Proposal: Addressing Concentration of Roles in the SSV DAO

[King_steve]

Introduction:
The SSV DAO has thrived thanks to the dedication and early contributions of several individuals, such as @BenAffleck , @fod , @SpookyG , @Taiga and @Yorick . Their invaluable efforts have been instrumental in shaping the DAO’s trajectory. However, a selected group of individuals is currently holding multiple roles within the DAO. While i acknowledge and respect their dedication, i believe that the decentralization and diversity of decision-making are fundamental to the DAO’s future success. In this proposal, i aim to discuss the issue of concentration of roles within the DAO and suggest measures to promote inclusivity, transparency, and decentralization.

Issue:
The following individuals currently hold multiple roles within the SSV DAO:

• @BenAffleck : Member of Dleader, DAO Genesis Committee, Grant Committee, Multi-Sig Committee, and an applicant for the Delegate program.
• @fod : Member of Dleader, Multi-Sig Committee, DAO Genesis Committee, and an applicant for the Delegate program.
• @SpookyG : Member of Dleader, Multi-Sig Committee, and DAO Genesis Committee.
• @Yorick : Member of Dleader, Grant Committee, Multi-Sig Committee, and DAO Genesis Committee.
• @Taiga : Member of Dleader, Grant Committee, Multi-Sig Committee, and DAO Genesis Committee.

NOTE: This might not be the names of everyone occupying multiple roles but this proposal is for everyone occupying multiple roles

DAO genesis comittee Members
Dleaders Members
Grant committee members
Multi Sign committee
delegate application

Proposal:
i propose the following actions to address the concentration of roles within the SSV DAO:

1. Encourage Ben, Fod, and Others to Withdraw Delegate Applications: i kindly request Ben, Fod, and any others in similar positions to consider withdrawing their applications for the Delegate program. This gesture will pave the way for new individuals to take on these roles and diversify the decision-making process.

2. Implement a Role Limitation Principle: To ensure that power is not concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, i suggest establishing a DAO principle that limits any individual from holding more than two roles within the DAO. This will help distribute responsibilities and promote a more decentralized decision-making structure.

Formation of a Marketing Committee:
I, along with Shaun and a dedicated group of individuals, are currently in the process of establishing a Marketing Committee within the SSV DAO. This committee’s primary responsibilities will encompass various aspects of community engagement and outreach, including:

• Organizing a Global Ambassador Program: We aim to create a program that will enable enthusiastic community members to represent and promote the SSV DAO globally.

• Funding Local Events: The committee will allocate resources to support local events and initiatives that align with the DAO’s mission and goals.

• Running Community Campaigns: We plan to initiate and manage various community-driven campaigns to foster a sense of participation and unity among community members.

• Managing Partnerships and Marketing Efforts: The Marketing Committee will take the lead in building strategic partnerships and executing marketing strategies that enhance the DAO’s visibility and impact.

We are currently in the process of drafting a well-structured committee program that outlines these responsibilities in more detail.

Community Engagement through Office Hours:
Once we have finalized the structure of the Marketing Committee, we will introduce a series of weekly office hours. These office hours will serve as a platform for open dialogue and collaboration with various stakeholders within the SSV DAO community. We will extend invitations to the DAO Genesis Committee, Dleader, Multi-Sig Committee, Delegates, and, most importantly, the entire community.

During these office hours, we aim to put our collective heads together to refine and optimize the committee’s structure and objectives. We believe that engaging the diverse perspectives and insights of the community is essential in creating a Marketing Committee that not only benefits the DAO but also the community.

We look forward to collaborating with the community in this endeavor and building a Marketing Committee that strengthens the SSV DAO’s presence, fosters community involvement, and advances our shared vision for a decentralized future.

