[Non-Constitutional] Arbitrum DAO Delegate Code of Conduct + Formalizing the DAO's Operations

Abstract

This proposal introduces a delegate code of conduct for Arbitrum DAO alongside additional improvements to the DAO’s operational standards. The Code of Conduct sets expectations for delegate behavior, emphasizing transparency, professionalism, and integrity.

The proposal will go to a Snapshot vote for ratification on October 31st, requiring a majority approval and quorum set as at least 3% of all votable tokens having cast votes in favor or abstaining. If approved, the Code of Conduct and operational updates will take effect on Monday, November 11th, followed by a ~6.5-month trial period ending on May 30th before being considered for permanent inclusion in the Arbitrum Constitution.

Terms

Definitions for important terms; listed in order as they first appear.

Delegate: An individual or entity who willingly engages in Arbitrum governance and has set up a Tally profile to receive delegations.

Community Guidelines: The rules of engagement for the Arbitrum DAO forum as outlined and enforced by the Arbitrum Foundation.

Self-Enrichment (Self-Dealing): The act of increasing or enhancing one’s own personal financial wealth as a result of one’s own vote.

Conflict of Interest (COI): A situation where a delegate, or any entities that a delegate has a direct professional or financial relationship with, stands to directly benefit from the outcome of a proposal or election.

Responsible Voting: The practice of an election candidate casting votes for oneself and other candidates in a neutral manner to fill all open positions.

Shielded Voting: On Snapshot, delegates’ votes are kept private during the voting process, but made public after the conclusion of the vote.

Weighted Voting: Each delegate can spread their voting power across any number of choices, from one to all. Their voting power will be divided between their chosen options according to how much weight they attribute to each option by increasing or decreasing the voting power fraction.

Approval Voting: Each delegate can select (approve) any number of choices, and each selected choice will receive the delegate’s total voting power.

Motivation/Rationale

As the Arbitrum DAO continues to grow and evolve, a standardized code of conduct for delegates becomes increasingly necessary to create a culture that attracts high quality contributors. As the leading scaling solution across most notable metrics and one of the most active governance ecosystems, it is also important for the Arbitrum DAO to lead the industry in terms of professionalism and transparency.

The purpose of this Code of Conduct is to provide guidelines for delegates to follow, helping establish explicit expectations and responsibilities, while also ensuring that Arbitrum DAO’s governance process is transparent, accountable, and effective.

The Arbitrum DAO Code of Conduct is a set of guiding principles for interactions between delegates, whether online or offline. This includes the governance forum, Telegram and Discord chats, governance community or working group calls, and any other virtual or physical space that is de-facto understood to be a gathering place for the Arbitrum DAO.

Establishing clear and strict rules of conduct can be challenging and even counterproductive; therefore, the primary goal of the Delegate Code of Conduct is to help the Arbitrum DAO foster a culture of transparency, integrity, and civility. The Code of Conduct is a set of written principles that Arbitrum Delegates should embody. Delegates should use their best discretion and act in a way that aligns with the Code’s spirit, rather than seeking to exploit loopholes or ambiguities.

Following the Delegate Code of Conduct, updates to the Arbitrum DAO’s operational procedures are presented. These changes include the voting schedule and election standards, both of which are based on a series of temperature checks (Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2, Exhibit 3).

The Arbitrum DAO Delegate Code of Conduct

Values Alignment

Arbitrum Delegates should always strive to uphold the seven community values stated in the Arbitrum Constitution:

  • Ethereum-aligned: Arbitrum is part of the Ethereum ecosystem and community
  • Sustainable: Focus on long-term health of the protocol over short-term gains
  • Secure: Arbitrum is security minded
  • Socially inclusive: Open and welcoming to all constructive participants
  • Technically inclusive: Accessible for ordinary people with ordinary technology
  • User-focused: Managed for the benefit of all users
  • Neutral and open: Foster open innovation, interoperation, user choice, and healthy competition

Good Faith and Best Interest

  • Delegates should conduct themselves with honesty, integrity, and transparency, fostering trust and confidence among community members.
  • Delegates should act and vote in accordance with what they see is in the best interests of Arbitrum, which encompasses but is not limited to all of the following: Arbitrum One, Arbitrum Nova, the Orbit Ecosystem, the ARB token, and any future Arbitrum DAO-governed chains as outlined in the Arbitrum Constitution.

Due Care and Attention

  • Delegates should remain knowledgeable of developments in regards to Arbitrum DAO’s initiatives and the broader Arbitrum ecosystem. Delegates can stay up to date with the following resources:
  • Delegates should make a professional and unbiased review of each proposal before submitting their vote.
  • Delegates are advised to vote abstain when unable to conduct the necessary diligence to understand the proposals.

