AIP-308: Establish an Ombud for the DAO

Final AIPs Rejected AIPs
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PROPOSAL NAME :

Establish an Ombud for the DAO

PROPOSAL CATEGORY :

Process

ABSTRACT:

The proposal seeks to establish the position of Ombud of the DAO. The Ombud will carry out spot checks several times a week on DAO posts and DAO related posts of officials of the DAO and investigate and adjudicate upon complaints of members of the DAO against elected officials of the DAO. Also to create a procedure for the Ombud to adjudicate and ban members of the DAO permanently where such members had continuously violated the DAO rules.

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION

The proposal is drafted by @ApeForLife, Member of ApecoinDao, who is an Attorney by Profession, with experience as a Director, Executor and Trustee. @ApeForLife holds the legal degrees of B.Juris and LL.B (c.laude)

MOTIVATION

It has become apparent that the DAO does not have any sufficient procedure in place for grievances to be raised as to the conduct of any official of the DAO and how such grievances should be dealt with. Although an official of the DAO can be removed via DAO wide vote, this is not suitable for minor infractions. In the case of a minor infraction it should appropriately be dealt with by a warning. If an AIP is launched for the removal of an official of the DAO for a minor infraction, this could lead thereto that the elected official either gets removed from his position for something he should not have been removed or that he does not get removed and does not even receive a warning, when he should have been so warned. The outcome of a DAO wide vote for removal is thus not appropriate in such a case. Creating an Ombud that will carry out spot checks on posts of officials and inform such officials of any change of tone or preferable manner in responses to members of the DAO and to give warnings to officials of the DAO is advisable to ensure that officials do not transgress in their dealings with members of the DAO. Further for the Ombud to also consider, attempt to resolve and/or adjudicate upon complaints of members of the DAO against elected officials of the DAO and to provide for warnings to be given, prior to an AIP for removal being allowed.

Similarly, in cases where members of the DAO continously violate the DAO rules or are continously discurteous to other DAO members or DAO officials and fail to comply with three warnings from DAO officials, the fourth non complaince to be referred to the Ombud to adjudicate and ban those members from the DAO and all its related forums or media permanently if the Ombud finds that all three warnings given by the officials to have been justified and the member of the DAO has breached it a fourth time.

RATIONALE

Establishing the position of Ombud of the DAO, for the reasons as already set out in ‘Motivation’ above. The position of Ombud will provide for oversight and adjudication that is currently lacking in the DAO in respect of inappropriate actions of officials towards members of the DAO and provide a procedure for banning members of the DAO permanently who continously fail to comply with DAO rules or are continously discurteous to other DAO members or officials.

BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM

The proposal will improve the functioning of the DAO in that an important position is created in the DAO for oversight and adjudication of inappropriate actions of elected officials and for the permanent banning of members of the DAO that continously violate DAO rules or are continously discurteous towards other DAO members or DAO officials.

SPECIFICATIONS:

  1. The position of Ombud of the DAO is established on approval of this AIP and @ApeForLife will act as the first Ombud of the DAO for a period of 24 months, starting the first day of the month following approval of this AIP.

  2. On expiry of the period of 22 months, after approval of this AIP, the position of Ombud of the DAO will be put up for election and the provisions in respect of terms of office and elections for Governance Stewards will apply mutatis mutandis to the position of Ombud.

  3. The position of Ombud should be held by someone with either a legal degree or with experience in conducting disciplinary proceedings. @ApeForLife holds the legal degrees of B.Juris and LL.B (c.laude) and has more than 20 years experience as an attorney.

  4. The Ombud will go through posts and carry out spot checks of posts made by officials of the DAO and consider if the tone thereof is appropriate towards members of the DAO. ‘Appropriate’ shall be defined as being courteous and without sarcasm, negative innuendo or personal insult. However, this will not take away any of the rights of any official to require or enforce appropriate behaviour from a member of the DAO, when the member of the DAO is transgressing rules of conduct or being discourteous to other members or officials of the DAO. If the Ombud identifies a post by an official that is not appropriate as set out above, the Ombud will inform the official of the post and call upon the official to withdraw/remove his post. The Ombud will further inform the official to adjust his tone in future. If the Ombud again identifies the official committing the same transgression, the Ombud will inform the official and issue a warning and if it occurs a third time, the Ombud will provide with a final warning. If the official transgresses after the final warning the ombud will inform the official thereof and the Ombud must then proceed to draft an AIP for the removal of the official.

  5. In addition, any member of the DAO can lodge a complaint against an official of the DAO, by sending a complaint to the Ombud on Discourse (forum.apecoin.com)

5.1 Upon receipt of a complaint, the Ombud will forward a copy of the complaint to the official against whom the complaint has been lodged and request the official to respond thereto within 2 days.

