Once again, there is a great discussion on another FDD proposal; which is consistent with FDDs values to provide an immense amount of transparency to their operations.
I am supportive of this proposal.
FDD is leading the efforts of progressive decentralization within the Gitcoin DAO community.
FDD provides a great amount of Workstream structure for the other Workstreams to follow.
But also I think what @kyle mentions here is incredibly important. I think there is a need to have a detailed conversation on Workstream treasury management moving forward. I think FDDs practices are proven healthy for the Gitcoin DAO in general, and there should be a learning, trial & error process for all the workstreams to implement and improve what FDD puts on the table as an example.
FDD is a place where Iâve learned and developed a lot so far, it offers transparency and is open for anyone whoâs eager to be involved in activities and technology that will shape the future.
This is incorrect. There is currently no financial hurdle to create a grant as they are not on-chain. Staking would add a component of financial commitment while we wait to have on-chain grants.
I would love to understand this more and see where we / DAO Ops can do better. There is often a natural tension between âbest for the DAOâ and âbest for my workstreamâ that we should be constantly evaluating.
I likely donât have enough context! It was presented as a tool to allow for programmatic reviews and that it was necessary to build due to the volume of grants being created. The old joke of spending thousands to design a space pen versus just grabbing a pencil came to mind here. I would love to learn more.
I have really enjoyed the conversation, and learning this has sparked for me and others. This is exactly the outcome I have hoped for. I also donât mind that I am in the minority with my opinion. This is why we have lots of stewards.
i didnât say it costs gas to create a grant⌠the âfraud taxâ that you mentioned is in reference to gas costs for contributions & the splitting of funds into separate walletsâŚin order for you to donate to any grant it costs gas, not only that but sybil accounts have to split their money to other wallets somehow. how else would they do this without paying gas?
iâm not sure what you mean by âprogrammatic reviewsâ. but itâs basically just taking the criteria that human reviewers usually base their decisions off of, turn them into criteria with âpassâ or âfailâ buttons for each one, which makes it easier for humans to review faster, more consistently, and with lower barrier to entry.
itâs basically just a nicer google forms setup curated for the grant review process. alongside this, there is also all of the usual grant review processes that existed before, hence the larger budget, we just rebranded it all to âGIAâ.
your space pen/pencil joke is still lacking a sense of reality with respect to GIA/FDD-policy. GR12 was great, and our human reviewers learned a lot, but their path was a little inefficient. a closer analogy would be that we found our way home from school, but walked an extra 2 miles due to some inefficient path choices. now, were leveraging our experience to take turns that get us home quicker.
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my recommendation for you is to seek context before making very impactful budgetary decisions. this is partially FDDâs fault as a workstream, and itâs something that myself and others are trying to push towards communicating context better. maybe try to participate a little more, especially when it seems like things donât make sense.
The GIA is a tool that would allow us to further decentralize the grant review process and would make the community own it more and more over time while leveraging the knowledge of the participants . Itâs very interesting and allows for a lot of experimentation with low costs
We imagine a future in which the GIA will be self funded with a grant on Gitcoin and the reviewers will be incetivised that way and maybe create their own sub DAO hybrid, idk
I appreciate the time and thought you have give to our beloved FDD btw, these are very good conversations to have and they could lead to very constructive things.
During GR12 we accomplished a lot here at the FDD(haha, Iâm part of the stream, how could I not be biased), we actually delivered and defended the DAO while maintaining credible neutrality. We experimented and decentralized all of the squads and even the core structure that we used in GR12 and evolved to this format for GR13. The OS that Joe presented is really an innovation and I think this is quite âuniqueâ in GItcoin DAO. We have also been the home of research related to descentralization, reward systems and governance systems.
Thank you for this massively detailed proposal Joe.
I think Iâve now (re)read all of the comments, plus also the comments under @kyleâs voter guide.
As always extremely impressed and inspired by the level of detail put in your proposals, I think the thoroughness of your approach & transparency can and should be an inspiration for any DAO.
Iâve spent quite a few days on mulling over whether I should abstain from voting or vote no - the way it currently stands I will probably vote no on the current budget. The main reasons for this are 1) the reserves which are requested and 2) the investments in innovation and governance within this workstream, which increase complexity and imo reduces effectiveness, at least at this point in our DAOâs timeline.
