AIP-113: Extending AIP-1 - the DAO Process

Final AIPs Implemented AIPs
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Proposal Name: Extending AIP-1 - the DAO Process
Proposal Category: Process

ABSTRACT

The DAO’s operations rely on the Ape Foundation, which serves as a steward for ApeCoin by empowering the community to lead the DAO and helping to execute its vision. The terms of the Foundation’s relationship with the DAO were established on a six-month basis in AIP-1. That six-month period will conclude on September 30, and absent any alternative process for continuing the DAO’s operations, will bring with it the risk that the DAO falls into a vulnerable period during which it lacks actionable operational procedures. This AIP proposes a three-month extension of the terms laid out in AIP-1 to (1) provide time for the development of a proper and thorough Ape Foundation election framework and process; (2) allow the community to better understand and ultimately engage with whatever process emerges; and (3) enable the DAO to continue functioning coherently beyond September 30.

MOTIVATION

The DAO in its current state relies on the Ape Foundation to operate. September 30 will mark six months since the launch of the ApeCoin DAO, and with it will come an end to the six-month terms of the Ape Foundation Special Council and Administration established in AIP-1. The lack to-date of a community AIP on elections confirms that the election process as written in the governance materials is ambiguous and lacks sufficient detail. This AIP gives the community extra time to develop and agree to a thoughtful and comprehensive election framework, and ensure the DAO continues to run smoothly.

RATIONALE

A three-month extension of the terms laid out in AIP-1 will accomplish two main goals. An extension will provide continuity and stability: the Foundation doesn’t just execute what the community wants - it enables us to ensure we are compliant with the necessary legal, regulatory, and compliance laws and guidance so we can operate effectively. Second, the extension will allow the community to better understand, contribute to, and ultimately engage with whatever election process emerges.

SPECIFICATIONS

Extend the terms laid out in AIP-1 by a period of 3 months.

STEPS TO IMPLEMENT

This AIP will go through the same approval process as all other AIPs. It will start as an AIP Idea that is open for a 7-day comment period. A proposal will then be drafted for further analysis, and it will go to the Special Council for review and finally the community will vote on it via Snapshot.

If this AIP is passed, the terms laid out in AIP-1 will be extended by 3 months.

TIMELINE

If passed, this AIP would go into effect for 3 months immediately following the term laid out in AIP-1 and beginning on October 1st.

COSTS

This AIP would continue the monthly recurring costs laid out in AIP-1.

5 Likes
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I think it’s a good idea to extend the current structure another 3 months, but would like to see a few changes implemented as part of this proposal to improve the process. I agree we aren’t ready to completely overhaul the proposal process just yet, but it is something I would like to see done down the road. For now, I would like to see some changes added to the current process while we work on a long-term solution.

  1. I would like to see someone from the community involved in the moderation phase. I would love to be involved in this and maybe it’s a team of 2-3 community members. I wouldn’t be looking to be paid for this, but would like to volunteer my time to improve the proposal process not only for myself but the entire DAO.

This doesn’t necessarily mean they need to be voting on what is approved or sent back to the author, but I would like to see a community member have access to information to provide transparency to us. More of like a project manager to report to the community and help push proposals along in the process. This includes things like the chart I am proposing in this AIP draft and a way for the community to understand why certain proposals get stuck in certain statuses. I think this would greatly improve the efficiency of the proposal process and allow proposals to move through the process faster.

  1. There is a line item in AIP-1 that says “If the author does not respond to a moderator’s request to change, update, or make clarifications on the AIP Draft within 30 days, the AIP Draft will be automatically rejected as having failed to comply with the DAO-approved guidelines.” I think we should add something similar but in regards to what happens if a moderator does not respond to the author’s request within a certain amount of days. I’m not sure what the action would be, but I I think this would streamline the AIP draft and review process. I know the moderator team is swamped with proposals every day, but I think having some guidelines in place of expected response times would help us tremendously.

I have other thoughts as well that I will share later today but wanted to get this initial comment out there to start some dialogue.

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Please remember that we are paying each @Apecoin DAO Board Member $125K for 6 monts of service…As written, they would continue their monthly allowance. Fat no from me unless the 3-month term is without pay. Otherwise, vote them out.

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Who would you choose to replace them with?

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This is a great start. Would love to see a formal checklist or rubric to help the community objectively compare future board members against each other. Obviously human ranking is never perfect, but this will help reduce at least some of the inconsistency.

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Hey @GeekApe,

Thanks for sharing your opinion, I get that you want them out.

But I do ask that we be careful at this point of the DAO, if you get your way and a NO vote succeeds, without an Election Process in place we’d be stumbling around for months trying to get members to agree on a process proposal BEFORE even getting to nominations and campaigning and influencer outreach, etc – ugh.

And sure, another $300k for 3 months might be tough for some to swallow, but the Council does have networks that we shouldn’t take too lightly – even if that’s all they do at this point.