Civility and Professionalism

  • While separate from the Code of Conduct, delegates are expected to uphold the community guidelines for activity on the Arbitrum DAO forum and de-facto understood gathering places for the Arbitrum DAO, whether online or in-person.
  • Delegates should seek to create a respectful and inclusive environment for all community members, free from harassment and discrimination.
    • Examples of unacceptable behavior include:
      • Publicly or privately harassing or intimidating others
      • Sharing someone’s private information without their consent
      • Using sexualized language or imagery, or making unwanted advances
      • Making insulting or derogatory comments about others
  • Delegates should strive to provide constructive feedback that is well-researched and respectful, focusing on the proposal’s merits. Personal attacks are never acceptable.
  • Delegates should be open-minded and respectful of differing viewpoints, even if they disagree with them. Disagreements are an inevitable part of healthy debate, but they often yield positive results when approached in a civil manner.
  • Delegates should make a best effort to provide constructive feedback through appropriate channels and avoid taking discussions to social media in a manner that could tarnish Arbitrum DAO’s brand and reputation.

Responsibility

  • Maintaining a culture of productive debate, integrity, and transparency requires a sense of collective responsibility. As entrusted leaders of the Arbitrum community, delegates should take responsibility in fostering and maintaining a culture that promotes the principles outlined herein.
  • Best practices of responsible delegates:
    • Participation: delegates should make an effort to vote (even if abstain) on all proposals.
    • Communication: delegates should clearly communicate their rationale behind votes and discussions to the Arbitrum community.
    • Accountability: delegates should maintain knowledge of funded initiatives and hold managing parties or elected representatives accountable.
    • Responsiveness: delegates should use their best efforts to connect with the Arbitrum community and be accessible to answer questions or concerns.

Conflicts of Interest

Disclosure and Transparency Policy: If a conflict of interest exists, it is expected the delegate discloses the nature and extent of the conflict in writing on the forum before voting. Additionally, a COI section will be added to the recommended proposal template as outlined in the Arbitrum governance docs. This section will provide delegates that author a proposal a place to include a short COI disclosure if necessary. The Arbitrum Foundation will be responsible for making this update. While it may not always be clear if an individual stands to gain “directly” or “indirectly”, it is recommended to lean on the side of over-communication in the name of transparency.

Delegates that disclose a conflict of interest are not expected to alter their voting in any way. Self-voting is not banned outright for the reasons stated in this post and based on sentiment gathered from this temperature check. However, as explained further below, a delegate that repeatedly fails to disclose a conflict of interest before self-voting or if a single instance is deemed to be severe, they risk being removed from the Delegate Incentive Program or a DAO-elected position.

Conflict Resolution and Enforcement

The Code of Conduct has been purposefully written in a manner to establish a set principles that Arbitrum Delegates should embody rather than a complete set of enforceable rules.

Conflict Resolution between Delegates

Taking the learnings from other DAOs into account, conflict resolution will remain in the hands of the Arbitrum Foundation. In general, it is our belief that many conflict issues can be resolved quickly and easily if approached in good faith by each party. Delegates and community members are encouraged to first address the behavior directly in private. If the matter is unable to be resolved for any reason, or if the behavior is threatening or harassing, report it to the Arbitrum Foundation using this form. The Arbitrum Foundation will have final say on the issue and reserves the right to determine if the issue should be brought to the attention of the community as a whole.

Soft-Enforcement of the Delegate Code of Conduct

DAO’s are unique organizations due to their complete openness. Any individual is able to participate in governance by purchasing the ARB token. There are no barriers to creating a delegate profile and engaging in conversation. Delegations are liquid, thus they can be added or removed from addresses quite easily. This openness is a significant strength for DAOs, but it also presents a unique challenge in holding actors accountable. Today, the threat of reputational damage combined with the free market of delegations are the primary means of enforcement.

While it is not feasible to hold every governance participant accountable for upholding these principles, the DAO can hold accountable delegates compensated or individuals it elects to positions of power. Delegates participating in the Delegate Incentive Program (DIP) and representatives appointed through an official election or ratification process through Snapshot or Tally who receive compensation as part of their position, will be required to publicly agree to abide by the Code of Conduct. Violations of the Code of Conduct may result in removal from the Delegate Incentive Program or a DAO-elected position. If the Arbitrum Foundation determines that a delegate should be removed from DIP, the administrator (currently @SEEDGov) will serve as a check and balance on that decision; the removal process is detailed further directly below.