When I read the comments here - except for Kyleâs, who went for a hardcore deep dive - I think it shows that many people are supportive for one of two reasons: either they are a part of FDD and for this reason might be biased and/or see things I am missing, or they are stewards who appreciate the thoroughness of the FDD proposal and for this reason are supportive of the proposal, without actually understanding in detail what you are proposing and why.
It shows we still have a long way to go to incentivize Stewards to dive in and allocate enough time for these crucial decisions, and hopefully @Popâs council proposal (WIP) will help on that level.
Both of these observations are very subjective and I am sure might rub some people the wrong way. I for my part can honestly say that I do not understand all of it, and it is one of the many reasons I am/was hesitating to vote, I simply do not have the time available to dig even deeper.
However, because of the large amount being requested, reading kyleâs observations combined with my own observations of the workings of FDD as a daily and full-time contributor within the DAO, and especially point 1) & 2) above I will probably vote no on this iteration of the budget.
Some more detail on my logic here:
1) Reserves
FDD is the only workstream who has been âsaving upâ and I think the argumentation shows we mainly need to work on getting rid of internal politics (which indeed do exist! and are very frustrating) and get better at DAOing. However, allowing these (enormous) reserves is counterproductive: it is basically saying that our governance mechanisms of allocating budgets are not working / cannot be trusted. To be honest I agree with that point The answer however imo is not to keep doing this & have funds ready to allow spinning out as a standalone DAO or to cease collaboration, but to work more on / invest more in the operations of the DAO as a whole, and improve our communication & governance mechanisms, as we have one shared/joint mission.
2) Innovation / Governance
Working within the DAO Operations Workstream I can say that there is a lot we need to do when it comes to effective governance, transparency and incentivization, thereâs room for massive amounts of improvement & growth, and FDD has been leading the way here, because no one else was. However, I do not think these initiatives should be developed under FDD, they belong mostly under DAOops, which now exists and is slowly scaling.
This is not a question of centralization, it is even the opposite to me, as DAO Operations was created to service shared needs of the entire DAO. With certain elements of this proposal we are actually working towards a centralization of power within one workstream, and I think we are too early in the process of our own DAO (and all DAOs) to move this fast. Personally I think it could endanger the focus on the mission of Gitcoin, which is to build and fund public goods, not to become the most effective DAO.
Ideally one day weâll be both.
I think this leaves plenty of room for innovation (also on topics of governance, eg the source council) and might be a signal for FDD to focus even more on its core mission, streamline for simplicity and effectiveness, and a signal for DAOops that it needs to really and urgently invest in better governance and incentivization modelling for the entirety of GitcoinDAO.
What you want to achieve within the boundaries of the budget that will remain - which is still around 50K GTC (!) counting the built-up reserves is still very ambitious.
I do believe every major city indeed needs its own fire department, and we have one, but we are not a big city just yet, we are a big name, but counting active (and effective) contributors, we are still a âbaby DAOâ, and we have already spent a lot of time on reducing internal politics aligning, in challenging times and a long-distance context, simplicity is key in order to continue on that path.
The vision for FDD is fantastic and I hope building a âsybil defense network for the metaverseâ is where we will arrive at. But letâs first make sure our city is thriving, viable & regenerative, before its fire department becomes a city on itself.
Note: I hope this feedback is useful and is interpreted the way it is intended: some constructive thoughts to help us achieve both our medium & long term goals, without stifling innovation or demotivating you or other contributors. I believe in moonshots and I believe even more in the need for a decentralized world, but Iâve also first-hand seen the risks & failures of bringing too many layers of complexity too soon.
I will not have the time to respond to comments on this in the way that Kyle has done above and under his summary because of Ethdenver and a number of other reasons. We can however discuss irl and will definitely read any comments if they appear here.
I think you are underestimating our Stewards. Some might have skimmed it, but take @akrtws for example. She is part of our multisig as a steward providing oversight of our workstream and is not a paid contributor of FDD. (FDD set ourselves up with a 4/7 multisig designed to represent our stakeholders and provide an additional layer of oversight which the other streams havenât done.)
She participated in a 2 hour overview session giving very tough criticisms and then had multiple one on one discussions with myself and other contributors. After responding to her and other multisig keyholder critiques, we eventually got to this final request.
To say that she, or @bobjiang and other stewards are not fulfilling their duty if they support this budget request is not necessarily the case.
You have over 700k GTC delegated to you. I think it is your duty to understand it.
