Community Call Governance Workshop - August 17, 2022

The community brainstormed on the Sophon nomination process, possibilities for a staking contract for governance, and fast-track proposals.

In Progress Proposals and Drafts

Voting

• KIP-29: Non-Core Asset Discretion Proposal
• KIP-30: Testing Wallet Proposal

Forum

• KIP-28: Treasury Charter
• KIP Draft: KIP Format, Categories, Templates

Upcoming

• KIP-X2: Governance Process v2
• KIP-X3: Sophon Framework
• KIP-X4: Sophon Onboarding/Offboarding

Core Docs

• The Rook charter/constitution, mission statement, and Sophon decision criteria are currently being drafted.
• The governance documentation is in draft.

Sophon Brainstorming

• Jason discussed the Sophon on- and off-boarding processes, including deliberation, reconciliation, and the process for coming to an outcome. [5m]
• Sophons may have expanded roles, including: participating in community discussions through AMAs and forum discussions; decision-making power on things that are not mission-aligned; and publishing public comments on their reasoning for decisions.
• Jason outlined the Sophon selection process, contrasting the first version in which nominations were developed by leadership with a fully decentralized future in which token holders nominate and vote on Sophons, and opened a discussion on how to transition. [8m]
• The team and community discussed the potential Sophon evaluation processes, including selection criteria such as expertise, product and regulatory knowledge, belief systems, and mission understanding. [10m]
• Instead of requiring Sophons to have domain-specific expertise, the DAO could retain professional advisors.
• Perhaps there could be some sort of credential to weigh a Sophon’s level of MEV knowledge. [26m]
• Should Sophons be elected for 1-year terms like Maker? Aia also suggests staggering the re-election dates for Sophons. [31m]
• Stability over time is valuable for Sophons, so term limits may not be necessary. [38m]
• Joe suggested splitting the Sophon criteria list into three categories according to priority: “need to have,” “nice to have,” and “optional.” [39m]
• The conversation then shifted to possibilities for revising the relationship between governance and staking. The governance staking contract could include voting power weighted for time and participation. [40m]
• Joe explained that for a vote they strongly care about, token holders could be given an option to deploy a one-time spend/burn of time-weighted voting power earned from staking. Influencing a vote heavily would require spending future voting power. This would also increase the opportunity cost for a malicious attack. [44m]
• xROOK could be redistributed to multiply the vote weight beyond the original voting power. This would give token holders the ability to double down their xROOK stake when they have strong conviction about a proposal. In this case the burned xROOK would be distributed to the remaining voters. [47m]
• Wes mentioned that a potential downside of this setup is that it doesn’t incentivize voting for those who object; they may choose to just exit instead of risking their xROOK. [54:30m]
• Sophon nominators could be prioritized based on previous voting participation. Some DAOs use SourceCred to quantify Discord participation, but these metrics are easily gamed. Manually vetting based on quality of governance participation is preferred. [1:02m]
• Participants were in agreement that all ROOK token holders should be able to vote, including ROOK LPs on other platforms.
• Should xROOK stakers get a higher boost in voting power than LPs, and LPs higher than people who just hold ROOK? With boosts, consider that IL will make vote weights differ in bear markets and bull markets. [1:04m]
• Time-weighted voting should probably be reserved for xROOK stakers.
• Fast-track governance processes should be defined in order to outline procedures for handling urgent governance matters. [1:16:00m]
• Carnation suggests that at-risk funds should be controlled by a multisig with both team members and public figures. [1:19:00m]