IIP-51 Form a Meta-Governance Committee

Governance Proposal
1

IIP: 51
Title: Form a Meta-Governance Committee
Status: Proposed
Author(s): @Lavi @cedrick @ncitron @kiba @anon10525910
Discussions-to: **Updated** Proposal to form a MetaGovernance Committee Created: June 22, 2021

Simple Summary

We propose to form a Meta-Governance Committee (MGC) that is given full delegation of all INDEX meta-governance votes in any meta-governance proposal in which quorum is not reached by the community.

Abstract

In order to address a failure to reach quorum on a growing number of meta-governance votes, we propose to create a Meta-Governance Committee of five individuals, elected for a 3-month term, who will be given full delegation of all meta-governance votes in any meta-governance proposal in which quorum is not reached by INDEX holders. There is no proposed change to the current meta-governance process (detailed here) for any votes in which INDEX holders do reach quorum. There is also no change or impact for any non-meta-governance votes.

Each member of the MGC will receive a monthly stipend of $1,500 to compensate for time and attention to meta-gov votes.‌

Motivation

We hardly reach quorum on meta-governance votes. An analysis of the most recent meta-governance votes shows a clear picture: for the period from April through today, we reached quorum on meta-gov votes less than 25% of the time, which means Index Coop is not making use of this important value proposition of the INDEX token in ~75% of votes.

Why? Some educated guesses:

  • Voter fatigue: frequency of meta-gov votes has increased substantially. The voting frequency will only increase more, now that Balancer and Yearn are live and others may come online in the future.
  • Nature of these votes: most meta-gov votes are “house-keeping” votes that are not met with great interest or cause much debate.

Specification

Overview

The proposed MGC will serve as a backstop to our current INDEX meta-governance voting structure. By only operating when quorum on meta-governance votes is not reached, the MGC is designed to prioritize decision-making by INDEX holders, but serves to ensure that Index Coop participates in meta-governance even when INDEX holders choose not to participate in a meta-governance vote (as is often the case for more routine, “house-keeping” type meta-governance proposals).

Rationale

The MGC is our solution for meta-governance as both Index Coop and meta-governance scale. By not engaging in meta-governance for most votes, we are missing an opportunity to further build trust and rapport with the protocols within DPI and build value for Index Coop. By having the MGC, Index Coop will be able to participate in every meta-governance vote. As a consistent, thoughtful participant in meta-governance with tens of millions of dollars worth of votes per protocol, we will be able to strengthen our ties with each protocol, expand our influence in the DeFi ecosystem, and support those proposals which are most important to Index Coop.

Further motivations, considerations and community discussion can be found in the prior forum discussion here.

Technical Specification

  • Any meta-governance vote that reaches quorum continues to be decided accordingly by INDEX holders (as is done today)
  • For any meta-governance vote that does not reach quorum, the MGC acts as a backstop to ensure that Index Coop participates in the vote: the MGC is given full discretion to decide the outcome and vote on behalf of all INDEX holders
  • The MGC will serve a 3-month term, with community nominations and an election to determine the next slate occurring prior to the end of the term
  • It is the MGC’s responsibility to thoroughly review, analyze and decide votes to fulfill Index Coop’s meta-governance duty and privilege
  • The MGC will initially consist of the following individuals for a 3-month term:
  • A 3 of 5 majority is required for the MGC to vote
  • The MGC will be supported by the protocol ambassadors as needed
  • INDEX holders can call for any or all MGC members to be replaced at any time via IIP and Snapshot vote as a backstop in the unlikely case of major MGC / Index Coop disagreement
  • The MGC will report all decisions/votes back to Index Coop in a transparent way (e.g., at minimum, announcing each vote to Index Coop and, for any votes which are more controversial or disagree with the majority, providing an explanation for why MGC voted the way it did.
  • Each member of the MGC will receive a monthly stipend of $1,500 to compensate for time and attention to meta-gov votes.‌

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.

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@anon10525910 @puniaviision @dylan - just tagging for visibility per our IIP guidelines. We’d love to get this up for voting on Snapshot as soon as possible, either batched with any other proposals or standalone. Let us know what we can do to help make that happen and if we can confirm this will be IIP-50. Thanks!

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putting on my IIP editor hat :nerd_face: could you please use the IIP template?

for now, I am removing “50” and replacing it with “XX”

More on the step-by-step IIP process here.

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Thanks, just converted it over to the template style. Happy to incorporate any comments, and just let me know of next steps.

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Bumping this to flag that the post has been edited to reflect @oneski22 joining the proposed MGC (replacing Greg, due to time constraints).

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just noticing that I’m listed as an author here – i don’t think i authored this :thinking: am i losing my mind?

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This has been upgraded to an IIP: IIP-51 Form a Meta-Governance Committee - Index Coop Community Handbook

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Snapshot vote is scheduled for Monday: Snapshot

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Just dropping a note in here, as I’d like to see an amendment in the next 3-month renewal round.

There is some discussion in the original post about how the Ambassadors feed into the MGCs decision making process, and it’s mentioned briefly here, but this IIP in my opinion fails to do a few things:

  1. Establish some philosophical guidelines on how the community feels the MGC should vote. I’d be happy even if it were stated that the MGC had a mandate to “vote in-line with the sustainability of The Coop and ecosystem overall”. Literally anything more substantial than 5 people having unlimited discretion for a 3-month period. I do like that there will be a post-mortem statement for contentious votes.
  2. Establish why it’s important that The Coop participate in every vote. Failure to meet quorum seems absolutely fine to me from a metagov standpoint, and we could have achieved a less centralized result here by just eliminating quorum. Even a contributor sentiment poll would be preferable in my opinion.
  3. Establish how incentivizing participation for participation’s sake is worth The Coop paying $7,500 a month for - and conversely failing to address compensation for Ambassadors who do the work of gathering the info.
  4. Finally, I would like to see one of the 5 votes be left open, to be filled by the relevant Ambassador; or at least have that Ambassador’s input be incorporated in a more formalized way.

My main issue with this initiative is that governance is the most powerful tool that tokens confer, and we’re centralizing the bulk of it without an adequate explanation of why or any meaningful guardrails around that whatsoever. DAOs are considering paying large sums of money to gain governance power and we’re acting pretty cavalier about it here. Not looking to change an already passed IIP (and I’m annoyed with myself that I didn’t raise these points at a more appropriate time), but I do think it’s worth giving this more thought when looking to renew this in three months time.

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