So you agree that mission critical work might be susceptible to these issues?
It is not new and we are not âsaving upâ we simply ask for one quarter of funding extra as we have been since the first budget proposal. If we were âsaving upâ, we wouldnât explicitly be showing that we are topping up what we currently have to make sure we continue to have 1 season worth of reserves.
FDD is not spinning itself out as a standalone DAO. We have no interest of doing that. We may incubate projects that end up having a broader application potential than our mandate in which case we would support them spinning out. A community data collective for sybil detection for example.
I am 100% focused on serving FDDâs mandate which is defending Gitcoin against threats to its legitimacy, credible neutrality, and sustainability.
I fundamentally disagree that reserves for one season, another 90 days, makes it so FDD isnât accountable for its results. Additionally, I will be bringing a proposal to CSDO before next season to establish a norm around reserves for all workstreams.
Quite frankly, Iâm a little shocked that you, as the person responsible for contributor experience, feel as though the way to achieve accountability is by putting contributors financial stability and mental safety at a higher risk than necessary. 90 days of extra funding is not going to strip workstreams of accountability imho.
Or because we canât supply legitimacy and credible neutrality without having a solid foundation. It would be wise to think of our need for proper governance structure as part of our mandate.
I agree that DAOops should own this for GitcoinDAO as a whole, but each stream does need to manage its own internal governance. We are explicitly working to do this well. This is less than 4% of our total budget. Whether or not a workstream explicitly identifies these needs in their budget does not mean it isnât executing and paying for them.
Secondly, our governance process says that after 5 days on the governance forum and 5 steward comments, the proposal should move to snapshot. Even after getting the required amount of comments, our proposal is still not on snapshot 5 days later. (I could post, but Iâm trying to go along with some hard work by @Pop to improve steward comms.)
The reason for this delay was cited as stewards requesting more time to review the proposals. No steward posted these requests on the governance forum or in the Stewards channel in Discord. Now, I am NOT accusing anyone of wrongdoing, but you could see how with you being the only steward who has commented during this delay period, one could be see this as delaying the vote so you could post this critique.
For this reason I think you should ABSTAIN from voting on this proposal.
Additionally, it shows the need for multiple workstreams to be actively involved in governance.
Please say more? How does FDD managing its own internal governance centralize power for all of GitcoinDAO?
Not sure how you make this connection.
How do you reconcile these two sentences? In one you state that we should not focus on becoming the most effective DAO, then you say that FDD should focus on streamlining our focus for simplicity and effectiveness.
Gitcoin has Top Level OKRs and one of them is decentralization. How do you come to the conclusion that FDD should focus on efficiency in the decentralization and efficiency tradeoff?
You know what stops little towns from becoming big cities⌠when they burn down.
How about we build all parts of the system to be regenerative individually and collectively. That is alignment.
The thesis of your criticism has not had anything to do with the introduction of complexity or the speed at which it is introduced. It has been about whether reserves are justified and who should own certain functions.
This sentence implies the FDD gets supported for a couple reasons that are not related to mission-first activity of fraud detection & defence. This statement is unsettling on several levels. Mostly it hints we are losing focus of the mission. Funding public goods & oss. Is this really suggesting the workstream dedicated to protecting the funding is only supported because 1)fdd members want to get paid and 2) Stewards like Joeâs writing ? Well I like to think people support the fdd because they donât want funds going to bad actors. The fact Joe is a good writer only helps communicate the granular details to voters. This feels like somebody accusing an political party of gaining support only because they have a nice brochure. The brochure is just a proxy for the platform and ideology.
The talk around the FDD GR13 budget is illuminating. I see issues similar to the issues at hand when considering numerous grant applications from 1 large Dao. It is all about financial connection and accountability. Are the sub-daos routing money back to the parent dao? Are Gitcoin Dao workstreams routing funds to the greater Dao somehow? How is profit shared from each parent & sub dao? Now these issues are confronting GC as we debate budgets. I would like to know how much and by what manner Gitcoin GPG/LLC exerts control over those workstreams it funds. I was fairly surprised to learn that not all workstreams get equal support from the core.
Kris said the support shown by FDD members somehow means there is a lack of non-workstream member support. This is a reach imo. Something about correlation not equal to causation comes to mind. For Kris this translates into a reason he likely wonât support the budget. Did I land in bizzaro world somehow? Arenât dedicated workstream participants a reason to increase budgets not decrease them? Personally want I the most leaned-in contributors to get the most budget and power.
