[Community Vote] Season 5

Hello bDAO - This is the Season 5 Community Vote!

Previously, this post would have been called a Temp Check, but we’ve decided to go with Community Vote to reflect the importance of some of the elements.

For those who are newer to the DAO, this post serves to collect sentiments on specific DAO-wide topics and inform the Season 5 Specification. Discussion is not limited to the polls included in this post, so if you have an idea or change to propose for Season 5, please include a comment for discussion, below.

Membership Thresholds

The current membership threshold stands at 35,000 BANK to join the Discord. We have the option to increase, decrease, or keep the existing threshold in Season 5.

  • Pros of increasing: Requires people sitting at the threshold to “opt-into” the next Season

  • Cons of increasing: Increases barriers to entry for new participants

  • Pros of decreasing: Increases accessibility for joining the DAO (less of a need for guess passes!)

  • Cons of decreasing: Leave contributors with less skin in the game.

  • Keep Threshold Unchanged
  • Decrease Threshold
  • Increase Threshold

0 voters

The current BANK requirement for membership is 35,000. As a follow-up for the membership threshold:

  • Hold at 35,000 BANK

  • Decrease to 25,000 BANK

  • Decrease to 10,000 BANK

  • Raise to 40,000 BANK

  • A different threshold than the options above (please comment below)

0 voters

Splash Zone and Level 3 (Whale) Status

  • Keep threshold unchanged for Whale status
  • Increase threshold for Whale status
  • Decrease threshold for Whale status

0 voters

Budget

In the past, a capped budget constrained a lot of projects and guilds. In Season 3 and 4 we opened the option for a flexible budget following all project & guild submissions to accommodate mid-season proposals and/or Guilds & Projects seeking additional funding (within reason).

Historical Seasonal Budget Allocations:

  • Season 1 allocated 11M BANK
  • Season 2 increased spending to 20.5M BANK
  • Season 3 we increased spending to 30M BANK
  • Season 4 we allocated 22M BANK + 1.2 ETH

For reference, the BanklessDAO treasury currently holds 154M BANK.

In Season 5, we should:

  • Keep Seasonal Spending the same as Season 4
  • Increase Seasonal Spending
  • Decrease Seasonal Spending

0 voters

Funding Requirements

In Season 4, we increased accountability requirements for Project funding greater than 100,000 BANK. Successful Projects were provided only half of their funding request up-front, with the remainder disbursed after an assessment of project milestones mid-season. The GC also developed a new KPI submission process, though the KPI assessments are high-level.

Some feel these are adequate risk mitigation and accountability measures for Project funding, while others feel they’re not enough.

In Season 5, we should:

  • Increase risk mitigation and accountability measures for Project funding
  • Decrease risk mitigation and accountability measures for Project funding
  • Maintain the risk mitigation and accountability measures for Project funding

0 voters

Simplifying the Funding Process

Going into Season 4, voters opted against reducing funding requirements broadly. However, there has been some discussion around Automatic Guild Funding mechanisms, as access to funding requests tend to involve a lot of time and effort.

In Season 5, we should:

  • Maintain current funding access requirements (i.e. all Guilds and Projects must submit funding proposals to the GC prior to season transition)

  • Implement Automatic Guild Funding based on the proposed mechanism to alleviate administrative burden for Guilds with consistent function across seasons

0 voters

Grants Committee

The Grants Committee has distributed approximately 30% of its budget for Season 4, which includes new projects only. For context, at the same point in Season 3, nearly 50% of the GC budget had been distributed. This decrease in distribution suggests there were fewer new projects in S4, and/or those projects didn’t request as much funding.

Any funding that is not disbursed during a given season is retained by the GC for future disbursement, and is considered an “interest free loan” from the DAO. This is intended to account for fluctuations in project funding requests from season to season. However, it may not be ideal to have BANK accumulating with the GC for long periods of time, and the GC allocation should typically reflect its needs.

