[DAO:a42278b] Formal Pathway for DAO Request for Information (RFI) from the Foundation

Governance
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by 0x5b5cc427c1d81db4f94de4d51d85ce122d63e244 (Fehz)

Linked Pre-Proposal

Formal Pathway for DAO Request for Information (RFI) from the Decentraland Foundation

Summary

This proposal outlines a process to implement a formal pathway for the DAO to issue a “request for information” (RFI) from the Decentraland Foundation.

Abstract

The Request for Information (RFI) process for the Decentraland DAO and the Decentraland Foundation has been designed for addressing the asymmetry in context, resources, and contributions between the Foundation and the community. The RFI process would enable the DAO to issue requests for information to the Foundation on any of the defined categories of interest, which would require a formal statement of response from the Foundation. While the response would be non-binding, this process would allow the DAO to communicate its interests and alleviate information asymmetry.

Motivation

Decentraland is a progressively decentralizing ecosystem, managed by two core stakeholders: the Decentraland DAO and the Decentraland Foundation. While both of these entities are themselves made up of a diverse and multi-interested group of stakeholders, a cooperative and structured institutional relationship between the DAO and the Foundation is beneficial, if not necessary to the success of our metaversal “way of life.”

The most important proposal to date outlining a formal relationship between the DAO and the Foundation was recently passed as a Binding Governance Proposal, delegating responsibility for determining and implementing the “reference client roadmap” to the Decentraland Foundation.”

In the reference client proposal, the Decentraland Foundation notes the following key point: “The project is currently in a state of asymmetry in terms of context/resources/contributions between the Foundation and the community.”

Specification

This proposal aims to establish a pathway for the DAO to issue a “Request for Information” (RFI) from the Decentraland Foundation via the DAO’s governance dApp and/or other complementary tools. A DAO RFI can be on any topic of interest or concern, and if passed, will require a formal statement of response from the Decentraland Foundation. While any response to an RFI will be non-binding, this is an important mechanism for the DAO to communicate its interests and alleviate information “asymmetry” between the Foundation and the Community.

  1. General Guidelines: An RFI can be useful when there is necessary information which you do not currently have access to. An RFI can be about the “what”, “why” and/or “how” of a specific topic. It is highly recommended to limit the request and to be specific about what information is being requested in order to optimize the document for brevity, as this will allow Foundation to read and digest the information in less time without omitting key information.

  2. Liaison (DAO-Foundation): - DAO Facilitation Squad will serve as an Entries & Support Desk (ESD) to organize, prioritize, forward the questionnaires, and reach out to the Foundation technical areas. Meaning that the ESD will be responsible for managing a pipeline for all RFI, help with their writing and for verifying the feasibility of getting answers.

  3. Channel & Functioning:

    3.1. The main channel for submitting RFIs and getting responses will be a Category created on the Forum for setting up the ESD.

    3.2. Each thread created within the RFI Category will remain open for a continuous period of 14 days for community members to submit their questions through the template form (ANNEX A). The ESD Facilitator will moderate these threads and will possess the authority to remove posts that are not relevant to the RFI form.

    3.3. The questions submitted by the community will be ranked based on the number of votes/likes received within a period of 14 days after the first stage is closed. This ranking will determine the priority of the questions/topics for the community, and the questions with the most votes/likes will be forwarded to the Foundation.

    3.4. Once the current round of submissions is complete, another round will be opened to allow community members to pose their questions.

    3.5. The process must allow sufficient time for responses and provide an appropriate deadline for the Decentraland Foundation to respond to the RFIs. As a standard, the Foundation will have a 20 working days period to send a response, considering the necessary time to gather and compile all relevant information and documentation.

    3.6. Time Extensions: If the Foundation considers that the posed questions are complex or require extensive research or analysis, will be able to ask for a time extension.

    3.7. Publishing: The response will be public and available for everyone through official channels such as the Governance dApp, social media, and/or other communication channels and complementary apps.

    3.8. Follow ups: The requestant may, if necessary, seek additional clarification or information on specific topics or questions from the Decentraland Foundation by submitting another RFI form and referencing the previous Q&A. This option will be available for the period of 5 days after the corresponding RFI was responded. After that period, the requestant will be required to initiate a new RFI process.

