by 0x858343382132b9ab46c857a7d52fdbafc039f784 (Zino)
DESCRIPTION
One of the Grant Support Squad’s goals is to guarantee the effectiveness of the Grants Program, holding grantees accountable for their projects, and signaling to the DAO if a vesting contract needs to be revoked.
After 2 months of working closely with Decentraland grantees, our Grant Support Squad has detected some /“practices that raise concerns”/ regarding some of the projects´ health.
When the grantee does not comply with the basic terms and conditions of the Grants program, it is defined that the grant must be revoked. However, there are other practices not yet defined in the terms and conditions which have raised concerns. We’d like to open up the discussion and ask the community to make sure we guarantee an efficient use of the community treasury, with your input.
Some concerns raised so far include:
When it is impossible for us to have real contact with the Grantee during the 30 days after the grant request was approved by the DAO.
When the Grantee doesn’t make the official update on the proposal page.
When Grantees are reluctant to interact with the community (no discord participation, no updates, no response in any channel of communication).
When the use of the budget and the project have inconsistencies.
When it’s not clear who is managing the funds.
When there’s suspicion of a grantee taking advantage of the intellectual property of a third party.
When the project is not making progress or the deliverables don’t match the allocated budget.
When fellow community members raise concerns (publicly or privately) of misuse of grant funds or poor ethics.
When the project is already getting financial support from the Decentraland Foundation.
When the grantee has not released the funds vested after 2 months the vesting contract was enacted.
POLL: Decide the best procedure to revoke a grant?
Community Decides: Present each case with our arguments and recommendations to the Community and ask if the Grant should be revoked.
DAO committee decides: Present each case with our arguments and recommendations for the DAO Committee to decide if the grant should be revoked.
New committee decides: Present each case with our arguments and recommendations and assign the responsibility to decide to a NEW Committee which specifically addresses these matters.
Do nothing.
We’d love to hear your opinion regarding the decision making on these types of concerns. Let us know in the comments and we’d be happy to discuss them in more detail.
Because of recent discussions about whales having too much power when it comes to community votes, I’m voting for the DAO committee to decide. I would also support some sort of randomized jury system for deliberation but that sounds complicated.
I voted in favour of DAO Committee because people utilize ‘community’ the same as social engineering scams to ensure support for grant abuse. Populism vs Meritocracy. DAO Committee deciding negates populism and hopefully hold approved grant schemes to account.
true that makes sense - i would add though there needs to be a way to make these decisions public and transparent (which a community proposal would already take care of).
i do like the jury system! you’re right it could be complicated though
Hey! I love love love that this poll is here to open up these discussions, that a lot of us have been having. I agree with the flaws in how the community could be influenced and abused, but so can DAO committee members. Humans are humans after all. And bc of this I do think community should be included in some way, even if the vote is not weighted as heavily as having a full decision. So a blend of DAO committee and community so there’s transparency from all sides, seems best.
What that looks like I’m not exactly sure rn, but I voted for new committee to represent this.
Voting for setting up a new committee to decide this kind of issue.
The DAO Committee as it is defined right now it’s more like a trusted operational committee that can execute on-chain transactions and have the keys to the DAO wallets. They are basically highly trusted community members (@HPrivakos and @yemel at the moment) and I would like to keep that committee focused on that and not add other tasks related to community operations and decision making. Making a decision about a Grant revocation could imply having meetings, interviews, looking at data, and other stuff. Even though the Grant Support Squad will provide a report, I feel that the Committee responsible should do their own research and that will take time.
We have a really lean DAO core structure (DAO Committee, Security Advisory Board, and Wearables Curation Committee) at the moment so I’m not worried about adding a bit more weight to that structure.
I’m in favor of reducing committees, so I don’t think creating a new one would be a good solution.
I like the jury idea, it allows the community to vote while being quicker than a proposal and less subject to big VP holders orienting the vote.
We could have a system on discord that select voluntary users via a provably fair method to be part of a jury.
I’m in favour of the current DAO committee (with assitance from Grant Support Squad) to decide for now with same reasons other users exposed, and because this will make the funds more efficient for Decentraland success, then voting yes here (changed vote with reasons on other comment).
However, while some points seems pretty clear to me, I have my doubts on others:
When the project is already getting financial support from the Decentraland Foundation.
Does this mean all Decentraland Foundation funding contracts will be public? Does the amount of the funding makes any difference? What I would see beneficial is that Decentraland Foundation let the community know about funding contracts for better decissions, but I don’t think this point should be a rule for revoking a grant. Even when it happens that a team is funded from DAO and also from private entities, it can be beneficial for Decentraland.
When the grantee has not released the funds vested after 2 months the vesting contract was enacted.
If all other points are accomplished, I don’t see the benefit on this point.
From my own experience, using DAO funds is legally difficult, and could take some time to resolve while the teams can put their own resources (life savings, own company funds, etc.) while the matter is resolved. If everything else that is promised is accomplished and the team is reachable, I don’t see the need for this one.
