The Steward Council - Formation & Mandate

šŸ¤– DAO Governance and Vision
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tl;dr

You can explore the initial proposal introducing the Steward Council here.

This proposal seeks to select the members of the GD Steward Council, approve its mandate and tenure. We currently have 14 stewards elligible for a seat on the council.

This proposal is split into the following sections:

  • Engagement score updates: How the engagement scores have evolved based on community conversations and input
  • Formation: Who qualifies to be in the council & selection
  • Mandate & term: What are the requirements for council members + GTC allocation

Engagement Score Updates

This council looks to elevate the participation of the most engaged stewards as exemplified by the engagement scorecards and looking at stewards with a rating above 8/10 (*details on engagement scores below). The scores have evolved to take into account more granular engagement beyond voting mechanics and delegation power.

The motivation behind this evolution is that engagement is manifold and contributors should be recognised for their work beyond on chain governance action points. We have also taken into account any drop off in engagement in the previous season (quarter) and will be working to make sure the cards are a real time reflection of engagement as this essential piece of DAO tooling evolves.

The following are adjustment scores contributing to overall ranking per steward:

  • Workstream lead role +5
  • Workstream contributor role +3
  • Lack of meaningful contributions, not taking part in voting or discussion in the previous season -3

In future, to maintain a +8 rating, a steward will need to be active in a workstream or in DAO-wide discussions, a -1 deduction will be applied per 1 month of inactivity. As seasons kick in this quarter, this will be mkeasured/season.

Formation

The current lineup of stewards with scores 8/10 and over is as follows:

(*apologies here stewards, only 10 can be tagged in one post)

As part of the discussion on the initial proposal, itā€™s important to understand who among these stewards feels like they have the bandwidth to take the council role on for its first season. The initial proposal was looking at a council formed of 10 stewards and the current lineup is at 14 - another point here is do we extend numbers or based on steward self-signalling re availability, do we stick to the original plan of 10.

Please express your opinions on the makeup of this council and whether you strongly feel other stewards should be included.

Mandate & Term

The first Stewards Council will be active from the time the proposal passes for a period of ~180 days, in line with the seasons cadence established as part of the proposal. One council should cover 2 seasons and there should be 2 councils/year.

The rough 180 day cadence matches the quarterly cadence of the Gitcoin DAO calendar and offers a great opportunity to reflect, expand and amplify the mission of GD. Cadence as follows:

  • Season 13 - 2.1 to 4.30 (GR13 | 3.9-3.24)
  • Season 14 - 5.1 to 7.30 (GR14 | 6.8-6.23)
  • Season 15 - 8.1 to 10.30 (GR15 | 9.7-9.22)
  • Season 16 - 11.1 to 1.31 (GR16 | 11.30-12.15)
  • and ongoing - any changes for holidays or other interruptions would be voted on

A milestone report will be presented at the end of the 180 day mark, ensuring the model is deemed valuable by the community and any essential and valuable learnings are incorporated in the model.

Steward council mandate:

  • Keeping a ā€˜docketā€™ of ongoing proposals / their current status
  • Ensure proposals follow template(s) / creating any necessary adjustments to template(s)
  • Perform an in-depth analysis of budget requests by workstreams. This includes:
  • workstream performance and delivery(from the milestone reports included in the proposals)
  • funds left over from previous seasons and taking them into account for the season
  • list of contributors to workstream
  • value of ask
  • Consult on workstream performance/workstream leadsā€™ milestone progress - address any workstream issues that may occur within a season
  • Participating in active discussion around proposals, timely voting
  • Availability for Tally proposal creation and ratification once a proposal has passed Snapshot
  • Participation in a council call that will be scheduled halfway between the monthly steward call (aka every two weeks) for better alignment & broader DAO strategy discussion.

This mandate will evolve to take into account any learnings from the first council activity as we evolve the structure and the model based on optimum balance.

First Forum Distribution

The proposal is that a pool of GTC is allocated across the Stewards Council for the term. This is to cover gas costs incurred in voting and offer fair allocation for the group as long as they fulfil their functions outlined above. The funds can also be allocated to everyone voting as highlighted by some of the comments on the initial version of the council proposal. This action can be decided on by the council as one of their first joint proposals.

A Snapshot proposal will be made separately around the allocation for the first council term. Based on the comments on the initial post, an overall agreement was option A. 5,000 GTC for the whole council for the whole mandate. We can potentially include all 3 options in the Snapshot for broader agreement.

*A. 5,000 GTC
B. 10,000 GTC
C. 15,000 GTC

*These options are here for the community to assess what a fair level of compensation might be in the context of the steward council and its mandate.

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I am not entirely sure on a few pieces which Iā€™d like to clarify:

It seems like seasons are approximately 90 days. Is 120 intentional?

This doesnā€™t delegate authority to anyone to be directly responsible for getting these things done. It would make more sense to me for the budget to be used to fund a squad with a designated owner of the outcome of getting all these things done. The council would then vote on which outcomes and who would own them.

This seems like better use of the funds than simply rewarding council members.

I do see the need to reimburse for gas fees used when voting though. I could see this group passing an outcome like ā€œAll voters who vote on 50% or more issues with over x amount delegated to them will receive reimbursements for their voting gas feesā€. This council would elect an outcome owner who would then create a budget for getting this done that the council would then pass.

Open to ideasā€¦ starting the discussion before it moves forward!

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Iā€™m supportive of the engagement score updates, formation of the council, and mandate & term.

Regarding the makeup of the council, Iā€™m fine extending the number to 14 if everyone listed wants to participate. If there are some stewards who do not have the bandwidth, then I think we can narrow down from there.

