AIP-137: The Special Council Nomination Process

[btang]

Proposal Category: Process

Abstract

Two or three sentences that summarize the proposal.

For the ApeCoin DAO to function and remain stable according to our Guiding Principles, there must be a system in place for continuous governance. This document outlines the process to allow talented, passionate and capable members of the community to surface and ultimately be appointed via governance vote for the Special Council. The nomination pool will be sourced through the community, administration team, and token holders by self-nomination in ApeCoin discourse.

Motivation

A statement on why the APE Community should implement the proposal.

This AIP is primarily focused on the mechanics of how the nomination process will be conducted. The goal of this process is to ensure that the community has a clear and concise way to nominate Special Council members for elections that best represent the interests of the community.

Rationale

An explanation of how the proposal aligns with the APE Community’s mission and guiding values.

The long-term health of the ApeCoin DAO depends on a well-functioning nomination and election process for the Special Council. This AIP consolidates much of the great thinking the community has already put forth on this subject. That thinking is reflected below in the proposed specifications, as well as in the following guiding principles for writing this AIP:

• Focusing on the essentials, knowing that more nice-to-have yet complex additions (e.g., reporting requirements, gamified participation, working groups/subDAOs, complex vote-weighting techniques) can be addressed via follow-on AIPs at a later date.
  • By keeping things simple, the likelihood of consensus can be enhanced while also
  • decreasing risks like gridlock.
• Balancing stability and fluidity, recognizing that some continuity from one term to the next helps to maintain steady progress, while at the same time valuing the periodic cycling in of new members and ideas.
• Favor the tried and tested where there is not an obvious reason for doing otherwise – this will limit the amount of complementary infrastructure that needs to be built and new platforms the community will need to learn, which could reduce participation.

Key Terms

Definitions of any terms within the proposal that are unique to the proposal, new to the APE Community, and/or industry-specific.

KYC: Know Your Customer (KYC) is the process of a business verifying the identity of its customers. For the nomination process, KYC will ensure that candidates will not pose a risk to the ApeCoin community and that they are not involved in any sanction list, sanctioned country, or business.

Nomination Announcement: A nomination announcement is a topic posted in Discourse that signifies the beginning of a nomination and election process. The nomination announcement shall include details about the process, timeline and relevant dates, the application and candidate process, and any other relevant details for the community.

Applicant: An applicant is any person who submits an application.

Nominee: A nominee is an Applicant that has submitted an application and completed the KYC and background verification process.

Candidate: Candidates are the Nominees that become eligible for the elections process.

The Special Council Election Process: The AIP that establishes an election process for the Special Council.

Specifications

A detailed breakdown of the platforms and technologies that will be used.

The nomination process will start from a Nomination Announcement from the Ape Foundation. A new category will be added to Discourse to accommodate the nomination and election process. This category will be named “Special Council Elections” and will have four sub-categories:

• Announcements
• Special Council Nominees
• Election Candidates
• Rejected/Withdrawn Nominations

The Nomination Announcement will be a new topic posted in the Discourse category Special Council Elections > Announcements. The Nomination Announcement will include the following details:

• Details about the nomination and election process
• Timeline for the nomination and election process
• Application and candidate process
• How to apply

The Nomination Announcement will be posted at least 50 days before the voting of the election occurs and will mark the commencement of Special Council nomination process. A link to a form will be included in the Nomination Announcement and applicants will complete the form to submit their application.

Experience & Expectations of Applicants

Elected Special Council members are expected to attend weekly, or on an as-needed basis, council meetings, review AIPs at meetings or by email, and commit 3 or more hours per week or as sufficient time as needed to the role. A standard non-disclosure agreement shall be entered into with the Ape Foundation and KYC documents shall be collected as well.

Given that a key function of Special Council members is to work with and assess AIPs and their authors, it would be beneficial if then Applicant’s skills, knowledge and abilities are collectively suited to the AIP categories. Below are listed the AIP categories, along with the types of competencies and experiences that would suggest a candidate has expertise relevant to that particular category.

