Feedback on code of conduct implementation, delegate oversight, definition of urgent proposals, etc. is very important… great feedback last night!
I agree with this proposal. It is essential to have a code of conduct for such an important position. If possible, there should be different versions that are updated so that delegates do not forget Arbitrum’s values and the significant responsibility we have.
I believe it’s important to identify the area of expertise of the delegate, perhaps by visually displaying their badges without needing to enter their profile. Something that would be visually appealing for the proposal creator or someone reviewing a proposal for the first time would be to see how valuable their comments have been throughout their time in the forum. This would help filter out the most relevant comments from those that are not.
Thanks for putting this up @Entropy. A delegate code of conduct is more than welcome at this time given the size and engagement of the Arbitrum DAO.
I initially had a question regarding monitoring/policing of these violators but I see you have answered them here.
Zooming out though, another question that ties to the above would be this: On the discovery and ban of the violators of this CoC, for how long would they be banned/suspended? Would it span over a six-month/12-month period? Or more?
Finally, is there a rationale behind this 3% of all votable tokens? Just wondering, and please point me in the right direction if there is one already.
Great questions @WinVerse! When it comes to the length of a suspension or issuing a permeant ban from the Delegate Incentive Program, that decision remains up to the program administrator. Say for example a delegate repeatedly fails to disclose a conflict of interest. The program administrator of the DIP may decide that the delegate is failing to meet the eligibility requirements of the program and should be suspended for 12 months (this number was arbitrarily chosen as an example). The delegate would have the ability to appeal this decision to the DAO, arguing for example the punishment is excessive (should be say 6 months) or their actions do not warrant a suspension at all. This would be a one-time appeal by the delegate, and the results from the vote would be final.
As it is written currently, an individual/entity who is forcibly removed from a DAO-elected position is not suspended or banned from the DAO. We imagine that if an elected representative refuses to resign and has to be removed through a vote, it would be unlikely for them to be elected to another position of power. However, if that individual/entity is also a delegate participating in the DIP, the program administrator has the right to suspend/ban them based on the severity of their actions.
The 3% of all votable tokens quorum comes from the Arbitrum Constitution and is the requirement for a non-constitutional proposal to pass onchain. Temperature checks technically don’t have a quorum requirement as stated in the Constitution, but Entropy has made it standard practice to include this threshold in our proposals.
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Hi, it’s great work of combining best practices from other DAOs.
Very detailed code.
I am confused by the requirements for Responsible Voting: these restrictions can be circumvented by formally observing all the rules of the code, temporarily redistributing your tokens to other addresses.
The second point is a conflict of interest. Many delegates represent companies that do not provide their employees with information about conflicts of interest. If a delegate votes in accordance with the interests of the Arbitration, it would be wrong to punish him for ignorance.
Besides - who will monitor all this?
I also believe that immediate disqualification should not be applied. Any accusation should have the possibility of acquittal.
Great work @Entropy! We believe the proposed Code of Conduct is well crafted and are happy to support it.
A few thoughts:
- Gauntlet supports the establishment of a delegate Code of Conduct and the delegation of operational ARB reserves to the Arbitrum Exclude Address.
- One area that may not be necessary is the voting schedule for Tally. It feels a bit excessive after a couple of months, given that there is a 14-day voting period. In general, dealing with canceling proposals that were not posted on Thursday was more annoying than posting proposals in random order. That said, this is not a critical issue, and we will support the DAO’s consensus on the issue.
- As for conflict of interest, disclosure is certainly appropriate after the DAO vote on the topic. That said, posting before self-voting seems redundant, assuming this is communicated in a delegate’s rationale posting.
- A holiday break is reasonable when resources are likely lower for delegates to review proposals diligently, especially considering recent governance events at Compound.
