These comments and thoughts reflect my personal opinions on this proposal. Whilst I am a member of the Arbitrum Representative Council (ARC), they do not necessarily represent the overall views of the council or provide an indication of final voting decision.
Thank you for sharing this post, @Bob-Rossi. Your thoughts on this topic are greatly appreciated. As the DAO evolves, establishing clear guidelines regarding voting mechanisms is going to become increasingly important.
I’ve provided my perspective and recommended actions for each of the major issues listed. One material change could be to break down the proposed adjustments into individual snapshot votes rather than grouping them together as one holistic set of governance changes. This would allow the DAO to assess, deliberate and ultimately decide on each option independently.
Topic #1 - Voting Mechanism
In my mind there is a tradeoff to the introduction of a standardised voting system. A standardised system could DAO through greater clarity and consistency, but also reduces the autonomy of individual proposal writers to experiment with and select a voting mechanism they feel is most suited to the particular election they are undertaking.
For this reason, and to avoid the issues of “how do we decide how to decide” (a common pitfall when approving multi-option governance and voting changes) I would propose the following action.
Action:
- Run a snapshot proposal where the DAO can provide it’s feedback on whether it would like a standardised approach for election (1) OR leave the election process up to the discretion of the individual proposal writer (2)
- If the DAO is in favour of a standardised process (option 2), we can then run a follow up Snapshot detailing the different voting mechanisms the DAO could choose to select.
Regardless, learning from the LTIPP “self voting” issues, going forward I think it is important for proposals to clearly articulate their election mechanism prior to starting the election process.
Topic #2 - Shutter Voting
I am strongly in support of the introduction of the “Shutter” feature for the reasons articulated above. It would also have the added benefit of reducing the frequency of last minute tactical voting.
Actions
- Run a Snapshot proposal to test the sentiment of the DAO for running elections in future as: “shutter” (1) “non-shutter” (2) or “let the proposal author decide” (3)
Topic #3 - Application Window & Minimum Application Count
I would support the DAO’s initiative to recommend guidelines regarding the optimal length of time for individuals to apply (1) and establish a minimum application count (2).
I’ll need to reflect further on the specific mechanism. If the problem statement is “seven days may not give high quality applications enough time to apply for council positions” , reaching the minimum application threshold within seven days may still leave high quality applications without insufficient time to apply. For that reason we could propose an increased application window of 10 days. This could be combined with a minimum application count (N+2) with the voting rolling over by an additional week if the minimum application count is not reached within the initial 10 day period.
Actions
- Before taking further action I’d love their to be more decision on the Application Window timeline and Minimum Application count
Keen to see what further discussion to bring out, both for topic 3 and the broader proposal.