With this in mind, in Season 5 we should:

  • “Top-up” the Grants Committee allocation for S5 so they will start S5 with 7M (S4 carry-over funding + “top-up” = 7M BANK total)
  • Decrease Grants Committee allocation (<7M BANK)
  • Increase Grants Committee allocation (>7M BANK)
  • Keep Grants Committee funding the same (7M BANK)

0 voters

Grants Committee Compensation Adjustment for Season 5

This has been included as part of the Community Vote as the outcome might require an update to the Season 5 Specification.

The scope of the work of the Grants Committee has expanded considerably. Compared to Season 3, Season 4 has not only seen additional work items like consulting projects on their KPI definition and measurement. We also realized that being a Grants Committee member can be lived in many different ways depending on your skills but also your interest in using the Grants Committee mandate to evolve and shape the position or the DAO in general.

To incentivize Grants Committee work and to increase transparency, what work is being performed we propose to change the compensation structure of the Grants Committee.

Base Salary

The base salary should be compensated for the meeting attendance and for living the individual’s interpretation of the Grants Committee mandate. In addition the Grants Committee lead has the responsibility to prepare the weekly meets and in general coordinate the activities of the Grants Committee

  • 7 Grants Committee Members; compensation 50k BANK/member

  • 2 Grants Committee Leads; additional compensation 25k BANK/lead

Bonus Salary

A bonus salary should be granted as a Coordinape round. This bonus salary should compensate for Grants Committee members who e.g. initiate process improvements to the Grants Committee, initiate an evolution of the Grants Committee mandate or initiate an evolution of the DAO as a whole within the mandate of the Grants Committee.

This Coordinape round should have a total volume of 250k BANK

Bounty

Recurring tasks that can be well defined can be bountied out. This allows also that these tasks could be taken on by someone externally to the Grants Committee.

We think of the following tasks to be bountied out:

  • Accounting work → 2hrs/week*13 weeks = 26k BANK

  • Recording of GC sessions incl. basic audio clean-up and transcript (2k BANK per session by AV guild for 13 weeks) → 26k BANK

Total compensation request 702k BANK

Please note that this operational and remuneration funding is distinct from the Project Funding managed by the Grants Committee, as seen in polls above.

Going forward, we should:

  • Increase Grants Committee allocation according to these proposed changes
  • Maintain current Grants Committee allocation (please provide comments below)
  • Increase Grants Committee allocation but not to the extent of this request (please provide comments below)

0 voters

Guild Funding

Season 4 distributed 8.6M BANK + 1.2 ETH to the 12 guilds in Bankless DAO. You can get a full breakdown 12 of the funding distribution here. In Season 5, we should:

  • Keep Guild Funding Unchanged
  • Decrease Guild Funding
  • Increase Guild Funding

0 voters

Project Funding

Season 4 distributed 13.3M BANK to the 17 projects in BanklessDAO. You can get a full breakdown 12 of the funding distribution here. In Season 4, we should:

  • Keep Project Funding Unchanged
  • Increase Project Funding
  • Decrease Project Funding

0 voters

Contributor Rewards

This post generated considerable discussion and we’ve included it in the Community Vote as part of a process to formalize any changes that might be made to bDAO’s use of Coordinape going forward. Please carefully review Links’ post and if you have any concerns, please identify them in the comments below.
In Season 5, we should:

  • Implement the proposed changes to bDAO’s use of Coordinape
  • Maintain the way bDAO currently uses Coordinape

0 voters

Season 2 expanded the Contributor Rewards to multiple rounds, including monthly rounds for Contributors, Level 1s, and recent Guest Passes. In total, 3.5M BANK was distributed via this method. Season 3 increased contributor rewards further, with 4.5M BANK distributed via the same methods. In Season 4, we chose to maintain the same allocation (4.5M BANK) for distribution via Coordinape.

In Season 5, we should:

  • Keep Contributor Rewards Unchanged
  • Increase BANK Allocation to Contributor Rewards
  • Decrease BANK Allocation to Contributor Rewards

0 voters

Governance

The GSE have been developing proposals for changes to the way bDAO governs itself. One of the proposed changes is to create a bDAO Constitution and bDIP Standard. To formalize the process for any changes made to the way bDAO governs itself, we’ve included this as an element of the Community Vote.

