it afaik. I wouldn’t get too caught up in that.

Will get insights into the organisers of that group ASAP, i do agree that’s not clear.

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An anonymous organizer does not inspire confidence in this post with all due respect.

Signed by whom? Who were the representatives of the projects or guilds?

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Whilst applauding the aims of this post, I am concerned that it lacks transparency as to who is behind this.

It appears that considerable work has already be done to enable 20 projects to put their name to the initiative.

However as a member of the Marketing DAO council I agree with fellow council @Dacha and am personally ready to make a positive contribution to this working group.

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Now I’m confused :face_with_monocle: Wondering why it would be so dangerous to be part of this collective group trying build something new. What did I not understand here? :scream:

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ETHCC Video Presentation Text -

Evolving ecosystem governance - NEAR Digital Cooperative - NDC

Delivering on decentralisation.

  • Governance is a pillar of near vision. A world where all people can control their assets, data and power of governance
  • Protocols have not yet figure out ecosystem scale governance in a decentralised way.
  • Building better self governing systems at a global level has to start with our own communities.
  • We need meta-governance so the structure can evolve it self as the ecosystem evolves

Why do we need governance?

  • Ecosystems, like companies, get bogged down in bureaucracy and policies as the skill.
  • Lack of clear decision-makers or decision-making processes. Missing big opportunities, slower progress.
  • Public goods must be funded in an open source ecosystem.
  1. Develop the protocol
  2. Fund and maintain tooling that doesn’t generate direct revenue.
  • Decentralisation is difficult, but increases resilience and anti fragility for the long-term

Governance as it exist outside of Web 3

Governments

  • Congress selected to represent different stakeholders
  • President elected by the people, appoints executive team to operate within limits of law defined by congress.
  • Focus on public goods and GDP growth.

Corporations

  • Clear executive verticals with CEO, CMO, CTO, CPO.
  • Board members and shareholders for overseeing executive
  • Focus on profit maximisation.

Web 3 approaches & Learnings

  • Protocol foundations signal about turning control to the community over time, but what does this mean? Is anyone really doing this?

  • DAOs have been a pioneering to make decisions on-chain.

  • Two major approach is having much-

  1. Token weighted, With various ways to reduce large holders effect
  2. Small groups of individuals (pods, Split to stay small as group grows)

Each comes with its own advantages and challenges.

  • AstroDAO on NEAR - Experimenting with various ways to coordinate with hundreds of daily active DAOs

Solution - NEAR Digital Cooperative - NDC :sunglasses:

Governance structure to focus on balance in execution and oversight by community : Meta-Dao meets fund-of-funds

Congress

  • House of stake
  • House of house of merit

Executive Function is required for scaling

  • president

  • Minister of tech

  • Minister of product

  • Marketing

  • Prepares strategy with input of community and House of Merit.

  • Executes on that strategy by deploying resources and overseeing the delivery on KPIs of public goods and core investments

Principles

  1. Transparency
  • All decisions will be publicly recorded, may not be publicly discussed
  • Private voting however reason for the vote needs to be mention
  • Emphasis on iterative communication
  1. Goal and KPI driven process

  2. Minimise politics

  • map of participants and visibility on the decision made
  • Always need to clear how decisions/proposals are made and routed
  • If there is overlap in responsibilities it should be resolved as a part of the process

House of Merit

  • Process is based on a public application and deliberation, private ward of existing members with minimum Korun required
  • House of merit as we do power on the executive branch.
  • In normal circumstances, house of marriage serves as a board by providing input to the executive and allocating budget from the treasury.
  • Focuses on success of ecosystem as a whole.

House of Stake

  • House of stake is defined by square root of stake of each Near account
  • Does large “referendum” Signalling and videos for the Congress
  • House of stakes can we do both house of merit and executive
  • Naturally focuses more on economic success of the ecosystem

Executive Branch

  • Overtime, President elections will be needed. Congress can put out the current president
  • Ministers of technology, product, marketing and needed to drive and coordinate verticals in the ecosystem.
  • President with ministers defined strategy with inputs from congress.
  1. Define in which public goods are important for the ecosystem
  2. Which parts of the economy will get investment for inorganic growth

Treasury

  • NDC governance structure around control and deployment of funds
  • Treasury will be the firepower behind decisions and funding public goods
  • Transparent evaluation of treasury allocations and growing its fund of funds over time is important for sustainable ecosystem.

How do we get this right?

  • Decentralisation does not have to mean chaos. Getting this right as a key part of building better systems to manage shared resources.
  • Specialisation plus transparency across small efficient groups-faster decision-making, easier to change course.
  • Meta governance-review process for the governance itself every year. Benchmarking with representation of stakeholders and ecosystem growth.
  • Requires participation, commitment, feedback. Join us!

QNA

How do you ensure soft powers don’t influence governance or how can this be mitigated?

  • Best way is to explain the votes casted by the members. A practice that isn’t happening right now. A trail of posted beliefs will allow to review intentions and whether congressmen have lived up to their word or not.

Governments have courts, what do we have?

  • We need a conflict resolution court. Introducing now without tools to evaluate may not be viable. We do have tools we can program. For president building we’ll need to build some kind of reputation system. House of merit may be build President.

Where is the foundation in this whole setup?

  • Foundation is fund of fund. It will continue deploying funds to the ecosystem. It will be working together with executive vertical to deploy the funds.
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Understanding how the verticals mentioned in the video and the ones mentioned in the post correlate, would be very helpful in solving the confusion.

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I represent the Open Shard Alliance. I believe there were some concerned about the legal requirements based on their region. There are active efforts to create the right legal framework to ensure no legal liability for the workgroup, after all these are just mostly community members and founders.

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This is in its infancy and is really up to the community to flesh out and take the lead.

Anyone that has the interest should join! The signing members have only attended one meeting and the work begins now!

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I mean, that an unknown source (in this case the author of the topic) collects data from users on this forum, is this normal?

If this form is legitimate and can be supported by certain important people from the forum, it would already be not bad.

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I’m excited to see @NDC_Comms pushing to get this started.

Please sign up if you want to join the call tomorrow and join work groups to formalize the NEAR Digital Collective.

Tons of work ahead to get this structured, but it’s extremely important to continue innovating on this.

As a side note, there are already a number of more tactical work groups: Working Groups – NEAR Protocol with more coming on the topics that are important for the ecosystem.

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Wondering how this might get implemented in the end.

Anyhow, if NEAR needs, Stars Guild can ask youtubers to mention these community changes to be advertised.

Joining the working group!

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