[FINAL] Code of Conduct Council (CoCC) Operating Budget for Season 6

Elected Representatives šŸ’¼ Renewal
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Context:

A Code of Conduct Council (CoCC) was created in Season 5 to experiment with decentralizing the enforcement of the Code of Conduct.

Since then, the Code of Conduct has been rescoped twice, reducing the responsibilities of the Code of Conduct Council. You can find the retrospective of the Season 5 Code of Conduct Council here.

Follow this next thread If you would like to know about the election process or nominate yourself to this council in season 6.

Councils may be authorized by the Foundation for an initial pilot period -at least one Season- (season 5) After this pilot, representative structures must be renewed by governance for a subsequent Season (the Code of Conduct Council is in this stage.) If successfully renewed this Season, the CoCC will become a persistent structure in the Collective, assumed to continue unless/until a Council Dissolution proposal is put forward.

Given the above rescoping, if renewed for Season 6, the Code of Conduct Council would have a scope limited to enforcing the Rules of Engagement, which govern the usage of all Optimism hosted platforms.

  • If delegates believe an elected Code of Conduct Council should enforce the Rules of Engagement, delegates should vote to approve a Code of Conduct Council Operating Budget. If delegates do not believe an elected Council is necessary to enforce the Rules of Engagement, they should not approve any associated operating budget.

  • In the event that an operating budget is not approved for a Code of Conduct Council, the supportNERDs will continue to monitor the forum and enforce the Rules of Engagement as they previously have. supportNERDs are not selected by the Foundation, but rather operate as an open contribution path. If any decisions made by the supportNERDs are questioned, they may be appealed to a third party (likely the party contracted to provide mediation services.)

All prospective Leads may propose a Code of Conduct Council Operating Budget for Season 6. Delegates that believe the Council should be renewed, should only vote to approve one Code of Conduct Council Operating Budget. The budget proposal with the highest proportion of ā€œYesā€ votes will be approved. Delegates are effectively electing the Lead who has authored an approved budget. If continued, the rest of the members of the CoCC will be elected, according to the process outlined here.

Proposal drafts, with 4 delegate approvals, are due by May 22nd at 19:00 GMT.

Please see the Collective Reward Guidelines for help evaluating budget requests.

Code of Conduct Council Operating Budget (Season 6)

Proposed Council Lead: Juan Carlos Bell

Proposed Council Operating Budget: 55.000 OP (+37.000 OP increase from last Season)

Contact Info: (@juankbell Op forum) - (@bellcho X) - juankbell (Discord) -

- Please link to any previous work or qualifications to be Council Lead:

Regenscore: My on-chain interaction has been mostly in Optimism, ETH mainnet, and Gnosis chain, contributing actively to many projects in the web3 space Since 2019.

First forum post in OP forum: My first interaction with the OP forum was precisely supporting the idea of a conflict committee, back in Oct 2022.

RFP # 2: (2023) I posted a proposal in the name of Gravity DAO, supporting the implementation of code of conduct enforcement solutions in the optimism collective, improving governance accessibility, and minimizing governance overhead from the foundation, which at that point was managing Code of conduct violations via token voting. Implementation of the solution by the end of Season 4.

Graviton training in Optimism playlist: Playlist from the live training we did in season 4 (August and Sept 2023) for the Optimism community, as part of the above-mentioned RFP. Here are the Slides used

Graviton free online course: Free online course about conflict management and trust creation, available in 5 languages.

Graviton POAPs: Certifications for multiple trainings in diverse communities, since 2020.

Member of the first Code of Conduct council via public nomination and token vote.

Season 5 Code of Conduct communication thread. Communication thread from past seasons CoC Council in Optimism.

- Links to relevant work experience

I have experience leading and shaping groups, managing conflict individually and collectively, and working on intentionally developing trust in spaces. I think I am qualified to lead

  • Linkedin. Political Scientist, Mg. in Alternative Dispute Resolution,

  • Worked in Human Resources at 2 in Universities Colombia.

  • Stewarded the launch and commons upgrade of TEC with the implementation of Ostromā€™s principles in its design. TECā€™s bonding curve is now on Optimism.

  • Leading Gravity DAO as an organization that provides coordination solutions and continued education to Web3 communities.

