I agree the Charter gave us a good point to begin from, apart from anything else it has given us a number of contributors who have worked underneath it seen the issues and can hopefully produce something that works as version 2.0. There does come a point when the number of changes essentially becomes a new document. Looking at the time line proposed I am still inclined to lean towards a re-write from with a well funded small team, especially if the Placeholder vote passes. I second @fartunov on the language in the document and I think this is a ground up change not a paragraph by paragraph change. Completely agree on defining the Mission Vision & Values for all of Aragon.
This can then be versioned on top of the old github version. The parts that will remain in @mheuer segmentation can remain and the new portions can be added over as new versions. Correct me if I am misunderstanding this @mheuer.
I would propose we start from what we see as essential portions of good governance base.
The sections:
Treasury
Decision Tool and mechanism
DAO Structure
Treasury: I am foreseeing a larger multisig on a client or gnosis safe initially, the treasury is currently stored 50% in Aragon Client 50% in a community multisig so this is not a huge leap to implement, we can even simply change the holders of those wallets. Or simply create a new multisig, both of these would have signer rules. We need to define the election process for anything that need it which is simple open and fair for all.
Decisions: Off chain voting (voice or snapshot for now) with the ability for ANT delegation and Staked ANT voting. I find the portion around delegation and staked ANT crucial and we should pick the tool that allows us to to that initially, we need to encourage as many ANT holders to participate as possible especially in decisions that effect them. I feel this should really be a line in the sand that we are open to all holders and not excluding any. I would love to find a way for V1 ANT holders to vote as well many of these are small holders who have not swapped due to the cost of doing so with Gas.
As further context on this there are currently 12,000 wallets holding ANT V2 & >20,000 Wallets holding V1 many being excluded simply due to the gas cost.
Structure: The structure of main DAO and Sub-DAOs/guilds needs to be defined and if a SUB-DAO is formed it should be well compensated and focused on their roles with the bandwidth to do so. The Sub-DAO’s do not need defined in the charter but simply the process for them to be created, managed & disbanded. Having them fixed in the charter create a level of inflexibility that we do not need for example if teams want to spin out workstreams.
There are obviously much more detailed conversations around each of these but thought I would highlight thoughts on the structure I see working efficiently without the need for new tools or huge amounts of education working with what we already have and then work out how these fit in to a new/changed charter document.
I would be more inclined to build upon and improve the current charter rather than draft a completely new one. That way, we can more easily track what sections we are changing and why.
From a legal standpoint, it’s important to recognise the following clause from Article 2 of the Aragon Association’s articles:
In short, the Aragon Association should aim to deploy funds in-line with this purpose and this purpose should largely be recognised within the charter. If the charter materially deviated from this in terms of how funds are used, it could create an obstacle for the AA doing a mass transfer of funds to the AN DAO.
Following on, my preference would still be in the interest of a ground up change especially for the language of the document and being open to all.
I have in the meantime done a google doc with some of the changes that would need to be made at a minimum for the placeholder proposal to pass. So removal of technical specifications, signer rules, delegations of votes, budget constraints.
Edited my earlier input to reflect the fact that these options are yet to be investigated which will require real-world actual conversation. To be clear, I will be having conversations outside of this forum in order to develop future proposals for decentralised governance tools. I will happily engage on these specific topics via the forum once formally proposed, or where other conversations allow.
I’d be interested to know @fartunov where you draw the idea that forum comments / suggestions / feedback / challenges are subject to the same standard of transparency as a formal proposal? Do we now need a seperate forum post to come to shared understanding here vs discussed in person?
It there anything else in the AA charter that would impact the discussion @joeycharlesworth? Is there a way to see the other articles here?
If we are going to make changes it would be good to have the information so we don’t come up with something that ends up being blocked due to it not aligning.
Adding to this, should this be the first paragraph in the introduction literally a copy of what is stated?
"The goal of the Aragon Network DAO is to develop the Aragon Project which aims to disintermediate the creation and maintenance of organisational structures using blockchain technology to build the necessary software infrastructure and tools. These tools and infrastructure empower developers to build functionality and applications for the next generation of decentralised organisations and give people across the world the opportunity to easily, transparently and securely manage their organisations, enabling a borderless, permissionless and more efficient creation of value"
The only other piece from reading it would be the membership but I imagine holding ANT is enough here. So I propose simply stating the paragraph in the updated charters introduction with this: "The goal of the Aragon Network DAO is to develop the Aragon Project which aims to disintermediate the creation and maintenance of organisational structures using blockchain technology to build the necessary software infrastructure and tools. These tools and infrastructure empower developers to build functionality and applications for the next generation of decentralised organisations and give people across the world the opportunity to easily, transparently and securely manage their organisations, enabling a borderless, permissionless and more efficient creation of value"
It then should solve any alignment issues we may face.
one broad, vague term is piled on another broad, vague term, leaving me with no clear image in the end.
e.g. disintermediate, why make me go to the effort of looking that up; ‘organizational structures’ - why not just organizations?; ‘blockchain technology’ - term only used by vague BD people who are new to this space and consultants in suits; ‘the necessary software infrastructure and tools’ - unfortunately no one product comes to mind when I think about Aragon, except for the Court which doesn’t exist today.
Sentence structure is too long, with too many adjectives before finally getting to the main point.
