Working Groups and Transition Plan (The "Steward")

[adventurousape]

Hi Mantis,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the Steward role. You have so many great outside of the box ideas and I always love to hear them.

First of all, as someone who has worked closely with @Amplify on ApeComms, I do not believe he is under the influence of a special interest. He’s been reaching out to many people to get their feedback and has been incorporating it. I have a lot of respect for him in putting this idea forth. No one is going to be completely happy and he has to figure out the best way to incorporate everyone’s feedback.

I do have several thoughts about the Steward role, as well as some others, but didn’t leave them on Amplify’s document because a comment box does not lend itself well to my really long comments

@Mantis

Consensus models coming up. We’ve got to use the new ways of agreement that technology gives us.

I look forward to see other models based on consensus mechanism. I very much agree we should explore different ways of doing things beyond the typical web2 hierarchy. It’s something I have not had a chance to do research into, but very interested in how other DAOs and organizations are or could be structured and what’s successfully working and what’s not.

ApeComms is structured where major decisions are made by majority vote. I feel like this has made us more resilient and able to adapt to major changes like team members leaving or being added.

@Mantis

This entire philosophy is based around the ridiculous and unproven notion that centralized entities produce at higher efficiencies. First of all, I want to see the scholarly work on this unfounded assertion.

I would like to see research on this as well. I am not convinced it is the best way. Centralized entities start getting bloated and react slower to change over time. Too many layers of bureaucracy with managers that don’t really produce anything. Then there is also increased risk of a single point of failure.

@Mantis

Right now, this DAO’s governance represents a poor facsimile of the worst parts of basic US republican-democracy. DAO = legislative, Cartan = executive, SC = judicial. But just like the US, everybody’s role is getting mushed together so no one knows what they’re supposed to be doing and everybody with any leverage is just power grabbing.

I think having clearly defined roles within the DAO that everyone understands is extremely important. If you look at how things have devolved in US politics, you can see that the system isn’t working for most people. The power has consolidated in the hands of a few. In my opinion, we have the unique opportunity to try and structure things differently. Especially since technology is available that can make things more trustless, decentralized, and transparent.

@Amplify

This person is still elected by the DAO, and subject to the will of the DAO.

I really appreciate you putting forth this document @Amplify. You’re doing a great job reaching out to and incorporating people’s input!

I also have a concern with having broad elections to choose Stewards. Especially since in our DAO a handful of people can pretty much install who they want and often the most popular people are voted for, not the most qualified. I have quite a few questions/comments

• If a working group decides to remove an unqualified Steward, would special elections need to be held to replace them?
• If so, who would be setting the budgets and mandates after they are removed and before a new person starts?
• Would there be requirements for someone to be able to become Steward, or would it be like Special Council, where anyone could run?
• If a Working Group had to replace a Steward, and had someone in mind they would like to be in that role, do you think there could be an issue with them spending too much time campaigning for them and that potentially get in the way of their day to day responsibilities?
• Have you thought about having the members of the Working Group vote on who would be the Steward?

Another concern I have with having elections for Stewards is that we already have twice-yearly Special Council elections. Something I was concerned about for these was that 4 months of the year will just become election season and less will get done because it will be what most people focus on. If we have to elect Stewards as well, then this will add more elections to the calendar.

Not a full fledged idea, but I wonder if the Steward role would be more useful if it was a position on the Special Council and was filled by someone highly qualified. Their responsibilities might not look the same, but the Stewards could coordinate the Working Groups to work together on a higher level.

Thanks again to @Mantis for sharing your thoughts, @Amplify for taking the lead on starting a discussion, and to everyone else who is contributing to this discussion. Working Groups are an extremely important piece of infrastructure that our DAO does not have yet.