Conclusion:
i recognize and respect the significant contributions of early supporters like @BenAffleck , @fod , @SpookyG , @Taiga and @Yorick . However, for the SSV DAO to fulfill its vision of true decentralization, we must address the issue of role concentration. By encouraging individuals to limit their roles and implementing a role limitation principle, we can foster a more inclusive and diverse decision-making process. Additionally, the establishment of a Marketing Committee aims to enhance the DAO’s outreach and engagement efforts. We appreciate the community’s input and hope to collectively build a stronger and more decentralized SSV DAO.
Let us move forward with respect for our pioneers and an eye toward a brighter, more inclusive future.

Please Vote and Share Your Opinion:

Do you support this proposal?

• YES I SUPPORT THIS PROPOSAL AND ROLES LIMITATION
• NO I’M AGAINST THIS PROPOSAL

[badkid]

To be a ‘mature’ Dao, SSV still has a lot of space and “should Daoise SSV” is always my concern.

Regarding the current committees, Dleaders is overlapping with what core team is doing like Dleaders (bd, integration & marketing) and I prefer the core team keeps doing it instead of the committee.

Grant committee has done an awesome job in my view.

Multi Sign committee including OGs in staking areas seems playing a guard role in SSV and it is nice to see them to be involved, but can’t have more inputs on it since I don’t see any update on it so far.

btw, for some regular or fulltime contributors, I do think we could have multiples roles but they shouldn’t have multiple compensation sources. they could apply for a fixed compensation.

Appreciate what you proposed but some of the responsibilities of marketing committee have been taken by the core team and they are supposed to keep taking imo.

Last, one of the important tasks for the Dao is to involve more delegations

[King_steve]

@badkid I appreciate your perspective and completely understand your point of view.

When we analyze a DAO , it’s crucial to emphasize the importance of having various individuals occupying diverse roles within the system. If a specific group consistently holds all the positions of power, the DAO essentially becomes centralized, which goes against the principles of decentralization.

In a healthy DAO, diversity of opinions, suggestions, and ideas is essential for its growth and resilience. It’s admirable that some individuals, like @BenAffleck @fod and others, have been instrumental in spearheading the DAO’s activities over the years. However, I’m not suggesting an immediate departure from their current roles. Instead, it would be prudent for them to consider a gradual transition plan, starting by relinquishing some of their responsibilities and opening up those roles to other community members.

Concerning the delegation program , we could initiate a campaign or promotion to encourage more community members to participate in the delegation program (example the case of kyberdao you can see the promotion they did to ensure the promotion of their delegation program and the number of applications they have ). This would ensure a more inclusive and diverse representation within the DAO. Furthermore, individuals like @BenAffleck @fod should withdraw their applications from the delegation program to allow new voices to emerge and actively work on plans to hand over the positions they currently hold. By setting a target, such as Q1 2024, for limiting individuals to a maximum of two positions, we can prevent a concentration of power within the DAO.

This approach will encourage more community members to step up and contribute to the DAO’s governance, preventing the monopolization of power by the original members and fostering a more decentralized and democratic decision-making process.

My opinion is not about compensation it’s about decision making of the dao
It shouldn’t be made by only 5 to 6 panel of people

[Shaun-Eth]

I agree with @King_steve’s points.

Regarding the point raised by @badkid about marketing being covered by the core team, the reality is that the DAO is moving in the direction of becoming independently functional: the Foundation is being finalised. Sooner or later, marketing will become a necesary function that the DAO will want to grow.

It makes sense to set things in motion now by setting up a committee and agreeing with the community what policies we need to put in place and how we aim to grow the community going forward. This is something we should be developing in the meantime in preparation for when the DAO continues the marketing.

Unfortunately, right now, we have a community with little engagement - why? Because there are no opportunities for people to get involved. We have a lack of diversity in committees, all pretty much consisting of the same people, and members have no other ways of being able to contribute or earn in the DAO because Blox is managing all the marketing activities.

We should be funding internal initiatives within the DAO, giving people opportunites to get involved and develop valuable content, even develop additional income streams to the DAO. But it can only happen if we start to give community members the opportunity through internal initiatives.

[badkid]

@Shaun-Eth

and members have no other ways of being able to contribute or earn in the DAO because Blox is managing all the marketing activities

can’t get your point here. Contributors still can apply for the other roles except the marketing. If you think Dao needs more contributors, you have to clearly list what positions it needs.

