NDC Community Engagement Guidelines [draft v2 and v2.1]

NDC COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT GUIDELINES

NDC Communication Guidelines:

In our quest for growth and decentralization, we need certain guides that will regulate where we have certain activities for clarity and openness.

We are going to define these communication spaces in two categories:

  • The Governance Forum (‘the Forum’);
  • The Social media spaces (Discord, Telegram, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myrial Social, etc.).

THE GOVERNANCE FORUM

As the name implies, this should be a place where:

  • Key decisions about the ecosystem are talked about and decided on. This is not to throw an open space for others to beat down the enthusiasm of others but for everyone to help in the growth of the ecosystem.
  • Community members get support to carry out community-related activities to grow the ecosystem.
  • Projects who have received grants report to the community the stages of their milestone. This is to help both new projects and the community interact and offer help/solutions where and when needed.
  • Conflicts between community members that are gone out of hand are resolved amicably.
  • Ecosystem updates are first posted for community awareness. This is for all updates that have some negative implications if not followed. Such as when there are upgrades that will take a while before community members start using certain products.

NOTE: The trust levels on the Forum will be utilized to manage the permissions of potential spam or fake accounts. Introductory posts from all new community members on the Forum are strongly encouraged in order to assist with identity and trust verification, citing on-chain engagement, education credentials, events/hackathon involvement, or other relevant details as to their current or planned involvement within the ecosystem.

Guidelines for the Governance Forum specifically can be found here. Please review and adhere to them.

SOCIAL MEDIA SPACES

These spaces are both for the general public and community members. Hence, not all activities should be carried out in them.

DOs

  • Inter project partnership announcements
  • Project activities for community growth and marketing
  • Communication of project’s details to the outside world, etc

DON’Ts

  • Conflict resolution with fellow community members
  • Sell to or solicit community members
  • Establish fake identities or make harmful and false affiliation claims, for example members of the community who aren’t employees of the NF should not be posting with tags that present them as employees
  • A place of financial advice

NDC Community Engagement Management:

Community member engagement for the purposes of electing individuals for involvement in the oversight, management, and fostering of the NDC Community will be determined based on:

  1. Engagement with the NEAR ecosystem as indicated by pikespeak.ai (gas burnt, account interaction graph, “political power”).
  2. Verified identity by KYC DAO.
  3. Three to five months old and active profile on the Forum with minimum Trust Regular - Level 3.
  4. Have a good record of using community funds and transparently sharing and reporting to the community – as determined by the Governance Working Group.

Every position that has to do with community engagement (moderators) shall be rotated after a total of six months to allow other community members to make their contributions to the ecosystem.

In order to allow for mentorship and a clear transfer of knowledge and information, a rolling election system will be adopted, i.e. 6 individuals start in month 1, 3 new moderators start in month 3, with 3 new moderators starting by month 5 so there is a complete change-over of the original six roles by the end of month 6.

Therefore there shall always be a Community Engagement Committee of minimum six (6) persons (moderators) who shall be involved in handling:

  • The Governance Forum moderation (trust level assessment, spam or harassment monitoring, ensuring the Forum guidelines are followed, etc.)
  • Conflict resolution
  • Lead the Community Engagement Working Group/NDC to establish a Community Road Map for community engagement initiatives

The role of the initial committee will also include the creation of onboarding materials to be handed on to successive rotations of moderators.

Incentives and compensation for these moderator roles will be determined with the Governance and Legal Working Groups.

8 Likes

We don’t need the committee and 6 people to enforce community guidelines. One two mods enough. They can’t be ex/ current NF staff and don’t to be involved in any daos received nf money

Good work, @mecsbecs.

Well done. :clap::clap:

2 Likes

Hi, @mecsbecs! Good to see you! I was writing some thoughts about guidelines… Would you give me our opinion about them? I imagine that it would have to have some modifications, now I am seeing there is a new path to moderation?

Guidelines for NEAR Creatives

  1. If you are new to NEAR, make an account at this forum and login: https://gov.near.org/
  2. Open a NEAR Wallet, like Sender Wallet or My NEAR Wallet: https://app.mynearwallet.com/
  3. Enter the Creatives DAO telegram: https://t.me/CreativeGuilds
  4. Make some friends and get in touch with people who share your interests.
  5. Send NEAR to your wallet or ask a friend to send you, to be able to make transactions, login in web3 sites, and customize your wallet.