Delegate Incentive Program Removal

As stated in the Delegate Incentive Program proposal, the program administrator reserves the right to issue a suspension or permanent ban if a delegate does not meet the eligibility requirements, which includes upholding the Code of Conduct. In the event of a suspension or expulsion from the program, the affected delegate may request a Snapshot vote to ratify, change, or revoke the administrator’s decision. Quorum for an appeal vote is at least 3% of all votable tokens having cast votes in favor of supporting the appeal or abstaining. This serves as a one-time appeal, and the decision made by the DAO will be final. It is expected that any party involved in the dispute refrains from actively voting (they may vote abstain or not vote at all) in the Snapshot appeal. Failure to do so will render the appeal mute and the administrator’s decision will stand as final.

DAO-Elected Position Removal

Any DAO member can propose a Snapshot vote to remove a DAO-elected representative. The proposal should clearly state the reasons for removal and provide evidence supporting the claims. Unless otherwise justified by a proposal author, the standard removal process will be a simple majority of votes cast by delegates with at least 3% of all votable tokens having cast votes in favor of the removal or abstaining. Additionally, an elected-representative removal Snapshot must adhere to the agreed upon voting schedule and minimum discussion period of seven days. This should be a last resort and many other steps, including asking the DAO member to resign, should be taken first.

Attribution

Our team reviewed dozens of code of conducts in search of best practices and enforcement structures. We’d like to extend credit to all of the following for helping provide inspiration:

Maker (July 2021)
Go (September 2021)
1inch (May 2022)
ENS (June 2022)
Uniswap (March 2023)
Aave (May 2023)
dYdX (Dec 2023)
Optimism (Last updated May 2024)

Standardizing the DAO’s Operations

Voting Schedule

As ratified in a Snapshot to improve predictability in the Arbitrum DAO’s operations, delegates agree to abide by the following vote scheduling guidelines. This social contract has been in effect for over 2 months now, but it is being presented again so that the guidelines can be included with the other procedural updates in the 6-month program.

Minimum Discussion Period of One Week

In accordance with the Arbitrum Constitution, delegates should follow the recommendation that proposals be open to discussion on the forums for at least one week before being put to a vote. This is to allow delegates ample time to review and provide feedback.

Start all votes on Thursdays

By starting both Snapshot and Tally votes on Thursday, on top of increasing predictability for delegates, the DAO would also prevent the scenario where votes begin/end on weekends.

Create Onchain AIPs on Tally on Mondays

In order for a Tally vote to start on Thursday, it must be posted on Monday given the 3-day delay from when a proposal is posted until voting begins.

Schedule Temperature Checks on Snapshot from Monday through Wednesday

Each batch of proposals ready to move to a Snapshot vote can be scheduled beforehand beginning on Monday and through Wednesday. Delegates are encouraged to post/schedule votes to begin before Thursday at 12 pm UTC. This can be achieved by setting the voting period to start in the future. While not a hard deadline, this will help ensure any votes start on Thursday for a majority of delegates worldwide.

DAO Holiday Break: December 20 - January 6th

The DAO agrees to a holiday break, where no new votes will be created and/or voted on from December 20 - January 6 annually. This is to ensure delegates have a break and can return refreshed for the new year. During this time it is advised that no new proposals are posted to the forums, and only emergency proposals are put up to a vote. Proposal authors should be cognizant of timelines and aim to having all voting wrapped up by Thursday, December 19th.

Election Standards

The Responsible Voting policy is an effort to strike a balance between preventing delegates from unfavorably electing themselves into a position of power and compensation while allowing them to still effectively represent their communities and tokenholders. In a normal election with multiple seats, the policy is simple: candidates may vote for themselves as long as they also cast votes to fill all the remaining positions. With token and weighted voting, there are additional nuances and guidelines must be set in place to address edge scenarios:

  • Candidate’s are allowed to abstain or vote in a neutral manner to effectively abstain, ie., voting or splitting their vote equally across all candidates.
  • If a candidate self-votes, they should to the best of their ability make the weights as equal as possible spread among the number of candidates necessary to every seat.
    • A buffer of 0.1% is acceptable to account for rounding in the Snapshot UI.
  • A candidate’s self-vote percentage should always be less than 100/n, where n = number of seats.
    • Unacceptable Example: In an election with 7 seats, a candidate’s self-vote exceeds 14.286%.
  • A candidate’s self-vote weight should not be larger than any of the weights for other candidates. Both of the following examples would be considered violations:
    • Unacceptable Example: In an election with 7 seats, the candidate votes 94% for themselves and 1% for 6 other candidates.
    • Unacceptable Example: In an election with 7 seats and a total of 15 candidates, a delegate votes 10% for themselves and 6.43% for all other candidates.
  • Candidates may vote for less or more candidates than seats available as long as they adhere to the above restrictions. This allows delegates to retain the power to express a certain level of preference, but does increase the risk for collusion. As outlined in the enforcement section above, any suspected instances of collusion will be investigated by the Arbitrum Foundation and will be grounds for disqualification.
    • Acceptable Example: In a 7-seat election, a candidate self-votes for themself with 14.286% and 85.714% for another candidate.
    • Acceptable Example: In a 7-seat election, a candidate splits their vote equally across 10 candidates, each getting 10%.