I agree with keeping the current DAO committe but I also disagree with stopping the funding if the project receives financial support from the Decentraland Foundation and when the grantee has not released the funds vested after 2 months.
Pablo is right, using DAO funds can be something risky for some people. You cannot invoice anyone because there is no entity behind and the idea to create it was rejected last month.
Moreover, the Decentraland Foundation and the DAO are two separate entities so I’m not sure why it should even matter.
I’m voting DAO committee but would rather see that represent DAO selecting a 10-12 user jury to decide after a revoke request has been approved so their time isn’t taken up and also prevents any form of corruption in the result. Then when users object to a decision the jury can have time to explain their vote for or against rejecting a proposal. (love this decentralized solution from @HPrivakos )
Especially if there’s some issues that have a split community, it takes the weight off the DAO committee and prevents any backlash. Some of these decisions can be quite hard to make for just a single committee~
I wonder if funds or grant request is suspended till revoke request is completed. I also hope having a central body looking at these requests will prevent the option being spammed in future! (Like the ban a name requests)
If the same request is coming up of the request is spam they can choose to disregard action till the revoke has completed its voting period.
I think this should be handled by the DAO. The grant “contract” is voted on by the community but enacted between the DAO and the Grantee. The funds come from the DAO; therefore, it should be their responsibility to oversee and manage each passed grant; no new committee or no community oversight should happen.
I agree with lastraum. Id assume the ones voting for new committe will be the ones trying to be just that. This should be handled by the DAO and not a new committe. Dont need more committes like @HPrivakos has stated.
It’s true that there is already a mid point between DAO and Committee (or squad):
The DAO defines general rules to execute revokations.
Comittee or Squad works for the DAO to apply the rules and execute revokations. (the same way Comittee executes the grants with a defined rules)
The committee should already execute revokations based on the defined rules.
Is there already a grant failing to accomplish the current rules? If so, how a revokation could be executed? Because if there is already a grant that should be revoked and it is not happening, the problem is not in the rules, it’s on the execution process and what need to be fixed before. It’s clear to me that the work of a team (squad) is necessary to detect flaws in accomplishments. Also, I see having to pass a DAO proposal to execute a revokation ineffective.
Also be aware that, there is another option besides revokation, which is to pause the vesting contract, that is, that only the admin can interact with it but funds can remain in the contract.
As I don’t see the proposal 100% clear, I’m going to turn my vote. I would vote for each rule separated and being more specific, I see some too ambiguous.
Also I would suggest for some of the rules to apply a pause instead of a revokation.
I think this proposal needs some more refinement. First, @pablo makes a good point that there should be more options than just revocation, including pausing the contract until the project team can turn things around.
It also seems problematic to appoint a committee to revoke a grant for some cause that’s not mentioned in the formal terms and conditions of the grant agreement.
Shouldn’t we talk about changing the formal terms and conditions instead?
I want to clarify, when I suggest a new committee, it wasn’t to give community or individuals access to the facilitation of the revoking, as in handling wallets, etc, but more so in the decision making process of when a grant will be considered for revoking, or pausing of funds.
I know @HPrivakos suggested a jury, but I’m not sure the technical application of a jury works in this sense. I feel it should be an agreement between DAO committee members and the community on what happens in situations like this regarding the DAO. Not so much an overseer who gives a verdict based on a community decision. I’m also basing this off of US justice system juries FYI, which is extremely corrupt and flawed. So if there’s a more appropriate jury I should be considering, pls lmk.
This committee wouldn’t be entirely new ppl either, but ppl already working hard for the DAO committee/wearable committee/security board + members of the community. But how that looks and how many I’m unsure of the best route forward.
At one point the idea of councils was mentioned, unrelated to this situation, and I wonder if councils were created to help with the interests of diff groups, and they came together for decisions like this not just revoking of grants?
Having a legal background myself, would love to learn more about how “revoking a grant” would be possible in a legally compliant way. Have done a bit of research on DAO regulation and it seems like a complex topic to tackle
Agreeing with @Tobik on this, the Foundation and the DAO are completely separated entities without any connection whatsoever (on the task of funding projects). This proposal is implying a connection between the two entities.
The practices not yet defined in the terms and conditions which have raised concerns.
These should be separated out and dealt with accordingly. Define more clearly certain practices that violate the terms of the grant. Be clear about expectations and logical consequences of not meeting them. I agree with @lastraum that the DAO issues and monitors the grant and should be the entity to revoke the grant.
The community can request a revocation of a grant through a vote of no confidence. That would be a separate process.
I agree i think a separate committee that can investigate further, get feedback from the communiy and put it to a vote is the way to. It avoids the foundation/DAO conflict. Allows both entities to focus on other things and can make for a more thorough investigation. If its already been 30 days with no contact from someone and no way contact them, i think thats more than enough time. But a freeze for a set duration while an investigstion is held is reasonable.