MGC Member Nominations - November 2021

Governance Meta-Governance
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Authors: Governance Operations Working Group

Summary

This forum post aims to facilitate the nomination for new (and old) Meta Governance Committee members. IIP-92 established a standard process for electing the MGC members and defined the starting date of the next term, which is on Block 13720000 (November 30, 2021).

The nomination process described in this post will allow potential new members to nominate themselves (or be nominated by someone) and marks the start of the next MGC term.

Rationale

What is the MetaGovernance Committee?

The MGC serves as a backstop to our Meta Governance voting structure. The committee is assigned with the task to vote, when quorum on meta governance votes is not reached (which happens more often than not). For any vote that does not reach quorum, the MGC ensures that the Index Coop participates in the vote: The MGC is given complete discretion to decide the outcome and vote on behalf of all $INDEX holders.

The MGC was initially proposed back in June via IIP-51. At the time, the committee sought to solve the fact that many of the Index Coop’s Meta Governance votes did not reach quorum, and the voting power possessed by the $INDEX token was being wasted. The MGC, which was elected through the passing of IIP-51, has served the Index Coop faithfully for almost five months and participated in 47 votes thus far.

Responsibilities of the MetaGovernance Committee

Every MGC member is asked to provide their vote on all Meta Governance votes with either For, Against or Abstain. This is a role that requires active participation, as well as a good understanding of the underlying protocols of $DPI. Voting takes place via a chat on Discord. Members are expected to participate on each vote and provide their decision within the given time frame (usually 24 to 48hrs). Votes can occur 24/7.
Currently the following protocols are live: UNI, COMP, AAVE, BAL, YFI and BADGER. Expansion to add more protocols is planned.

Terms

Elected members serve 1,200,000 block terms (~6 months), with a 3-consecutive term limit and are elected via ranked-choice voting using Snapshot (voting with $INDEX tokens). Members can hand in their resignation earlier or be recalled by a community vote (see IIP-92)

Members

There are currently 5 members of the MGC:

@Lavi

@Ncitron

@Kiba

@Yuan-han-li (representing Penn Blockchain)

@oneski22

The members whose term is ending with block Block 13720000 are Penn Blockchain and @Oneski22. As per IIP-92, these two members can nominate themselves again. Since Penn Blockchain only just joined, this will technically be their first term and they will be re-nominated automatically.

Nomination Process for potential new members

Start & End Date

Nominations start with this forum post. The deadline is one week from today (November 15th).

Who is eligible?

All community members (internal and external) are welcome to come forward to express their interest in becoming a member of the MGC.

What do I need to do?

  • If you are interested in joining the MGC, please leave a comment at the end of this post announcing your nomination. You can also nominate someone else.
  • If nominated, please share your background, time zone, involvement with Index Coop, and why you would be a good fit for a seat on the committee.

Example:
My name is Owlie D Cooper (Owlie.eth on discord) and my background is in TradFi, I’m based in CST timezone (UTC-06:00).
I’m a silver owl and I have been a contributor to Index Coop for 5 months at the FinanceNest.
My experience with … would be of great use to the MGC, because…

  • [Proof-of-human] New nominees are expected to attend a community call the week following this post, to introduce themselves and explain why they should represent the Coop (only required for non-core contributors). Otherwise the nomination is not valid.
  • Ideally this intro takes place during the Weekly Standup on Monday or at the Leadership Forum on Wednesdays.

Automatically nominated

As indicated above, it was agreed in IIP-91 that Penn Blockchain is automatically nominated for the next term (which is officially their first term), after stepping in to replace former member Cedrick and only serving ~6 weeks so far.

Election of MGC Members (next steps)

Once all nominations for new MGC members have been submitted and introductions in community calls were successful. The Governance Working Group will publish a Snapshot vote highlighting the interested candidates and provide a brief background on the proposal submitted by those individuals.

Token holders can then vote via ranked choice to elect the members of the MetaGovernance Committee for the next 1.2M blocks.

If there are any questions on the process or regarding this post, please comment below.

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I’m nominating @oneski22, who has served the MGC very well since it was established and is a core contributor to the Coop in general.

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Nominating myself, Lemonade (Peter).

Have worked in DeFi / Eth ecosystem for several years with Augur and Index Coop. Have been looking to get more involved in metagovernance.

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Thanks @Lavi ! Accepting your nomination. [NOTE: Should I be elected the entity serving on the board will be Bridgewater Innovations LLC, I encourage all MGC members and nominees to consult with legal counsel to ensure they have adequate protection]

I am David Silverman aka davidev.eth, Discord: TrotNixonLine, @oneski22 here, davidesilverman on Twitter, linking to verified signature to show ownership. I am a gold owl, currently serving on the MetaGov board.

I have been researching blockchain technology since 2012, and began consulting and educating VCs, lawyers and institutions on crypto and blockchain in 2017.

I co-founded ELEV8 Crypto, which has worked with the Coop on several occasions, including its current engagement of managing the MetaGov EOA. ELEV8 has been active across many Web3 governances assisting institutions, individual investors and university groups in the setup and management of their governance processes.

Presently I am a PM at Aave Companies building novel Web3 experiences. In addition, I am a Venture Partner at 3SE Holdings, a small crypto investment firm, which does hold INDEX as one of its holdings. My full disclosure statement can be found here [I encourage all prospective nominees to complete one].

I hope to serve the coop faithfully for another term. HH - David

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Penn Blockchain has served the MGC well during their tenure and I’d like to see them continue. Tagging @yuan-han-li as representative for visibility. Thank you for your continued support!

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Thank you for the nomination @mel.eth—super happy to accept it on behalf of Penn Blockchain (similar to David, the actual entity serving will be Penn Blockchain, LLC)!

