[RFC-3] Introduction of a new role in governance - Governance Facilitator

Proposals
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Request For Comments: Introduction of a new role in governance - Governance Facilitator

Introduction

In order to improve the order and flows of governance on voting platforms and the forum, as part of the initiatives of a set of RFCs promoted by SEED Latam in collaboration with L2 en Español, we propose the creation of a new role within ArbitrumDAO, the “Governance Facilitator”. This role has already been successfully implemented on other governance platforms such as Decentraland and MakerDAO.

Why do we need Facilitators?

The governance of ArbitrumDAO is in an early stage, which provides an opportunity to establish roles and a robust infrastructure that allows for precise and orderly processes.

Efficient and transparent processes are crucial to scale governance and foster greater participation. For this reason, we propose the incorporation of the Governance Facilitator role.

What is a Governance Facilitator?

The Governance Facilitator is a neutral person, working group, or institution whose goal is to help ArbitrumDAO and the Arbitrum Foundation work efficiently toward the success of Arbitrum L2.

What are the tasks of a Governance Facilitator?

Facilitators serve as a link between the foundation and the community. They must be aware of the governance processes and ensure that they are strictly followed. In addition, they must prepare reports, encourage community collaboration, and guarantee, along with the community, that the governance processes are robust and fair. Their role also includes promoting the continuous improvement of these processes and communicating any changes that may arise.

Given their position, facilitators cannot express preferences for the DAO’s political decisions, but their goal is to ensure process fairness, transparency, and timeliness.

Considerations of the Facilitator Role

For the incorporation of this role, we must take into account the following points:

  • The position must be compensated, and several weekly hours must be established. This is a vital role.
  • The Arbitrum Foundation or ArbitrumDAO can carry out the election of the Facilitator. However, the community should choose it. Note: The elections of the Governance Facilitator could be similar to the election of the security council members.
  • ArbitrumDAO must establish a process for electing the Governance Facilitator.
  • ArbitrumDAO must set a process for removing the Governance Facilitator.
  • ArbitrumDAO can increase the number of facilitators as governance needs it. We believe that starting with one at this early stage is correct.
  • The Facilitator has to be reelected in their position every specific period. We believe their role should be renewed every six months.
  • ArbitrumDAO must establish the main tasks of the Facilitator.

Conclusions

The role of the Governance Facilitator is essential for ArbitrumDAO to scale. We also believe that the community should carry out the election of this role. However, we value the opinion and feedback of the Arbitrum Foundation, which we would like to hear along with that of the community.

Next Steps

SEED Latam and L2 en Español are working on a concrete proposal to establish a system for electing the Facilitator, as well as this role’s clear tasks and objectives.

This RFC seeks to gather the opinion of the DAO in general and the most prominent delegates regarding the role’s function and its election.

We invite all community members to share their opinions on this post, and we will be attentive to combining the feedback received with our proposal.

Check the other RFCs here.

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This is an interesting proposal to say the least. While I do see the need for such a role, @stonecoldpat seems to be playing this at the moment, maybe I am wrong, but I hope he comments here to tell us a bit about the role he’s playing from the foundation side.

On another note, the responsibility of this role needs to be well scoped out similar to the examples which have been listed here from other DAOs. The current scope seems insufficient to need a new role. Finally, we should avoid staging plutocratic popularity contests to select for roles which must be filled by members with skills.

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I 100% agree with this take, maybe the simplest way to address this would be to have the foundation propose a facilitator or team of facilitators, and the DAO votes to approve/reject them. I would also like to see what @stonecoldpat thinks about this since I’ve also seen him as the bridge between the DAO and the foundation, but it might be useful to have a more defined role, specially as the DAO grows.

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We are very lucky to have @cliffton.eth join us at the Arbitrum Foundation. He started with us on Monday and previously he was involved in the governance efforts for the dYdX DAO.

The above role covers a lot of his responsibilities already. His primary focus is DAO governance which includes helping to establish procedures/processes to assist with DAO decision making and supporting all proposals as a neutral party. Hopefully we’ll see his work start to play out over the coming weeks.

It may still be a good idea for the DAO to appoint governance facilitators too. I don’t have a strong opinion on this. It’ll be good to work out the current bottlenecks to governance and whether the above type of role will help resolve it.

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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.

While we are aware of the challenges introducing such a role to the DAO has, we are also skeptical of the ability of the DAO to efficiently coordinate and move initiatives forward at this time without someone actively coordinating efforts.

We’re afraid that if the role of the Governance Facilitator is expected to be taken up by someone at the Foundation, then instead of empowering the DAO, we’re actually delegating more authority and control over to the Foundation. We believe that such a role should be handled by someone elected from the DAO, working closely with @cliffton.eth on the Foundation side.

However, if we elect an individual or an entity from the DAO to assume the role, they might have too much control depending on what their responsibility and authority is. We need clear outline of the facilitator’s responsibilities and powers, as well as a process to remove them, should it be required.

Overall, we’d be supportive of such a proposal, provided there’s a detailed outline of the scope of responsibilities and procedures with which the DAO can manage this role.

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Hi, Arbitrum community! I know I’m new around but I would like share some of my experience regarding the Maker governance. The Governance Facilitator role is crucial to any DAO, directly affecting community cohesion, prompting healthy debates and ensuring effective decision-making. There are some core responsibilities and aspects that the community had in consideration when defining the role at Maker that could be taken into account. In order to keep my answer from being too long, I summarized and adapted these concepts to Arbitrum in this document for the community.

Also, I believe the election process is very important. At Maker, the GovAlpha Core Unit has recently been offboarded by its Facilitators, and the search for new Reserve Facilitators for the Governance Scope prompted some really interesting excercises for candidates (made by a former GovAlpha Facilitator) that could come in handy when defining an election process. You can find these Governance Exercises here.

I hope this info helps to define what the Arbitrum community wants and expects from this role in the DAO.

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We agree on this point.

The @seedlatam delegation led by @cattin has been working on this Draft for the selection of the Facilitator. This document is public and anyone can leave comments:

We understand that this is a sensitive position for the DAO and there must be certain considerations as you mention. We have also been talking with @cliffton.eth who has just started his duties as Facilitator. If anything we don’t want to duplicate efforts and create a double expense for the DAO.

We would also like to know if it is important for the DAO to have a facilitator role. As you can see we have not received many comments.

Our proposal is based on the MakerDAO facilitator role, although there are some differences.

Part of the @seedlatam team working on MakerDAO’s SOFI AVC has collaborated on the above draft. Special thanks to @pedrob who reviewed the draft.

We also had a chat with one of Descentraland’s facilitators to learn more about the role and its tasks. You can watch a talk from him about the role in this video:

Note: @cattin is traveling, so I am responding in his place.

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