FAQ and Best Practices Guide for the Delegate Incentive Program

Governance Delegate Incentives Program
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This document is designed to clarify doubts and provide clarity on various aspects of the delegate incentive program. Furthermore, we aim to gather valuable information and suggestions for the continuous improvement of the program.

This document will change over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the anticipated start date for the incentive program?
The anticipated start date for the program is March 1st. An official announcement will be made in the forum.

Can delegates enroll in the program at any time?
Yes, delegates can enroll in the program at any time, provided they meet the requirements specified in this document. To apply, please refer to the enrollment thread available here.

When does a delegate’s participation become effective if they subscribe at any time?
To minimize the potential for program manipulation, delegates who register before the third day of the month will be included for the incentive calculations of the current month. This three-day margin, approximately 10% of the month, is set as the maximum grace period for those delegates who wish to join the incentive program at the time of their registration. Those who register after the third day will be considered for the program starting the following month.

Is it possible to unsubscribe from the program if desired?
Yes, any delegate who decides not to continue in the program can indicate this with a message on the forum, expressing their intention to withdraw.

Is it necessary to register at the beginning of each month to be eligible for the program?
No, it is not necessary. Once registered, a delegate will be continuously considered a participant, as long as they meet the established requirements throughout the duration of the program.

How long must the delegate have >50k ARB voting power?
Upon enrollment in the program, and throughout each month, delegates must ensure that they maintain, for at least 85% of the monthly duration, a VP equal or greater than 50k ARB. This translates to maintaining the required VP for a minimum of 25 days per month. Failure to meet this requirement will result in the delegate not being considered for the program for the current month and subsequent months until they manage to restore their VP to the required level and maintain it above 85% of the time.

What is the consideration period for proposals that delegates must vote or comment on?
Proposals that conclude within a specific month will be counted as part of the performance indicators for that same month. This applies to both Snapshot and Tally voting.

To illustrate, let’s take January 2024 as an example:

This system ensures that the contributions of delegates are correctly attributed to the corresponding month, based on the conclusion date of each proposal.

What should the delegate understand by Commenting Proposals (CP)?
We expect delegates to comment on and/or provide feedback to proposals both before and during the voting process. Comments and feedback should be aimed at fostering debate, enhancing the proposal, or clarifying questions not explicitly addressed in the proposal itself. We rely on the goodwill of delegates to avoid spam and meaningless comments/feedback.

  • Key Point: Comments or feedback that violate any community guidelines will not be taken into consideration. It’s essential that all interactions contribute constructively to the deliberation and improvement of proposals.

What should the delegate understand by Communicating Rationale (CR)?
It is crucial for delegates to share the reasoning behind their vote during or after the conclusion of a proposal. This rationale can be posted either in the delegate’s communication thread (if they have one) or in the proposal’s discussion thread itself. To adhere to best practices, we recommend that delegates communicate their voting intention and rationale as soon as possible after casting their vote.

Examples of rationale communication:

Given the voting process in the DAO, where voting typically first occurs on Snapshot and then on Tally, it’s understandable that delegates may keep the same voting stance in both stages. It’s reasonable for delegates not to issue a new rationale for the second stage if it was already provided during the first stage (Snapshot) and their position remains unchanged. In these cases, we simply expect delegates to indicate that they have maintained their vote based on the previously expressed rationale.

How do I communicate my rationale if a proposal ends on the last day of the month?
In exceptional circumstances, such as when a proposal concludes on the last day of the month, we understand it may be challenging for delegates to vote and communicate their rationale within the same monthly period. To accommodate these situations, an extension of up to 3 days after the end of the month will be granted, allowing delegates to post their voting intentions and rationales to be counted for the respective month.

How should delegates calculate the Participation rate (PR)?
The participation rate for delegates will be determined through the dashboard provided by Karma, specifically designed to measure each interested delegate’s participation in Tally. To prevent manipulation of the system, the PR will be calculated based on the DAO’s voting history (excluding tests and [OLD] tags).

Only votes that conclude by the last day of the current month will be considered for the PR calculation. This means a proposal that starts in January and ends in February will not be counted towards January’s PR calculation, even if voted on in January.

  • Note: In future iterations of the program (as decided by the DAO), this criterion could be adjusted to an average of the last 90 or 120 days of voting activity. This adjustment aims to lower the entry barriers to the program.

How can I earn Bonus Points (BP)?
As outlined in the proposal, at the end of each month, delegates who have submitted proposals of significant impact to the DAO (such as L2BEAT with its proposal on security council changes) will have the opportunity to earn bonus points (up to a maximum of 30%) which will be added to their final score for the month.

It’s crucial to emphasize that this bonus will only be awarded to proposals that do not have funds allocated to the creator, aiming to prevent double funding within the DAO.

What if the delegation had to change accounts?
In cases such as Gauntlet’s, it is important to report your situation in the forum so that both wallets are taken into account when calculating the delegation score. In your specific case, the combined Tally votes from both accounts reached the 25% Participation Rate (PR) required to be eligible for the program. It is important to stay active.

How should delegate platforms with 2 or more members representing an entity submit their application?
Delegate platforms with 2 or more members must state in their application who are the members (forum profile) who will be the voice of the platform.

Example:

Best Practices

During the process of creating and testing this delegate incentive system, we realized that there are certain actions that improve program performance and delegates’ opportunities to earn incentives. Therefore, we would like to share the following best practices:

  • Actively participate in Snapshot and Tally voting: This contributes greatly to the final result of each month. The more votes you participate, the more participation you will have at the end of the month. It is important to note that only participation is taken into account, not vote choice, i.e. if a delegate votes for, against or abstains, regardless of their choice, it will be taken into account in the final tally.

  • Express your voting intention in the forum or in a delegate communication thread: In order to facilitate the delegate count, we suggest that delegates communicate their voting intention as a comment in the forum or in a communication thread of their choice. It is important to clarify that both Snapshot and Tally voting intentions must be communicated, as both are considered for the final count.

  • Avoid spam comments: The proposal indicates that comments that are considered high impact or that contribute to the debate will be counted and will be part of the final score. However, it is important to clarify that repetitive comments or comments that contribute nothing to the debate will be ignored for these purposes.

  • Make CR and CP communications within the relevant deadlines: We have observed that there are some delegates who communicate their voting intentions several days or weeks after they have voted. Therefore, we recommend that delegates try to communicate their voting intentions as soon as possible after voting so that there are no problems during the final tally. Late comments may affect the final score for the month.

  • Adding the communicated rationale directly in the snapshot vote: When a delegate votes in snapshot, he has the possibility to add the link of his rationale directly in the vote, which greatly facilitates the final accounting of the snapshot votes and the communication rationale in one step.

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Conclusions

The incentive system is quite a challenge, during the process of building the data table we encountered multiple situations which gave us the motivation to create this informative document. There is a possibility that some questions may be missing, so we invite all delegates to continue to ask questions about the program to make this doc more and more complete.

We would like to know the feedback from the delegates

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Excellent job to set expectations for participation. Beyond voting and commenting, consider incentivizing other forms of engagement that contribute to the DAO’s health, such as mentorship for new delegates or participation in governance workshops. These activities could be tracked and rewarded as well.

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