Penn Blockchain is one of the largest student Blockchain clubs in the world and is also a delegate across a number of DeFi protocols (Uniswap, Compound, Aave, dYdX, and Index Coop). Our Boardroom profile is here, and our Twitter is here. The club doesn’t have a Discord, but feel free to find me personally at yuan-han-li#8396 as the club’s representative.

The club was initially founded during the last cycle in 2017, and our mission and goal is to educate our members so that they might become valuable additions to crypto/Web3 communities once they leave the club. Beyond governance, we also run trading competitions, host speakers, and have a newly formed (month-old!) research committee that is beginning to engage with DAOs (e.g. PrimeDAO) as contributors and also publish research.

We see governance participation as being a particularly great way to be stewards for the protocols we do participate in given we are a neutral and unbiased third party, not dissimilar to the role independent board members might play in traditional corporate governance. Moreover, participating in governance is also a particularly effective education tool because our student club members need to look deeply into protocols and develop a deep understanding of how they work to be effective governance delegates.

We hope to continue our work in serving the Coop for an additional term. Hoot hoot!

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If there is time would there be community support to possibly expand from 5 to 7 members? I’d like to support existing reps to continue as well as two new additionals. I’m thinking a member of the governance ops working group @mel.eth would be a good fit for the team.

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Thanks @lee0007 I’m genuinely flattered that you’d consider me for a seat requiring immense community trust. Given current commitments I must decline, but will do all I can through GovOps, The sCoop, and personally to support the MGCs efforts. I’ll also note that the bureaucratic lift noted by @oneski22 and @yuan-han-li is not something I’m well-versed in. @Lavi sits as lead on GovOps and on the MGC, so we stay super well informed via his involvement; currently having a member that straddles the MGC and GOWG is ideal while we’re attempting to get GOWG off the launchpad, and probably would be on a continual basis.

I like that you’re thinking about how to improve the process, and there’s no denying a lot of voting power rests with this body. Personally I feel we just got the process nailed down for the 5-member council, so while I support the sentiment of expanding I’m worried that implementation right now would detract from focusing on streamlining execution.

One thing I’ve given some thought to is opening a forum thread for MGC votes so that community members can give more detailed feedback (in addition to voter feedback via snapshot) for the MGCs consideration ahead of votes and allow for a bit of dialog should there be questions about the proposal, process, or decisions made. I always appreciate your insight @lee0007 and again thank you for your thoughtful focus and consideration!

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I nominate myself.
My name is Brian (sixtykeys). I have been a contributor to the Index Coop for six months. I am also a co-lead of the Governance Operations Working Group (GOWG).
I look forward to deepening my MetaGov knowledge and ensuring the Index Coop is an active participant in the governance of protocols on which MetaGovernance is enabled.

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Closing MGC nominations
As indicated on top, MGC nominations for the upcoming term are closed after 7 days.

Thanks to all the nominees @oneski22, @yuan-han-li, @LemonadeAlpha & @sixtykeys

Next step will be a forum post for announcing the actual election this week.

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ATTENTION MGC Nominees:
@oneski22 (as representative for Bridgewater Innovations LLC)
@LemonadeAlpha
@yuan-han-li (as representative for Penn Blockchain)
@sixtykeys

Please post a (750 character or less) ‘bio’ that will be included in the Snapshot election post. Given that snapshot has character limits we feel it’s best to allow each nominee to draft their own bio within those constraints.

PLEASE HAVE YOUR BIO POSTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS POST BY 18 NOVEMBER 2021 AT 1400 UTC; otherwise we will include a clipped version of your nomination for reference. Snapshot will link back to the forum discussion, so no need to reference your full nomination as we’ll do that for you; links are acceptable if appropriate, however they do count toward the character limit (Markdown code, just like here in the forum).

While not required you are welcome to attend the Weekly Stand Up call on 22 November at 1600 UTC and you will be given three minutes at the top of the hour to introduce yourself to the community and make a statement (be sure to arrive early and check in with @catjam who will be chairing).

For visibility, the posting and election schedule is as follows and will be confirmed at each step as we move forward:

18 Nov: Election post to forum and que election poll on Snapshot.
22 Nov: Ranked Choice voting on Snapshot will commence at 1800 UTC and remain open for 72 hours; results will be visible in real-time as votes are cast. If a mistake is made during the selection process, a page refresh will clear the selections; however, cast votes (via signature) cannot be changed.
25 Nov: Polling will close at 1800 UTC and results will be posted to the forum shortly following.

The MGC will coordinate with those elected to onboard as appropriate. Questions and feedback on the process should be in reply to this comment to ensure the fastest response from the GovOps WG. Thank you for your service and cooperation.

GovOps cc: @Lavi @Mringz
Historic context cc: @Pepperoni_Joe @anon10525910

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I’m going to withdraw my nomination, thanks!

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Highlighting, in light of feedback to this post, that neither the bio nor call-introduction are required; this is simply an offer for nominees to customize their own short bio and speak directly to the community should they choose. No action is required on the part of nominees. Sorry for any confusion; thanks all.

cc: @Lavi

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Penn Blockchain’s 750 character bio is as follows:
Penn Blockchain is one of the largest student blockchain clubs in the world and our mission and goal is to educate our community about Web3 and crypto. We have a number of initiatives that help us to achieve our mission, one of which is to help steward the space by acting as a neutral and unbiased third party (similar to independent board members in traditional corporate governance) in our capacity as a delegate across a number of DeFi protocols (Uniswap, Compound, Aave, dYdX, and Index Coop). Additionally, we also run trading competitions, host speakers, and have a newly formed research committee that is beginning to engage with DAOs (e.g. PrimeDAO) as contributors and also publish research.

We hope to make it to the call on Monday—thanks all!

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