  • Supporting the development of the Ethereum Community in Colombia (Ethcolombia X)

Council Charter:

  • Link to original Charter: Season 5 Charter

  • Link to internal procedures

  • The Season 6 Charter will need to be updated as described in this proposed operating budget, to account for the following changes in Scope:

    • The Charter of the Council will need to be updated in season 6

    • The Code of Conduct Council will only oversee the Rules of Engagement

    • As such, the decisions of the Code of Conduct Council will no longer be subject to optimistic approval by governance

    • All members will be accountable to governance as they remain removable via the Representative Removal proposal type outlined in the Operating Manual

    • Integrate feedback about improving the readability of public documents related to the code of conduct council and the processing of conflicts for simplicity and clarity.

Breakdown of Board Operating Budget:

Subcommittee 1: Code of Conduct Council

The community is reminded to report any harassment or discrimination and to stay vigilant against scams and phishing attempts.

The Code of Conduct Council is available to facilitate discussions and provide feedback, and changes to the Code of Conduct and Rules of Engagement for transparency and coherence.

Violations can be reported using platform tools, processed by NERDs or govNERDs for users, or through specific forms for delegates or Citizens. Since the Rules of Engagement apply to anyone using Optimism-hosted platforms, there is no distinction between Token House and Citizensā€™ House - the CoCC would enforce the Rules of Engagement for everyone, regardless of House, with penalties ranging from warnings to potential permanent removal.

Number of Council Members = 5 (40.000 OP total) (+ 25.000 increase from last Season)

(8.000 OP each)

Council members should be elected by the community via public nomination, and be present and available to process any case that arises in the community during the season. Individuals with this role must have experience and knowledge managing complexity in human groups, distinguishing for their ethical and professional behavior.

Rationale: Impact 7

  • Council members, with voice and vote to implement the rules of engagement and process conflicting cases in the community.

  • In season 5, there was a stipend of 3.000 OP per council member, the augment of the rewards is because the amount of work and specialty in this role is high and the incentive to participate actively in the community was low for the council members. The council would be primarily rewarded retroactively, so this is fair for the time and effort required to participate in the council during the whole season, avoiding incentives to conflict or bureaucracy.

- All Council members should:

  • Process all Code of Conduct Violation reports by the end of the nearest review period. If the end of the nearest review period is less than 3 days away, the report may be processed by the end of the next nearest review period.

  • Publish a summary of any enforcement decisions made during the Voting Cycle to the forum by the end of the review period of each voting cycle (Wednesday at 19:00 GMT.).

  • Participate in the election of the supportNERDs from the shadow council and in the distribution of loads in the team to support the lead in the synthesis, keeping track of internal work, the gathering of information, scheduling, organizing, and management of the councilā€™s platforms for fast responses to the needs of the collective.

Council Lead = 1 (10.000 OP total) (+ 7000 increase from last Season)

The council lead will be the author of this proposal, in the case it is successfully endorsed by delegate approval in the forum and subsequent governance vote.

  • The council lead will only vote when there is no majority in the council.

  • The lead has the additional responsibilities of stewarding the team through voting decisions and cycles, while communicating with the foundation, and all other governance efforts, councils, and commissions in Optimism. The lead has to comply with the deadlines for communicating decisions and recommendations from the cases observed to feedback and reflection instances. The leader has to keep updated internal documents, procedures, and platforms within the team.

- The Council Lead should:

  • Facilitate coordination of review and host regular Council meetings, which should occur at least once per Voting Cycle in which reports are filed. It is suggested that meeting minutes or summaries be made available to the community.

  • Exercise decision-making authority if the Council cannot come to a consensus on an administrative or operational matter (ie. act as a tiebreaker)

  • Become a point of contact for the support nerds that compose the shadow council and the council members.

  • Become a point of contact for the foundation, commission, councils, and all governance efforts in Optimism with the code of conduct council.

Subcommittee 2: SupportNERDs / Shadow council

A group of SupportNERDs matching the number of council members 1 to 1 composing a shadow council that acts as a viewer of the code of conduct council, and a contact point between the council and community moderators who can facilitate access to information. We think this is a great way of supporting the contribution path and allowing more people to get involved with OP governance while increasing the reach of sight of the council, and connecting it positively to the overall moderation of platforms.

- Number of supportNERDs = 5 (5.000 OP total) (new in season 6) (1.000 each)

Contribution paths may be supported via a combination of bounties, via Foundation or Delegate Mission Requests, but are best suited to Retro Funding in the longer term. Contribution paths are led by ā€œMaintainers,ā€ which are similar to ā€œLeadsā€ on Councils.

Rationale: Impact 3

- This group of supportNERDs should:

  • Participate with voice but not vote in council meetings. Playing the role of monitors of the council, and first filter on platforms.