Entropy welcomes insight from the community to highlight any other edge scenarios that should be considered. Delegates not participating in the election are free to vote however they wish, but if a conflict of interest exists, it should be disclosed on the forums before voting.

Responsible voting is only effectively enforceable for elections held on Snapshot and the nomination phase of the onchain Security Council elections. Once the Security Council Election starts, there is no way to remove a member without a subsequent onchain vote post-election. The same would apply in theory to any onchain vote with programmatic allocation of seats.

Shielded Elections with Weighted Voting: A few weeks ago the Entropy team posted a temperature check to gauge the DAO’s stance on shielded voting. The results indicated that a slight majority of delegates favored the use of shielded voting as the default for elections. In order to align with Security Council elections, weighted voting as opposed to approval voting will be the official default voting type.

Since shielded voting keeps a voter’s position private, monitoring for breaches of the responsible voting policy will be conducted post election. This responsibility will fall primarily on the proposal author or individual/entity managing the election process, but as part of a delegate’s responsibility to uphold the code of conduct, anyone can bring a violation forward.

Discovered violations of the responsible voting policy by a delegate participating in an election will result in immediate disqualification from the application process along with the delegate’s votes being retroactively removed from the election results. While voters who supported a disqualified candidate may wish to recast their votes for another candidate, we concluded that rerunning the election was not advisable and rather it is the voter’s responsibility to support an ethical candidate that abides by Arbitium DAO’s standards. Lastly, suspected collusion will be investigated by the Arbitrum Foundation and also be grounds for disqualification from an elected position and/or the DIP. Contributors that suspect collusion should message the Arbitrum Foundation team privately to notify them of the situation.

Proposal authors still retain the optionality to justify why an election should not be shielded or weighted voting. Elections that lack justification but are posted as non-shielded or non-weighted voting should be considered void and either restarted immediately or pushed to the following Thursday.

Minimum Application Period: In order to draw a sufficient number of high quality applicants, application periods should be a minimum of 14 days.

Where n = number of seats; proposal authors should seek to have at least n+3 applicants before starting the election. Since this may not always be possible, it is simply a recommendation and not a requirement.

Delegating to the Arbitrum Exclude Address

ARB tokens allocated to DAO initiatives are not to be used in governance. To keep circulating voting supply from increasing, whenever possible, multi-sigs holding program funds should delegate to the Arbitrum Exclude Address. This will prevent tokens from being included in quorum calculations. Individuals that do not want to participate in governance can also delegate their ARB to the Exclude Address. Instructions for how to do so have been outlined on this forum post by the Arbitrum Foundation.

Timeline

Before codifying the Arbitrum Code of Conduct and updates to the DAO’s operations into the Arbitrum Constitution, we believe it is best to trial the changes for a period of 6 months post ratification of this proposal through a Snapshot vote, with quorum set as at least 3% of all votable tokens having cast votes in favor or abstaining. After 6 months, the subject can be revisited. At which point, any necessary changes or delegate feedback can be incorporated. Depending on sentiment and the changes made, the trial period can be extended another 6 months or a constitutional proposal can be put forth to update the language of the Constitution.

October 17th: Beginning of forum discussion
October 31st - November 7th: Snapshot Vote
November 11th: Code of Conduct and updated DAO Operations go into effect
May 30th: 6.5-month trial ends

12 Likes

Recommend further defining this, since as written it could be interpreted that any public opposition or criticism is out of bounds until there is a DM conversation. It also seems to drive substantive discussions out of public and into private channels, which is contrary to the openness of DAOs. Backroom negotiations will always occur, but shouldn’t be mandated, and we doubt that was the intent here anyway.

Recommend this be caveated explicitly that it must adhere to the new standards about minimum proposal times and posting dates. Just to clearly avoid a quick weekend vote to remove someone. Because this has no onchain execution, we can explicitly invalidate nonconforming proposals on this subject.

1 Like

Thank you for this great proposal. I carefully reviewed the entire content, and I generally agree with the points made. Delegates indeed need to follow a certain code of conduct, especially those participating in DIP and receiving incentives. I don’t want to see a situation where someone benefits from the system but undermines it at the same time. It would be terrible if some Delegates kept receiving compensation from Arbitrum DAO but continuously opposed its collective decisions, both inside and outside the community.