Some workstreams get direct funding from the GPG? say what?!? I had no idea.
Some workstreams actively manage their treasury to create revenue. Nicely done! (but here comes the tax collector. The benefits of great treasury management should be awarded mainly to the workstream that created it imo. I could see allocating 20% back to the parent dao maybe.)
Some workstreams are thinking of spinning off into an independent dao. whoa. Feels like this is quite a divisive idea. Are we Gitcoin a nebulous group of linked mini-daos with narrow scopes? Or are we Gitcoin Dao - Funder of OSS and its Developers? I sure hope for the latter, but Ostrom seems to favor the former. Please educate me on why this is better.
Responsibility for innovation at Gitcoin is uncertain. Nobody seems to know who should push the innovation envelope beyond MSC. I think innovation is one of those org-wide topics that deserves org-wide guidance. In the absence of wide-spread guidance this responsibility falls on each workstream. I argue it is the workstream folks who are best suited to guide innovation within their streamâs mandate. FDD should guide FDD innovation. PGF should guide their own innovation. And so on. Would be great to get some input from the greater Steward group and GPG but until then we got you covered. The FDD has some innovation ideas evolved from many rounds of successful mission completion. Please donât cancel these goals. It is too sudden and drastic imo. If there is some dissent, letâs discuss and shift some of these goals as the group deems proper. The suggestion to cut-off the innovation arm of the FDD comes without warning, without time to prepare for the transition and without thought of the FDD staff that are involved in these areas. If anything, cut the weakest innovation ideas, not the program itself. Iâd love to see a Gitcoin survey about which areas of innovation are most favoured by the community. There are likely innovative experiments happening in workstreams that we donât even know about yet.
Above all, I want to heartily thank Kyle, Kris and Joe for their time detail and commitment to Gitcoin. You folks demonstrate the âleaned-inâ behavior I try to mimic. The energy you three are giving the program is so admirable. Yes it is push-back, but that is what will make us lean and agile. Thank you <3. Also thank you to all the other commenters and folks dedicated to prudent money management at Gitcoin. We need you all.
Iâve decided to vote yes on this proposal even though I have reservations. In particular, the increase in the budget given that the budget is being driven from the ground up is concerning.
I realize this is probably the only way for the budget to be driven, given the early nature of the process, but a bottom-up budget that increases at this rate, I am sure everyone would agree, is unsustainable.
In the future, I will probably vote against a budget increase of this size (for any of the streams) without a much clearer âfrom-the-topâ feeling for how it fits into the larger DAOâs mission / planning.
EDITED: I should have said how amazed I am with Joeâs energy, his positive attitude, his attention to details, and the huge amount of work heâs already put in. Nothing I say above is reflective of my thoughts on Decentrazation Joe or any of the team.
Before stewards vote, Iâd like to offer a point of reconciliation in a hope to sway those pushing for a no vote. Iâd like to offer a compromise to address the core reasons expressed for voting no after a nice heart to heart in Denver yesterday with @krrisis and a few shorter discussions with @kyle the past week.
ASK - Iâd like you to be ok with our 90 days of reserves on this budget and vote YES as is
There isnât a fundamental issue with the Season 13 budget at this point, but with the reserves.
The arguments against have not been about whether FDD is getting results and executing. They come from a place of concern with our rate of growth and the DAOs overall ability to assess the effectiveness of a workstreamâs efforts. Combine this with the concern that the DAO as a whole hasnât figured out how to prioritize budget between all of the workstreams.
I agree with these observations. I will address one at a time, then follow with my argument for the reserves.
Compromise 1 - We address the core issue of budget growth and rate of budget growth by agreeing that âstructured streamsâ have a capped rate of budget growth (w/ specific CSDO override mechanism if needed)
During Season 13 we will work together to formulate a percentage cap to the allowable growth rate cap for structured streams. We will also formally set the requirements for being a âstructuredâ or âsemi-structuredâ stream and the benefits a workstream may receive for participating in CSDO governance.
Compromise 2 - We will collaborate to improve the DAOs overall ability to assess the effectiveness of a workstreamâs efforts
The FDD Mandate Delivery squad is tasked with determining the effectiveness and health of FDD initiatives. While I believe each workstream should be able to track this on their own, it would be great to take the learnings from our effort which is needed sooner because of our mission critical functions, then collaborate to design a framework to be owned by DAOops in the future.