• Ecosystem Fund Allocation: Since Ecosystem Fund AIPs deal with how to use the DAO’s treasury funds, it would be ideal for a Special Council member to have:
  • Educational and/or professional credentials in accounting, finance, business, economics or a related discipline;
  • Proven experience working in/managing/directing large corporations; and
  • Exposure to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.
• Brand Decision & Informational: Given that Brand Decision and Informational AIPs deal with all matters related to what the DAO attaches its name, including projects, strategies, and identity, it would be ideal for a Special Council member to have:
  • Educational and/or professional credentials in marketing, public relations, and/or a related discipline;
  • Proven experience working in/managing/directing large corporations;
  • An entrepreneurial mindset;
  • Excellent communication and writing skills; and
  • Exposure to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.
• Process: Given that Process AIPs deal with DAO governance, it would be ideal for a Special Council member to have:
  • Educational and/or professional credentials in law, politics, policy and/or corporate governance;
  • Excellent communication and writing skills; and
  • Exposure to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.

Phase 1 – Application and Verification – 21 days

In this phase, Applicants will be invited to put themselves forward for the Special Council. In the Nomination Announcement, a link to a form will be provided for Applicants to submit the following information:

• Applicant Information: The Ape Foundation is a legal entity that must collect information and documents for KYC purposes. The information provided below shall remain confidential, or made public with the nomination profile at the option of the Applicant.
  • Full name, required, private (optional for public)
  • Date of Birth, required, private (optional for public); the Applicant must be at least 18 years old
  • Street number, name, city, state/province, postal code, and country, required, private (optional for public)
  • Discourse ID, required, public; the Applicant must have a Discourse profile on forum.apecoin.com and have at least 1 ApeCoin in a connected wallet
  • Twitter profile, required, public
  • Email address, required, private (optional for public)
  • Phone number, required, private (optional for public)
  • Educational background, subject to verification (optional for public)
  • Professional background, subject to verification (optional for public)
• Documents: In order to pieces of the above information, the Ape Foundation must also collect supporting or verification documents. All documents will remain secure and private with the Ape Foundation.
  • Valid passport
  • Proof of address: A utility bill or bank statement in the name of the Applicant within the last 3 months.
• Nomination profile: The Applicant completes the nomination profile to build their case to the community on why they are the best suited for the Special Council and to further support the growth of the ApeCoin DAO. This nomination profile will be published on the Discourse.
  • Nomination statement: concise statement on why you are running for Special Council
  • Motivation: please provide details on your motivation for being an ApeCoin DAO Special Council member
  • Rationale: do you have any previous experience that is relevant to the role of a Special Council member? Please discuss any skills relevant to this position and how these will bring value to the ApeCoin community
  • Specifications: crypto governance participation, governance experience, previous experience (work or education), and/or ideas for DAO improvement
  • Concluding statement: summarize your statement as to why you are the best choice for Special Council

All information denoted as private will be treated as confidential. The application will be open for 14 days. Special Council members whose seats are up for election must also go through the nomination and election process to be considered.

Once the Applicant submits their information and nomination profile, a KYC and background verification process shall take place to verify the information submitted. The Ape Foundation may engage an independent, third-party service provider to complete this process. This process may take up to 7 days.

At any time, an Applicant can request to withdraw their application by email.

Phase 2 – Community Discussions – 14 days

Applicants that pass the KYC and background verification process are Nominees. A new topic for each Nominee will be posted under the new Discourse category Special Council Elections > Special Council Nominees. This topic will be created by the administration team and will include the following information:

• Title: The title will include the Discourse ID and nomination cycle or time period;
• Applicant information: All details that are public or selected to be posted as public by the Nominee shall be included in the topic; and
• Nomination profile: All details and information of the Nominee will be included in the topic.

Topics in this category will be locked for editing but will be open for comments for 14 days. The community will be required to follow the Guidelines for Engagement at all times. During this time, ApeCoin DAO members can engage on each topic or with each Nominee, ask questions, and seek clarification as required prior to voting for the Nominees.

At any time, Nominees can request the Ape Foundation to withdraw their nomination from the process by email or on the topic itself.

Phase 3 – Community Vote (if applicable) – 6 days

A community vote will take place on Snapshot if there is a large number of Nominees. If there are 5 or fewer Nominees, the nomination process is completed, no community vote is necessary, and the final Nominees become Candidates for the Special Council election.

