[DAO:81be364] DAO Grant Program - Accountability Committee

Governance
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by 0x858343382132b9ab46c857a7d52fdbafc039f784 (Zino)

Linked Draft Proposal

Framework for New Committee who decides when to revoke grants -Updated proposal

Summary

This Governance proposal aims to create the structure and guidelines for the Accountability Committee

Abstract

The Accountability Committee will have the sole responsibility to order the revocation of a Grant provided by the Decentraland DAO.
This Committee is important to decentralize the decision-making process of determining which grants should be revoked and to take care of the DAO treasury. The path to revoke a vesting contract would be the following:

  1. Any Community Member has the possibility to submit a request through a form to initiate the revision of a case whenever the grantee is suspected of not complying with the terms and conditions and the Grants Framework.
  2. The Grant Support Squad will request the grantee to respond to the concerns raised and if the concerns continue, they will send the arguments for the Accountability Committee to evaluate the case. This triggers a preventive revocation or a pause to the Vesting Contract.
  3. The Accountability Committee will study each case and will have the opportunity to request extra information regarding the case presented, and has the responsibility to provide a resolution to the community, which may be to revoke a Grant vesting contract as a final action; to resume a Grant vesting contract of a previously revoked or paused contract no older than six months; to revoke and create again the Grant vesting contract with a new proposed schedule.
  4. Any of the outcomes will be executed by the DAO committee.

The Accountability Committee will be constituted by 5 members and 2 substitutes. This committee selected by the Decentraland DAO Community is expected to be in office for twelve (12) months and the members could be re-elected only for one consecutive period.
Each committee member will be compensated with 200 USD in MANA per Grant case analyzed, paid by the DAO treasury and executed by the DAO committee once the verdict has been posted on the Grant Proposal page

Motivation

This Accountability Committee would give an opportunity to the grantees to argue with an objective third party not involved in the “revocation process” and would mitigate the “centralized power” of the DAO Committee to judge the case, and execute the decision.

Specification

Here is the complete framework document. Below, you may find its main points:

Initial setup of the Committee:

  1. There will be an open application period in the forum (like the community has done in the past and is doing with the new DAO Committee member). Applications will be submitted by the prospects as posts on the forum and applicants should answer the questions mentioned on the complete framework.

  2. The Grant Support Squad interviews the candidates and makes a final selection of 5 members and 2 substitutes. For the creation of this committee and its renewals, the final selection will be presented to the community in a poll.

  3. There will be a final poll for the community to vote to accept or decline this selection. This process will be repeated when the committee is renewed.

Adding a new member:
Once this committee is created, the process for adding a new committee member if there is a vacancy will include these 3 stages:

  1. An Open Call is published in the forum in charge of the Grant Support Squad,
  2. The committee in office interviews the candidates for the vacant position and makes a final selection of the potential member from the applicants,
  3. and the community votes in a poll for the best fit.

To remove a member:

Following the DAO Committee framework, the DAO should add a REMOVE COMMITTEE MEMBER proposal category with the required parameters mentioned in the complete framework document.

  • A member could be removed by an Internal decision of the Committee members.
  • A member could be removed by the community creating a proposal, and a simple majority vote would be needed to make it effective.

Procedure

  • The Accountability Committee starts to act when there is a formal request from any community member through a form. The Grant Support Squad will request the grantee to respond to the concerns raised within 4 days.
  • After that, The Grant Support Squad will send, in the course of 4 days, the arguments for the Accountability Committee to evaluate the case. This triggers a preventive revocation or a pause to the Vesting Contract, later to be executed by the DAO committee.
  • Then, the Accountability Committee has 6 days to discuss the case among the 5 members.
  • During the period of 6 days, the Accountability Committee has the ability to request further information to the Grant Support Squad or the Grantee about the case presented, not exceeding 30 days. After that, the Accountability Committee has 5 days to publish the final resolution.

Conflicts of interest.

Any member of the Accountability Committee should be prevented from participating in a case according to the cases that are mentioned in the complete framework document - art. 7

Execution

  • The Accountability Committee will reach the final decision by a simple majority.
  • The final decision of the Accountability Committee should be clear and public on the grant’s page and the grant’s discord channel. This will contain the committee’s arguments.

Impacts

  1. Taking care of the DAO treasury (measured in money recovered to the DAO treasury).
  2. Decentralizing decision-making of Grant revocations (from 2 actors to 3 actors).
  3. Diversifying and deepening governance involvement of DAO community into Committees (specific spaces for debate concrete grant cases, with compensations to attract and maintain actors who are acquiring new levels of responsibility for their time invested in the DAO)

Implementation Pathways

  1. Open application period in the forum (like the community has done in the past here and here),

  2. The Grant Support Squad interviews the candidates and makes a final selection of 5 members and 2 substitutes

3)The Grant Support Squad will publish a final poll for the community to accept or decline this selection.