This could include spinning out this squad to DAOops for Season 14 or simply reducing these efforts from around 4% of FDD total budget to < 1%.
Compromise 3 - We collaborate to figure out a framework to prioritize budget between all of the workstreams
One steward, @tjayrush has suggested we put a % of total budget on all the budget requests. We did this within FDD as you can see on our FDD Season 13 Budget Proposal Details, but couldnât do it with the entire DAO.
We can collaborate on a framework for providing this context to the entire DAO in the future.
As for this budget proposal, FDD is only asking for 60-70k GTC for season 13 (depending on GTC price). This is not the largest seasonal budget request, or the second largest. However, solving sybil resistance (ensuring each vote is a unique human) and grant eligibility (community curation of consent to participate) are the two of the most important problems for Gitcoin to solve.
Because of the importance of these efforts, it seems that our relative prioritization is reasonable for this season before we agree to the new framework.
My argument on why reserves are reasonable
I believe not having reserves is both operationally a potential problem, but also detrimental to contributors mental health and financial stability. I think we are all in agreement that the workstreams could still be held accountable even if they have more than 90 days of operating budget at a time.
My argument is that ALL workstreams should have at least 90 days of runway at a any given time. We shouldnât back them into a corner.
With the current system, contributors can only plan expectations of an income for 90 days at the beginning of a season. At the end, they might only be able to plan a few weeks or days into the future. (Right now for example, most workstreams would be in the red if they actually executed and uses the budget they requested for Season 12.)
With my suggestion, even in the last days of the season, a structured workstream would benefit from having 90 days of financial stability at the end of each quarter rather than at the beginning.
Yes, it is an assumption that they will execute. I think this is reasonable as we can set the requirements for being a structured workstream to include a level of earning this trust. (Maybe after a first trial season, they get this right?)
Iâd encourage us to assess whether this would be appropriate for all workstreams during the upcoming season and before s14 proposals as part of this compromise.
Thank you both for your attention, professionalism, and honest feedback.
Finally, I am appreciated Kyle and Kris to comment the S13 budget proposal, and they are valid and specific feedbacks. (At the same time, it makes GitcoinDAOâs issues visible like the corporations between workstreams etc)
Holy molly guys, I wanted to respond to this topic earlier but could not find the time and since then it has exploded with comments.
Before saying anything else I want to express my disappointment at this statement directed at @krrisis.
As a steward with lots of GTC delegated to me too who is actually trying to put as much of my free time as possible reading through proposals and voting and keeping up to date with whatâs happening I find this really unfair.
I have spent quite a few hours per week on this DAO since its inception, and wasted lots of gas in proposals and votes and multisig actions. All of this without receiving a wei in compensation for my time. Not even gas rebates.
Having GTC delegated to me does not pay me in any way for my time which is quite very limited. So no I donât think itâs my, or any other stewardâs duty to do anything unless we start getting paid and also have a contractual relation with the DAO.
I realize this is quite different to the view I had when I first started being a steward but I had seriously underestimated the amount of pro bono work this would require when the DAO was starting.
Amount of funds
Now for the proposal itself. I also find it really hard to be asked to judge how much money other people should get from the DAO, how much their work is worth when all of this judgement on my and fellow delegates side is supposed to be pro bono.
For the amount of funds the salaries look high to me as a European but I understand probably are okay for American standards.
Reserves
For the reserves I also find it really weird a given workstream of the DAO would need any sort of reserves. So long as the DAO has funds, the workstreams would be funded by the DAO as long as they do their work.
Having reserves sounds like FDD wants to spin into its own organization completely which I find alarming. I think this may outline a politics and communication problem inside the Gitcoin DAO.
I would much rather prefer to see Gitcoin DAO as a whole figure out a way to make sure all its employees have no disruptions in their payments through a common and unified approach rather than have a single workstream have such big reserves.
FDD Peformance Review
I am always on and reading in the discord ocassionally and have read all the material provided here. It is my impression that FDD is doing a good job and is helping Gitcoin grants a lot. The ideas pushed by @kyle about having another customer too sound also interesting.
What I would also like to see though is a performance review of the FDD made by another workstream or DAO member. Since all the material I have read are actually made by FDD they could be biased. So would be nice to see an independent performance review.