The most important minimum to me regarding GTC allocation to council members is to make sure gas costs are covered so voting does not become cost-prohibitive to anyone. 5000 GTC sounds reasonable to me but Iā€™ll support higher if others feel that is not a fair level of compensation.

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The scorecards use metrics that value quantity over quality. I would be careful about using them as cut-offs vs. information factors in a decision.

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Itā€™s not meant to be a static tool - this will all evolve. the point is starting somewhere for context, contribution and clarity.

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Hi @Pop

I am fine with 14 members, according with number, I would suggest to have a flexible number like 7 - 14 for the council. (based on the interest and time commitment)

For the Council member, I would like to have clear responsibilities for them. For example, 1) actively engage in work stream (maybe at least 2 work streams) and in special for the work stream season proposals. 2) actively participate voting. 3) collect feedback from DAO members. etc.

For the 5k GTC compensation, not sure how do we get this number, maybe you have some rough plan. E.g 10 ppl for 3 months (4 hours per month) etc.

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Initially (before the calculation of the season duration) I was thinking we would have 3 councils/year. I wouldnā€™t change the council every season as the burden of regrouping outweighs the benefitsā€¦Perhaps we do 2/year instead. Happy to hear thoughts here!

Re delegating authority to specific stewards - this can be discussed in the first council call. I do not feel it is suitable to dictate who does what before a discussion amongst the group and before we even know whoā€™s part of it! Ownership is part of the process.

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As you can see, active participation and timely voting are includedā€¦ please re-review if you missed it.

If a steward is part of a workstream and they came to be part of the council through their work in the workstream, any drop off would be recorded in the engagement cards. Again, all thought of as part of the mechanics coming into play.

Re compensation, again you can read in the proposal that the amount if for the council for the term.

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I kinda like the 2/year with term limits.

Re delegating authority - I misunderstood. I read it as this amount would be given to the council for being active voters! In this case, Iā€™d say the 5k is a good start, but open to upping it to 10k. Maybe they get 5k for this quarter budget and 5k in reserves that they could dip into if they felt they had justifiable reasons for it.

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Maybe it makes sense for the 14 here to elect a working group that sets a budget to be voted on with reasoning for why they need how much.

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Thanks for the update, Simona! The mandate makes sense and Iā€™d be happy to serve on the council.

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Amended mandate to make it more granular re evaluating proposals, workstream performance and workstream contributors.

The council term is also now 180 days/roughly 2 seasons and will equate to two councils a year.

Adjustments made as per comments and discussion.

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@Pop Thank you for putting together the structure of the Stewards Council, I think it can help bring structure to the DAO and help set the stage for developing good habits and norms for stewarding DAOs in general (possibly not just Gitcoinā€™s)

Maintaining Steward effectiveness
My two cents is that we could probably assign or stewards might gravitate towards certain workstreams and these stewards might be the ā€˜subject matter expertā€™ on the workstream they have chosen so that we can maintain high contextual knowledge as we help to guide decisions for the DAO.

Operationally, I think I could help work on the Notion pages so that Stewards donā€™t have to dig through all the workstreamsā€™ pages to look for proposals or context either. This can also help serve a secretariat function.

Council makeup
I think having 10 for a start is a good number and having the rest of the stewards that fulfill the criteria kept in the loop on an ad hoc/voluntary basis such as through a regular update cadence. When it comes to renewal for the council this also gives us a larger group of people we could select from.

Thank you!

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Iā€™d be pleased to serve if given an opportunity. Two terms per year makes sense to me. I suggest there become a social norm that if people want to come off of the group that they help find a replacement.

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I think itā€™s ok to go for 14? But no strong opinions on this. Assuming that a number of stewards will decline the described mandate , I think itā€™s a good idea to start with 14, hoping that we arrive at 10 who can/will actually commit.
I assume the GTC distribution takes into account 10.

Reading this mandate it seems only one Steward has currently been performing these tasks for the current budget round, and this is @kyle, am I seeing this correct? I have done a budget analysis of 3/5 workstreams and it is questionable if it was in-depth enough.

In your adjustment scores above - how do we evaluate if Stewards are actually taking up this mandate as you describe this and adjust their scores? How do we hold them accountable and who will make this calculation? Maybe this can be peer-reviewed (as a task of the council itself)? Donā€™t want to make it too complicated but I think this is important.

Would it be useful here to add a big adjustment score here to evaluate stewards on this council?

I am missing the detailsā€¦ there is some detail in the original proposal but not hereā€¦ Would it be possible to share the calculations for how you got to the 8+'s for transparencyā€™s sake?

Reading the other comments now:

Iā€™d definitely vote on reimbursing each and every steward who has voted and has a link to their transaction. Thinking of this, weā€™ll probably have some admin work, Iā€™m not sure if you are planning to execute on follow up simona, if not or if we need more for other stewardsā€™ gas it might be a good idea to keep some financial reserves. So possibly you could propose 10K (on which we should also keep highly transparent accounting).

I think this is a valid point and also read your previous comment Anne in the original proposalā€¦ I think we should continue looking at how we could make the evaluation model better. Afaik the current model values quantity of engagement pretty high, the quality is such a subjective point that Iā€™m not sure if we can objectively evaluate this at this point.

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from the proposal above + you can look at the report cards to see the other metricsā€¦

The following are adjustment scores contributing to overall ranking per steward:

  • Workstream lead role +5
  • Workstream contributor role +3
  • Lack of meaningful contributions, not taking part in voting or discussion in the previous season -3

Agree with Anne re improving metrics over time and would also love non-overly taxing solutions proposedā€¦?

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