In Season 5, we should:

  • Make the necessary changes to the Season 5 Specification to allow the GSE to implement the proposed bDAO Constitution and bDIP Standard

  • Not include this as an element of the Season 5 Specification (for any number of reasons - please specify in the comments below so your concerns may be addressed)

0 voters

Please keep in mind that none of these poll results are final, they simply represent the DAO’s sentiment as we build out the Season 5 spec, which will go through its own independent governance process.

If you feel anything is missing, or you would like to include something for consideration for Season 5, or you have thoughts and ideas you’d like to share on what has been presented here, please comment below!

7 Likes

Thank you and a couple comments. Can you link the proposals in the text when cited, for example links proposal in Contributor Rewards section. This makes it easier for people who haven’t read that proposal to quickly review it.

I also voted not to include the GSE Constitution and bDIP standard in this Season 5 spec. Given the significance and importance of this vote, it deserves its own snapshot. In many ways it is like the signatures on the US constitution, whereby historians look back and are able to develop a story and perspective on how things came to be. wen POAP?

7 Likes

Does this have to be mid-season? What if a project delivers early?

I like the automated approach, but I still voted against as Guilds should be recapping and reviewing on a seasonal basis. Maybe a hybrid approach, where established roles are automatically funded, but guild initiatives require a proposal.

Regarding bDIP, I agree this should require a separate snapshot as it’s a major amendment

4 Likes

Thank you for catching the missing link(s)! I’ve added them now.

I understand what you mean and agree that it should be a separate snapshot. The intent behind this poll element was to facilitate implementation of the Constitution & bDIP Standard once it is ready and a separate snapshot had been completed. By “facilitate implementation” I mean: prime the Season 5 Specification in anticipation of implementation of the Constitution. It’s my understanding that the Constitution will replace the Seasonal Specification, and the language would reflect this.

At this point, with 11 votes already cast, I feel it would be inappropriate to edit the poll to clarify the ambiguity, but hopefully our conversation will help future voters.

1 Like

I don’t think this review has to be mid-season and could be completed earlier depending on the project timelines. With that said, I’m not a part of the Grants Committee and would prefer they weigh in.

Re: Automatic Guild Funding - thank you for your feedback. I agree that a hybrid approach would be better. Beyond what you mentioned, not all guilds are the same and it may not make sense to apply the same requirements to Ops, for example, and Marketing.

Re: bDIP - Agree. Please see this comment for some clarification.

What a beast of a post! Props to you and the other s5 transition team, loving this accountability and transparency for the DAO

4 Likes

We actually look at whether or not a project has recoded agreed upon KPIs. Not milestones. For KPIs it makes most sense to do this mid-season

Agree that guilds should recap and review at least seasonally. Question: isn’t the approach already as you describe? Auto-funding incentivizes guilds to find roles/initiatives that increase/maintain active members. Any guild initiatives that don’t fall under the auto-funding can be funded as projects using proposals.

Definitely think Ops, Treasury, and Infosec should be “departments” and not guilds (see the proposal for more info). Their funding requests would not change.

The auto-funding basically defines a guild as a team responsible for attracting and retaining talent. Right now there is no standard definition of a guild and as a result it’s pretty difficult to hold them accountable.

Currently, guilds proposals are all over the place. Some attract talent, some are projects in disguise, and some are trying to do everything. There are many pay discrepancies and if coordinators leave the guild can suffer a lot. Defining a guild as a talent pool will help alleviate a lot of these problems. At least, I think so.

3 Likes

Yes I suppose it is. Guilds should still be required to validate the need for those roles and initiatives, so they would be auto funded assuming they achieved their goal. I don’t know that we have that structure in place currently? What are important role KPIs besides member retention and engagement?

Well the goal in the proposal boils down to attracting and retaining talent. The better the guild does at this, the more it is funded.

Currently there is close to zero accountability related to guilds. There’s no way to hold them accountable if you don’t give them some direction. If the direction is “to attract and retain talent”, then member count is the best KPI, IMHO. Doesn’t matter what the roles are - guilds can use any roles they want to achieve that goal.