This is more of a comment on all workstreams though, not just FDD. It would be nice to have some kind of formal review process to which all workstreams would fall under. And the result of this review would be created by a person/group external to the reviewed workstream and would be perhaps easier to read by the stewards who would know.
I am under the impression that FDD is doing a good job.
In closing I have not yet made up my mind completely on how I will vote as there is some things I have doubts for as mentioned above.
An extra question to @DisruptionJoe as I am not 100% sure which number I should look for in the spreadsheets but how long can this conversaion and voting drag on? How long do you have reserves for to pay the team?
Valid point, same here. Being a steward/multisig keyholder is not sustainable in the current set up. But letâs not punish FDD for this problem, since itâs not their mistake. Iâm grateful that this discussion is coming up, and Iâll be glad to see the roles evolve.
The voting on the this seasonâs FDD budget is pending because of this discussion. Proves that there can be situations when a buffer is needed. I think itâs smart to prepare for such situations, because thereâs a risk of loosing really critical contributors due to such delays - be it at FDD or any other work stream.
Valid route to solve this issue, letâs address it.
Yes to that - adds to the need to further develop Gitcoin DAO roles.
Many of the issues mentioned in this whole discussion (role definitions, reserves, timelines, reviewing process) are caused by the fact that the organisational set up obviously didnât keep pace with the workstreamsâ development.
What if you were an ambitious, skilled contributor watching the DAO fail to assess a proposal properly and as a result your proposal was turned down in the voting? Youâd probably look for a better place to invest your time.
Letâs not make steward/multisig issues the problem of a workstream. And please letâs not punish FDD or any other Gitcoin DAO workstream for being fast and ambitious.
If my response sounded overall negative or trying to punish FDD in any way, that was not my intention.
I simply have some questions and some things I would like to see further change in the DAO as a whole. The DAO stuff are more about in the long run and definitely not a blocker for this proposal.
Thank you for your feedback. I know you take your role very seriously. You went above and beyond in the last two quarters as a multisig keyholder for FDD and Gitcoin as a whole.
You are right. It is unfair and I didnât mean to offend you or Kris. @akrtws was able to articulate the dynamics of the workstream pace of innovation and the DAO as a whole being mismatched and not providing the stewards with the tools needed to execute their responsibilities.
(There is also the example of @Zargham who accepted responsibility as an FDD multisig keyholder and chose not to be a GitcoinDAO steward accepting delegations because the time commitment to FDD was as much as he could responsibly handle. I am not saying that to criticize as we are all learning together, but instead trying to highlight other modes of operation that might help us better achieve our mission.)
This workstream reporting was something FDD identified in Q3 last year as a threat to Gitcoin and started to look into, but then was told it was âout of our scopeâ and pushed to spin out the initiatives that are supposed to be handling this. In talking with @griff this week, it seems like smaller workstreams might help.
Perhaps in S14, FDD could dissolve and leave sybil defense and grants eligibility as individual workstreams, but for this season I think it is best to move forward as is. We have a lot of work to do with 3 weeks until the next grants round starts. To update structure now would be very tough.
There are 9 on the source council receiving full time pay.
Iâd recommend looking at a startup âSr. Business Managerâ or âOperations Directorâ for my role. (I will be paid as part of the source council and even got docked $100 this week for not reporting my payments on time⌠)
For the other higher paid on the source council you might look at âSystems Architectâ âSr. Software Developerâ âData Operations Directorâ âMachine Learning Engineerâ. For these, I would argue we are paying lower than US market value even though a DAO should pay more imho. We are able to do this because of the passion, preferred working style, and other benefits of being a part of this community which our contributors enjoy.
For the lower side, < $70k is under the line where people are able to start saving in the US. You can see on the chart in the presentation slide deck that three of 9 would be under this level. This is ok because the people who only hold one outcome and are at this level are newer to FDD or having their first try at owning an outcome.
I assure you that FDD has no intention of spinning out of Gitcoin. We donât want another customer at that level because the collective decision making structure that is FDD has a mandate specific to Gitcoin. If that need were to no longer exist, it would dissolve rather than find a customer.
I do see the potential for subDAOs of Sybil, FDD, and GitcoinDAO being great revenue opportunities. In fact, I pitched a Sybil Detection DAO at Metapod 2 days ago and got 2nd place, followed by at least 10 dms asking how to use the services. (One of the outcomes we are working on is building the community data warehouse for our sybil defense work. What if we used the same architecture for a data collective that preserved privacy and was governed by the community?)