Lastly, and more generally, it is worth flagging that as the DAO matures, several inclusions here make the DAO significantly more bureaucratic. The changes aren’t bad, but the vision of DAOs is to trend away from human intervention by leveraging onchain execution to handle enforcement rather than bureaucratic policies. If the DAO is serious about these changes, it’s worth translating some of these social principles, which will inevitably get buried in the forum, into more robust onchain parameters, so we do not waste time re-posting votes, canceling votes, etc.
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We support this proposal and encourage all delegates to uphold the highest standards of conduct.
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.
Glad to see our suggestion around this got included. Like we talked about, the current delegations from holdings of various initiatives are inconsistent. Some parts have been delegated to the exclude address, some have been delegated to specific delegates, and other have not been delegated at all. It may not be part of this proposal but is there a plan to do an audit on the current state of this and make any changes necessary?
Hi, are you asking whether there has been a technical audit report of the exclude address?
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of Chain_L (@Blueweb), @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
Delegates play a crucial role as representatives of the DAO, and thus, transparency and integrity are fundamental. Thank you for putting together this comprehensive proposal.
The definitions around self-enrichment and conflicts of interest are well-articulated, yet implementation remains challenging. During your research, what methods or practices did you find to be the most effective for enforcing these standards?
Regarding weighted voting, while it has benefits, it also carries the risk of skewed voting outcomes based on individual perceptions, potentially undermining objectivity. Are you proposing that weighted voting be applied universally to all proposal types, or is it intended specifically for elections?
On the matter of soft enforcement, do you think this approach might reduce the policy’s impact, essentially rendering it ‘toothless’?
Lastly, we strongly agree with Exclude address delegation for program funds. This is an essential measure that we believe was overlooked until now.
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Thanks for sharing this @Entropy
Here are my thoughts:
- As this Code of Conduct is largely subjective, it could be helpful to include a list of (non-exhaustive) examples of what constitutes good/bad delegate behaviour so that delegates can better understand the proposed code of conduct. We created a similar list to outline ‘Good (And Bad) Values and Practices of Security Council Members’, here.
- It could be interesting to see how Non-Violent Communication (NVC) theory can be applied to the ‘Civility and Professionalism’ and ‘Soft-Enforcement of the Delegate Code of Conduct’ sections, to foster a more constructive and respectful dialogue within the community. NVC is a communication framework designed to foster empathetic, compassionate interactions, and to help people resolve conflicts peacefully. Its core idea is to communicate in a way that encourages understanding and connection, rather than defensiveness or aggression.
- In the ‘Delegating to the Arbitrum Exclude Address’ section it might be worth mentioning that any delegates who do not want to or are unable to participate in governance should also delegate their ARB to the exclude address, as outlined here.
- In the ‘Conflicts of Interest, Disclosure and Transparency Policy’ section, it could be worth mentioning that if this proposal passes, a ‘Conflict of Interest’ category can be added to the Proposal Structure template outlined in the Arbitrum governance docs. This would make it clear to delegates that they should include a disclosure statement of any conflicts at the bottom of any proposals they may author.
- In the ‘Due Care and Attention’ section, it might be worth listing out the various ways to keep up with the DAO’s ongoings, for example: tuning into the recurring governance calls on the Governance Calendar, following the Delegate Announcements TG channel, Arbitrum Delegegates TG group, following the Arbitrum Governance Twitter Handle, reading the weekly update forum posts, etc.
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Hello! Thank you very much for this proposal. Like most people, I agree with almost everything in its content.
Regarding the point raised by everyone
my suggestion is to modify the wording as follows: “Prioritize the controversy itself”
This way, it’s clear that the aim is to avoid noise for the sake of noise itself. Although it was clarified in the thread, Private mediation still sounds as if things should be resolved privately, when the ideal place for discussion—at least in my opinion—is the public forum.
On another note, why not simply call this proposal the “Arbitrum Code of Conduct”? I believe it goes well beyond just the expected behavior of delegates.