5.2 On receipt of a reply, if any, the reply shall be forwarded to the complainant.

5.3 The Ombud can call on the parties to provide additional clarifications as to the complaint or the reply thereto, if applicable, to be provided to the Ombud within 3 days from such request by the Ombud. The Ombud can send a list of questions to be answered by the parties as part of such clarification that the Ombud desires.

5.4 If the official fails to reply to the Ombud’s correspondence in the designated time, the Ombud will adjudicate the matter without the official’s reply and solely on what was presented to the Ombud.

5.5 The Ombud will if he finds the complaint to be justified issue a warning to the official.

5.6 In the case of a fourth finding against a particular official the Ombud will draft an AIP with his four findings against the official and request the DAO to vote for removal of the official from his position in the DAO. ‘Finding’ also includes any time the Ombud informed the official as per paragraph 4 above.

5.7 An AIP of the Ombud for removal of an official from the DAO shall be treated as a matter of urgency by the DAO and the Ombud will forward the AIP directly to a Facilitator of the DAO, who will load such an AIP under the heading ‘Administrative Review’ on the forum.apecoin.com webpage immediately and shall forward such an AIP as an extraordinary AIP for administrative review and the normal time periods of an AIP shall not apply thereto and is speciffically authorised by this AIP.

5.8 All members and officials of the DAO will be bound by a decision or finding of the Ombud and as such the decision of the Ombud is final and no appeal or recourse shall lie against a finding of the Ombud.

5.9 No AIP for removal of an official of the DAO shall be allowed prior to following the above procedure and the Ombud making four findings against the official. Special Council may however, in the case of serious misconduct by an official of the DAO that they are made aware of, immediately bring an AIP to remove the official and the expedited procedure of forwarding the removal AIP will apply to such an AIP of Special Council. Every member of the DAO shall have the right to immediately inform Special Council of serious misconduct by any official of the DAO.

5.10 In cases where members of the DAO continuously violate the DAO rules or are continuously discurteous to other DAO members or DAO officials and fail to comply with three warnings from DAO officials, the fourth non complaince is to be referred to the Ombud to adjudicate and ban those members from the DAO and all its related forums or media permanently if the Ombud finds that all three warnings given by the officials have been properly given and the member of the DAO has breached it a fourth time. To this effect the relevant official or officials will forward proof of the previous warnings and the relevant posts to which they related together with the current transgression and proof thereof. If the Ombud finds that the warnings were justified and the member has again transgressed, the Ombud must ban the member from the DAO and its related sites permanently and will inform Special Council and the Facilitators that the relevant member has been banned from the DAO and its related sites and the Facilitators and/or relevant adminsitrators will remove or block the member of the DAO from all relevant sites and the member ceases to be a member of the DAO on such finding.

5.10.1 On receipt of the evidence from the DAO officials as in 5.10 above the Ombud will forward it to the member of the DAO and inform him that it is alledged that the member has transgressed at least 4 times and as such the procedure of this AIP now apllies. The member will be invited to provide reasons to the Ombud as to why any of the previous warnings given or transgressions alledged were not correct and why the last alledged transgression should not be regarded as a transgression.

5.10.2 On receipt of a reply, if any, the reply shall be forwarded to the relevant official or officials.

5.10.3 The Ombud can call on the parties to provide additional clarifications to be provided to the ombud within three days from such request by the Ombud. The Ombud can send a list of questions to be answered by the parties as part of such clarification that the Ombud desires.

5.10.4 If any of the parties fail to reply to the Ombud’s correspondence in the designated time, the Ombud will adjudicate the matter without the clarifications or replies and solely on what was presented to the Ombud.

5.10.5 If the Ombud finds that there were not at least 4 transgressions, the Ombud will inform the parties accordingly of which transgression has been rejected and in the event of a finding of 4 transgressions the Ombud must ban the member from the DAO and its related sites permanently and will inform Special Council and the Facilitators that the relevant member has been banned permanently from the DAO and its related sites and the Facilitators and/or relevant administrators will remove or block the member of the DAO from all relevant sites and the member ceases to be a member of the DAO on such finding.

  1. All officials of the DAO shall keep a record of every transgression made by any member of the DAO in a centralised data base together with relevant screen shots and warnings given thereon and each trangression of a particular member will be so filed or saved under that members name or alias in the DAO, so that it can be monitored whenever four trangressions have occured and the matter must be reffered to the ombud.

  2. Similarly the Ombud must keep a record of officials that the ombud found transgressing as in paragraph 4 or 5.5 above and the relevant screenshots and findings, so as to monitor the amount of transgressions of any official of the DAO.

  3. Any reference to ‘official’ includes any person who holds a position in the DAO or is an administrative worker of the DAO.

