An open discussion on ways to improve the DAO - An open call to anyone interested in helping.

General
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My understanding is there are whale wallets with enough tokens to outvote every single individual put together. The kind of revolution you’re describing has happened at times in history, but it has taken years of massive grassroots organization. What has driven them is typically life or death situations that involve the basic physiological conditions of survival for a nation, not the desire for a more efficient company.

I believe what is needed is backing from the controlling whale wallets. If they disagree, any proposal fails. That is the nature of oligarchy and plutocracy. @bigbull has worked hard to put together delegations. While they cannot outvote the whales, a consortium of delegations may be able to sway some of the whales, so long as the outcome of any changes do not significantly disadvantage them in ways they feel are meaningful.

I agree and will never stop fighting. I believe you feel that way, too. It may not be here in this DAO, but every new discussion takes us one step closer to finding a polycentric solution that enhances social infrastructure, improves civic engagement, helps effective public goods distribution, and brings transparency and accountability back to a system that is structurally flawed.

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Thank you @adventurousape for this backstory and context. It’s very valuable to see what the DAO felt was a solid previous iteration of a mission statement. And respect to @badteeth for both a great username and what sounds like a tremendous amount of labor for the DAO.

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I’m wondering: only me felt this way for those stewards proposal?

The company hired A; A outsourced the project to himself/herself, claiming to benefit the company.

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gm @bigbull, Thank you for joining the conversation.

As someone that has obviously been an active part of the DAO for a while, I feel your input is extremely valuable.

When you say Governance rules, are you referring to regulations?

I think after reading your ideas, and considering a different angle to the scalability concerns I have. I feel a mixture of the two is possibly the way, at least for the time being.

Your mention of the ‘Banana Bill’ has sparked a trail of thought for me. Although delegation of decisions in areas such as the Banana Bill does centralised those decisions, I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing, if done right. I think we can all agree that not everyone has the knowledge and skills to make an informed decision on every aspect of the DAO, and the result of this is can be people voting for themselves, or based on who has drafted the proposal. If this happens, it is possible that the best outcome for the DAO isn’t always the result of the vote.

Perhaps the best option right now is to use delegation to help the DAO stay on course.

For example:
A team or person has the required skills and knowledge in a particular area of the day to day running of the DAO, and wants to assist the DAO by taking care of this. A vote takes place to decided whether this happens or not.

To protect the DAO from potential corruption, or bad decision making, there needs to be both full transparency and the ability to hold the person/team to account. The ability to pause, replace, or remove the delegation completely needs to be present. To achieve this, full transparency is key. We can’t hold to account the things we can’t see.

We would also need to work out a better compensation structure than the current ‘salary’ set up we have. Possibly something KPIs based. But this would vary depending on the area of the delegation. I agree that the current system is broken, but I believe people should be rewarded for work done.

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This is of course just one area that needs work, but one step at a time :sweat_smile:

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Hey @stance, thank you for joining the discussion.

I agree completely. My feelings are that the issues all stem from one thing, the boiler plate set up of the DAO on day 1. The main issue being the voting system, that allows the buying of votes. This has allowed the centralisation of decision making.

But! I know that this is a difficult one to solve, we need the ones who hold the power to surrender it, for the good of the DAO. For this reason I feel baby steps towards this goal are required, and a focus on the issue of high voter apathy could help solve the issue above. If we can increase overall participation, we increase decentralisation.

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Interesting, I will have to take a closer look at the holder break down. It is of course possible that some of these larger holders could be on board with changes.

A few things I have thought about over the weekend that could incentivise the giving up of power:

  • A chance to redefine how DAO voting works. A problem that has never been solved IMO.
  • The long term sustainability of the DAO, benefits everyone.
    As history has taught us, not all societal changes happen through force. I agree the removal of power is completely different to acquiring it, but i’m and optimist :sweat_smile:

Yes I agree, I feel this is something that could not only help the DAO stay on course, but also help with bringing whales onside.

You are correct, and I am glad to hear you are as passionate about this as myself. And yes, I believe there are things we can do in a more gradual process, like addressing the current issues around how certain groups run. If we can sort many of the little issues and increase voting numbers, we can then tackle the elephant in the room (voting power).

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@likkee.eth I did reply further up, not sure if you saw it?

But yes, I do agree that there seems to be a lack of connectivity between groups, especially if different people are dealing with different proposals. This feels it is likely to cause a lack of consistency with results, over a group working on multiple proposals together.

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So weird how, for nigh on one year, I have fought this fight. Now, all of a sudden, even those who were here this whole time - while standing by and saying nothing, even as I was being vilified for trying to do the right thing - are suddenly interested in change. Go figure.

