[DRAFT] Introduction, selection, and guidelines for the Governance Facilitator role

Proposals
1

Introduction, selection, and guidelines for the Governance Facilitator role

Non-Constitutional AIP

This proposal gathers the comments of several delegates, contributors and discussions that took place in the different groups. We thank @Boardroom and @Sebix for their contributions to this proposal.

Abstract

We propose integrating the Governance Facilitator role into the DAO, outlining its selection process and guidelines.

Motivation

In the post [RFC-3] Introduction of a new role in governance - Governance Facilitator, we emphasized the importance of introducing the Facilitator within the DAO. Their presence will boost governance growth, streamline the DAO’s internal processes, and foster more dynamic communication with the Arbitrum Foundation. To achieve this effectively, it is essential to set a rigorous selection criteria and define the initial guidelines governing the Facilitator’s activities within ArbitrumDAO.

Rationale

The escalating activity within ArbitrumDAO underscores the imperative for a specialized role akin to that of a Facilitator. This role has been successfully implemented in analogous governance frameworks, yielding favorable outcomes.

Recent discussions in the forum and subsequent proposals have underscored the necessity for a role dedicated to expediting the establishment of frameworks and processes within ArbitrumDAO. The primary aim is to ensure that governance can effectively institute these processes, thereby fostering the continued growth and success of Arbitrum.

The Governance Facilitator position is poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of ArbitrumDAO’s governance. Aligned with the fundamental principles of the Arbitrum ecosystem, this role champions efficiency, transparency, and community engagement. Beyond alignment, it functions as a catalyst for promoting inclusivity, collaboration, and sound decision-making within the DAO. Its contribution extends far beyond a mere supportive role, actively enriching the governance structure with a commitment to positive evolution and the empowerment of community members.

Specifications

Any person, group of persons or entity can play the role of facilitator.

Selection Process

The steps to select the Facilitator are as follows:

  • Nominations: Any community individual or entity can apply for the Facilitator role.
  • Application Form: To nominate oneself, applicants must follow the provided format (Template).
  • Application Period: Applicants have 7 days to submit their nomination on the forum.
  • Voting: Once the nomination period ends, a proposal will be presented on Snapshot with the list of candidates, allowing the DAO to select the candidate that best meets their expectations and needs.
  • Results: The candidate with the majority of votes will be appointed as Facilitator.
  • KYC: The selected candidate must undergo and successfully complete the KYC process set forth by the Arbitrum Foundation.

Note:

  • It is important to highlight that this position is not an employment under the Arbitrum Foundation. The Governance Facilitator will be accountable to ArbitrumDAO, which will determine and oversee its powers and functions.
  • ArbitrumDAO may choose multiple Facilitators if deemed necessary. This depends on the function of the role and the demand required by the DAO.

Template

  • Personal Information: [Fields with * are mandatory, the rest are optional]
    • Name:
    • Forum username*:
    • Twitter*:
    • Telegram*:
    • Discord:
    • Github:
    • LinkedIn:
    • Others:
  • Have you previously contributed to the Arbitrum ecosystem or its DAO? [Yes/No]: [If yes, please share links and supporting data]
  • I understand that I will be required to provide additional KYC information to the Arbitrum Foundation to access the Facilitator Role: [Yes/No]:
  • Do you understand that the Facilitator’s Role must adapt to changes approved by Arbitrum DAO, including but not limited to the Code of Conduct or other regulations governing behavior within the Arbitrum DAO community and forum? [Yes/No]:
  • Do you acknowledge that, when accepting the facilitator role, you must maintain a neutral stance in forum discussions and any communication medium used by the Arbitrum DAO community? [Yes/No]:
  • Do you understand that as a Facilitator you should not participate in proposal voting, whether on Snapshot or Tally? [Yes/No]:
  • Are you aware that the Facilitator role demands a full-time commitment? [Yes/No]:

Experience and Education

  • Do you have experience in any of the following fields?
    • Political Science
    • International Trade
    • Law
    • Psychology
    • Business Administration
    • Philosophy
    • Other fields related to governance.
  • Do you have verifiable experience of over 1 year actively working in governance or a DAO? [If so, please share links and supporting data.]
  • Have you had previous experience in a role similar to the Facilitator? [If so, please share links and supporting data.]
  • Do you have experience in game theory and consensus? [If so, please share links and supporting data.]
  • Do you have experience in human resource management and metric analysis? [If so, please share links and supporting data.]
  • Do you have technical skills or have you participated in the development of a particular project? [If so, please share links and supporting data.]
  • If chosen as Facilitator, what would be your main focus?
  • Would you like to share any other information or skill that you consider relevant for the position and that has not been addressed in this template?
  • Please identify and share any conflict of interest that may arise in performing the facilitator role.