This brings us to the punishment mechanism mentioned in the proposal, which I believe is the key to the entire plan. Without a robust and enforceable punishment mechanism, the code of conduct will have little binding effect on Delegates and will remain ineffective, leading to a situation where “Code is code” rather than “Code is law.”

I reflected on the punishment mechanism outlined in the document and found two shortcomings. First, it does not clearly specify who will monitor the Delegates and how that monitoring will take place. Many violations of the code of conduct could occur discreetly. Second, some Delegates have only a few Delegators, or they may simply represent themselves, having bought and held a large amount of $ARB. For these Delegates, how do we regulate their behavior? It seems difficult to disqualify them as Delegates, as they could simply transfer their $ARB to another wallet and reapply.

Perhaps I’m mistaken in my words, and I’m open to correction. I’d be happy to hear more thoughts on this! Thank you!

3 Likes

We are broadly in favor of the proposed Delegate Code of Conduct and the associated operational improvements for the DAO. Establishing clear expectations around transparency, integrity, and professionalism will only become more crucial.The updates to operational standards, including voting schedules and election processes, should help streamline governance and promote more responsible delegate behavior.

Some pts and bumping of prior good pts on the thread:
Conflict Resolution and Enforcement Mechanisms: While soft enforcement through reputational damage and delegation removal is mentioned, the proposal leaves much of the actual decision factor here; for example OP has a code of conduct council for stuff like this.
Responsible Voting Policy: The rules for self-voting are well-intentioned, but still some ambiguity in how edge cases will be handled, especially with shielded voting. Post-election monitoring could lead to complications if violations are discovered late.
Shielded Voting and Transparency: Shielded voting may improve the integrity of elections, but it also reduces transparency during the voting process, which could make it harder for the community to verify that delegates are adhering to the Code of Conduct. Generally speaking for now, we’re not in favor of this but could be convinced if adapted or tweaked a little.
Trial Period and Feedback Incorporation: Will there be regular checkpoints for gathering input or how will we know what’s done well and not during the 6 months. Specific violations might be fwe and sparse between and have a hard time extrapolating to overall success when numbers are minimal as is.

Looking forward to future convos on this topic, it’s something that we def want to structure out in the future.

2 Likes

This is an excellent proposal and a significant step forward in addressing future conflicts within the DAO. A code of conduct will play a crucial role in shaping the future of Arbitrum governance. Personally, I believe the OP team has done a fantastic job with their code of conduct, and we should draw on their experience to create a stronger and more equitable version.

In reference to:

Prioritizing controversy without an attempt at private mediation

I assume the motivation is to ensure that people who are widely considered as contributors to the ArbitrumDAO should always perform a best-effort to raise their opinion and provide constructive feedback on the forum alongside channels that facilitate delegate discussion (i.e., like the delegate telegram channel).

If a contributor has not engaged (i.e., best effort to submit comments, feedback, improvements, or even signal a dislike alongside good reasons why), but then decides to run online campaigns in an attempt to tarnish, bully, or otherwise cause controversy that puts the ArbitrumDAO in a bad light, then there can be a judgement call made that the contributor is doing more harm than they are actually contributing to the DAO, thus breaking the code of conduct.

i.e., like Naval’s quote: Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.

So the code of conduct should act as a filter to socially ignore people playing status games and only enable contributors interested in playing long-term with other contributors in the ArbitrumDAO.

Would be great if Entropy can confirm this line of thinking, but this is how I understand the sentiment in the code of conduct, specifically on that line. If so, I’d recommend making it more clear in the code of conduct as well.

5 Likes

I support this proposal and believe we can all benefit as delegates from having a civil code of conduct to hold us accountable and encourage productive discussions. One question that comes to mind is how sanctions would apply to delegates who primarily hold their own delegation. If they face issues, they could simply create a new address and delegate their ARB to it, potentially bypassing sanctions. I also want to highlight something I hadn’t considered before but appreciate in this proposal: the exclusion of tokens/addresses allocated to DAO initiatives, this will def prevent unintended voting power from accumulating in the hands of certain individuals or groups.

1 Like

I don’t think this constitutes unacceptable behavior and should be either removed from the proposal as it is written or more properly defined. Who will deem that someone is “prioritizing controversy” over any other possible motivation? This assumes that there will be some “judge” that would be able to infer the motivation behind each delegate communication and determine if that delegate is prioritizing controversy or not.

Also, as pointed out in the delegates telegram chat, I believe this proposal should adhere to the constitutional governance process, where the quorum requirement is 5% of votable supply. I believe this is a crucial enough proposal that would need the legitimacy of a bigger buy-in to be put in place. Even for the 6.5 months trial, this proposal should aim for a 5% quorum on snapshot to be considered approved. And of course, if and when it gets implemented for real, it would need to be written in the Arbitrum Constitution, which by definition would definitely need to be an onchain Arbitrum Core gov contract proposal that needs 5% quorum.