If you think it is bad for blox to manage all the mkt things, one of the solutions is to move the marketing team from Blox to Dao.

btw, In ssv’s context, what is the responsibilites of marketing?

[Adamefr]

Guys, how about you join the committees? always need more working hands and good people to get involved in the DAO

Regarding the proposal, not really clear what are the actual changes you want to introduce. Easiest way to promote this initiative is to start working on DAO related assignments and pitch in

Good luck

[King_steve]

Hello @badkid I don’t understand your point on this but let’s go back to the basics

1. What is a DAO
2. What is the best practices of a DAO
3. What are the benefits of a DAO

What is a DAO

DAOs are key mechanisms for Web3 community members to administer the organization and manage community resources. They enable decentralized, transparent, and democratic decision-making

What is the best practices of a DAO

1. Community engagement: Because DAOs are community-driven, engaging with the community and creating relationships with members is crucial.

2. Transparency: Since DAOs are built on the principles of openness and transparency, it is crucial to be upfront about the DAO’s governance, decision-making, and operational procedures.

3. Education: Because DAOs can be complicated, it’s important to inform the community and potential users on how they operate, their advantages, and their drawbacks.

4. Incentives: DAOs can use incentives like tokens, prizes, and recognition to promote involvement and engagement in the community.

What are the benefits of a DAO

1. Decentralized decision-making: DAOs enable decentralized, open, and democratic decision-making, allowing community members more influence over how the organization is administered.

2. Security: Transparent, tamper-proof smart contracts are used to protect DAOs. This lowers the possibility of fraud and corruption and increases the security of public resources.

3. Cost-effective: DAOs do away with the need for middlemen like corporations, governments, or banks, which lowers the expenses associated with conventional organizational structures.

4. Flexibility: DAOs can be modified to meet the particular requirements of the community. Greater adaptability and responsiveness to changing circumstances are made possible by this.

All of this successfully makes a dao and when you take a closer look on what is going on with SSV you will see we are far from decentralization

The first challenge is Blox is not suppose to handle the marketing activities of the dao but I understand there was a need to give contract to an organization to manage the marketing activities of the dao since we are still growing and the likes of Ben and others have done amazing work in establishing so many core committees to push us into full decentralization but the marketing aspect of it is still missing
The marketing is one of the core aspect of a DAO which is still missing

What Ben said on discord

I and a small group of individuals have volunteered to construct a marketing committee we are still working on the structure when it’s done we will have a series of office hours with Dleader , genesis committee, multi sig committee and other entity including the entire community and blox In other to create a marketing committee for the DAO

Another thing to Also consider is transparency we are still a bit far from transparency every info on each committee meeting should be publish on the forum

1. What are they discussing?
2. what is going on in the dao ?
   Every meeting should be publish
   Feedbacks from the community should be taken into considerations as well on this meeting

Application for grant committee which I have applied ,Who are the ones deciding on who to join the committee ?
How are these decisions made ?
All of this should be made public and open

The last things to look into is the concentration of roles
How can we be fully decentralized when we have only few people in all the
Committee this is completely wrong if 1 person should belong to all the committee and makes decisions this is partially saying the dao is centralize and decision is made by only few people in power ,a wide range of people involve in these committees will bring more voices into decision making

I have applied to join the grant committee and am drafting a marketing committee
I should not be allow by the DAO principles to Contest for another position on the dao

So you badkid and every other person can have a voice in different committees as well

Community involvement is very low there should be community campaigns , regional events to increase our global outreach .
Everyone in the community should be allowed to take part in the growth of the project

[King_steve]

@Adamefr

Guys, how about you join the committees? always need more working hands and good people to get involved in the DAO

I have recently applied to join the grant committee

@Adamefr

Regarding the proposal, not really clear what are the actual changes you want to introduce.

