Can incentives be a good mechanism to improve Optimism governance?

[Cotabe]

GM Optimists!

I don’t usually write forum posts, so please bear with me…

I’m also not sure if this is the right category. So feel free to correct me…

TL;DR: This post is to collect feedback from the community on how incentives can be used to improve Optimism Governance. It has open ended questions and some fun polls to collect aggregated signal for a community-led incentive program that will be run by Unitap.

Improving governance accessibility has been one of the core intents of Optimism. This intent became a Schelling point to align the community and work to improve Governance accessibility. However, human alignment is a complicated nut to crack and the best ways to improve Governance accessibility can be very different for all of us.

This post was inspired by @LauNaMu, as I heard her talking not long ago about how Governance incentives can go wrong. My intention is to collect insights, aggregated signal and feedback regarding how to improve governance accessibility overall and specifically what kind of incentives could help this intent and what kind of incentives could turn into perverse incentives that create unintended negative consequences.

If you were dying to tell the Optimism community how you think we can improve Optimism Governance this is the place to gather all opinions and feedback. Here are some open questions and polls, but feel free to add anything you think is relevant.

Open ended questions.

1. What can be improved in Optimism Governance?
2. What kind of interventions would help to improve Optimism Governance? (Solution brainstorming)
3. What prevents OP holders from engaging in governance or delegating their tokens?
4. How can delegators easily monitor their delegates’ participation?
5. Are incentives a good mechanism? If so, how should we market incentive programs to reach its target audience? (for example: OP holders that haven’t delegated or that delegated to inactive or ghost delegates)
6. Are the current KPIs (Delegated supply of OP, Average OP voted per governance proposal) sufficient? Should we consider other metrics like delegate diversity or the concentration of voting power in a handful of delegates?
7. What kind of incentive programs could create negative consequences? (perverse incentives)

Poll Time!

Please help us get aggregated signal.

What incentives would be more effective in improving Optimism Governance?

• We should not use incentives to improve Optimism Governance
• OP tokens
• POAPs
• NFTs
• Attestations
• I have other ideas (Please add your comments below)

2. Should OP be used for incentives?

• Yes
• No
• Only if the incentives can accomplish measurable impact and can’t be farmed
• Other (Please add your comments below)

3. Small rewards for everyone vs raffles with large prizes?

• Everyone that does an action (e.g. delegating OP) gets a small reward.
• Everyone that does an action (e.g. delegating OP) gets the chance to participate in a raffle for larger prizes.
• Let users choose their incentive.

4. What would be the best KPI to measure the efficiency of a community-led incentive program pilot to improve Optimism governance?

• Delegated supply of OP
• Delegated supply of OP to active delegates
• Average OP voted per governance proposal
• OP delegated to active delegates with small delegations
• Other (Please add your comments below)

Thanks for your feedback, answers and governance insights. We will try to use your comments to design an effective community led incentive program.

We will also be conducting some interviews with Govnerds, members of the OP foundation, OP labs and other stakeholders. Please feel free to DM @cotabe on TG if you want to be part of a short interview and support this effort.

Stay Optimistic!

[alexsotodigital]

@Cotabe

What can be improved in Optimism Governance?

Thank you @Cotabe for bringing up this topic and sparking the conversation about incentives + governance.

My perspective is that the essence of good governance is in doing ‘care work’ (towards the organization and the colleagues) since it involves spending time strengthening and updating agreements, such as creating manuals, refining roles or improving workflow (which is strategic in the long term), even when that takes away time for operations (which are usually urgent in the short term). A little more about this in this article I wrote.

For this reason, it is important to highlight that incentives can have a negative impact if it comes from a mentality focused on achieving personal benefit and profit in the short term
I think incentives (in governance) should be more symbolic than economic.

Just imagine someone who was giving hugs waiting for money. It wouldn’t feel the same would it?

Therefore, it seems to me that having attestations or POAPs, linked to reputation building, is a safer path than involving OP tokens for this purpose.

I also believe (going to the open ended questions) that talking about how to ‘improved in Optimism Governance’ must consider both the technical and the human.
I mean, the ‘decentralization of decision-making power’ is relevant (and can be measured in how OP Tokens are delegated and used), but it is also important to analyze the collective’s ability to have continuous learning.

This from:

• doing retrospectives,
• harvesting learnings,
• translating them into proposals for improvements,
• creating manuals or operation guides
• training new members.

Something that, I’m surprised, is constantly absent from this conversation.

To have more dynamic governance, we need to cultivate a culture where taking time to care is something that is practiced, recognized and valued. But let’s not let money get in the way, or we will doubt the best intentions.

[liucdao]

@Cotabe

hat would be the best KPI to measure the efficiency of a community-led incentive program pilot to improve Optimism governance?

My personal view is : Good governance is no governance.

No governance means that all power is in the hands of the electorate, with no need for third-party management.

To give a simple example, let’s consider the cake cutting problem:
There are many classic algorithms for dealing with this issue, whether it’s envy-free division or fair division, the decision-making power is in the hands of everyone.

This is the explanation of the concept of “no governance.”

If we must say there is governance, then this governance is merely about maintaining an order – that is, let everyone to accurately express their own preferences.

I believe that rational egoism and the principle of equality can almost entirely avoid the majority of conflicts.

“In good governance, there is no governance.” In other words, by using smart contracts, we can abandon the “majority rule” and fully embrace the “unanimous consent principle.”