1 Like

We are in favor of this entire proposal. Below are some observations.

The link to the temperature check does not seem to be correct. If this is the case, it should be modified.

Just for clarification, could you please explain in more detail what will be considered as emergency proposals?

It’s quite difficult to find anybody against any of this. The most controversial thing as highlighted by others is the following

But i want to keep a positive approach to it: while is difficult to establish what is the threshold between saying “there was an attempt to private mediation” and an action that can just be a conscius deceptive attempt (i send you a dm in an old secondary twitter account you control), I entrust the DAO and its members on the fact that they will try to do the best for our ecosystem.

While mistakes can be made, maliciousness is way less likely. We have seen, even in recent time, public info going on twitter that did indeed hurt the reputation of the dao, that could have been at least partially cleared with some due diligence or some internal requests, but that can’t necessarily be seen as attempt to jeopardize our ecosystem. In cases like these, I don’t think we should invoce a full out ban from certain dao activities.

At the same time, in cases like the pattern above repeating over time, it could indeed show a violation of prioritizing controversy. I guess at that point, we will need delegates able to stick their necks out and move forward with a potential dao vote. The vote per se is not important, everybody will vote what they want, the controversial aspect will be someone explicitely triggering a vote.

I trust that we have enough diversity, and enough delegates (big and small) with enough skin in the game to do the right thing if and when is going to be the time to do so.

1 Like

I am supportive of the general direction of this proposal and believe it provides a strong foundation for Arbitrum DAO to further build transparency, accountability and community trust.
There are the following suggestions regarding transparency + enforcement + voting times + selection rules.
1. Transparency and accountability: the proposal requires delegates to disclose conflicts of interest, which helps to make the community trust us more and prevent governance abuses.
2. Difficulty of enforcement: While a code of conduct is good, it may be difficult to enforce in practice. If someone violates it, relying on the reputation mechanism may not be enough. It is proposed to set up a governance arbitration team, so that problems can be dealt with quickly.
3. Voting schedule and holidays: The proposal clarifies the voting schedule and holidays, so that everyone can be more organized and won’t miss voting due to time conflicts.
4. Election rules: it is reasonable to limit the percentage of representatives voting on their own to avoid positions being monopolized, but technical means can be considered subsequently to further prevent cheating.

Thank you for your proposal, it is very well written, the implementation process may be a bit challenging, we can just improve it together!

1 Like

Support this proposal, the idea of making governance more efficient and attractive is something that I think can be explored and tried out gradually during the implementation process.

Regarding the trial period: the 6.5 month trial period is a good idea. When the trial is over, it is suggested to collect feedback from people again to see if adjustments should be made.
2. Covert Voting: This is very good, it avoids the pressure of voting and ensures fairness.
3. Education and training: In order to make everyone understand the rules better, DAO can do some training and explanation to avoid violation due to lack of understanding.
We should encourage more participation: The code of conduct and voting standardization in the proposal, while helping to improve the transparency and accountability of governance, may also make some new delegates feel that there is a threshold, especially newcomers to governance. Therefore, I suggest that greater support can be provided to new delegates during the probationary period, such as simplified guidelines, quick-start resources, or even a mechanism for governance veterans to bring in newcomers, which could reduce concerns about complex rules and encourage more active participation. Avoid being overly cumbersome, complex content and procedures are really annoying

As I already have to follow a code of conduct at the Aave DAO im happy to see it finally being discussed here. Previous comments already mentioned multiple times some controversial things, so I don’t see any benefit in highlighting them again.

Glad to see something like this is finally making its way to be passed. I think this will be a huge help towards making the DAO more professional (not imply it isn’t already, but it will definitively make it even better!). And something that is important to hammer out now before the DAO grows too large.

I don’t have much to add, as it is pretty well thought out and some of the more controversial items have been already temp checked. A point to add for the sake of discussion… I think it would be helpful if there is a singular place to view anyone who has been reprimanded by the DAO. Similar to the List of projects banned from the DAO thread. I really don’t want it to be a ‘wall of shame’ situation, but I think its important if this type of information is easily accessible.

Hello @Entropy,

For the sake of transparency, we would like to mention that we had the opportunity to provide early feedback on the draft of this proposal, and we are pleased to see that the final version is even more robust than the initial one.

At SEEDGov, we understand that every community operates under certain customs, rules, and other social agreements, and it is vital to establish them for Arbitrum DAO. The process applied here is also a strong point of the proposed code of conduct:

Most of this proposal’s content has already been addressed separately in various temperature checks before being codified, similar to how legislative bodies vote on general and specific matters. Thus, this Code of Conduct is the product of the DAO’s previously expressed will.