Before thinking in opening a DAO

  1. Get in touch with the community and submit to a bounty or open call from an existing DAO at the forum.
  2. Submit a project to a DAO respecting the guidelines, and ask for resources to develop a project that satisfies the DAO’s mission and NEAR’s mission of increasing the community and growing the ecosystem. Make a successful report.
  3. Get in touch with the missions of the many DAOs on NEAR, and check if the mission of the DAO you intend to open does not exist yet. If there is a DAO with the mission you want to perform, please, approach the DAO and see if it is possible to develop activities in integration.
  4. If your DAO has a new mission on NEAR (or in case of inactivity of preview DAOs with the same mission), you are allowed to open a DAO. For doing so, you must get some trustfull people around that mission and write your DAO’s introduction at the forum. Tag the Creatives moderators and post the link on Creatives DAO’s telegram and discord.
  5. Introductions are not approved or rejected by the community, but moderators and members from the NEAR community can approach you in your introduction post, in order to request more explanations and suggest changes that could improve your chance of get funding. Follow the guidelines for introductions and present your team and their preview works inside the ecosystem (bounties and projects).
  6. Please, do not mix your Introduction with your Funding Proposal; these are 2 separate documents.
  7. The first funding proposal from your DAO must be requested to an already existing DAO, as a project submitted from one DAO to another. DAOs can only be funded for the first time if any of the already funded DAOs believes in the new DAO’s mission.
  8. Any DAO can fund a new DAO with 5% max of its own budget, in order for the new DAO to open an astrodao, onboard people on astrodao, open a store in a marketplace on NEAR, and make a small prototype project.

How to open a DAO

  1. If you had already been part of the ecosystem, through bounties, open calls, and proposals to DAOs, and if you have a team of people, a unique mission that improves NEAR community, an introduction at the forum, and a proposal accepted by a funded DAO, you can open your astrodao and start to add members.
  2. Your introduction, beyond respecting the guidelines for introductions, must contain the primary rules for your DAO: rules for the existing groups, for adding new people, for removing people, for council formation (or rotation if that applies). Each DAO is free to choose its own set of rules, but please try to build a path towards decentralization.
  3. Anyone can open a DAO on astrodao app, but only DAOs that start their projects with funding from another DAO have the initial acceptance and legitimacy to request for funding individually to the Creatives in the next months.
  4. If you open a DAO, you must be part of the council of this DAO. The council is a group thus defined inside astrodao, and/or it is the smallest group with broadest voting power within a DAO.
  5. You should not be a council member from more than 2 DAOs requesting for funding inside the NEAR ecosystem. You can be a member from multiple DAOs, but you cannot be a council member from more than 2 at the same time, and you cannot receive as a council from more than 2 DAOs.
  6. Council members cannot receive for projects funded by the DAOs in which they are council members. They can only receive their council grant (30%), but not for any action inside the funded projects. This is a measure to decentralize resources to the community and to stimulate the DAOs starting their activities with already many members.
  7. At least 5% of DAOs’ funds should be sent back to the community, through acceptance of projects submitted from the community members who are not members of the DAO on astrodao, in case there are these kinds of projects submitted to the DAO. If there are projects like this and they are not accepted by the DAO, the DAO must provide justification.
  8. Council members, beyond being the smallest group with broadest voting powers within a DAO, are also the people who manage the administrative life of the DAO, by answering in the forum, writing funding proposals and reports, and acting for the members when fast action is required. They are also the ones who will sign the agreement with NEAR in order for the DAO to receive the resources. And they should present themselves in a forum post, for the community to know them.
  9. All council members should pass through KYC with NEAR, in order to rotate the person who signs the agreement.
  10. All DAOs start with a budget from another DAO in the first month (max 250 usd), and if the report is successful, it can request a second funding proposal directly to the Creatives of 2000 usd max value. If the report from the 2000 funding is approved, the DAO can request for 3000 usd max value in the third month; 4000 usd for the fourth month and 5000 for fifth and following months, in case preview reports are all approved.

