The Arbitrum Coalition
Vote: Fund the Coalition
Going forward, large DAOs need to begin hiring professional research and development contractors to equip voters with the information to make informed decisions. Expecting token holders & delegates to over a long period of time and remain consistently up-to-date about proposals is idealistic. Mitigating issues like groupthink is quite difficult and becomes increasingly prominent with technically complex or cumbersome proposals, like the STIP process. Funding well-known groups like Blockworks and Gauntlet to provide data-driven summaries and recommendations is a step towards alleviating voter fatigue/apathy along with groupthink.
The proposal is formatted in a manner that can reasonably prevent concentration of power amongst a small group of service providers. For example, the Advocate will act as the intermediary between the coalition and the DAO, hopefully creating proper checks and balances. We trust that the members that we are electing will act in an unbiased manner and not directionally influence voting decisions. Our previous interactions with the Blockworks and Gauntlet teams is why we can make such a statement.
One of our main concerns, however, is how turnover will be handled between service providers. If a certain SP decides to leave the coalition and they have remaining work to complete, that can become an issue. The departure of an SP that’s had a long tenure is also a friction point. Each new SP will have to go through a slight learning curve to provide services on par with the quality of the previous SP. A good example of this issue can be seen in Aave DAO, in particular with the departure of Llama.