  • Raise relevant cases arising in the community to the council.

  • Be elected by vote of the council members between a pool of available and interested SupportNERDs.

How should governance participants measure the Councilā€™s impact, and ensure its execution on its Charter?

Reporter Experience KPIs:

  • Response time and response rate on filed reports

  • Number of reports that de-escalate without enforcement actions and the number of reports with enforcement actions.

  • Accountability and transparency around the due processing of cases with recurrent posting on the forum.

  • Number of updates to charters and operating procedures to match the functionality of the council to the evolving seasonal nature of Optimism.

  • Availability and ease of access to the council with monthly office hours, where the community can raise or get information on cases processed.

Performance KPIs:

  • Number of community members that disengage/resign/offboard due to unmanaged conflict

  • None, or least amount of token votes regarding Conflict management actions related to implementing rules of engagement. (As council members remain removable via the Representative Removal proposal, it is desired to not have any member removed or signaled through that mechanism)

  • Separate the collective from the visibility of conflicts and their outcomes.

  • Mid and end-season feedback from the supportNERDs on the activity of the council. Shared in the forum.

  • Mid and end-season analysis from the council about patterns identified in cases, to signal improvement opportunities. Shared in the forum.

Consistent with other reward allocations, all rewards will be subject to a KYC and claims flow process.

What Does This Mean for Delegates?

Please see Code of Conduct Rescoping #2 before voting on this proposal.

Delegates will vote on a Code of Conduct Council Operating Budget in Special Voting Cycle #23a. Approving a Code of Conduct Budget elects the proposal author as the Council Lead. If approved, delegates will vote to elect Council members in Special Voting Cycle #23b as outlined here.

If you do not wish to renew the Code of Conduct Council, do not approve any operating budget proposals. In this case, the supportNERDs will continue to monitor the forum and enforce the Rules of Engagement as they previously have. If any decisions made by the supportNERDs are questioned, they may be appealed to a third party (likely the party contracted to provide mediation services.)

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If you like this proposal and you are a delegate, please express us your approval by replying to this post before May 22nd at 19:00 GMT. :slight_smile:

11 Likes
2

Iā€™m an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

5 Likes
3

I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and believe this proposal is ready to move towards a vote.

4 Likes
4

I am one of the Synthetix Ambassadors, and I am an Optimism delegate [Delegate Commitments - #65 by mastermojo ] with sufficient voting power, and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

2 Likes
5

We are an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and we believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote

2 Likes
6

Looking forward to see this council renewed.

I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and believe this proposal is ready to move towards a vote.

2 Likes
7

The SEED Latam delegation, as we have communicated here, with @Joxes being an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power we believe this proposal is ready to move towards a vote.

3 Likes
8

Hello @juankbell!

I love the idea of getting the SupNERDs to be more involved/active in gov moderation, as well as creating area for them to flag potential violations. However, I donā€™t think an additional ā€œcouncilā€ is needed for this, and having to run an additional round of elections for them is not in line with the goal of governance minimisation. Additionally, it is well outside the scope of current councils to create another council.

Considering the SupNERDs will not vote, Iā€™d strongly suggest opening up the opportunity to all supNERDs and super-supNERDs so they can all raise potentially COC violations, and also get an opportunity to learn from how the council handles conflict.

6 Likes
9

The SEED Latam delegation, as we have communicated here, with @Joxes being an Optimism delegate we VOTED AGAINST this proposal.

After carefully reviewing the proposal, weā€™ve noted several considerations to make this decision. While we acknowledge the efforts made to refine the CoC, we do not find these changes sufficient to warrant the proposed budget increase and grow their structure. We believe that the increase in the budget and the number of members is not justified by the activities during Season 5. This proposed structure looks more like a experiment, but worth to explore under other processes (letā€™s say ad-honorem positions to be rewared via retroPGF if they have success). Therefore, not enough arguments are provided to makes this change reasonable to approve, or at least explaining the risks associated for Season 6 if no changes are made (letā€™s say, leaving the CoC Council as it).

4 Likes
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I want to thank everyone who has voted on the proposal and engaged in this discussion on multiple threads. We have received great feedback and itā€™s been interesting to see the different points of view in the community.

Conflict management in Web3 is highly underrated. Managing risks is not popular, we prefer to think that everything will work out the best and then be surprised when the worst happens and things go out of control.

The technical deviation inherent to DAOs makes development work the most valued contribution, but value is highly subjective and conflict management work has been a cornerstone for sustainable social structures throughout history. We donā€™t question millions for development and hundreds of thousands for growing complex socioeconomic systems, but 55k on conflict management seems ā€œoverkillā€.