Requirements

  • Alignment with the ethos and objectives of the Arbitrum ecosystem.
  • Fluent in English language, both spoken and written.
  • Ability to simplify and communicate complex information to the community in a clear and understandable way.
  • Solid knowledge about the Arbitrum ecosystem, L2 in general, and Ethereum. Autonomy and responsibility to carry out concrete actions.
  • Verifiable experience of at least 1 years in governance-related activities.
  • Ability to manage high-tension situations.
  • Skills in coordinating large teams.
  • Flexibility and adaptability to rapid changes.
  • Availability of up to 30 hours a week.

Facilitator Objectives

  • Communication: Serve as a link between the Arbitrum Foundation and the Arbitrum DAO, ensuring effective and clear communication.
  • Organization: Oversee the compliance of established governance processes and protocols.
  • Governance Innovation: Suggest improvements and optimizations for the processes of the Arbitrum DAO.
  • Promotion of Participation: Ensure that all members are informed and updated on decisions and changes.
  • Neutrality: Maintain an impartial stance in discussions, collaborating with all participants according to the values of the ArbitrumDAO.
  • Transparency: Document and report all undertaken actions, ensuring visibility to the community.

Facilitator Responsibilities

Operational Support:

  • Establish scalable systems, including working groups.
  • Track and distribute information on service providers and manage relationships.
  • Manage governance-related channels or accounts, ensuring effective communication of governance activities.
  • Produce proposal analyses, weekly summaries, monthly reports, and event calendars.

Support and Onboarding:

  • Develop strong relationships with key stakeholders and delegates.
  • Establish communication channels for delegates and contributors.
  • Proactively seek new governance contributors and initiatives, including delegates and proposers.
  • Provide advisory support to navigate the proposal process, including drafting proposals, formulating proposal code, and communicating with relevant parties.

Advisory and Process:

  • Maintain a clear order of operations for communications, governance, and voting cycles.
  • Ensure respect and compliance with the constitution and regulations of the Arbitrum DAO.
  • Analyze voting patterns and anticipate results to identify potential risks.
  • Recording activities and tasks to establish a comprehensive log for future facilitators.

Duration of the Role

Given that the Facilitator role is new and experimental, its initial duration will be 6 months from the start of its duties. At the end of this period, the DAO will decide through a Snapshot vote whether to renew the position.

Role Renewal

After 6 months of service:

  • The Facilitator can choose to seek a renewal of their mandate for an additional 6 months. To initiate this process, they are required to create a forum post, which will then be subjected to a Snapshot vote.
  • The DAO can start a new selection process for the Facilitator role, either replicating the previous method or implementing a new one.
  • With a Snapshot vote, ArbitrumDAO has the authority to discontinue the role.

Compensation and Financing

The budget allocated for the Facilitator is 60,000 ARB tokens, which translates into a monthly allocation of 10000 ARB.

The Facilitator should be paid through a proposal in Tally that they should bring with them along with the tasks and accomplishments for the month. This should be done on a month to month basis for 6 months.

Facilitator Resignation

The Facilitator has the right to submit their resignation with one month’s prior notice, justifying their reasons in a forum post. In such a case, they will be compensated up to their last month of service. If there are surplus funds, these will be returned to the ArbitrumDAO treasury.

Suspension and Dismissal of the Facilitator

ArbitrumDAO retains the authority to dismiss the Facilitator under the following circumstances:

  • They have not met their responsibilities.
  • Their actions are not aligned with the objectives of Arbitrum.
  • They have engaged in corrupt practices.

The dismissal process involves a Snapshot vote, and any remaining funds are to be returned to the ArbitrumDAO treasury.

Moreover, the Arbitrum Foundation and other Facilitators can initiate the Facilitator’s dismissal through a forum post, outlining the reasons. In such cases, ArbitrumDAO is required to take immediate action.

