[FINAL] DAOstar: Governance standards for the Optimism ecosystem

Thanks @amanwithwings .

Just following up with a short comment. Understand desire for rigid enforcement of milestones. But what rigid enforcement of a timeline misses is that in the course of executing people learn things that require updates to the timeline or even the deliverables. In this case we learned, for example, that the DAO ecosystem is still underdeveloped in Optimism (a.k.a. there simply aren’t that many active DAOs yet) and that we need to do more to support DAO growth and adoption (1) within OP protocols and (2) from other ecosystems. That means working with folks in the foundation and community to define and execute a more comprehensive DAO strategy, and this grant has given us an opportunity to explore that on top of the promised milestones.

2 Likes

Further, the Optimism Collective has yet to publish a daoURI.

Mission Proposals should not rely on the Foundation’s support, participation, or adoption as a criterion for success. @Lavande stated this above as an early reply to this proposal. The Foundation has not yet adopted the DAOStar URI standard, but that should not reflect on the completeness of this Mission.

I understand that, which is why I was hesitant to approve this Mission Proposal in the first place. But explicit in their critical milestone (shown above) is the deployment of a daoURI for Optimism, which they kept even after Lavande’s concern on the matter. To my understanding, the critical milestone is supposed to be the measure by which we assess the “completeness” of the mission. I approved the mission and its budget with that critical milestone in mind, which I’m sure many other delegates did as well. I don’t think it’s wise necessarily to try and retroactively change/interpret that critical milestone, even if it is outside the bounds of what a critical milestone should be.

1 Like

This is my opinion and does not represent either the GovNerds or the Grants Council.

First and foremost, let’s remember that this mission has a 1-year lock for all the OP tokens. This means there’s ample time to assess whether the team delivers or not.

I agree with you, @chaselb, that we must adhere to the rules and avoid changing interpretations. However, we also need to consider what is best for the collective. For me, that means prioritizing teams building in optimism over meeting “midterm” dates.

For future missions, we should request critical milestone dates but treat the 1-year lock date as final. This approach addresses several issues I’ve observed here and in grants, particularly concerning milestone tracking. It’s much simpler to review whether every milestone was completed on a single date than to maintain a live tracking system for milestones that becomes irrelevant if the grant unlocks after 1 year. This will also diminish noise in the forum about milestones, and take pressure off the team.

5 Likes

Im usually fine with giving folks leeway occasionally, usually in regards to submission timing. However, milestones are set by the proposers themselves and are really are crucial when it comes to measuring progress. If we bend the rules occasionally for milestones, then it becomes more of a grey area and I think it’s essential for milestones to be absolutely clear. Making exceptions for milestones that are close but not met is a really slippery slope for something that is so critical.

3 Likes

Thank you for the suggestion, @Gonna.eth. Approaching timelines in this manner allows for the execution of complex and impactful missions.

We chose to prioritize Optimism Collective’s adoption of the standard as a milestone because of the significant boost it would provide to the standard’s acceptance. If you look at how standards work, it is far easier to bring changes via infrastructure providers (in this case, governance frameworks ) compared to individual consumers (in this case, DAOs). That is why Snapshot, Aragon, Moloch, DAODAO, etc. have embraced EIP-4824 and Gitcoin, OpenZepplin, Tally, Boardroom, Agora, and countless others have used it to collaborate on other standards and infrastructure.

But this is a metadata standard for DAOs and we cannot just leave existing DAOs be. It is important to make sure that all DAOs, irrespective of which ecosystem or governance framework they use, have a smooth onboarding path to EIP-4824, should they wish to do it. The only practical path to solving this problem is to have the leaders adopt the standard first (i.e, Optimism Collectve, ENS, Aave, Maker, etc.), before approaching “smaller” DAOs. Now that the foundation has approved our proposal to publish a daoURI on behalf of Optimism Collective, it will boost EIP-4824’s visibility among other DAOs and tools in the ecosystem. In fact, by awarding us this mission, you also made it easier for us to have the conversations we had, which culminated in 3 DAOs on Optimism already adopting the standard. DAOstar is committed to continuing this work.

If any of you believe that the work work we’ve already accomplished so far is insignificant and not in line with the critical milestones we’ve set, I’d be more than willing to schedule a call to provide additional information and clarify any concerns.

3 Likes

Update: We are past the quorum at Unlock and the proposal is passing unanimously.

I agree with this statement. As members of the Optimism collective we are watching this topic and wondering if the original rules for builders grants with a clawback rule will be enforced. If not how many other teams will follow suit in similar situations?

Do we really need more uncertainty when it comes to the large sums of money that are being distributed through the Optimism Grant program?