Open to hearing more voices come forward so that we can have a civil discussion about this critical phase of our DAO.
:v:t4:

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Typical prisoner’s dilemma. They will be involved regardless due to their investments. Just because they aren’t Board members doesn’t mean you lose their network.
In terms of elections, even Farokh for all his criticism put together a DAO Board Member voting mechanism in less time than this.

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Let the community decide. There are some very active community members, some quite passionate about this, that can submit themselves and then we can vote. There’s plenty of time. The “Administrators” (i.e. The Cartan Group) have plenty of time to put together a mechanism in time.
Finally, if we must extend the time, it would be due to a failure of the Board member and I would consider supporting a 3 month extension but at no cost to the DAO (I.e. without pay).

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Agreed that we may not lose their networks.

Don’t agree that RugRadio created a voting mechanism in less time – they announced a DAO in December 2021 and came up with the process in March 2022.

They also used a Rank Choice voting system that ended up being a popularity contest - like usual.

This request for extension is also to help formulate the Election Process and if you prefer that they don’t get paid for the 3-months, then by all means propose that in the coming days as part of an amended proposal.

Let’s not automatically vote no and then struggle to find new members that don’t come with their own agendas - thanks

1 Like
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The Special Council literally had 3 jobs: 1) Oversight of the administrators - which they did a passable job at, 2) administer DAO proposals which has largely been rough at best and a failure if we’re honest and 3) setup a process for the new elections which is obviously a failure.

The proposal should be amended and we should grant the members an opportunity to rectify their failure for 3 months without further financial rewards if they want an opportunity to run for re-election in the next cycle.

There is no valid reason, nor confidence, that extending their term for 3 month will lead to a different outcome unless incentives are aligned.

4 Likes
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Now this is a framing I can get behind.

Not a fan of the “kick 'em out” theatrics on Twitter, Discord and coming soon, here, so thanks for clarifying.

I wasn’t aware that they were responsible for #3 – I will have to go back and re-read their charge. Thanks for the nudge and for the civil discourse.

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At first glance it appears to make sense to extend the contract rather than not having any leadership in place at the end of the month. That said I believe the following are important items to address

  1. What are the daily roles and duties being performed, this should be understood for compensation reasons as well as evaluating what skills we will need to look for in the next person or entity to step up?

  2. What is being done to set up the next person or entity for success. If there are large day to day governing tasks and deep legal works we need to understand this for next election?

  3. What are the actionable goals for the next 3 months?

Thanks for listening

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Great POV @JoshBobrowsky. The DAO has financial backing, smart advisors, and of course a really bright spotlight. I think that clear and consistent communication around the following things would be immensely helpful in growing the value of foundation:

  1. Clear R&R for any (compensated especially) leadership
  2. A ranking or priority system for proposals so the community can easily sift through which proposals they want to invest time into.
  3. A clear process for nominating, installing, and in some cases, removing leadership.
  4. High-level recaps of all critical decisions that are made to help people catch-up on important news they may have missed.
  5. Recurring open forums (live) that offer the community a chance to voice opportunities and concerns outside the context of this forum. (Think a Twitter Spaces is the solve here).
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This is a great idea, want to turn these into an AIP and/or chat them through at office hours?

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Definitely interested in both :+1:

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Looking forward to chatting at office hours thanks

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excited to hear your thoughts, thanks for participating

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Simple example:

  • July 15: I submitted an AIP Draft

  • July 20: I received and answered all questions from moderators and they tagged the proposal as “Needs Administrative Review”

  • August 24: After more than a month of waiting I received a few basic questions from the Special Council and answered them in one day

  • September 8: Still waiting for any updates from the Special Council

This is completely not normal for an organisation that calls itself a DAO. Such situation is a clear marker of an overly centralized bureaucratic system. Everyone understands it, this is why less than 1% of $APE holders are participating in voting. This is why the current $APE price is around $4.5, and, if we do not change the situation, will continue to fall.

I have two suggestions on what to do:

  1. Cut the Special Council at all, and repurpose the saved funds to The Cartan Group team, so that they would get more resources to help proposal authors to improve their submissions. This way we will boost proposal creation activity and will remove the unnecessary obstacle that kills the organisation.

or

  1. To extend the Special Council term, but to obligate them to comply with the following rules:

  • The Special Council should report every week for the DAO on what was done

  • All The Special Council members should discuss proposals openly and using https://forum.apecoin.com/

  • Total time allocated to Administrative Reviews of proposals by the Special Council should be limited by 14 days

  • If The Special Council reject for some reason a proposal, they should work on and offer to an author an alternative version of a proposal that The Special Council will be able to accept

  • Every question to authors of proposals from administration or The Special Council should be accompanied by an explanation and motivation of why a question was asked

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My 2c on top of others good comments … Would love to bring on someone in smaller liaison role who is heavily involved in other successful DAOs. Outside perspective of someone not even part of apecoin or bayc ecosystem can be valuable. Think there are DAOs out there that are at the forefront of innovation we can learn best practices from.

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Very good idea! Should have had this from the inception of the DAO honestly. Something that I didn’t really think of but should have.

Can still be very valuable today. It can help setup best practices for our DAO and set a great foundation.

2 Likes