IIP-92: Meta-Governance Committee 2.0

[mel.eth]

@mel.eth

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.

I don’t have much to add to my late comments on IIP-51 but I’ll try and be a bit more explicit in what I’m looking to have answered. While I find the implementation of the renewed initiative a bit odd, at least until I can get Ethereum block numbers to show up on my Google calendar, my main concerns here are around:

1. Why is it important that IC vote in every metagov vote?
2. Why is it important to have a quorum on metagov votes? Has a reduction or removal of quorum been considered?
3. Monthly elections and rewards for the MGC will become more formalized with the passing of this IIP and equate to approximately 1 FT non-tech-contributor reward package . . . is it worth it?
4. How do ambassadors inform the process and should we formalize that initiative within this one?
5. Are representatives free to vote their own interests, or is there an expectation by the community that they will put personal interests aside and vote in favor of Coop sustainability, should those two things be at odds? If the latter, should that be made explicit? Should COI disclosure requirements for MGC voters be established?

I realize I’m asking a lot. The work on this proposal, the efforts by the MCG, and any forthcoming responses are all super appreciated. Thank you.