Conclusion

The proposed RFI process aims to establish a cooperative and structured institutional relationship between the DAO and the Foundation, benefiting the success of Decentraland’s metaverse. The process will enable the DAO to communicate its interests, alleviate information asymmetry, and allow the Foundation to respond to community concerns and suggestions in a transparent and accountable manner.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

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ANNEX A: TEMPLATE FORM

  1. Title
  2. Name of requester/Address (optional)
  3. Categories (Features | Roadmap | Technical | Marketing | Events | Other)
  4. Introduction: Provide an introduction that explains the purpose and scope of the RFI. This can help the reader understand the context and importance of the questions being asked.
  5. General questions: Include some general questions that provide background information and context for the specific topics being addressed in the RFI.
  6. Specific questions: Include specific questions that address the topics or issues that you want to explore in greater detail. These questions should be clear, concise, and relevant to the purpose and scope of the RFI.
  7. Supporting documentation: Provide supporting documentation or examples that help clarify or support the questions being asked (screenshots, diagrams, or other visual aids that help illustrate).
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Closing & Tracking

  1. When a questionnaire has been responded and the period for submitting follow ups has come to an end, the ESD will consider the questionnaire as closed.

  2. ESD Facilitator will assign a number to each issued RFI and keep track of the pipeline by following up if necessary. A specific space within the dApp and/or complementary apps will be set up for these purposes.

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Hi @Fehz, thank you for your work on this. Has there been communication with the foundation team regarding this proposal and do we know how they feel or plan to handle this pipeline on their end?

I would only change one thing: perhaps make the rounds monthly instead of bi-weekly and give the DAO the same amount of days to respond, that way the next round can go out right after they finish responding to the previous.

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Thanks @CheddarQueso!

Foundation didn’t define 100% how this is going to be on their side yet, but their initial intention is to assign a specific person for that role (our counterpart) or to make it rotational for different people to fulfill that position.

Regarding the timings, what you’re mentioning is not only a good point, it’s also something that we’ve been discussing internally, and also something for what we expected some community feedback. If this passes, we’re totally taking this into account.

As this is structured, the whole process will take 1 month for the DAO (posing questionnaires + voting) and 1 month for the Foundation to answer all RFIs. That means that each RFI round will be open for community to pose questions every ~30 days.

The timeline and the iterations would look like this:

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This is great, and very much needed.

I wonder about the timing of extensions, and if we should require specific check-in moments if there are to be any. So that something complex doesn’t go dark until a response is ready(whenever that might be), but at least we can be updated on its progress. And would there be a specific length of time set for the extension window?

Also this is just to set up a formal pathway to submit inquiries or questions, and get information back. What happens if there’s is a topic or topics that cannot be breached or plainly wont be discussed? Curious how those situations would be handled in this process.

Thanks!

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Hey @ckbubbles!

Regarding the extensions, we could be more specific by limiting them and writing down about how the Foundation should request and substantiate those extensions.

I personally think that synchronous check-in instances won’t be necessary as this is also intended to be a complementary tool for the AMA sessions. Facilitators will be responsible for following up, getting “partial” responses if possible, and providing an exact status of each questionnaire.

Everything will be tracked and updated on a daily basis within public and open doc that will look pretty similar to this:

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About the last thing that you’ve mentioned, if a topic cannot be discussed or breached due to legal, ethical, or other reasons, the Foundation should provide an explanation for why it cannot be addressed.

For an eventual Binding Governance Proposal, it might be a good idea to establish clear guidelines and limitations on the types of questions or topics that can be addressed in the RFI process besides the listed categories. Will follow up on this with the Foundation.

Thanks for your inputs!

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Hey all,

As the current Executive Director of Decentraland Foundation I commit to cooperate with the DAO to take this initiative forward. However, I have a few concerns regarding the proposals as is and would like to address them in the following Governance proposal.

The first concern is the time frame, receiving RFI every month might be too much. Since we don’t have an example of the number of questions and the required time to answer them, I’m afraid this will take too much time for the team. If we can reduce the amount of RFI per year from 12 to 6 or even 4 (once per Q) that would be much better.

The second concern is the nature of the questions to be addressed. There are some topics that Foundation might not want to disclose and/or limit to high-level answers. Some of the concerning topics we should avoid:

  • Revealing personal information about contractors and users.
  • Details about contractor’s compensation and other contract details.
  • Organizational chart of the Foundation and internal functioning.
  • Legal issues related to the legal structure.

Let’s guide the questions toward more valuable points such as:

  • Questions about the roadmap and timeframe for certain features.
  • General strategy for marketing, partnerships and events.
  • Requesting processed data and platform metrics.

Also, if this process results valuable we might want to reduce the frequency and scope of the Technical AMAs, and just focus on project updates and previews of what’s coming.

Looking forward to seeing this process happen,
Yemel

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Formal Pathway for DAO Request for Information (RFI) from the Foundation

This proposal is now in status: PASSED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 84% 2,725,620 VP (78 votes)
  • No 15% 501,272 VP (1 votes)
  • Abstain 1% 1 VP (1 votes)
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Thanks for your support and inputs @yemel, we agree that these guidelines will help make this pathway as safe, effective and efficient as possible.

We will incorporate as relevant into the Binding Governance Proposal.

Look forward to moving forward with development and implementation of this pathway!