How should I change my delegations? [Q3 2022]

owocki · July 15, 2022, 8:36pm

here is a preliminary look at what i’m thinking about doing for delegations this season.

i added comments for transparency reasons. but none of these thoughts should be construed as directing anything in the dao. its data not direction. in sum, & hopefully when more GTC holders start posting reports like this, stewards will have a composite picture of feedback from their constituents how they are doing in their stewardship of GitcoinDAO.

tentative s15 delegations

(right click save if you need to zoom in)

how im thinking about criteria for how i choose delegates

request form

i launched this form i to allow for feedback into my delegations. here is a report that shows how many requests i got + how many i acted upon

feedback welcome

i would like to solicit feedback from you all about how i should change my delegations for S15/S16.

pls come to my office hours or fill out this form if you have feedback for me (anon responses ok). or if you can comment below as long as your comment meets the forum guidelines and code of conduct.

if you have GTC you should feel free to post a similar transparency report!

for other ppl who have over 20k (ish) worth of GTC, feel free to comment below about whom you’re delegating to and why! i wrote more about why this is a good idea here.

past delegation updates from me:

clarification (added 2026-08-04): this post was exploratory thinking shared for community debate, not an offer or a promise. gtc is a governance token with no economic rights, as it has been since launch in may 2021. finances discussed on the gov forum are those of gitcoin’s organizational entities. ‘20k worth of gtc’ was shorthand for delegation weight, not an assertion about the token as an asset. dyor.

Disclaimer: This post is for informative purposes only and is not financial advice. This post reflects my personal views, not a decision or commitment by Gitcoin governance. Forward-looking items in it are targets, not commitments. The information in these posts is subject to change as we continue learning. This post may contain estimates, may contain errors, and is provided on a best-effort basis. DYOR, do not make any financial decisions based on these posts.

owocki · July 25, 2022, 10:50pm

last call for delegations suggestions! i will be submitting s15 changes by middle of this week

fill out this form if you have a suggestion Delegation Recommendation

Disclaimer: This post is for informative purposes only and is not financial advice. This post reflects my personal views, not a decision or commitment by Gitcoin governance. Forward-looking items in it are targets, not commitments. The information in these posts is subject to change as we continue learning. This post may contain estimates, may contain errors, and is provided on a best-effort basis. DYOR, do not make any financial decisions based on these posts.

connor · July 26, 2022, 6:54am

I just officially applied as a steward and would love your consideration for s15 delegations as I get more involved with governance now that I am finally in the DAO full time

owocki · July 27, 2022, 12:38pm

Here is an updated look at things from my side after a bunch of juggling.

Criteria mostly remain the same from the OP, though I will say 4 things I find myself asking a lot, which could dominate my thinking for S16:

How might the DAO advance Grants 2.0 towards its essential intent in S16? Who are the right stewards to empower to make this happen?
How might the DAO advance Passport towards its essential intent in S16? Who are the right stewards to empower to make this happen?
How might the DAO get contributors who are in the wrong roles out of the wrong roles and into the right ones? Who are the right stewards to empower to make this happen?
How might the DAO enable Kevin to decentralize these governance allocations to a long tail of up and coming leaders, such that no one is above 10% of Kevin’s allocations and there are 50 up and coming leaders who are enabled?

As always:

Disclaimer: This post is for informative purposes only and is not financial advice. This post reflects my personal views, not a decision or commitment by Gitcoin governance. Forward-looking items in it are targets, not commitments. The information in these posts is subject to change as we continue learning. This post may contain estimates, may contain errors, and is provided on a best-effort basis. DYOR, do not make any financial decisions based on these posts.

owocki · September 11, 2022, 6:47am

Hi all,

I put together a little datasheet that shows how decentralized (or not) my delegations are.

S14

As you can see, in S14
…

50% of my voting power was concentrated in my top 4 delegates.
75% of my voting power was concentrated in my top 6 delegates.
95% of my voting power was concentrated in my top 9 delegates.
100% of my voting power was concentrated in my top 11 delegates.

Current

As you can see, currently…

50% of my voting power is concentrated in my top 4 delegates.
75% of my voting power is concentrated in my top 7 delegates.
95% of my voting power is concentrated in my top 11 delegates.
100% of my voting power is concentrated in my top 20 delegates.

Target

Here is a target delegation decentralization goal:

In this target,

50% of my voting power is concentrated in my top 11 delegates.
75% of my voting power is concentrated in my top 22 delegates.
95% of my voting power is concentrated in my top 42 delegates.
100% of my voting power is concentrated in my top 46 delegates.

