Methodologist Permissioning Alignment

[DarkForestCapital]

Posting on behalf of @verto0912 and @BigSky7 who led this work and conversations.

Situation

Approximately, 1 week ago @puniaviision opened up the discussion of the level of permissioning at the smart contract layer Index Coop would like to offer external methodologists when working together. Additionally, @verto0912 and @BigSky7 were tagged to help lead the discussion from the Index Coop perspective.

That post has received comments from both external methodologists and community members. With enough time allocated for discussion, we are ready to propose a framework and align with the community prior to an IIP to implement the changes.

Resolution

Both DeFi Pulse and Titans of Data have expressed their desire to have permissioning ensuring security around fee amounts and fee splits such that it can not be unilaterally changed by either the Methodologist or the Index Coop.

Upon internal discussion, we are happy to meet our external Methodologists here. Doing so will likely require implementing some more complex logic to the Manager contract and the related extensions that @puniaviision described here.

The Index Coop will retain control over other aspects of the manager contract that enable us to move rapidly, add features to our products [metagov, intrinsic productivity], and ensure safety [parameter updates]. Such a separation will give external methodologists the security they desire on the fees, while leaving most product operations to the Index Coop.

It is worth noting that we will always give this option to external methodologists, but there may be some that explicitly do not want or care about having control over the fee and fee split. That is okay, and it isn’t going to be a requirement for us to work with a methodologist.

Next Steps

Unless there is significant push back from the community, we will be turning this into an IIP, proposing it, and getting the vote scheduled to pass this as the standard giving forward with methodologists.

Upon a successful IIP vote, our engineering team will implement the changes on the relevant Manager contracts.

If there is pushback against the conclusion reached here, we will schedule a community call to discuss and align.

Temperature Check

• • FOR: Grant external methodologist security over fee and fee split.
• • AGAINST: Do not grant external methodologist security over fee and fee split.

[Matthew_Graham]

Thank you @DarkForestCapital, @verto0912 and @BigSky7 for taking the time to work through this issue and presenting a clear way to move forward.

Great work gents and thank you for all the effort that has gone into this.

[sixtykeys]

Voted FOR, external methodologists and community members should definitely have a multisig guarantee.

[snasps]

Big thanks to @DarkForestCapital @verto0912 @BigSky7 for taking the lead on this.

At Defi Pulse, we have always been advocates for incentives alignment, and this has been a guiding principle in all of our interactions with the Coop & all of our partners. We have also been very clear and straightforward about the business conditions in which we are able to operate, thrive, and drive value to our partners.

In our opinion, the current permissioning structure of the DPI represents an optimal distribution of responsibilities & guarantees. It would enable every methodologist to operate a sustainable business with the conviction of having a long term-partner in the Coop & its stakeholders. We believe that this is key to every successful partnership and think that, ideally, the Coop should reflect the same permissioning structure with all the methodologists it is partnering with.

Therefore, we want to invite the Coop to support this proposal, and thank the members who have already done so. We remain more committed than ever to our role as methodologists by maintaining existing products and proposing new ones to the Coop. And we also look forward to participating in the Coop as community members!

[BigSky7]

Awesome resolution here - glad to see that we are building a solid structure around contract permissions.

Over the past couple of weeks we have had lots very good conversations with @snasps, @Etienne, and @Jo_K . The heart of the issue is ensuring that our external partners have long-term security around contracts they enter with Index Coop. At Index Coop trust and ownership are important values and this proposal goes a long-way to ensuring that all stakeholders feel protected and trusted.