It’s an important reminder that if there is one stipulation that is changed it opens up the doors for all other grant recipients to bend the same rules. For the sake of the process we need to reach consensus on this topic otherwise how can the governance process be taken seriously by others if the see how easy it is to manage getting around the standards that were set in place to prevent this from happening.

This is what the clawback condition above states:

Please list a critical milestone. The critical milestone should be a measure of whether you’ve made best efforts to execute what is outlined in this proposal or not. If you fail to achieve your critical milestone, your grant may be clawed back.

We’re not contesting that we missed the full critical milestone. We ARE making the case that we have made substantial progress and that the critical milestone is very likely to be fulfilled, though on a delayed timeframe. Aman talked about about why the timeframe was delayed, how it was to some degree out of our control based on aspects of the ecosystem that we didn’t understand before beginning to implement, and gave details about our best effort attempt to adapt and deliver on the mission.

In the quote above and in the Token House’s governance docs, it sounds like enforcement of the clawback rule is designed to give room for exactly these kinds of considerations. This is not bending the rules. It’s just governance.

3 Likes

GM! This is my opinion and does not represent the GovNerds.

I believe that during Season 4, the Alliances were somewhat constrained in their options when it came to completing their milestones. In that season, mission proposals had to be marked as “done” before the season’s end. However, in Season 5, there is a more generous time frame, allowing missions to be completed within a 12-month window.

If a proposed mission in Season 4 is impactful for the Collective, I am open to some flexibility regarding the completion date. Nevertheless, it’s essential to acknowledge that from the perspective of an applicant, the tight deadline of 2.5 months in Season 4 was kinda stressful.

Season 4 completion date:

Season 5 completion date:

3 Likes

I think it is good to be flexible, as the development of this mission can benefit the whole Optimism ecosystem, adopting standards is always good for faster growth.

But to be fair, we should also consider any other mission that has missed the deadline and this requires a case by case evaluation.

3 Likes

Hey all, providing an update on this mission request:

We coordinated with the Optimism Foundation and have successfully published the daoURI mentioned above. You can view it here (published by deploying a registration contract on Optimism Mainnet) as well as here, under the EAS tab (published as an EAS attestation). This is a critical milestone of our grant. Other milestones already fulfilled include:

  • deploying the EIP-4824 registration factory on Optimism Goerli and Mainnet, as well as subgraphs to index EIP-4824 registrations on these chains. A full list of deployments can be found here: DAOstar Contract Registry

  • configuring DAOstar explore page to index EIP-4824 registrations on Optimism Mainnet

  • integrating with Snapshot and Boardroom, to automatically daoURI generation given a DAO address. DAOs on Optimism, by only entering their ENS name (for Snapshot), can generate a proposalsURI and membersURI through these integrations. The daoURIs generated are automatically stored on IPFS.

  • [CRITICAL] ShapeShift DAO adoptig EIP-4824: Snapshot

  • [CRITICAL] Unlock Protocol adopting EIP-4824: The proposal to adopt EIP-4824 passed unanimously at Unlock DAO: Snapshot

  • [CRITICAL] LXDAO adopting EIP-4824: LXDAO reached consensus on adopting EIP-4824 and already published their daoURI: DAOstar

This marks the completion of this mission request, and I want to thank everyone who provided invaluable feedback and support on our journey.

We have not only met the preset milestones, but have gone a few steps further:

  • We’ve built an EIP-4824 registration flow utilizing Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) for trusted 3rd parties to publish a daoURI on behalf of DAOs. This pathway makes it incredibly easy for a 3rd party to start publishing EIP-4824 compliant information on behalf of a DAO. You can read the instructions here and start using the pathway.

  • We’ve built an alternate pathway to publish daoURIs through a text field on an entity’s ENS (or DNS) name. Going forward, adopting EIP-4824 will be as simple as setting a new daoURI text record on ENS! You can read the full specification here. The specification also lists our indexing priority of various pathways

  • 1inch DAO, and Treasure DAO recently adopted EIP-4824. More DAOs are on the way!

  • We have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to achieve better regulatory interoperability for DAOs. An EIP-4824 powered regulatory interface is being built. As part of that effort, we recently released this report outlining our thoughts on addressing the DAO policy trilemma.

We also have new documentation out, listing various DAOIPs and pathways towards EIP-4824 compliance. It’s being improved, but check it out here!

In summary, over the past year, the ecosystem around EIP-4824 has greatly improved. We now have multiple compliance pathways, making adoption a lot easier. Governance frameworks like Snapshot have full, native EIP-4824 adoption (you can view EIP-4824 data on any verified snapshot space through their API. Example).

We thank all badge holders and delegates for their patience. The mission took a lot longer than anticipated to execute due to its complicated nature, but we were able to push the envelope on better DAO data and interoperability, thanks to your support.

1 Like