  4. Any reference to ‘member’ includes any person who joined the Discourse page of the DAO at forum.apecoin.com, irrespective of whether such a person has reached level 2 or higher or not.

  5. In the event that it is prudent that the Ombud recuses himself from deciding any particular matter and the Ombud does so recuse, a member of Special Council shall act as Ombud in such particular matter.

  6. The Ombud may by removed from the position of Ombud, at any time, by a succesfull AIP that passes majority DAO vote, that is brought jointly by all members of Special Council, if they are not satisfied with the work of the Ombud and Special Council can then immediately put the position up for election.

STEPS TO IMPLEMENT

The Apecoin DAO administrators or other administrative worker of the DAO or Apecoin Foundation administrators, to create a centralised database for the DAO where officials of the DAO can load records of the transgressions of members of the DAO, with relevant evidence such as screenshots and warnings given by DAO officials in respect thereof under the name or alias of the member of the DAO. The aforesaid administrators or administrative workers to also create a database for the DAO for the Ombud where the ombud can load records of the transgressions of officials of the DAO with relevant screenshots and findings.

@ApeForLife to act as first Ombud of the DAO for a term of 24 months at a remuneration of $5000 or apecoin equivalent per month for the term.

TIMELINE

This AIP can reasonably be implemented within 2 weeks of the AIP being approved by the DAO.

OVERALL COST

$5000 per month in Apecoin equivalent per month for 24 months as remuneration for @ApeForLife to act as Ombud of the DAO for the term.

1 Like
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Excellent AIP, and very much needed imo, especially due to recent events in the last month that have made it very uncomfortable for some of us.

I have seen newcomers, some from recent hackathons, get torn to shreds with negative comments, bad manners, bad jokes and over inflated egos that destroys our web3 culture of collaboration.

These new members just leave before they can contribute anything due to the negativity…this is NOT the way.

Be kind, be considerate, it costs nothing to show some respect to your fellow DAO members, who knows, you may receive the same in return.

Thank you for submitting this AIP @ApeForLife

7 Likes
3

Thank you very much!

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4

Learned a new word today: ombud (a person who investigates, reports on, and helps settle complaints)

2 Likes
5

I have left a comment here that applies to both the AIPs you posted.

6

I agree that the issues you call out here are important, but I do not see why we’d need a new role to accomplish at least several of these goals. I feel like we need to optimize the current system first before further expanding. The DAO is small and activity is minimal. The costs we incur are already quite substantial.

3 Likes
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I was thinking the same thing, Matt. Particularly one would think that we already have people in place for most of what’s in this AIP idea. The issue is about compliance and fairness. It’s difficult to exist in a community that’s divided and one in which those who were here first somehow have carte blanche to do as they please without any ramifications. There needs to be accountability and enforcement.

Also, the voting system sucks. And that’s a bigger part of the problem because it’s basically a retaliation system of sorts.

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@ApeForLife

I think this is a great AIP. Though the Ape Foundation already had attorneys to assist, nobody - and I mean nobody aside from the Special Council - know what exactly they do. In fact, you’d never know that they even work for us - the DAO - as we have no direct contact with them, they don’t respond to queries etc.

APECOIN DAO FACILITATORS

Admin: Webslinger
Cayman Island Counsel: Walkers Global
US General Counsel: Fenwick & West, LLP

It was the impetus for my creating this AIP idea.

Also, nothing wrong with installing yourself as the curator and benefactor of the AIP. It’s no different from asking for DAO funds to go build a castle.

I also recommend combining both of your AIPs.

ps. I am concerned that you are located in South Africa, thus not legally allowed to practice law in the US

1 Like
9

I don’t question your qualifications, but the last thing this DAO needs, in my humble opinion, is another paid hall monitor determining “appropriateness” of people’s speech and adding more layers of bureaucracy to a DAO that already moves at a snails pace. What’s next, a “Super Ombud” to oversee the Ombud?

The “D” in DAO stands for “Decentralized”. Giving one person the power to ban members is the least decentralized thing I can think of, especially considering the wholly un-democratic process by which you would install yourself to this paid position (2 paid positions if your other AIP were to pass).

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@6209 very valid concerns. But that’s not what he’s suggesting there - at all.

It’s not about speech and it’s not about giving power to one person. It’s based on recommendations to the leadership. And that’s precisely how it’s done in other billion Dollar industries.

ps. The DAO isn’t decentralized. Not even a little bit.

1 Like
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How is that not what is being suggested in this AIP? It’s right there in the abstract as well as the (typo-filled) “BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM” section along with a process by which a member would be disciplined, up to and including a permanent ban without a process for appeal or reinstatement. There’s also no oversight of the Ombud. This position would be untouchable.

