Hello ACC! As part of my role as a member of the Collective Feedback Commission, I’ve been asked to provide feedback on this retrospective.
Note that I have not followed the ACC’s activities in depth, though I have reviewed the charter and the Season 6 amendment in addition to this retrospective.
My feedback will following the structure of the retrospective, going section by section where I have feedback.
1. Feedback on Impact KPI reporting and 2. Impact assessment
Primary Goal 1: The KPI of voting on every proposal is simple and objective, and the communicated result here is clear. It would also be beneficial to include a breakdown in this section of how often the members voted. This could be as simple as proportion of ACC members meeting the 70% voting participation requirement, or perhaps the ACC membership participation rate for each vote.
The second paragraph of the assessment is more relevant to Goal 2.
While casting the vote, the members of the ACC did not flag any instances of capture as a result of these governance proposals, that would put the governance at risk of capture to the benefit of any one individual or group.
Primary Goal 2: This KPI of alerting the Citizen’s House when capture occurs is fuzzier and more subjective, but the communicated result is still clear (especially when including the second paragraph from the Goal 1 assessment section).
While its not unhelpful, the second paragraph of the assessment section is not fully relevant to the assessment the present KPI. In future retrospectives, I’d consider moving such content into its own section to keep the KPI assessment as crisp and focused as possible.
Apart from any flagged concerns, the ACC was active in discussing governance proposals that would eventually require the Citizen’s House inputs. One such proposal was the Accelerated Decentralization Proposal For Optimism, and the ACC initiated a discussion on this proposal with member Delegates, as well as the Foundation and the author of the proposal GFX labs.
Additional Goal 1: I think I am missing context here. I did not find mention elsewhere that one of the goals of the ACC was to increase the votable supply. I see that the ACC may “Research, analyze, and advocate for transparency related to the distribution of voting power,” but in my interpretation that does not necessarily mean increasing votable supply. It would be helpful to include a reference or link to where the votable supply goal has been established.
Similar to @lavande’s point about causality, the assessment lacks clear evidence that the ACC’s efforts contributed to the advancement of this KPI. What activities did the ACC or its members engage in that helped increase votable supply?
Additional Goal 2: I think the goal description here got cut off: “Advocate for the continued decentralization” of…? The assessment content is a good overview but in my opinion too high level to be actionable. What were those specific calls and discussions initiated by the ACC? Beyond the one suggestion listed, what were the specific takeaways or outcomes of those calls and discussions?
3. Feedback on problem statements
The first paragraph describing the ACC’s response to the fallback mechanism is a great example of potential impact (probably a good fit for the Impact Assessment section). It would be nice to see the result (impact) of the flags the ACC raised. What was the outcome?
Similarly, I would love to see a description of the result of the ACC’s feedback provided to Agora. Did those suggestions get implemented? If not, what was the blocker?
More broadly, I would like to see problem statements in this section that correspond with the solutions from the next section. What are the problems you faced or observed this season that have lead to the suggested possible solutions?
4. Feedback on solution statements
Nice work on these solutions! (1) and (3) are particularly valuable, in my opinion, and worth exploring further. Given its role in consistently observing and watching out for capture, the ACC likely has a unique perspective on decentralization progress and things to watch out for. And dry runs or scenario planning / practice is a great idea that I’d recommend strongly considering adding to the responsibilities next season.
As a balancing note for (1), however, I would want to be careful to not overload the ACC’s capacity/attention and in any way diminish its ability to respond to capture scenarios.