However, if there are greater than 5 Nominees, then a community vote shall take place. The vote will be released at the Weekly AIP Release. A weighted voting on Snapshot will be used to determine the Candidates from the Nominees. A weighted voting means the following:

• Each Nominee will be an option on the Snapshot vote
• Each voter decides how to allocate their ApeCoin balance to the list of Nominees
• Voters can allocate their ApeCoin to any number of Nominees

Snapshot voting will close at the Weekly Voting Close. The top 5 Nominees become the Candidates for the election.

In other words, if there are 5 or fewer Nominees, all Nominees will become Candidates. If there are more than 5 Nominees, then there will be 5 Candidates after the Snapshot community vote.

Topics for Candidates are moved to the Discourse category Special Council Elections > Election candidates. The topics of the Nominees that do not become Candidates are moved to the Discourse category Special Council Elections > Rejected/Withdrawn Nominations.

At the end of this process, the Candidates are identified for the election of the next Special Council member(s).

Lack of Nominees

In the event that the number of Nominees determined after the KYC and background verification process is less than the number of Special Council seats up for election, then the number of Special Council seats shall be reduced by such number of seats and such seats shall be up for election at the next nomination and election cycle. These seats shall then return to the original election cycle schedule as outlined in The Special Council Election Process.

Steps to Implement

The steps to implement the proposal, including associated costs, manpower, and other resources for each step where applicable.

• Email: A new ApeCoin email will be set up exclusively to deal with any matter related to the nomination (e.g., scnomination@apecoin.com).
• Form: A new form will be set-up for each nomination and election cycle by Ape Foundation to collect information from Applicants.
• Discourse: The following categories will be created in Discourse.
  • Special Council Elections: This category will hold all the sub-categories related to the nomination and election process. The Discourse category will be read-only, and no topics will be posted in this category, by either ApeCoin DAO members or the administration team.
  • Announcements: This category will hold all announcements relating to the nomination and election process. Specific settings include:
    • Only the administration team can post topics in this category
    • Topics will be open for comments
  • Special Council Nominees: This category will hold all topics for all Nominees and their profiles for each nomination and election process. Specific settings include:
    • Only the administration team can post topics in the category
    • Topics will be open for comments
  • Election Candidates: This category will hold all topics for all Nominees that become Candidates for the election process. Specific settings include:
    • Only the administration team can post topics in the category
    • Topics will be open for comments
  • Rejected/Withdrawn Nominations: This category will hold all topics for all Nominees that withdraw their application or are not voted in as a Candidate.
    • Only the administration team can post topics in the category
    • Topics will be closed for comments
    • Nominees in this category may apply for future elections
• Snapshot: No change in configuration settings for the Snapshot Space. However, each nomination vote will be a weighted voting. In this scenario, each Nominee is an option on the vote. A voter then allocates the number of ApeCoin to each Nominee. Nominees will receive the distribution of the voter power based on the allocation.

Timeline

Relevant timing details, including but not limited to start date, milestones, and completion dates.

The nomination process will go into effect immediately. The first Nomination Announcement will be posted immediately after the acceptance of this AIP.

• Oct 27-Nov 2 – Earliest Weekly AIP Release available to be posted for live voting on Snapshot. Suppose this AIP passes.
• Nov 3 – Nomination Announcement is posted.
• Nov 7-20 – Applications are open.
• Nov 21-27 – KYC and background verification process on all Applicants received.
• Nov 28-Dec 11 – Nomination profiles are posted on Discourse and open for community discussions.
• Dec 15-21 – Nominees are put on Snapshot for voting.

Overall Cost

The total cost to implement the proposal.

There is a cost for engaging an independent third-party service provider to do KYC and background verification of Applicants, which is to be determined. The Ape Foundation will pay for these costs.

[Vulkan]

Thanks for posting this! I had a few questions when reading through it.

1. AIP-113 extended the process laid out in AIP-1 until Jan 1, 2023. The timeline in this proposal goes up until Dec 21. What happens if there is an unforeseen delay in this proposal process that pushes that Dec 21 date beyond Jan 1?

2. AIP-113 included extending the following three items:

• Cartan Group LLC

• Discourse Enterprise Account

• APE Foundation Board / Special Council

  This proposal idea mentions the nomination process for the Special Council, but what happens to the Cartan Group and Discourse? Do we have anything in place to figure out how to handle their renewal process before Jan 1, 2023 comes around?

3. What if 100 people apply for nomination? Is the 7 day window (Nov 7-20) long enough to review all applications in that case?