Can you think of other KPIs?

KPIs should probably be determined by role, e.g.

Education role for creating in guild learning opportunities: facilitating X number of learning sessions, attendance at said learning sessions, X number of internal and external posts promoting them

Coordinator: X meetings held, X number of in-channel engagements, X number of POAPs distributed

Secretary: X number of pay runs, X number of Coordinapes facilitated

Governance: X number of elections held, X number of governance working sessions

Each role should have their KPIs determined in their role description and reflected in the budget, then they would auto renew if A) role KPIs achieved B) guild KPIs achieved (talent retention / growth)

1 Like

Furthermore, “talent” should be clearly defined. In Design Guild we’re creating the Artisan role, obtainable via MyGateway.xyz quests. We’ll be gating Coordinape rounds and guild voting with this role. We’re also trying to implement an “idle” status, applied to anyone inactive for more than 1 month, although we’re not sure how to best track this.

Activity should be more than “gm fren” or “good job fren”… we’re looking for actual contributions

4 Likes

I think Sobol would be great for this. You may be familiar with the tool and how to use it, but if you’re not, drop by #dao-cartography and we’ll help you out.

I think attracting and retaining talent is a great general directive. I’ll try to think of others that might generally apply to most Guilds.

I also think that Guilds could be asked to define certain directives for themselves, and associate accountabilities (KPIs, milestones, whatever). I could see certain Guild-specific directives as transcending seasons, and more broadly applicable to the existence of the Guild. It would help give the DAO a sense for whether or not a certain Guild continues to achieve its purpose, and justifying its existence (and continued funding). If not, it could be closed or altered to meet a new need.

IMO the coordinape amount is way to high, In research and Daolationships guild we budget 4,000 BANK per active member of the guild.

Is that 4,000 BANK per active member for the entire season?

I like Sobol, but as far as I recall, there’s no Discord integration that can track activities. Meaning manual tracking and updating. We are in talks with Rep3 to create upgradeable and downgradeable credentials that change based on activity and / or manual input. Hoping for something great out of that very soon!

1 Like

My feeling on this is that the KPIs we should ask for depend on the perspective from which we are looking. The forum post about auto-guild funding looks at this from a funding perspective (aka a Grants Committee perspective). It’s simply too much work for the Grants Committee to keep track of all these kinds of KPIs across all guilds BUT I do think that guilds can and should set KPIs for their role holders and hold them accountable via your governance processes.

Also - I’m not sure what KPIs being “met” mean…it sounds like you’re talking about goals. KPIs are more like “health metrics”. They show the the underlying health of the group or progress towards strategy rather than goals in an of themselves.

The linked proposal talks about defining your own definition of member for exactly these kinds of cases. By doing this we can rapidly experiment to see which definition works across the DAO. In the future we could even attach different funding amounts to different types of members - the better talent you hold, the more successful your guild is an thus funded more.

In PM Guild we track active members by:

  • meeting attendance (attended a meet in 3 of the last 6 weeks)
  • task completion (completed at least one task in the kanban in the last 12 weeks)

I think that is for the month per guild with coordinape. One member could contribute to several guilds.

Fingers crossed I dont miss another month of coordinape.

This discussion is important, it needs to take place, folk running projects need to be aware also of wider contexts.

This is an important health check on projects.

Of course folk will vote for project freedom, but there needs to be some check and balance mechanism.

FYI @links

1 Like

I would like the DAO to consider idea pools, and idea pathways.

Ideas are the genesis of projects, and idea pools plus defined pathways can help bDAO with this. Idea pools can also run on a community driven basis, it doesn’t have to impinge on the GC. I am pretty vocal on the steps involved in idea pathways, I believe this can help bDAO turn taps on or off as needed, actually feeding in to the GC processes.

IMO I’d like to see bDAO make more use of L2 BANK. We have the facility but are not using it with any rigour.

It’s an incentive tool we could be using more, especially since it removes gas fees, AFAICS.

1 Like