Rewarding this council via RPGF would promote the council to be incentivized by visibly and not by confidentiality. If more conflict = more perceived value from the council, then the council is rewarded for having more conflict, putting the first unwanted premise at the center for rewards. The ideal outcome of the council is to have space for conflict, but try to have as little as possible. That is why we proposed one fixed reward at the end of the season, to not incentivize bureaucracy or conflict.

The value coming from successful conflict management can be invisible, the community doesnā€™t have to notice or be distracted by the drama happening. If things are working well, we think conflict management is not needed, even when it may be one of the reasons for success.

Conflict management impacts directly on the well-being of participants and the perceived external success of an organization, I know it is hard to measure, but I have learned to value this highly. The existence of the council in season 5 relieved the foundation and the community from the governance overhead of highly public conflicts, the emotional load and responsibility of imposing sanctions, and the stress from dealing with the worst side of contributors. Weā€™ll be happy to continue doing that if this proposal is approved. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
11

It seems as if after rescoping #2 the CoCC would be solely responsible for the rules of engagement unless the CoCC renewal does not pass in which case the supportNERDs will monitor the forum and enforce the Rules of Engagement. Is my understanding correct here?

If my understanding is correct what is the added benefit of having the CoCC undertake this endeavor vs the SupportNERDs?

1 Like
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Thanks again to everyone who has engaged in this topic and participated in the voting cycle.

Due to the rescoping, the idea this proposal presents is for the council to work closely with supportNERDs. The added value is to create a deliberation group of experts to look carefully over conflicts, which can be loading and complex, and extend over platform management.

Looking at the voting process at this time, I want to say I understand and respect those who are against this proposal. We are all learning, Iā€™m doing my best and Iā€™m grateful to Optimism for every experience and interaction Iā€™ve had with every one of its members. I will be open to continue contributing to the community with the best of me. :heart:

Iā€™m sorry, forgive me, Thank you and I love you.

5 Likes
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Hi @Jrocki and any else interested.

Firstly, Iā€™m no longer part of the CoCC, wonā€™t be running for any Season 6 position if proposal passes, and had no input or part in the current proposal being voted on. But in saying that, your final question was one that was discussed in meetings with the Foundation towards the end of Season 5 when I was a CoCC member. Thusā€¦

The added benefit, in comparison to SupportNERDs, is that any CoCC members are elected by the Token House and accountable to the Token House. The SupportNERDs are administered or controlled by the Foundation. Thus the added benefits include (a) Reducing the control of the Foundation over the Collective (b) Increasing the control of the Token House as they elect the CoCC members and choose who they want to represent them, and can also choose via subsequent elections which members or reps to later dispose of or replace.

Ultimately, it goes back to the idea of why the CoCC was created: Originally the Foundation kept investigations in house and kinda just recommended a decision or sanction to the Token House, and the Token House didnā€™t like this lack of decentralisation. But at the same time, the Token House also didnā€™t like dedicating time, and emotional or political energy, investigating disputes and enforcing sanctions, especially when they didnā€™t have full information into the often anon complaints. So a CoCC was experimented with in that they acted as reps of the Token House. This could (a) allow the Foundation to transfer decision making to the wider Token House, but still (b) reduce the administrative burden on all Delegates by having a small group who could specialise and dedicate significant time to doing this work.

All in all, the CoCC acts as a shock absorber for the Foundation, Token House Delegates and even wider collective. It faces and deals with a lot of the ugly & toxic stuff in this community (Note: in Season 5 this was a daily(!) or every other day activity for more than the first half of the season. And has continued up until very, very recently, even post Season 5ā€™s conclusion, although admittedly now with less frequency), all so the wider Token House can just carry on, enjoy more peace, all while just believing that ā€˜This is fineā€™ and not needing to worry about all the conflict being focused on & contained within a small subset of people.

Finally, just remembered this as wellā€¦ The CoCC in Season 5 was highly qualified and had a diverse and wide breadth of experience in: web3 governance, conflict management & alternative dispute resolution, technical and developer matters, the law and litigation, as well as commercial compliance and other industry, mandated or legislated code of conducts. In short, we were all professionals, and these qualifications and experience is not a requirement of the SupportNERDs programs.

Hope this response can provide more context. All the best.

2 Likes
14

The following reflects the views of L2BEATā€™s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and itā€™s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.

After careful consideration, we have decided to vote against the proposal.