ABSTRACT:

The proposal seeks to establish the position of Ombud of the DAO. The Ombud will carry out spot checks several times a week on DAO posts and DAO related posts of officials of the DAO and investigate and attempt to resolve or adjudicate upon complaints of members of the DAO against elected officials of the DAO. Also to create a procedure for the Ombud to adjudicate and ban members of the DAO permanently where such members had continously [sic] violated the DAO rules.

BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM

The proposal will improve the functioning of the DAO in that an important position is created in the DAO for oversight and adjudication of inappropriate actions of elected officials and for the permanent banning of members of the DAO that continously [sic] violate DAO rules or are continously discurteous [sic] towards other DAO members or DAO officials.

5.8 All members and officials of the DAO will be bound by a decision or finding of the Ombud and as such the decision of the Ombud is final and no appeal or recourse shall lie against a finding of the Ombud.

Giving authority to one person to determine something subjective like inappropriateness/discourteousness and use those subjective determinations to make permanent banning decisions is preposterous imo.

I also find this concerning and ripe for abuse:

  1. In addition, any member of the DAO can lodge a complaint against an official of the DAO, by sending a complaint to the Ombud on Discourse (forum.apecoin.com)
    5.1 Upon receipt of a complaint, the Ombud will forward a copy of the complaint to the official against whom the complaint has been lodged and request the official to respond thereto within 2 days.

What’s to stop someone (or a brigade) from constantly lodging complaints against other members and/or elected officials? People would spend a majority of their time responding to complaints, which would be a waste of time and would undoubtedly drive participation even lower.

The DAO’s current level of decentralization (or lack thereof) is surely a problem, but this AIP would make it astronomically worse. We should be striving to make the DAO more decentralized, not less.

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You will note that as far as members are concerned they had to ignore the instructions of say a Facilitator 4 times, basically 4 strikes and you’re out. The facilitator as such already found them guilty. The reason there is an ombud, is for the Ombud to then investigate if the Facilitator gave the warnings fairly and if they were necessarily given. Usually it’s 3 strikes and you’re out, so here you get an extra chance. Basically your appeal against the Facilitator’s findings already lies with the Ombud. As such the decision of a sole Facilitator is thus subjected to additional oversight, the Facilitator can’t just ban someone. Also this is also more fair to officials of the DAO in that an AIP can’t just be launched to have them removed, if it is alledged that they have made one transgression. This has actually recently happened and that caused me to realise that a different procedure is required that would be more fair to both officials and members of the DAO.

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That’s just the abstract - which, by nature - is to provide an overview of the entire AIP.

Also, I believe the SC would still be involved in the process.

Also, it’s a “4 strikes and you’re out” system.

This is basically similar to procedures that other companies have. They don’t need a committee to take action for stuff like this. It’s usually just one person, maybe two at the most. Do you think that social media companies - or even Reddit - handle stuff like this by committee or voting?

I don’t see this as the problem that you think it is. Take Discourse for example. We have a flag system for each post. If there are too many reported flags, the thread is automatically locked down. This in fact happened yesterday.

I don’t think it makes it worse. Sure there can be tweaks. Heck, I am pretty sure that the Special Council, during their Admin Review process, will have lots of things to look at before sending this for vote. So, that’s why these concerns should be raised so that @ApeForLife can address them, make necessary edits etc.

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Getting banned from Reddit is not remotely the same as getting banned from a DAO forum. No one has to buy a token to participate on Reddit (or any other social media platform), so I firmly believe extreme remedies like bans should not be left to the discretion of one person, and bans definitely shouldn’t be permanent without any opportunity for appeal or path to redemption.

As you exhibited, there’s already a process in place to deal with issues that may arise in a thread that gets too heated and we pay Facilitators to moderate that kind of thing.

How many members have been banned to date? Is there anything stopping someone from just creating a new account and using a VPN to get around an IP-ban?

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Yup - fair point, that.

Yes, but I think that we need a legal procedural guidelines due to all the laws around the world related to social media moderation.

Also, I am pretty sure that if you’re going to get banned, it’s not going to require a consensus from 3 stewards. So it really doesn’t make a difference if it’s done by 1 or 3 people, no?

It’s not that kind of community. And I thus far haven’t seen anyone here that would plausibly be banned. Though there was that one dude who wanted me banned - for some reason.

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Hi, I think it could be a good idea, we’d have to look more deeply into the role of the mediator, but for the future I think it could avoid certain problems.

1 Like
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Thanks, I have replied to it here - Create the position of Counsel to assist the Ape Assembly and Working Groups - #3 by ApeForLife and here - Create the position of Counsel to assist the Ape Assembly and Working Groups - #9 by ApeForLife

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Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,

@ApeForLife has completed editing their AIP Idea to be their AIP Draft.

Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.

Kind Regards,

@Lost.Admin