Summary of the above data

Here is a visual summary of the above data…

Is it worth doing this? If so, how do?

I’ll end by re-asking this question,

I am not sure if [others have an essential intent to decentralized governance power or not, but if they do, this feels like a meaningful milestone to pursue as the product decentralizes into a platform.

I think there is something elegant and poetic about the decentralization of governance power happening in tandem with the decentralization of the product. I also think that decentralizing governance is wayyy less risky when there isnt a complicated product rollout coming up on the roadmap (read this post to see why). so I think I’d like tie the two milestones together and set a goal for myself to reach the target when Grants 2.0 launches.

I think that I can manage enough wallets operationally to make this happen I think. But I WILL need to know who delegates 20-50 are going to be to reach this target. So please continue recommending delegates to me!

To get to 50 delegates im going to need to know about up & coming talent in the DAO. so reminder -
pls come to my office hours or fill out this form if you have anyone you want to nominate to receive a delegation!

Disclaimer: This post is for informative purposes only and is not financial advice. This post reflects my personal views, not a decision or commitment by Gitcoin governance. Forward-looking items in it are targets, not commitments. The information in these posts is subject to change as we continue learning. This post may contain estimates, may contain errors, and is provided on a best-effort basis. DYOR, do not make any financial decisions based on these posts.

shawn16400 · September 12, 2022, 1:10am

I struggle with the delegation concept. In an ideal world, if whales lock away tokens with a commitment not to use them for governance, you automatically elevate the impact of every minnow vote. Efficiently and without bias.

But. I understand the argument that the activation of whale tokens adds security to the network and reduces the risk of a successful attack.
I see the downsides of delegation as:

Delegation is not ownership. Minnow owners (who are not delegees) have less of voice because of delegation.
Subjective delegation is not autonomous. It has strings attached, be those strings real, implied, or just imagined.
Delegation is a black hole. And here I am talking about the delegees. The greater influence granted to a delegee, the greater the risk of nefarious activity. Example: “hey you have ton of ABC protocol, how about if I give you 20K of my new bribelicious token to support my project with your vote”. Even if supporting that proposal is detrimental to ABC protocol, the delegee is not an owner… and that 20K of bribelicious token can be worth a fortune someday.

Possible solutions:

Replace (some - not all) token voting with contributor voting. These votes could be limited to “how the DAO delivers EIs” and leave the “what EIs the DAO delivers” to token voting. Leave the DAO - lose your voice. This reduces the number of decisions made via token voting and gives voice to those closest to the details - the contributors - many of whom are minnows.
Codify delegation - remove meatsack bias and influence and delegate based on data. Whoever dreamt up daostewards.xyz was on to something - with some work, it could become a standard tool for unbiased whale delegation. Just build in an incremental sliding delegation driven by the algorithm (which is approved by voters).
Ask for more transparency from delegates, and compensate them accordingly. IRL businesses involved in “investor stewardship” 1) list their stewardship principles 2) publicly report their voting activities and 3) declare rational when they vote counter to a proposal. Here is an example. Asking for such a report from individuals is too much, but a vote clearing house (like boardroom.io) has, combined delegates principles (kind of like we do for Gitcoin) but with the ability to comment on why they voted the way they did (like this) would at allow delegators the ability to draw a line between principles, votes, and exceptions. Viola! The trifecta of delegate transparency! Btw - delegate transparency will become more important as the power of metagovernance and leveraged metagovernance becomes better understood. And misused.

Those three steps 1) improves unbiased decentralization, 2) empowers contributor minnows, and 3) starts to address delegate information dissymmetry.

But - that is a ton of influence to give up. Not sure I could do it. Especially since I have not even gotten Snapshot to recognize my puny pile of GTC yet.

ZER8 · September 15, 2022, 7:54pm

Hello Kevin and Shawn, just love following up on this discussion. It’s sooo web3

I think that there are some interesting and open metrics that could be used when delegating…for example a metric that is kinda open to everyone and it maybe should be considered when delegating would be:
-the number of messages send by a Steward/Core contributor on Discord.
Assuming they are not spamming it could be an indicator that the person is highly involved, active and knowledgeable of the DAO.

I also love’s Shawns post and I actually think that it would be cool to have 1 vote/ DAO CORE contributor in Gitcoin DAO and experiment with it and see what happens while minimizing any risk involved. . If implemented correctly and fair it could lead to cool, open and healthy outcome that could help the DAO long term.