Our reasons for supporting the implementation of the code of conduct and its soft-enforcement mechanisms align with our stance when voting on previous initiatives: from our perspective, Shielded Voting only for elections, Responsible Voting, Voting Calendarization, and CoI disclosures are good practices to start with, and we can iterate as we encounter new situations.

We could also mention that a good practice is participating in the discussions where the delegate believes they can add value. This way, the delegate is not obligated to participate in every discussion, and we lay the foundation for a more professional DAO, with delegates focusing on their area of expertise.

As for the delegate appeal system in the DIP, should we add the 3% requirement? From our side, there wouldn’t be an issue if the DAO considers the modification valid in this proposal (since it wasn’t contemplated in the text of the DIP 1.5).

Something here concerned us:

If we all assume it’s holiday time and most people plan their absence accordingly, the DAO’s ability to respond to potential governance attacks or emergency votes will be reduced compared to the rest of the year. This is why it’s important to leave a message urging delegates to act with due diligence so that they can respond to unexpected situations. We understand that there is also a Security Council, but it’s important not to rely solely on them, and it’s also reasonable to expect that the availability of the Council members may not be the same during the holiday season.

1 Like

Thank you for the whole Delegate Code of Conduct, The governance is always my favorite part in Arbitrum DAO. This Coda is a commendable effort to formalize the DAO’s operations, providing a clearer structure and guidelines for delegates. By establishing a well-defined code of conduct, it enhances transparency and predictability in governance, which will greatly benefit the community in the long run.

  1. In the “Motivation/Rationale”, all kinds of interactions space among delegates are planned to be established. I consider we should focus on one communication channel, especially for governance-related discussions. It might be better to primarily engage on the forum, as it facilitates the collection and formation of opinions. If delegates are also required to be active on Telegram, Discord, and other platforms, it may lead to confusion for the delegates themselves.
  2. Standardizing the DAO’s Operations Voting Schedule” is my favorite part, it was mentioned in the “DAO Holiday Break” that “only emergency proposals are put up to a vote.”
    Do we have a clear definition for an “emergency proposal”?
  3. There is also an issue raised by @Larva, which I share concerns about: "some Delegates have only a few Delegators, or they may simply represent themselves, having bought and held a large amount of $ARB. "This is indeed something that is difficult to defend against.

Thank you!

1 Like

Thanks for the excellent proposal!

It may be only me, but this example doesn’t seem right.

The “unacceptable example” would occur when the vote surpasses that threshold, like:

Unacceptable Example: In an election for 7 seats, a candidate’s self-vote exceeds 14.286%.

Otherwise, awesome work!

We’re glad to see great discussion already underway! Thank you to all for contributing to this important topic. Below are responses to some of the questions and points brought up by delegates.

Additional Rationale

Several delegates mentioned Optimism DAO and its code of conduct / resolution processes, so we’d first like to provide some additional rationale for how the code was written and why the Arbitrum Foundation was chosen as the mediator in conflicts between delegates. Of all the DAOs reviewed, Optimism DAO has experimented the most with enforcement mechanisms for their code of conduct and rules of engagement (their term for community guidelines). After its creation, the code was initially enforced by the Optimism Foundation. In an effort to decentralize moderation, the process was shifted so that violations were brought forward and voted on by delegates directly. After just two instances this was determined to be a sub-optimal approach. It was concluded that delegates did not want to be responsible for voting on conduct cases. From this a dedicated code of conduct committee was established, but over the last year its powers have been rescoped twice. Now it only handles severe instances of conduct breaches and upholds the rules of engagement, while all unenforceable policies in the original code of conduct were transformed into guiding principles now known as the “Optimist Expectations”.

We encourage all delegates to read through the materials linked above. In many ways they have come full circle, but their experimentation has provided valuable insights for DAOs of a similar size.

The Arbitrum Delegate Code of Conduct and its enforcement mechanism were written in a manner specifically taking those learnings into account. Most importantly, we believe that many conflicts can be handled first in private and only in serious instances need to be raised to a 3rd-party mediator. The Arbitrum Foundation is already responsible for enforcing the community guidelines, so while a committee was mentioned first by @PGov and other delegates, our team believes the tradeoffs involved with introducing additional bureaucracy & overhead to monitor/resolve conflict issues outweighs the benefits.

Enforcement Mechanisms

Most clauses in the code of conduct are written as guiding principles that delegates should seek to embody. The responsibility falls on all delegates to hold each other accountable. It takes the entire community to create and maintain a professional culture. Similar to the Arbitrum DAO Constitution’s community values, with these principles actually written out, the code of conduct provides contributors a basis for behavior that should be promoted.