Because we have the reserves from our last budget (Plus another $30k from treasury management gains) we are able to push this decision for a month or two if needed.)
Overall Lefteris, I think solving sybil defense and the community consent of which grants are eligible on the platform are two of the biggest problems Gitcoin needs to solve. As much as we need marketing, PR, and operations for today, we need to solve those for tomorrow.
Here is what Kyle listed for streams with my adjustment for FDD to compare Season budget amounts rather than total requests (reserves issue separate)
MMM - 30K GTC (likely another 20K funded by Holdings right now)
PGF - 100K GTC (likely another 30K is funded by Holdings right now)
FDD - 63K GTC (No funding by Holdings right now)
DAO Ops - 40K GTC (likely another 30K is funded by Holdings right now)
dGrants - 0 GTC (On Hold)
dCompass - 38K GTC (No funding by Holdings right now)
MSC - 130K GTC (likely another 20K is funded by Holdings right now)
Please consider the total amounts Gitcoin spends on each workstream including the subsidies from Holdings before making your decision.
I had a further look at the different fundings of the other workstreams and the work you guys have done and your plans. I still have some reserves and would hope to see more communication done between the different parts of the Gitcoin DAO but I voted in the snapshot in favor of the proposal.
I appreciate your thoughts on this. It is my opinion that this ^^ is actually the default we want, but there should be some safety net where if budgets take longer to process, those who are performing do not suffer (this is likely the case for much âthinnerâ workstreams). I am interested in DAOs disrupting the status quo of âI have a stable paycheck even if I donât deliver results for the DAO (barring legitimate reasons).â
I would love to align on a reasonable reserve for all workstreams as part of S13 execution, and the concession has me really conflicted. A no vote feels harsh given the timelines it takes for budgets to be approved, and that is something I want to lean into as well during S13. (ie, should it take 15 days to get budgets approved, and if so, how do we make sure the budgets are approved with enough time to confirm operations and sort out differences). I will likely abstain from the vote, and not vote no as I also want to act in good faith with the concessions being offered here.
I agree it is a bit unfair for the entire workstream to be without funding while process runs and I would not want to create a culture of anxiety around the budgeting process. I also dont think we should tie the outcomes of a large workstream all together (ie, is Ground Control is not performing, and Sybil is⌠Should all funding be withheld?). I look forward to discussing more and I am optimistic we may see some bigger changes ahead of S14.
I suppose in this case having a reserve could or would be the solution to support our contributor and reduce the stress/anxiety over payments that must be done/past due
The Steward mandate is to get a voice for/from your delegate and them with your judgement split the decision (With of course your understanding of the requested form/proposal/budget
At this point, doing a restructuration of the FDD Ground control or the FDD as a hole, is quite a bit late in the process. Gitcoin Grants Round 13 is starting in less 20 days and I think we should keep the workstream as it is.
Summarizing this post, I would like to clearly see from the steward who are going to vote no or oppose to this proposal, state in a few bullets points what should we change and why
As a quick update, I voted No on this as opposed to abstaining so that we could meet the threshold as I believe ensuring the communityâs will is more important than my single concerns (knowing my no vote will push us past quorum, but not block the progress).
No votes shouldnât count towards quorum⌠that seems like a flaw in the system honestly.
Maybe I should start a moratorium⌠h/t to Vlad, Gun, and Dino
RE: Reserves
Just to throw my hat in the ring here⌠I would advocate for ALL work streams to have budget for continuing their work if Governance is slow⌠If we donât do that, there are 2 options:
#1 (most likely) Individuals step up and take on risk to continue the work, either by paying people out of their own pocket or by working with the risk of not being paid.
#2 Critical infrastructure fails.
This is not good business. We need a solution that doesnât allow for either of those options.
Until another solution emerges, having a reserve for each work stream is just smart and real, Governance in DAOs is slow and unpredictable, and a prudent work stream lead should prepare for funding issues if they are stewarding critical infrastructure. A Reserve creates a buffer for the Work stream to continue or transition as needed without having to pause payments. People have bills to pay and we need to create a safety net so they can continue to work and pay those bills even if the unexpected happens.
The answer however imo is not to keep doing this & have funds ready to allow spinning out as a standalone DAO or to cease collaboration, but to work more on / invest more in the operations of the DAO as a whole, and improve our communication & governance mechanisms, as we have one shared/joint mission.
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