The below response reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking and ideation of the two.
As we stated in our original response during temp check, we believe the requested amount is too large. We hoped to see a revised proposal at the on-chain vote as we really believe in retroactively rewarding early contributors and our concerns are around the amount, as well as the process in which we assess the contributions to reach that amount.
However, since no such revision took place, we’ll stand by our decision and vote against this proposal in the on-chain vote.
Given that it’s a decision we did not make lightly, we wanted to provide some transparency in the information and thinking that led us to it.
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In our opinion, retroactive contributions are to be seen as an appreciation gesture rather than compensation. Arbiters were contributing to the DAO voluntarily and without any promise of compensation from the DAO. Of course, we appreciate their contributions immensely, especially since it was at a time when the DAO was still at its infancy. It’s important to make the distinction between compensating work to be done , and rewarding contributions made.
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Second thing is that we do not fully understand why the calculations are based off of 2x the max airdrop amount. As the airdrop can be interpreted as the reward for early contribution as well, it would seem only fair to have the cap on those rewards at the same level.
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We also tried to asses the proposal by trying to think whether we’d support it if it was forward-facing instead of retroactive. We asked ourselves whether we’d support funding 24 individuals for vaguely defined contributions in Arbitrum Discord for a year with 500,000 ARB. Although it’s not directly comparable to the case at hand, it’s an interesting exercise which can help gain some perspective.
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Lastly, since the amount per individual is ~20,000 ARB, we thought whether there are individuals in the DAO that received similar funding for contributions, and then we tried comparing the contributions (to the extent that they can be compared) to see if there are any discrepancies.
One such case was the compensation proposed for spearheading the STIP, from organising the working group, moving the proposal through the governance process and through different iterations, overseeing the execution, and coordinating with delegates. It was a lot of work in a very short period of time which arguably had a lot of impact in the DAO.
The sample of contributions provided by Arbiters in the discussion would be comparable if they represented the contributions of a single person. However, if we are to mentally divide the work among the 25 Arbiters, then the 20,000 ARB/person (500k ARB in total) request seems too high.
With that in mind, and while we understand that the contributions Arbiters made were more open-ended and it’s way more difficult to measure the impact they had, we feel there’s a discrepancy between the 20,000 ARB and the value delivered in each case.
TL;DR: We’re voting against the proposal, but if the Arbiters were to submit another proposal where the ask amount was significantly reduced and/or clearer information about the contributions of each Arbiter, we’d be much more inclined to vote in its favor.