00152

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Life is tough, keep fighting! :rofl:

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Really interesting perspective on the two sets of options, appreciate you sharing.

Think Option B is similar to the direction many other DAOs / Foundations have gone, where the foundation is centralize but plays a strong role in pushing the ecosystem forward with a separate entity that is the for-profit and/or corporate (OP Labs vs. Optimism).

Interesting approach - would love to dig deeper into what that might look like ApeCoin DAO specifically.

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All I can say is that everyone wakes up at the time that is right for them. Glad to have you here fighting the good fight!

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I agree, I believe that large DAOs do need an element of centralisation to help steer the ship.

When I think of how this could work, I think of the Banana Bill. Although this was far from perfect, and took too many of the bad traits of centralisation. I think if we were to delegate tasks to a person or persons then it needs to be with elements of decentralisation.

These were my thoughts on it:

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Hey all,

I have been a little under the weather the last couple of days, so have been mainly AFK. I will make sure to get in here tomorrow.

I am going to list the areas I think need immediate attention, and some potential updated solutions based on the discussion so far. Thank you everyone for your input so far!

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Gm all, I’m back in the land of the living :sweat_smile:

It’s become clear that people want to remove the working groups from the DAO, and although there are issues that need addressing here, I don’t feel a complete removal of these groups is the solution. I am not sure this fixes the underlying issues.

It seems that we have a massive problem with transparency, and accountability. These are two major pillars of decentralisation, and this needs to be addressed.

I believe that these groups, if working properly, bring more efficiency to the day to day running of the DAO. So, rather than removing these groups, let’s refine them. Full transparency and the ability to hold them to account.

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I also would like to understand more about the current ‘governance rules’ that @bigbull mentioned.

  • What are the rules? Is there a doc/AIP that outlines these?
  • What does the word ‘governance’ cover? Is this:
    • Voting structure
    • AIP processes
    • DAO structure

As long as these ‘rules’ aren’t anything to do with complying with regulations, then there should be a willingness to change them when things clearly aren’t working.

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I have also looked back at some old chats/docs regarding how other DAOs work, and how we can find inspiration for ApcCoin DAO.

I would argue that none of them really solve the issues we face. At their core they are all compromised by one thing, they all reward the few that can afford to buy voting power. They are all vulnerable to corruption.

Let’s be honest, The DAOs that are usually mentioned as examples - Uniswap, Maker, ENS, were all likely created in the attempt to avoid regulatory scrutiny after releasing a token. So I doubt they care how corruptible the voting structure is.

Just like Democracy is the illusion of choice, In most cases DAOs (specifically large DAOs) are proving to be the illusion of decentralisation.

I understand why this is a thing. Traditional business governance has worked like this for a long time. But the whole point in web3 is that we aim to do things differently. For that reason I believe that voting power should be earned through merit, not by someones ability to buy more tokens. Voting delegation is great a way to give worthy groups or individuals more voting power based on their merit.

We have an opportunity to do something great here, stand out as the DAO that actually lives up to those 3 words. Decentralised Autonomous Organisation.

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So, the main areas I see are:

  • Uneven distribution of voting power - Things can never really change whilst this is present.
  • Unwillingness to risk doing something different from the norm.
  • Lack of Transparency and Accountability.
  • The presence of Cronyism

Solutions? Well, that depends on everyone.

Do we want to continue down the same path of more and more centralisation? Or do we want to design a frame work that defines how that centralisation improves the DAO, without leaving it vulnerable to corruption?

Do we wants to be the DAO that stands out, and goes down in history as the bench mark for DAOs? Or just be another copy pasta?

Do we want to continue allowing people to be able to buy their power? Or do we want to flip this model on its head, by switching to a 1 person, 1 vote system that prevents potential corruption?

The truth is, the DAO treasury belongs to the entire DAO, so why are we allowing a few dictate how it gets spent?

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This is so true. And I fully agree - while there are whales who control the vote, there is no incentive to change, and while there is a lack of transparency and accountability, this will continue to be a DAO that gives money to whoever wins the whales’ votes.

This is a hard question to answer - it’s like asking the disenfranchised why they allow billionaires to exist. Once an oligarchy is formed, not easy to end without revolution. This is another case of Michel’s Iron Law of oligarchy.

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Hey David, sorry for the late reply.

After some consideration over the weekend, I am going to build a proposal for a new voting system. I feel that e now have some large and growing delegations that could potentially bring change. And, only one way to find out.

I just need to speak to a few Dev friends to get an idea on how much the development costs would be for the plan I have. The great thing is that this could also provide revenue for the DAO.

Sounds like I have some reading to do lol. I like myself a good Law!

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