In any scenario involving the reporting or requested dismissal of the Facilitator, a temporary suspension from all tasks and functions will be enforced until the matter is resolved or clarified.

Additional Considerations

Being an experimental role, the Facilitator is expected to be adaptable to changes emerging from the evolution of ArbitrumDAO. Additionally, the DAO might require the execution of specific tasks or add responsibilities, as long as they are reasonable and consistent.

Note:

  • If the role gains relevance and importance in the future, the election could be similar to that of the Security Council through Tally.

Total Cost

60,000 ARB.

Next steps:

  • Receive feedback from the community
  • Make changes according to feedback
7 Likes
2

GM @cattin!
Thank you for such a thorough description of your proposal. I wanted to quickly ask how would you say this is different from the work @DisruptionJoe and @ZER8 are doing at Plurality Labs.
What would you say are the differences and similarities? Thanks for your time :slight_smile:

4 Likes
3

Thanks Cattin, in addition to the question above. Are there any suggestions for KPIs and MoSs for this role?

I suggest doing this via QV to reduce the influence of plutocracy

3 Likes
4

LFG, we need this.

A few comments/ideas:

  • Maybe guarantee a lower bound on the USD/ARB Rate because I have seen circumstances in the past where contributors paid in native tokens will walk away if PA is negative and they no longer deem it worth their time.
  • Maybe add a 6-month bonus paid in vesting tokens if the DAO votes to continue the agreement past the initial 6-month period. So, as the contributor continues to meet/exceed expectations, their efforts can be rewarded. Will also attract talent that is considering leaving a current role for this.
  • Think for the initial sprint; start with a minimum of two facilitator roles with complementary skills, backup capability in the event one is away, and for redundancy purposes.
  • Depending on the facilitator’s career experience, they may struggle if overwhelmed with too much work, how can we determine we need another facilitator ASAP to cover growing demand, who specifically is the facilitator accountable to if challenged with multiple competing priorities and needs assistance challenging what they can currently support without introducing bias. Who, if anyone, should provide the facilitator with regular feedback on progress and deliverables? Using the forum for constructive criticism can be both valuable and challenging at times, as we have seen here in the past.

Regardless, let’s do it and course correct while it’s in flight, nothing that can’t be solved once the ball is rolling amongst a peer group of delegates/foundation members/and active participants. Just thinking forward on potential issues based on past experiences.

8 Likes
5

Hello everyone thank you for your responses and sorry for the delay in replying. I will answer the questions:

What we are proposing is an exclusive DAO role that should respect the will of the DAO, follow up on governance processes and facilitate communication with Arbitrum Foundation. While the work they’ve made so far has been amazing, it’s quite different to this role since what Plurality Labs is currently doing arises from this proposal: AIP - 3 [Non-Constitutional] Fund the Arbitrum Grants Framework Proposal Milestone 1 in which they commit to develop their grants programs - unless they are . To give you a rough idea, this role is similar to the role of the Advocate that was proposed in the Arbitrum Coalition proposal, but as mentioned before, the role of the facilitator is exclusive to the DAO and should not respond to other interests.

We have not assigned KPIs or any other metrics or control measures, the person filling the role must be a problem solver who serves the DAO and is able to execute tasks autonomously. As time progresses between the DAO and the facilitators they should put these measures in place or as more facilitators join. We believe that at this stage of the ArbitrumDAO we need people really experienced in this position to give it the vision that the DAO intends.

This can be evaluated, it depends on the governance if you want a vote via QV, or maybe using private voting too (as it was suggested once for the security council).

Completely agree here, we could set the remuneration to USD valuation and have it paid monthly through voting. Considering that it is a very important role, it could make sense to have it in USD to give some predictability.

Excellent idea we can add this to the proposal.

We thought so too, but we wanted to hear from the community if they thought more than one facilitator was needed.

It is difficult to determine what is the exact number of facilitators needed. Perhaps we should have faster selection processes or standby facilitators with less time load that, when needed they are paid extra as long as they accomplish the task. Following up on the questions, the facilitator should be accountable to the DAO, it should be autonomous, and keep records of their daily activities and tasks, anyone in the DAO should be able to monitor what the facilitator is doing. I think an example we have today is @Matt_StableLab, who notifies the DAO daily about what is happening with the STIPs, and what problems they face and maintains communication with the protocols, the DAO, and the foundation.

7 Likes