Although we are generally in favor of extending the CoCC as we believe itā€™s a value add for the Collective, we are against increasing its budget. Having reviewed the Councilā€™s Season 5 retrospective, we appreciate their efforts and contributions, but we do not see how an increase in their budget for Season 6 is justified.

3 Likes
15

We are aware of the need for the Code of Conduct Council, where we have a variety of people from diverse range of fields and professions. It helps the ecosystem to be more transparent and creates a base for clearer communication among them. Previous experiences and its results in terms of efficiency are making us optimistic about the renewal of the Council. The budget increase for the current season might seem more than expected. However, we think that considering the scope of the Council and the importance of its maintenance and impact, the current budget will aid professionals to be more aware of their role and increase their motivation. In conclusion, we are supportive of this proposal and will vote in favor of it.

3 Likes
16

Although I recognize the value of having a highly trained entity (Code of Conduct Council) with a specialized skillset to oversee the Rules of Engagement, I am voting not to renew the council because:

  1. The budget has expanded while much of their prior seasons responsibilities have fallen elsewhere or been accounted for in the new gov design
  2. I also believe the SupportNERDs are capable of overseeing the Rules of Engagement in the absence of a CoCC

That being said, Juan seems to have done an excellent job with the CoCC because he really does love the community, I can tell that each time I speak to himā€¦ a truly authentic person.

1 Like
17

Thanks @juankbell for putting together the proposal and detailing the purpose of the council. Also to @Axel_T for an additional content from the experience in the CoCC in Season 5.

We vote FOR the proposal while acknowledging that the requested compensations arenā€™t justified and structured in a way to be applied for the current scope of works related to CoC. As it would be rejected in the voting, we would like to suggest two ways to approach this.

  1. Decrease the fixed compensation to the level of the previous season, combined with a retroactive rewards based on the impacts and works that the council makes

As itā€™s nature of the type of requests, increasing the compensations to a similar level of operations by other programs (e.g. grants) doesnā€™t sound appropriate. At the same time, if the more request are to be addressed and time is to be spent, the whole operations should be rewarded in a retroactive way. We believe thatā€™s the sprit that Optimism Collective should cherish.

  1. Structure this initiative to minimize the budget and involve more community members in a balanced way

It would hopefully be possible to include the following as ā€œoperationsā€ to be done by CoCC Season 6: design and propose a structure for later seasons, to minimize the governance and budget for the operations while balancing the rewards to the contributors involved in the operations. @vonnie610 and other delegates suggest to involve supportNERDs in the process but at the same time, the Collective should consider a sustainable, decentralized, balanced approach to keep the operations related to CoC. We consider they are worth increasing the additional compensations to achieve the goals.

We hope we wonā€™t be back to square one and have the same issues that we had before Season 5, but improve the process by learning the experiments that we did in the process.

1 Like
18

The CoC made 5 conflict reports to the token house for a vote. I did not know you handled a daily volume of claims. Maybe the CoC needs to do a cycle report or a mid-season report. I based my vote on the previous budget, conflicts reported, and additions/subtraction of responsibilities of the CoC for Season 6.

2 Likes
19

Given the outcome of the vote where the CoCC was rejected, and reviewing the feedback from delegates, including ours, we recognize that the work of this body is important. Thatā€™s why, as far as we can see, the negative decision in the vote leans more towards a budget issue than the management of the council per se. Some examples:

Thatā€™s why we suggest that an updated budget or a new budget should be able to be voted again, as it would be a loss of an important council for the Optimism Foundation and the collective. Thatā€™s why we encourage @juankbell to present a new budget adjusted to the needs of this Season 6. We suggest that in the event of a proposed increase, it does not exceed a percentage of more than 30% compared to the previous season, given that the budget increase in this proposal was 205.56% compared to the previously approved budget of Season 5.

In its beginnings, the CoCC was created to relieve delegates from dealing with conflict management, and we understand that this is important. Its dissolution after only one season of work would be unreasonable. However, we suggest that the CoCC is an experiment worth maintaining, but we encourage data-driven decisions that detail budget distribution based on workload projections. Especially since in this Season 6 several functions of the CoCC are expected to transition to other councils or entities, such as the Grants Council or the support nerds.

Note: We would appreciate it if @lavande could guide us through this process or if itā€™s possible to present the new budget.

8 Likes
20

We also need to reconsider to revise the reward framework based on the feedback from the delegates on the proposal. The compensation was apparently set from the framework that clearly mentioned for the CoCC compensation, which was guided by the Foundation.

2 Likes