4. In the “Experience& Expectations of Applicants” section, it mentions “commit 3 or more hours or as sufficient time as needed to the role,” Is this 3 hours per day? Per week?

   Elected Special Council members are expected to attend weekly, or on an as-needed basis, council meetings, review AIPs at meetings or by email, and commit 3 or more hours or as sufficient time as needed to the role. A standard non-disclosure agreement shall be entered into with the Ape Foundation and KYC documents shall be collected as well.

5. Also in the " Experience & Expectations of Applicants" section, it mentions four AIP categories but only lists 3 (Ecosystem Fund Allocation, Brand Decision & Informational and Process). What is the 4th one?

   Below are listed the four AIP categories, along with the types of competencies and experiences that would suggest a candidate has expertise relevant to that particular category.

[Novocrypto]

Thank you everyone who’s been involved in drafting this AIP idea and the one on Election Process. It’s great to see things moving forward in this department. For what it’s worth, here are my 2 $apes:

As @Vulkan said on the other post, I also think these 2 AIPs better be merged in one to avoid timeline conflicts also so that everyone can find the information in one place and have an overview of the whole process.

I enjoyed reading the section on experience and expectation of applicants but had a couple of questions/comments.

If I understood correctly, the “experience of applicants” as listed here in each category are only to serve as guidelines so applicants can include them in their statements and for voters to ideally consider when voting. Otherwise, there’s no selection committee (beyond KYC and background check where applicable) to potentially disqualify applicants who may lack adequate experience in any or all of these categories. Meaning that anyone who applies and passes KYC and background check can potentially be elected to council by voters. Is that a correct understanding?

If not, is there an internal selection process considering experience of applicants? If so, can you say a bit more about the process and panel carrying out this stage?

If no selection/rejection process based on the experience “requirements”, then how do we ensure that completely inexperienced candidates don’t make it to the council with only popular vote? This is an area that I think we can improve fairness by introducing some level of mandatory requirement.

This leads me to my other comment about experience in Process and DAO governance. Given that DAO has been operating for more than 6 months already, I think it’s fair to expect a certain level of engagement and track record of contribution in DAO Governance from Special Council applicants. For example a candidate that has 0 minutes read time on Apecoin Forum by the time of application would probably not be an ideal candidate for the role of special council even if they are a crypto lawyer or manage large corporations or have experience and credentials in corporate governance. Or maybe they could be? I’d love to know what others think.

In any case, I think having actual experience in Apecoin DAO governance could be something to add at the application level under Category 3 even if only as guideline!

A small note on the first cycle. I’d imagine that there will be more than enough nominees and candidates but in the unlikely event that there aren’t, what is the process to decide which of the incumbent council seats will be allocated to the next cycle? I guess if all existing council members apply then there won’t be such an issue!

Thanks again for putting this together. I hope that this process leads to increased engagement and participation in DAO governance by many more talented and experienced community members.

[Vulkan]

There are exceptions to every rule, but I do agree most candidates should have prior experience/activity level in the DAO.

[0xSword]

I’ve taken the time to thoroughly review these. Going so far as to print out the two proposals, highlighting concerns & questions, even asking opinions from others on certain topics.

I am happy with the proposed process because:

• It is clearly written & easily amendable in the future
• Nomination profile & plan for forum use is agreeable
• The timeline fits perfectly w/ AIP-113’s extension

I have a couple of items that I would like considered to be added. If not immediately, then perhaps through amendment or additional proposal.

• Nominees should have participation history in the governance of Apecoin
• Removal of an elected member should be addressed now or in the near future

Through the use Discourse’s level system, nominees should be minimum level 2. That means they’ve read a few proposals, & they’ve commented on a few things. Additionally, I recommend accepting only comments from level 2 users on the threads.

The requirements for participation in this area of governance could be:

Get to trust level 2 by…

• Visiting at least 15 days, not sequentially
• Casting at least 1 like
• Receiving at least 1 like
• Replying to at least 3 different topics
• Entering at least 20 topics
• Reading at least 100 posts
• Spend a total of 60 minutes reading posts]

While I understand that these restrictions could cause uninformed potential nominees to be ineligible, I believe that this will encourage more members to join as general participants in our DAO, then they can earn eligibility on the next election cycle. I want leaders that are comfortable reading proposals & interacting with the community. That starts by participating here w/ everyone else!

