The challenge here is due to how the foundation was setup.
- The DAO voted in the Special Council positions
- The DAO voted in (via RFC) WebSlinger as admins
The above make up the Ape Foundation, though there have been rumors and chatter that there is in fact a group of “shadow” people who are also involved. I have thus far relegated those rumors to nonsense; but I still wrote the previously mentioned AIP-477 proposal to clarify it to the benefit of the DAO.
It gets funnier.
Some months ago - out of nowhere - some dude we’d never even heard of until the proposal went up, created a proposal to “clarify” the role of the Special Council AIP-426: Special Council- Future election requirement and role clarification
As absolutely ludicrous as that sounds, this was the gist of this “clarification”:
- Clarify that the Special Council is an “Advisory Board’’ that serves an advisory function with no corporate decision-making power.
- Rationale: Oftentimes there is quoted confusion in the community about what the Special Council is or is not. In practice, the Special Council is in fact an Advisory Board neither corporate officers nor management executives, and they should not be viewed as such. The Advisory Board should also not be misconstrued as the board of directors of the APE Foundation.
And the Special Council actually sent that right through admin review and all the way to vote. Some of us haven’t even stopped laughing yet. For my part, I’m just astonished - to say the least.
The fact that the Special Council leadership, in concert with WebSlinger admins, actually makes decisions in a fashion befitting a body with “corporate decision-making power” is an absolute fact. But somehow, this specific proposal sought to absolve the SC of that responsibility.
And the fact that the SC also serves at the “behest of the DAO” (that being us), is a fallacy that continues to resonate here when you consider that certain actions [against the SC] simply cannot be taken because the SC will ultimately either refuse to take action or just discard them out of hand. And I’ve said before - we essentially and inadvertently - ended up electing kings.
Heck, we couldn’t even reduce their salaries in AIP-277. Last year, this was a major fiasco. You can read my synopsis on that one as well as my prior opinions.
Which is why I had tried to take radical action last year with my proposal AIP-359: Special Council Vote of No Confidence. They flat-out denied that one, and since it was burdensome and pointless to continue, I opted not to redo it. This was their reason for kicking it back:
This AIP Idea was tagged as “Needs Administrative Review” and sent to the Special Council. Upon careful review, the proposal has been deemed “Return for Reconstruction”. In doing so, the Special Council cited:
"This AIP attempts to force the APE Foundation into multiple courses of action which would create significant risks and would not be consistent with the wellbeing of the APE Foundation and the ApeCoin DAO.
We thank the author for their participation and encourage everyone to continue sharing ideas with the ApeCoin DAO Community.
This Topic will be moved to and remain in the Final AIPs - Returned for Reconstruction category. The author may resubmit their proposal if they wish.
So, as you can see, this directly answers the question of why we [DAO] can’t do anything related to the Special Council, let alone WebSlinger. Hence the reason that I am eagerly awaiting the proposal to dissolve the Special Council, what form that will ultimately take, how it affects WebSlinger etc.
Yes - it’s a mess, but there are ways to fix it. But my guess is that whatever they come up with, is likely to have more holes than a sieve, and so, we could spend several weeks, if not months navigating the discussion. In the end, as is usually the case, if they feel like it, they will just send it to vote as-is anyway. Though, given current sentiments and which seem to have the makings of a sea change in the DAO, I am hopeful that whatever comes from the restructuring is beneficial to the DAO.
The irony of the fact that the treasury is no longer a going concern, having been depleted to critical levels, and with all eggs now in the ApeChain basket, isn’t lost on me. You can read my synopsis here Ape Foundation Transparency Report - 2024 - Q1
Long story short, if ApeChain fails, it will be curtains for the DAO. And so, this restructuring process is basically an attempt to reduce the DAO spend in order to extend the treasury runway.
Each time I write about stuff like this, I get the feeling of Deja Vu because I have been clamoring (and I have all the receipts) about things like this since I first joined the DAO back in June 2023. You could say that I saw all this coming, spoke up, took the heat, the flack, and the derision - but ultimately very few listened or even cared. Here we are.