The main changes is to allow the community to be more involve in the dao we have several committees these committees should be run by different individuals

This is essential for decentralization and decision making

[fod]

Thank you for bringing this concern to the community! We do have a lot of the same people filling multiple roles around here, and this isn’t ideal. It’s in our best interest to get more people involved and staff these various roles with a more diverse set of people. The individuals you mentioned (myself included) are often taking roles and spearheading initiatives simply because there have been critical gaps that have needed to be filled. For example, I recently applied to be a delegate because 1) we really need delegation to help remedy our low voter participation, which has been hindering the DAO, and 2) because very few others applied.

In my opinion, the solution isn’t for highly-involved contributors to start stepping down from their roles. Instead, as suggested, it’s for us to recruit others to also be highly-involved contributors.

Up to now, we have struggled to do this, and I think we would benefit from having some new programs that give community members a clearer path to contribute meaningfully. Applying to committees is great and important (please do that everyone!), but we can also do more. It would be nice to have a way to contribute more casually, like a guerilla marketing/education group, more ambassadors to drive engagement and discussion, or maybe just some kind of “community journey” that gives some guidance for people that want to be more involved.

This is all tricky though, especially when you start throwing possible compensation into the mix. We haven’t even gotten the Foundation created or our compensation policies completed yet, period, let alone for small or non-committed roles. So there’s just a lot of work to still be done until these issues are fully addressed and we have a well-functioning machine.

Regardless, again, thank you for bringing it up, and I hope you continue to contribute here. Please keep in touch (and feel free to reach out) and keep your eyes open for opportunities as we continue moving forward. Or always feel free to just take initiative yourself in the meantime… that’s how most of us started contributing initially, and good work will get you noticed. I sincerely appreciate that you took the initiative here.

[King_steve]

@fod

Thank you for bringing this concern to the community! We do have a lot of the same people filling multiple roles around here, and this isn’t ideal. It’s in our best interest to get more people involved and staff these various roles with a more diverse set of people. The individuals you mentioned (myself included) are often taking roles and spearheading initiatives simply because there have been critical gaps that have needed to be filled

Thank you, Fod, for taking the time to look into this proposal. I really appreciate it. Thank you also for acknowledging that this is not an ideal way for a DAO to operate. I understand your point vividly,

@fod

In my opinion, the solution isn’t for highly-involved contributors to start stepping down from their roles. Instead, as suggested, it’s for us to recruit others to also be highly-involved contributors.

we don’t have many people who are willing to take up initiatives, and I admire the work you and others have done to keep this DAO going. I mean, taking on all of the workload alone is quite stressful

@fod

For example, I recently applied to be a delegate because 1) we really need delegation to help remedy our low voter participation, which has been hindering the DAO, and 2) because very few others applied

I also agree with you, voter apathy is one of the problems of a DAO, and delegation of voting power is the only way to solve this. Although I will recommend that instead of you and others applying for delegation roles, we should open these roles to the public by engaging in a two-month short-term promotion of this opportunity. It’s not that people aren’t interested in these roles, it’s often a lack of awareness that’s preventing us from receiving more applications. Here are a few ways we can create awareness about these roles:

• performance marketing,
• Twitter influencers,
• AMA sessions with the blockchain community,
• and blog posts on platforms like Coin Telegraph.

I believe this approach will work, and we can attract hundreds to thousands of applications

@fod

In my opinion, the solution isn’t for highly-involved contributors to start stepping down from their roles. Instead, as suggested, it’s for us to recruit others to also be highly-involved contributors.

Highly involved contributors shouldn’t immediately leave their roles. We should begin by involving more people . As the DAO continues to grow, highly involved contributors can gradually step down from the various roles they’re handling. It would be good to establish a target time frame, perhaps by Q1 2024 or Q3 2024

@fod

Up to now, we have struggled to do this, and I think we would benefit from having some new programs that give community members a clearer path to contribute meaningfully. Applying to committees is great and important (please do that everyone!), but we can also do more. It would be nice to have a way to contribute more casually, like a guerilla marketing/education group, more ambassadors to drive engagement and discussion, or maybe just some kind of “community journey” that gives some guidance for people that want to be more involved.