Elections twice a year already could be disruptive to operations, but a member who has a spent at least the above on the forums will understand the community that they are nominating themselves to lead.

[adventurousape]

Thank you so much for this proposal. I know a lot of work was put into it. My questions and comments are regarding the structure of the Special Council and how it serves the DAO.

@btang

Elected Special Council members are expected to attend weekly, or on an as-needed basis, council meetings, review AIPs at meetings or by email, and commit 3 or more hours or as sufficient time as needed to the role.

• Does this mean that the Special Council members don’t have to attend weekly meetings since it says “on an as-needed basis”?
• Does the “or as sufficient time as needed” mean there is no minimum time requirement for the role?

@btang

Given that a key function of Special Council members is to work with and assess AIPs and their authors, I also think it would be beneficial if then Applicant’s skills, knowledge and abilities are collectively suited to the AIP categories. Below are listed the four AIP categories, along with the types of competencies and experiences that would suggest a candidate has expertise relevant to that particular category.

I also agree with those who have commented before me about experience. Since a key function is to work with and assess AIPs, experience with AIPs should be an expectation for Council members. And for all the categories, only needing exposure to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies for a role which oversees a major DAO’s treasury funds seems inadequate.

There are only three categories listed (unless Brand Decision & Informational count as two). It also says in the Lack of Nominees section that the number of Council seats is reduced until the next election if there aren’t enough nominees. If the DAO is able to function without all five, how is the Special Council essential to the governance of the DAO? Especially since each Council member is paid $250K a year.

• Could you give specific examples on what the Council has done now that it has been around for 6 months?
• How many AIPs have been tagged with “Needs Administrative Review” and what were the reasons for reviewing them?
• How many of those AIPs were rejected and why?
• Is there a process to turn over a seat on the board?
• How will the current Council share what they’ve learned?

@btang

Ecosystem Fund Allocation: Since Ecosystem Fund AIPs deal with how to use the DAO’s treasury funds, it would be ideal for a Special Council member to have:

• Educational and/or professional credentials in accounting, finance, business, economics or a related discipline;
• Proven experience working in/managing/directing large corporations; and
• Exposure to virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.

Being that ApeCoin is a cryptocurrency, I would think that experience with managing large DAO treasury funds and DAO governance would be the main expectation over Web2 educational and/or professional credentials and proven experience managing/directing large corporations.

@btang

Process: Given that Process AIPs deal with DAO governance, it would be ideal for a Special Council member to have:

• Educational and/or professional credentials in law, politics, policy and/or corporate governance;

Would it not be best if they had experience in cryptocurrency law, politics, policy, and/or corporate governance specifically?

Given that the election process calls for elections twice-yearly, I fear that 4 months of the year will become election season and just like in politics, less will get done because it will be what most people focus on.

[giacolmo.eth]

The process looks clear and detailed to me, also appreciated to mention suggested specifications for the nominees background and experience - on this I also agree with other members comments and especially @Novocrypto (would suggest to keep them as guidelines).

[btang]

Hi @Vulkan, thank you for your questions. I have provided the answers to them below:

1. I have estimated to the best of our abilities the timeframe for each phase with the current information we have. There are also few days in the proposed timeline for contingencies (i.e. between nomination announcement and applications, as well as between the end of a phase and the Snapshot live voting). If the community prefers to extend one phase while shortening another, open to hear feedback.
2. This AIP proposes a framework and process to nominate candidates for the Special Council election. The Special Council Election Process proposes a framework for elections, term limits, and frequency of elections. Cartan and Discourse are separate matters and separate AIPs would be posted for their renewal.
3. The estimated timeframe takes into account reasonable estimates of each phase, including the number of applicants. I would be happy to extend the KYC and background verification process if the community has a recommendation for a phase they wish to reduce or adjust.
4. I have adjusted the AIP and stated that it is per week.
5. The 4 AIP categories are: Ecosystem Fund Allocation, Brand Decision, Informational, and Process. Brand Decision & Informational were put together but still considered as two separate AIP categories. I have adjusted the language to state the AIP categories listed below (i.e. removing reference to four).

[Vulkan]

Appreciate the clarifications, thanks @btang!

[btang]

Hi @Novocrypto, thank you for your comments and questions. Please see below and let me know if I’ve missed any of them!

