AGP wishlist and blacklist

As a board member for the Aragon Association, I wanted to post some thoughts about a wishlist and blacklist for AGP proposals.

AGP-1 being approved was quite a landmark event for community governance, and it’s a big step towards having the community completely run the project.

However, we are not there yet, since the Aragon Association still has certain rights and liabilities related to the operations of the project. For that reason, it is important to have a blacklist of proposals that the Aragon Association won’t pre-approve for an AGP ballot. This is primarily to safeguard the Aragon Association until all governance power is fully transitioned into the Aragon Network.

On the other hand, the Aragon Association also wants to see certain kinds of proposals that embody the Aragon Manifesto, and help push the Aragon ecosystem forward. For that reason, a wishlist is important as well.

The aim of this post is to also open up a conversation with the community, in order to gather feedback to better inform this pre-approval process.

Blacklist

  • Dividends: Multiple jurisdictions around the world have very strict policies about dividends
  • Exchange listings: Usually contradicts the Aragon Manifesto, since exchange listings are generally used to create short-term profit, instead of long-term value
  • Price manipulation: Same as exchange listings, price manipulation raises moral questions and contradicts the long-term creation of value
  • Burning ANT: Proposals to burn ANT could be used to perform 51% attacks in order to kick out network participants, to to push forward certain proposals (like finance proposals) and make short-term profit
  • Partnerships with corrupt regimes: Regimes that contradict the Aragon Manifesto are not suitable partners for the project
  • Removing ANT holders as the final approver of AGPs: ANT holders should always have the final word for AGPs
  • Illegal or poor treasury management decisions: Proposals that aim to perform illegal treasury decisions (such as buying nuclear bombs) or poor ones (such as cashing out all ETH to buy BCC)
  • Price-targeting buybacks: Buybacks that promise to reach a high price for ANT can be seen as illegal, by promising future returns on the asset
  • Hostile takeover: Such as another group trying to take over the project going against the Manifesto

Wishlist

  • Association annual budget: Proposals for the budget that the Aragon Association will have for salaries, contractors, lawyers, etc.
  • Flock proposals: Proposals to fund teams to work on Aragon
  • Nest annual budget: Define the budget that will be allocated for grants
  • Aragon Network security partner: Proposals to become the auditing partner of the Aragon Network, which will work closely with the dev teams to constantly ensure security of the software
  • Amendments to the manifesto: Proposals that enhance the Aragon Manifesto, representing the Aragon community better
  • Aragon Network DAO experiments: Proposals to fund DAOs that experiment with governance, including early Aragon Network prototypes
  • Treasury management: Proposals to perform treasury management, with a specific strategy to put money to work. For example, staking specific tokens to accrue fees
  • Cap on the overall Aragon Network budget: Proposals to cap the Aragon Network spending for the year
  • Aragon holiday: Proposals to define the official Aragon holiday
  • Adopting a flag: Proposals to adopt a flag for the Aragon Network
  • Merch department: Proposals for creating new merch, or to fund teams to maintain an official merch store
  • Education proposals: Allocating funds to Aragon education

Ballot cap

Currently there isn’t a maximum numbers of proposals that will be included in each ballot.

Yet it is very important not to have too many proposals in order not to drain ANT holders attention.

The Aragon Association will assess the ballot cap dynamically, trying to present the ones that will be the most interesting to the community.

Questions or feedback?

If you are a community member and have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, please reply to this forum post! Stefano, Jorge or me will be at the community’s disposal

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  • Education proposals : Allocating funds to Aragon education

Regarding the education piece, is there something like an Aragon Awesome List for people to better understand cryptoeconomic incentives and attack vectors in relation to on-chain voting/governance? It seems like something that very few people understand, making it easy for misinformation and assumptions to lead to poor decision making and/or suppressed voter turnout. I’ve done my own research, but it’s taken a lot of time and is a continuous ongoing process. It’s almost a part time job just to stay informed!. Are there any resources you guys would recommend or have aggregated for the community to better understand on-chain voting and related cryptoeconomics?

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I’d love to have an awesome-aragon list!

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I think @lkngtn started on this! :slight_smile:

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