One of the ways to get more people involved is by creating opportunities within the DAO. How can we achieve this? We can set up a marketing committee responsible for managing an ambassador program, funding educational events, and rewarding the community for carrying out specific tasks, such as creating memes on Twitter, content, and making videos. We can’t accomplish all of this at once, we need to take it one step at a time. For instance, we could start by creating a community hub where community members actively participate in promoting the project, creating memes, videos, tweets, and more. They can then post their work on the community hub category on the forum for the month. We can analyze their contributions and reward each individual with $20 to $50 per month. While the rewards may not is not much , this will encourage engagement in the DAO, increase contributions, and serve as a stepping stone toward launching a global ambassador program.

Looking forward to contributing more

[Taiga]

@King_steve

@Taiga : Member of Dleader, Grant Committee, Multi-Sig Committee, and DAO Genesis Committee.

Just an orthogonal note, I am no longer in any of those.

I consider there’s always been opportunity for community members to step up into higher-order roles. Most of these interconnected responsibilities came to be due to the DAO’s needs and not a product of nepotism. As the “hiring manager” for one of the committees, the truth is that participation is low when it comes to recruiting.

[King_steve]

Thank you, Taiga. Yes, I know you are no longer a member of most of the committee. Check Discord where I talk about it.

My main point is because it seems like everyone is talking about a lack of interest. You and I can agree that in this crypto space, there are thousands of qualified people who can take these roles. But the problem is not creating awareness. I recommended a few things we can do.

@King_steve

It’s not that people aren’t interested in these roles, it’s often a lack of awareness that’s preventing us from receiving more applications. Here are a few ways we can create awareness about these roles:

• performance marketing,
• Twitter influencers,
• AMA sessions with the blockchain community,
• and blog posts on platforms like Coin Telegraph.

I believe this approach will work, and we can attract hundreds to thousands of applications

We need to scout for fresh ideas, suggestions, and new experiences.

[King_steve]

There has been a lot of ongoing discussion, especially on Discord, regarding this proposal

@fod has raised several reasonable points, many of which I agree with. First, Fod pointed out the lack of involvement of qualified candidates. This is essential, as it is one of the reasons we have many people occupying multiple roles in the DAO when there could be qualified individuals to handle these positions.

I proposed several solutions, including hosting AMAs in blockchain community, writing blog posts on CoinTelegraph and implementing performance marketing. These efforts would bring in hundreds of qualified candidates to fill most of the roles.

Fod also suggested starting a trial phase of a community journey and I support this idea. We can initiate something to see which community members will grow into the DAO and become long term contributors.

Fod also raised issues the DAO is facing, especially concerning the foundation and the compensation framework. I completely agree that the DAO needs to address these matters to ensure its long term sustainability.

In light of these discussions, I have decided to pause the plan to create a marketing committee. The DAO should prioritize addressing these issues first. I’ve also suggested that the DAO be given time to resolve these matters before individuals relinquish their roles. It would be beneficial for the DAO to develop a roadmap and set a target possibly for Q1 2024 or 2025.

Marc, discussed the cost and overall performance of the DAO.

While I understand Marc’s point, I don’t fully accept it for the following reasons. When creating a network one must decide whether it will be centralized or decentralized. Both centralization and decentralization have their principles, benefits, and disadvantages.

Decentralization involves a wide range of people in decision making, as seen in the example of Near Protocol, which has fully transitioned into full decentralization with their Near Digital Collective (NDC) governance. This means that elections are held for every role in the DAO and one person cannot occupy more than one role. This is how a DAO should operate. If only a few individuals occupy most of the power in the DAO and continue to take on more roles with no plans to stop the network operates more like a semi DAO semi CENTRALIZE. To truly become a DAO, we need to set foundations, compensation frameworks, and DAO principles.

It’s a well known issue that coordinating everyone in the DAO can be challenging, but that shouldn’t stop us from moving in the direction of becoming a full fledged DAO as we already are one.

Thank you