• I provided some rationale above for separating the nomination process and election process into two AIPs here.

Meaning that anyone who applies and passes KYC and background check can potentially be elected to council by voters. Is that a correct understanding?

• Yes this is correct in the proposed framework and process in this AIP.

If no selection/rejection process based on the experience “requirements”, then how do we ensure that completely inexperienced candidates don’t make it to the council with only popular vote? This is an area that I think we can improve fairness by introducing some level of mandatory requirement.

• The proposed process were designed for the ApeCoin community to decide which applicants should be eligible for election. If there are minimum thresholds or mandatory requirements that the community believes should be included, happy to hear suggestions and adjust this AIP.

For example a candidate that has 0 minutes read time on Apecoin Forum by the time of application would probably not be an ideal candidate for the role of special council even if they are a crypto lawyer or manage large corporations or have experience and credentials in corporate governance. Or maybe they could be? I’d love to know what others think.

In any case, I think having actual experience in Apecoin DAO governance could be something to add at the application level under Category 3 even if only as guideline!

• ApeCoin DAO governance activity was considered in the proposed process. There’s a balance between imposing restrictions while keeping the application open to a wide range of community members. In an attempt to thread this needle, this version asks applicants to have a profile or user on this Discourse forum as well as 1 ApeCoin in their wallet.

A small note on the first cycle. I’d imagine that there will be more than enough nominees and candidates but in the unlikely event that there aren’t, what is the process to decide which of the incumbent council seats will be allocated to the next cycle? I guess if all existing council members apply then there won’t be such an issue!

• Current Council members can voluntary choose not to run if they wish. However, if all Council members wish to remain, seat numbers would be assigned randomly.

[btang]

Hi @0xSword, thank you for your comments. I agree that participation in ApeCoin DAO governance is important, and as a result, put in place on the application form for a Discourse profile and holding 1 ApeCoin in their wallet. I believe there’s a balance between imposing restrictions while keeping the application open to a wide range of community members. While holding 1 ApeCoin may restrict potential applicants to ~90,000, imposing a minimum requirement of a trust level 2 puts the available applicants to <100.

Adding one or more Special Council members on the edges of the community may also present a large opportunity to onboard thousands more of ApeCoin members.

[Escape]

Hi @btang,

Your topic will be automatically closing in less than 24 hours. Are you content with the feedback received, or do you wish to extend community discussion for a further 7 days?

If we do not hear from you within 48 hours after your topic closes, your topic will be moved straight to the AIP Draft process.

We look forward to hearing from you.

-Escape

[0xSword]

Understood. Yes it would be incredibly limiting in this first election. Like you said <100 people would qualify if changed to level 2 standards. These elections represent the opportunity to attract more people, even those not engaged in the day-to-day forum conversations, to get active and involved. In the future, as our numbers grow, I hope we can look at encouraging forum participation. It would be great if a nominee had post history with their views on Apecoin. Maybe an amendment down the line can be made, or a better solution found. Thank you again for listening & the quick response!

[ssp1111]

Always great to see engaged members asking such important questions and just as vital that authors are responding. So thanks.

Perhaps we could apply a Rank Voting choice during the nomination process to filter down to a more manageable number of candidates that make it to the Election process?

Thinking out loud here people .

SSP

[btang]

Hi @adventurousape, thank you for your comments. Please find the answers below and happy to clarify or let me know if I’ve missed any.

• I’ve amended the wording on this AIP to say 3 or more hours per week. The purpose of “on an as-needed basis or as sufficient time as needed” is that while an average or typical amount of time can be estimated per week, there may be instances or time periods that additional commitment may be required. Those are hard to estimate before it happens.
• Brand Decision & Informational were put together but do count as two separate AIP categories. I’ve amended the wording of this AIP.
• While it may be unforeseen, the Lack of Nominees contingency is to take into account the potential scenario where the number of candidates is less than the seats up for election. If no candidates present themselves in one election, the other seat members would remain on the Council and therefore the Council would not be empty. I do not believe the DAO can function in its current drafted framework without a Council. For example, no AIPs tagged as Needs Administrative Review could be reviewed for vote.
• The Council provides oversight of the administration of the foundation. The purpose of the Council is to administer DAO proposals and serve the vision of the community. Each AIP DAR Package is between 10 to 25 pages, depending on the length of the AIP Draft as well as the number of questions from the moderators. As the DAO is still in its early stages and learning and growing in real-time, all AIP DAR Packages have been tagged with Needs Administrative Review and been sent to the Special Council. Weekly meetings are held as well as constant email communications between them. New Council members would be immediately integrated into all these communications.
• All AIPs returned can be seen in Withdrawn, and the reasons have been posted on the topic themselves.
• I believe The Special Council Election Process proposes the framework being sought to turn over a seat on the Council.
• The rationale behind this was so that at least some existing Special Council members would remain to have continuity on the Special Council and encourage a smooth transition process. Additional detail is provided on The Special Council Election Process comment.

