Introducing Governance Committees

[Prometheus]

@diligit

Regarding voting and governance, we have delegates doing the hardest part of the governance process, analysing and working on proposals, now we will have committees, so every voting participant will be able to see a constructive analysis from the committees, and it’s just a matter of voting.

Exactly… “it’s just a matter of voting”. People don’t even need to think anymore. Sad but true.

[diligit]

Committees help by providing constructive analysis for each proposal, but each person can analyse the proposals and make their own decisions.

[Prometheus]

@ben-chain

Instead, committees will vet, research, and discuss proposals, then make highly visible recommendations to non-committee delegates at the time of voting.

Sure, people can analyse the proposal and vote against the highly visible recommendations but what’s the point? Once a committee gives a positive recommendation it’s done. From there, it’s just a matter of voting. Contrary opinions will get dismissed because who knows better than the committee. Fact is, committees are a central point of failure with influence.

[diligit]

That’s what I said, the committees provide enough analysis for each proposal for everyone to vote without wasting time.

[L2Maxi]

we have 2 people now on two different commitees there needs to be rules for this because it is not smart to have echo chamber

[diligit]

At the next Reflection Period the position of a delegate in several committees will be re-evaluated.

[OPUser]

This we can definitely discuss in next cycle and open to suggestions.

I am also curious about any other suggestions you have improve the overall governance process.

[jackanorak]

What’s realistically changed from before? Anyone can always weigh in with contrary opinions (including dissenters within committees). On the margin you have some ability for some delegates to direct their focus away from areas they’re less sharp on, and even that lasts only as long as the committees’ reputations remain intact.

[Prometheus]

@jackanorak

What’s realistically changed from before?

Mainly this with all the side-effects…

@ben-chain

By approving a committee, delegates are entering a social contract to entrust and delegate the bulk of decision-making to the committee. They are expected to follow the recommendation of committees, except in extreme circumstances

If this doesn’t change anything to you then the answer is nothing changed. Realistically I don’t need to change your opinion nevertheless from my non-delegate perspective this is clearly a governance power shift in the Optimism DAO.

[krzkaczor]

I hope so! They will do twice the amount of work. (@Joxes is part of both the DeFi and Tooling committee).

[Sweetu01]

I agree this idea for future groth

[jrocki.bedrock]

That is a good point and I actually plan to informally reach out to other community members not on this committee to get their feedback on some proposals because this is a vast landscape and we do not indeed know everything

[jrocki.bedrock]

@Michael

Is there an open process for selecting committee members, or is this all based on a proposal submission? My concern is that these committees may be formed by groups who already know each other and therefore won’t have the diversity of thought required for such an outsized influence.

It is funny that we actually (not on purpose) put the NFT & Gaming committee together this way. That is to say none of us other than fractal and I knew each other before we formed our committee

[MoneyManDoug]

Should just be delegates holding themselves accountable for this, I think they should have to abstain from pay from one committee if they are on multiple, as they are just leaching money from the second committee they are in. This is especially the case with NFT and tooling as there will likely be few proposals to go over. This is the only way to disincentivize people from joining multiple committees which are supposed to be specialized. Already we have seen committees tainted by centralization and no one sees an issue with that.

[0xTrevor]

Bullish on governance

[poopster]

@MinimalGravitas

If there is going to be a financial reward for participation, then as I suggested yesterday, I think it makes more sense to determine this retroactively when the season ends.

Agree, you could also use KPI options for this as well and just set your KPI’s beforehand then not have to worry about paying out

[Shylsingh73]

Agree to you Poopster, KPI options suits best to give out. The whole community benefits from this .

[lavande]

Based on the community call on 10/11/22, added:

• If something is not clearly outlined in this post or the operating manual, committees have decision making authority over their own operations, and may decide to make exceptions for proposers at their discretion

[brex]

is it possible to have all this info as onepager infographic?