Lastly, I have a question regarding the following:
Why are we tightening an oversight requirement of the DAO? Maybe it was discussed somewhere, and I missed it. tbh, I’m not sure if I’m for or against it, but in practice, it makes it more complicated to remove someone. I’d love to understand the rationale. I understand that this would align the threshold required for on-chain votes, but in reality, this is an off-chain vote. I’d be okay with it being a simple majority of the total votes, without a threshold.
No, just meant checking over all the places ARB was distributed to and making sure they’re delegating to the exclude address. Probably should’ve picked a better word there, sorry for the confusion!
We are in FAVOUR of adopting a Code of Conduct to improve the operations of the Arbitrum DAO.
However, we share similar concerns than other delegates have highlighted.
In particular, we believe more information needs to be presented in terms of the clear procedures for monitoring and accountability, as well as “hard enforcement” (e.g., how to enforce a COI for a delegate, an organism, or a framework to proceed in case of malicious behavior). This is necessary to avoid situations where proposals have been approved and there is no designated entity to monitor - while anyone can bring a violation forward we believe it is important the incentives are aligned and we ensure the creation of an overall framework on this part as well.
Furthermore, there may be an issue around the re-delegation of voting power away from bad actors (who might have infringed the code of conduct or COI). Perhaps this could be analysed within the context of stARB and other delegator incentive mechanisms to link delegation and staking.
As a new Delegate, I fully support this code of conduct and am eager to adhere to it. I also appreciate the resources @raam shared; they are very helpful for keeping up with DAO activities.
Several delegates have mentioned that enforcement and monitoring can be challenging due to the DAO’s permissionless nature. While there may not be a perfect solution, one approach could be to foster a vigilant community and encourage key contributors to have skin in the game and not remain entirely anonymous.
I concur with @SEEDGov that taking a holiday break is necessary, but it could also potentially open us up to governance attacks. Is it possible to prevent new proposals on Tally during this period as a precaution? If an emergency arises, the Security Council could address it. Would this approach be technically feasible, and are there any potential drawbacks?
Thank you for your excellent work, @Entropy !
Thank you to Entropy for bringing this proposal forward. We agree that establishing a core set of values and behaviors is essential to fostering a professional culture grounded in integrity and transparency. We also appreciate the thorough research behind this proposal and the inspiration drawn from other DAOs.
We just have one question regarding the Conflict Resolution Form: Will individuals have an opportunity to provide a rebuttal or defense? Clarifying this would help ensure a fair and transparent process for all parties involved.
Well said! every forum needs a moderator and this proposal acts as such; Everyone has to be accountable for their actions and this will definetly promote productive communication. I am also concerned regarding the sanctions to delegates holding their own delegation, if there is a way to prevent or audit this type of scenarios it would be of great value for the community! 
I had a similar argument regarding the “token swap pilot” specifically the conflict of interests part with the dealmakers, for the sake of the community we must detect such code violations and apply sanctions accordingly.
We appreciate the other delegates who have brought up rightful concerns about the lack of hard enforcement and ability to subvert certain proposed policies such as Responsible Voting. We hope the additional rationale below appeases some of these concerns.
To reiterate, the Arbitrum DAO Code of Conduct is a set of guiding principles for interactions between delegates, it is the standard we should hold each other to meet. These guiding principles were written in a “positive” framing as opposed to listing rules or prohibiting certain behavior; the only exceptions being the obvious severe violations, which are as follows:
The soft-enforcement proposed is based on the idea that a delegate who demonstrates repeated disregard for the Code of Conduct, say for example by repeatedly leaving toxic, non-constructive feedback or multiple instances of failing to disclose a COI, should not be receiving compensation from the DAO in the form of the DIP or an elected position.
Hard enforcement in the form of suspensions or bans from all DAO discussions would only be somewhat effective. As correctly identified by other delegates, any individual can just transfer their voting power to another address and make a new anon forum account. While social reputation can’t be transferred, it can be rebuilt under a new name.