[Novocrypto]

I see how this approach makes the process more inclusive which I’m all for especially as it keeps the door open to potentially very strong candidates from the industry who might want to put themselves forward for this role and bring their experiences and expertise to the DAO. But I still think what @0xSword is suggesting is actually quite achievable and even likely to happen anyways in the run up to the nomination process and during the process. We can assume Applicants will naturally engage in discussions at least related to their own nomination!

The trade off of not having a basic requirement for “experience and prior engagement in Apecoin DAO Governance”, would be that anyone can become a candidate or even a council member merely based on voting power of a relatively few even if they have no prior knowledge of how the DAO works.

I’m not saying that this scenario will happen or even that it’s likely to happen but I think it still doesn’t hurt to have some built-in layer of trust and familiarity in the process to reduce the risk of it being gamed or disproportionately influenced by a relatively few large token holders.

Quadratic voting system would have reduced these risks as a more sophisticated and fairer voting system where votes/tokens are tradable. But I understand that we don’t have that capacity atm.

This risk could also be mitigated if we have a clearer process on how a council member may be disqualified at any point post election for example due to unacceptably low level of contribution to their role. Could this be done through a majority vote by other council members?

Ironically we are in a catch-22 situation! We love to know what other eligible voters think about having some basic requirement for existing participation in Apecoin DAO governance, but only a very few (less than 1% of token holders) are here to voice their views on this!

[Novocrypto]

Thank you for your detailed response.

I’ve read your rationale for keeping the AIPs separate and think it makes a lot of sense. Would it be possible to at least provide a link to the other AIP in each of the AIPs so people can navigate between the two more easily?

Thanks also for answering the question on whether to require prior participation in Apecoin DAO governance or keep it completely free and up to the voters to decide! I added a few more comments under your reply to @0xSword who suggested Trust Level 2 as a basic requirement. my reply here The Special Council Nomination Process - #16 by Novocrypto

I have an additional comment and a question about the role expectations for elected council members. From what I understood, there are no tangible outputs delivered by the council members to the community other than comments that individual AIP authors will receive via moderators in DMs. Is that right?

Could we introduce a direct line of communication between the council members and the wider community as well? This could be in the form of a monthly post by each council member offering their overview and any insights about the DAO’s growth, challenges and opportunities and/or a monthly Spaces by the council where they communicate their vision directly with the community. I think a two-way communication channel that is open to everyone in the community (not just AIP authors) would be appreciated by many.

Finally, any rationale behind the specific salary chosen for this role? It does seem a little disproportionate to the number of hours expected per week for this role!

[adventurousape]

Thank you so much for your detailed reply. It’s very helpful.

I do agree that the DAO cannot function without a Council as currently structured. It was not my intent to suggest not having one.

I very much appreciate having more details on what the Council does and how new members would be integrated. I think it’s helpful for those who may be considering running to know what the role entails, and for the DAO voters because we can better decide who may be a good fit.

Regarding @0xSword’s suggestion, if being a Lvl 2 was known ahead of time as a basic requirement, something to consider is it might actually drive people to discourse to participate. It would give those who haven’t been involved a chance to see what the role entails to some degree since part of the Council’s purpose is to administer proposals.

Thank you once again for answering my questions in such detail.

[btang]

Hi @ssp1111, the proposed process in this AIP does take into consideration filtering to a manageable 5 candidates to be considered for election.

We did review multiple Snapshot voting strategies, such as rank choice, quadratic, weighted, and few others, and thought weighted voting was best suited for this process. An ApeCoin DAO voter can allocate their ApeCoin balance to any number of nominees. The top 5 nominees that receive the most ApeCoin would be considered candidates for election.