  1. The Grants Support Squad will ask the Accountability Committee Members their wallet addresses, and ask the dApp governance squad to create a specific token to vote on the newly created Snapshot Space.

  2. The Grants Support Squad will publish the Accountability Committee framework with its members in the DAO documentation.

Conclusion

This Governance proposal will bring light into the revocation process, clarity to those involved in it, and opportunity for community members to participate in decisions regarding ongoing projects funded by the DAO. It also gives a fair chance for the grantees to provide their arguments to an objective third party not involved in the aforementioned process, and last but not least, it will lessen the “centralized power” of the DAO Committee to judge the case, and execute the decision.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

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I still don’t think a Committee is a good solution for this issue.
If the DAO must pay 1000 MANA (200x5) per formal requests received it might quickly cost a lot if trolls submit bogus requests.
I also don’t think the name is well chosen, IMO grants accountability is the main job of the GSS while this committee is purely for revocation.

I do not agree with this as it still centralized, the decision making will be done by the “Accountability Committee” alone with informations from the GSS according to the procedure. There will be more actors involved but the decision itself is still made by one entity.

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It’s there a way to add new members to Grant Support Squad that are dedicated to Grant accountability?

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It’s a squad, so not directly. You can vote no on the grant if the personnel is not the best for the task in your opinion though.

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I am not concerned with current members, what I am thinking is maybe we can save money and combine to make a more efficient GSS. Just a thought

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i agree about the name, i prefer “grant revocation committee” - very clear what they are responsible for.

i don’t agree about the decision being made by one entity - this committee is separated from the GSS and can make independent decisions on matters which are given to them. am i missing something?

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The decision will be made solely by this squad, the GSS will only provide informations, so the decision in made by only one actor, not two or three

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I agree with Tuda and HP, grant accountability is GSS Job and maybe it is better to add some members to GSS responsible for revocation processes to optimize DAO expenses.

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I know this ship has sailed… but I maintain that this whole separate committee thing is going overboard. The GSS does all the due diligence in making their recommendation, they give plenty of opportunity for communication, explanations and workarounds… and they publish the reasoning behind their recommendations in the grant page and on discord channel for each grant… the community can also bring forth their concerns and there is even a form you can fill out… the GSS recommendation can be made into a proposal so the community can vote on it and the DAO committee can execute the revoke or pause of the vesting contract. We have two great committees doing all the work… I just find it wasteful to make a whole-nother committee just to bang the gavel. It is lengthening a process that has been well investigated and nearly decided by the GSS and the community. Over the next 10 years the DAO budget requirements will grow and it’s important we maximize every dollar. Adding another decision layer to a revocation process is not worth 1K USD for each case. Especially when it’s paid in MANA.

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Why can’t the community make the decision in a poll, based on the recommendations and reasons suggested by the GSS? I guess we already had that vote… but that would have been my choice. :confused:

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11

How much does the DAO have to pay for this new committees compensation?

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:face_with_peeking_eye:

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There are already multiple squads and committees, I am confused about what each squad/committee does and if their work doesn’t overlap.

Also a lot of DAO funds are going to these squads/committees:

  • DAO Facilitation Squad 78K
  • DAO Governance Squad 120K
  • Grant Support Squad 103K
  • DAO Committee - 2,400 USD payable in MANA each month

I am against for creating another committee and I thought it was responsibility of grant support squad already.

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15

Hello Community!
Here are some answers to the concerns raised above:

  • We decided not to use the name “revocation” because it has a lot of negative connotations. However, now that the word is installed in the community, maybe it could be a good option to name this Committee “Grants Revocation Committee”

  • As @HPrivakos said, our main job its grants accountability, however, the final decision of revoking a vesting contract or not, should not be ours. We shouldn’t have the “power” to judge and decide, as our decision can be biased on our own objective analysis. The grantees need a third party not involved in the process of analysis, to discuss if a revocation is necessary; we are creating mechanisms that will take care of the DAO treasury while protecting the grantees, who are the main motor of Decentraland growth on a longer run.