The only violations that result in direct punishment are the behaviors prohibited by the community guidelines - ex. harassment, doxxing, inappropriate language. Mediation and conflict resolution will be handled by the Arbitrum Foundation, but any Arbitrum DAO contributor can use this google form to report instances.

This is just one scenario that makes conduct enforcement in DAOs so difficult. Any individual can spin up a new wallet, transfer ARB, and begin voting. Holding anon delegates accountable is close to impossible. However, while Arbitrum DAO is open to anyone that wishes to participate, it does not mean the DAO is required to pay everyone. When it comes to the Delegate Incentive Program, participants are required to KYC to receive rewards and those applying for committee/council positions normally have to maintain a level of social credibility/reputation to be elected. These mechanisms prevent an individual from at least immediately transferring ARB to another wallet and reapplying to the DIP or an elected-position. Overall, this scenario and reasoning contributed to the code of conduct being written as a set of guiding principles that delegates should aspire to embody, rather than a strict set of rules that can be “violated”.

Clarification of DAO-Elected Removal Process and Quorum Requirements

This is a great call out; the proposal has been updated to clarify that elected representative removal votes must adhere to the other agreed upon proposal guidelines.

This is also a good addition, a quorum requirement of at least 3% of circulating supply has been added for the DIP removal appeal process.

Defining an Emergency Proposal

Several delegates have asked for clarification on what constitutes an emergency proposal. We are hesitant to create exact criteria, but generally speaking, emergency proposals should be limited to security related protocol upgrades. Another example of an emergency could include a heinous unethical activity such as stealing funds, that requires immediate removal from a committee. Non-constitutional proposals that are to spin up new initiatives, grants, or any other funding requests are not considered an emergency, and should therefore wait until after the Holiday Period. There were recently two proposals that went to Tally a day late, and while justification was given, in our opinion they did not really qualify as an emergency. We recognize that there is a tricky tradeoff in strictly adhering to procedures and perhaps slowing down operations unnecessarily. The community has thus far adapted well to the voting schedule, and we trust that delegates will be able to discern when an emergency is actually required.

Delegate availability during the holiday season is an appropriate concern. When created, the main purpose of the holiday was to at least give delegates some time off from voting on proposals. We expect that conversations and comments will still occur both on the forums and other adjacent DAO-related chats. The break just creates a time where the expectation of delegates is reduced compared to a normal week. Additionally, with the Holiday Break being shorter (18 days) than the time required to move a proposal through an onchain vote (~20 days), we view the likelihood of a governance attack or emergency situation going unnoticed as low.

Conflict Resolution Form

The proposal has been updated to include a link to the conflict resolution reporting google form. Responses will be sent to the Arbitrum Foundation team.

Prioritizing controversy without an attempt at private mediation

We appreciate delegates calling out this line, as upon reflection, we agree that it needs clarification and did not accurately communicate the intent behind the statement.

@stonecoldpat correctly summarized our motivation behind this statement and code of conduct as a whole. This document intends to be something that delegates can point to in order to help filter out those playing status or short-term games. A professional and civil culture can be brought down by just one or two individuals who purposefully introduce toxicity. Drawing hard lines on what is acceptable speech is a fool’s errand, but the DAO needs to acquire the ability to defend itself from bad actors that seek to subvert its operations.

The phrase “private mediation” was added after recent instances of individuals taking critiques public to social media without engaging in a minimal level of due diligence. As @JoJo stated, mistakes happen and we in no way are suggesting that the recent instances were malicious in nature, but taking conversations to social media can have unintended consequences. It is our view that delegates should take caution in unnecessarily tarnishing the Arbitrum brand and painting the DAO in a negative light. Constructive feedback starts with seeking a deep understanding on a topic from those most familiar and prioritizes a polite demeanor in practice.

We propose removing this line from prohibited behavior and replacing it with an additional guiding principle under the Civility and Professionalism section:

Delegates should make a best effort to provide constructive feedback through appropriate channels and avoid taking discussions to social media in a manner that could tarnish Arbitrum DAO’s brand and reputation.

Before updating the proposal, we welcome additional feedback on the topic and proposed changes.

Other Edits

Lastly, thank you to @jameskbh and @Argonaut for calling out some minor mistakes. They have now been fixed.

6 Likes

thank you for iterating this much on all the feedbacks, it is not an easy task, especially in something as abstract as a code of conduct. Looking forward to vote on this.

Attended the meeting last night, a process in which your contribution not only helped clarify the mechanisms for implementing the code of conduct, but also highlighted how to find a balance between openness and transparency in the DAO and maintaining the brand’s reputation