Overall, our team strongly believes that hard enforcement of specific behaviors is not advisable and would be counterproductive. In addition to being difficult to fully monitor, we fear that creating an extensive list of prohibited behaviors will only grow over time, adding even more bureaucracy and eventually crossing a threshold where delegate speech/actions are too constrained, thus smothering healthy debate.
Conflict Resolution
We’d also like to also clarify which aspects of the Code of Conduct involve the Arbitrum Foundation. The Arbitrum Foundation is currently responsible for upholding the Community Guidelines. As explained in the proposal, we are proposing that their role be slightly expanded in two ways:
- Serving as a mediator in the instance of conflict between two (or several) delegates.
- Investigating reported instances of suspected collusion in elections where delegates may be seeking to subvert the Responsible Voting policy.
They are not responsible for enforcing the guideline principles of the Code of Conduct.
Our team is currently talking with the Foundation about updating the Community Guidelines so that they are a bit more comprehensive and also include the severe violations listed in the Code of Conduct. However, we view this as a responsibility of the Foundation and should be something brought forward by their team.
Once a party submits a request using the Conflict Resolution Form, the matter is in the hands of the Arbitrum Foundation and resolved through their own internal procedures. In general though, yes, the accused individual will have an opportunity for rebuttal and to present their side of the story.
Again, we encourage delegates and contributors to resolve conflicts privately. Once taken to the Foundation, their decision and resolution is final. The process has been designed in this matter so that the DAO is not involved in resolving or hearing appeals in regards to delegate <> delegate conflicts.
Additional Questions
This is a valid concern and Entropy does not wish to create redundant work for delegates. However, in this case, we feel it is important for a delegate to disclose a COI before voting. Some delegates wait until the end of the month to communicate rationale; it would be unfortunate if a COI that would have influenced the voting decision of delegates came out weeks later. This could be especially impactful in the case of elections.
This is a good question, when drafting the Improving Predictability proposal, our team considered if it was worth preventing proposals from even being posted on Tally during the Holiday Break. After weighing the tradeoffs, we deemed that it was not worth sacrificing the flexibility to post an emergency proposal if for an unforeseen reason it was necessary. We’ll refer to our response above for additional rationale:
We are proposing weighted voting for only elections, not for all proposal types.
This would only apply to DAO approved initiatives going forward, but Entropy has been working on a transparency page for funds in the MSS and other multi-sigs. While not part of this proposal, we can do a quick audit to see which programs are not yet delegated to the Exclude Address.
Updates to the Proposal
We have updated the proposal to include some of the suggestions from @raam. This included extra language and instructions about how to delegate to the Exclude Address, adding a COI section to the recommended proposal structure, and updating the Due Care and Attention section with a few suggestions on how delegates can stay up to date with DAO initiatives.
Additional language was added for both the Holiday Break and for how contributors should report suspected collusion in elections (participants teaming up to circumvent the Responsible Voting policy) to the Foundation:
Lastly, the following line has been removed:
And replaced with the following guiding principle under the Civility and Professionalism section:
We will be posting this proposal to Snapshot shortly.
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Voting in favour of the code of conduct.
First, we are getting big enough that we need at least a piece of paper in which is stated: this is good, this is ok, this can likely have bad consequences. Otherwise, with the amount of people we have, there will be at some point malicious actor that would just justify their action by saying that it was not written anywhere.
While I can understand that most are concerned about hard implementation, I think the soft one is fine, for one reason: if we come to the point of having to exclude someone from the dao life (dip, or other), it is unlikely to come from just a single event. It will come from a behaviour, over time, that will show poor alignment with the dao as a whole, likely culminating with a single event that can be used as a proxy.
I am again positive, and optimist, on the fact that all the og and good delegates we have in here will just constantly observe what happens in the forum, in the chat, in the vote rationale, and also in twitter, and will do their best to solve conflicts and realign parties before we come to the point of having to take actions based on violation of the code of conduct.
Also thanks entropy for this!
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