‘tools and infrastructure’ → bloat, just say tools
‘These tools and infrastructure empower developers to build functionality and applications for the next generation of decentralized organizations’ → ‘These tools empower developers to build applications for decentralized organizations to let people manage their organizations…’ see how the point is gotten to quickly, with minimal fuss?
‘and applications for the next generation of decentralized organizations’ → bloat,
‘give people across the world the opportunity to easily, transparently and securely manage their organizations’ → ‘let people manage their organizations (you can insert your adjectives such as borderless, permissionless here)’
Why does this have to be about building tools for developers to xxx for decentralized organizations? The focus shouldn’t be on developers, the focus should be on decentralized organizations.
I note item 7 - Changes to Compensation for SUB-DAOs:
This must be solved as part of the charter changes, but being in limbo for the amount of time it takes to get there is insufficient. Exec-Sub DAO members are probably too humble to share but I would not be surprised if some/most were not already committing 15-20hours per week to these responsibilities.
What can be done to resolve this? Can this be handled somehow under ops until the charter changes address this? There is a provision within the charter that: Committee members shall be reimbursed by the Executive DAO of any reasonable expenses incurred in the performance of their duties but this does not help us in a situation where it is the executive DAO members themselves need to decide what is a reasonable expense.
One final point is that this is a good example of a root cause issue with the current charter. We have variables - ANT price and hours effort required - and yet the compensation amount is defined within the charter as an absolute. I note this is not listed as one of the 19 feedback points but we should aim for a design principle that covers variables, otherwise we are likely to find ourselves needing to make future changes when the next variable fluctuates
Thanks @b3n I agree with you that this is urgent to solve. I would like to see a proposal using the the correct portion of 20k that was set aside being used this month in a coordinape circle for the ESD with the amount of work that they have had to undertake.
That would be at 5% of the approved funding requests for this month based on the funding requests I believe this is around $6000 (two proposals approved) under the scout program. The amount of work required to get these proposals across the line should not be ignored and members should be compensated fairly.
Would we like a separate thread on this and then continue the larger change that is needed here in this thread.
I’ve been observing DAO governance for many years now and I can assure you that, when it comes to foundational documents such as the Charter, their purpose and format should be as narrow/compact as possible. The document that lays out the core vision/mission/values and governance process of the DAO is generally not a good place to cover procedural minutiae, which are subject to continuous iteration as the DAO learns and evolves. If the foundational document becomes too complex/detailed, it actually starts to hamper not only the process of getting everyone on the same page initially but also the DAO’s ability to onboard new people and introduce necessary but minor changes to its internal procedures in the future. I do recognize that it may be difficult for an organization to radically rewrite a document like the Aragon Charter but, to the degree that it’s possible, I definitely recommend keeping things short and simple, which by no means excludes establishing more complex/detailed rules and practices through other means/documentation.
Sincerely hope a new (or rewritten) Charter will follow those best practices. There has been pushback against keeping things short and simple since before the current charter got voted in.
Hey Andrew, welcome to the community! Would like to address your points:
Can the phrasing be better - absolutely! Keep in mind it was written in 2018 and is translated from Swiss German into English and probably included lawyers in the writing
Does it provide more strategic clarity than the team had at any point over the past 12 months, arguably yes
If you are concerned that the focus is not right, don’t worry, no one, short for two people, on either of the core teams had seen this text unitll it was published here so it was not guiding for us
Would love for you to be involved in the formation of the MVV of the Aragon Network if you feel strongly about it. I presume at some point a working document or facilitated sessions will emerge around that, stay tuned here and in the Discord server
What does MVV mean?
I’d like to be involved since it would make my work more meaningful. Similar initiatives in other organizations I’ve worked in haven’t achieved as much, I’m interested to see what it takes to get a whole organization adopt a new philosophy.
The following was pasted from discussion in discord
There is a quote “A good constitution is better than the best despot”
Went through the document and @Renee Maria | dGov has made great plans to decentralize. In my opinion, any self governing organization requires a “North star” to redistribute authority and to guide their decision making skills. The modus operandi of decentralized orgs is to guide the decision making via the use of “Constitution” in our case is a “Charter”.
-So the first thing is to work in the Charter to make it more accessible to everybody (access with one click MAX) - hosted on website
The charter must be updated via consensus and votes after governance meetings
Better to have version numbers e.g 1.1, 1.2
Prefer Charter with easy to understand language than written in legalese format.
Charter must also contain Governance processes, Organizational structures, How do we implement decisions etc.
So instead of power of each team residing on few leaders we can help it reside in a process which is embodied in the Charter. So let’s decentralize.
A Charter must be best Grade 6-7 in Hemingway readability Scale because it must be read and understand by anybody Aragon and non Aragon members on where we derive our governance rules from. Preferably succinct.
I have been surprised some DAOS they have been calling themselves decentralized DAO deriving rules from few leaders and calling it “progressive decentralization”. This is more like Oligarchy BS.
Decentralization process starts with transparency of governance process and that can only be achieved with first providing framework stating the organizational structure, how does one cooperate, process of meetings and update, what is one’s authority and what is one accountable of? How are the rules updated? How are decisions made and implemented? This is providing a framework in a Charter.
This framework should flexible and should encompass a set of rules and processes which will help Aragon become more decentralized, flexible, adaptable, disciplined, and democratic.