How to be a moderator from the Creatives DAO

  1. If you were voted to be a moderator and accepted the role, you must give up the council or member position in the DAOs in which you have these roles. No moderator should be a council member from a DAO, because no moderator should be able to vote for or against the DAOs in which s/he is a member. If the moderator were part of a DAO, beyond the decision concerning funding its own DAO, the moderator would be able to decide about his/her own work, report, and reward through the voting of the DAO, if this DAO were also council of the Creatives.
  2. Moderator role is a position of 6 months, which one can enter by being voted by the community. Only the ones with member status on the forum can vote.
  3. Any moderator must have at least 1 year (anniversary tag) and member role in the forum (level 2). This is requested because the moderator role is a difficult one and demands that the person is well known and knows a lot about the ecosystem. 1 year is necessary and maybe sufficient to show commitment and experience within the ecosystem.
  4. Moderators can be removed before a 6 month period by a proposal from any council of the Creatives DAO, passed through astrodao.
  5. Any DAO can propose to remove a moderator, but it must provide justification in the proposal. If the members of the Creatives DAO Council agree, they will vote accordingly. If a moderator is removed, the other moderators should open a call to a new moderator. No single person should have the power to propose to remove a moderator; but only DAOs.
  6. The role of a moderator is to analyze the proposals and reports, and give a technical approval or rejection on them. They also produce a monthly report about their activities and about the creative DAOs’ metrics, report which must be approved by the Creatives Council before their payout is requested. They also make the role of moderating disputes among members and helping new members to understand the community.

How to be a council from the Creatives DAO

  1. If your DAO is a council member from the Creatives DAO, you cannot be a member with broad voting power of any other DAO inside the Creatives Council; however, you can be part of a community group without voting power on administrative issues (no cfc voting allowed in that group for example). We want to decentralize decisions, and that each person together with its DAO has 1 DAO vote maximum inside the Creatives.
  2. If your DAO is a council member of the Creatives and you are a member or council from that DAO, you have a responsibility with analyzing proposals and voting for or against them in your DAO. If you did not vote, you must justify your lack of voting. If you are part of the community group (without voting power on adm issues), you don’t have a responsibility to vote in this case.
  3. If your DAO does not vote for a 2 consecutive months, the moderators should make a proposal to remove your DAO from the council. This DAO can return to the council by request, after a period of 6 months.
  4. Your DAO can only request to be a member of the Creatives DAO council when it has at least 6 months of approved reports. To be a council member of the Creatives is an important task, and the DAOs must be known by the community and know the ecosystem well before submitting to this higher position.

How to act when you feel unsatisfied

  1. If you are feeling bad with a message, post, or anything else, approach the moderators on telegram and ask them to send a DM. Or send a DM to a moderator in the forum. Talk privately first. And try always the path of constructive criticism, forgiveness, and growing the community.
  2. Flag any message in the forum that seems to be in violation with the guidelines.
  3. If the issue is with some moderator, please approach NEAR employees here in the forum, and talk to them by direct message.
  4. Do not use the forum improperly, remember that all written things are recorded forever and accessible for near community and the outside communities - sometimes they can be a shame for the NEAR community as a whole. Respect your partners from other DAOs in the ecosystem.

General NEAR Etiquette Guidelines:

https://gov.near.org/faq

Code of Conduct:

Community Engagement:

Dispute resolution:

Check out some other Guidelines

About the Creatives DAO Funding:

How to submit a funding proposal to the Creatives DAO:

How to submit monthly reports:

How to submit reports (new):

Legal Implications

DAOs legal discussion:

The legal Basics of DAOS:

More information

NEAR Wiki:

3 Likes

Hey @Naboto - thanks for these points, to be sure I understand them, you are proposing:

  • Instead of a 6-person moderator structure that there should be 1-2 moderators instead - how would you propose the rolling election model would fit here or are you proposing another structure for hiring and training these moderators?

  • Criteria for involvement should also include that these moderators not be former or current NEAR Foundation staff - agreed, as the NDC is meant to be independent from NF that it would not be appropriate for current staff to hold this role but why not former staff? Also please note that I am in no way angling for this role myself, I just want to understand your logic behind this suggestion.

  • What other criteria or limitations are you envisioning? And what qualifies as receiving “NF money”? For instance, if someone is a Community Engagement moderator for the NDC, does this mean they cannot also work for a NEAR ecosystem project that has received grant or investment funds from NF? Isn’t the money the NDC will be controlling through its treasury technically funding from NF, so does that mean that these moderators cannot be paid?

Thank you for elaborating on these points.

4 Likes

they can be near ops staff like now. we don’t need election for community mods. But be honestly I dont like that they hide messages without notification. We need to have a mechanism of termination this kind of mods.

I’m a newbie here but like @IgbozeIsrael @Dabbie3229 @FabDab work. We can elect the trusted persons on the community mod role instead of current people. It should be simple election on the forum. Aslo we need to pay them good salary for the work , at least $4-$8k monthly for full time work .

  • for current and former staff.
1 Like