  • During 2022, 100 grants were approved, summing up a total of 6.2M$ USD;

    In the last 3 months that our squad started making revocations, we have requested the DAO committee to make 12 revocations/pauses, recovering 600K; So, if these actions were implemented by the New Committee the cost would have been 12.000 MANA, representing 0.2% of the total of the grants funded

    Let’s analyze the worst-case scenario; if all of those projects were revoked (100) by the New Committee, the cost would have been 100.000 Mana (1000 mana *100), representing 1.6% of the total of the grants funded; in other words, we think that the cost of the New Committee is not significant compared to the money invested in grants that are being revoked.

  • Ongoing proposals such as changes on the Grant Program that include new requirements for grantees like expected impacts and budgets, not only help the community make informed decisions when voting for a grant, but also will decrease preventively the passing of grantees that have to be revoked later on.

.

  • Another point to mention is that when a formal request to initiate an investigation is submitted, the GSS analyzes and checks the objective information; So, if a lot of trolls submit non-objective information, the new committee would not be summoned, taking care of both: new committee members and DAO funds.

Thank you all,
Regards.

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Happy to clarify this in my own words:

  • DAO Facilitation Squad
    A team of three individuals (with social sciences or artistic backgrounds) working on helping the community craft proposals, moderating working groups, organizing townhall, moderating social spaces, and creating content (Twitter, blog posts, and so on) regarding the DAO and its members.

  • DAO Governance Squad
    A team of three engineers, 1 product designer, and 1 product manager (hi!) working on the technical foundation of the DAO. main maintainers of governance.decentraland.org and the entire ecosystem of decision-making tools for the DAO. We also execute the binding outcomes of governance proposals that the DAO votes on and affects decision dynamics.

  • Grant Support Squad
    A team of three individuals (with business, technology & project management, and legal skills) overseeing the entire Grants program, ensuring the grantees meet their goals and contribute value to the DAO. They also operate as the nexus between the Decentraland Foundation and the grantees, especially for grant projects heavily technical.

  • DAO Committee - 2,400 USD payable in MANA each month
    A team of two (soon three) highly trusted individuals (Early contributors to the project and long-time community members) acting as a trusted human proxy to execute on-chain actions that the DAO votes. They are the ones for example that can access the DAO treasury and transfer money to pay for grants.

I am against for creating another committee and I thought it was responsibility of grant support squad already.

The Grant Support Squad’s primary responsibility is to help grantees succeed and help them with their goals and responsibilities. They are heavily involved with the teams, therefore they are definitely not the best actor to decide on a pausing/revocation because in order to make their work properly they have to build a lot of personal rapport with grantees. That’s why I think a structure like this committee (Or something different but isolated from the GSS) is very much needed

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You are giving them powers that have never went passed the pre-poll. They do NOT have the ability to establish formal working groups. Process for Establishing Formal Working Groups.

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:thinking: I didn’t say anything about establishing formal groups, I said moderating (existing) working groups as they did with all these:
Screenshot 2022-12-22 at 16.12.51
We still need to vote and define the formal process for establishing them.

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Thank you for the clarification. How were these established prior to having a formalized process? When were they established?

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In Town Halls and Discord threads, they usually were related to proposals that were complex and needed a multiplicity of voices to be solid.

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Until now, the way to set up working groups, their moderation and process was something ‘ad-hoc’. They emerged precisely from discussions, threads, relevant/complex topics and the need to discuss them in an ordered and well-focused environment.

The Facilitation Squad has been supporting these working groups by setting them up and facilitating the discussion to obtain concrete outcomes. By iterating these working groups dynamic with an informal “process”, and considering each of the different experiences, we’ve discovered a pressing need to create more and better spaces for the community to exchange ideas and also a way to make more democratic the process to set up these groups. We want the different interested community members and stakeholders to take ownership in the discussions and to take a leading role to build and put together possible outputs (mainly aiming to binding governance proposals).

The new group dynamics that we’re thinking on tend to decentralize, with the figure of the ‘facilitator’ more as a default attendant, not as a core or central figure in the process or with any kind of intrinsic “power”, not only by inviting different members of the community to get involved, empowering them and promoting them to reach different outcomes or build proposals, but even more, thinking that a formal process will give everyone a transparent and concrete possibility and a pathway to propose the set up of specific working groups.

This semi-structured approach will be one way to tackle different issues, thinking in terms of efficiency and effectiveness to get concrete outcomes, but for sure will not become the exclusive one, since each community member will still have the possibility to adopt or choose other ways to channel their needs, discussions or concerns.

We think this as an optimal, not as a must. Working groups were ‘born’ as an informal way to channel specific discussions, so to formalize a working group process it’s nothing more than giving a framework and some pathways to something that was in fact already existing.

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