SEED Latam | Regarding the selection of the new badgeholders for our members

A broader context regarding the rationale for my nomination

My participation in @ETHKipu and @SEEDGov: A brief work timeline

  • I joined DeFi Latam on May 11, 2021, as a Community Manager but eventually took on a much broader role and ended up becoming something of a Community Builder.

  • From January to August 2022, I got involved in the organization of ETH Latam Buenos Aires as one of the 5 people in the general coordination. It was an unpaid role, and over 20 members of SEED Latam took on operational tasks because we understood that the event was a benefit to the entire community.

  • From July to October 2022, I volunteered in the organization of ETH Latam Bogotá.

  • In March 2023, I started working in the emerging structure of ETH Kipu.

  • I left my leadership role at SEED Latam (formerly DeFi Latam) on June 5, 2023 I transitioned to coordinating the emerging Governance area of SEED Latam on the same day.

I am currently continuing to work in both organizations.

Only two people are involved in both organizations. One of those people is me. The other person is @0xLocoPacha, who is the designer for both organizations. I will not make a generalization or value judgment about my colleagues’ social circle. I will only say that in SEED Latam, there are 18 people in the Governance area alone. And in ETH Kipu, including members, collaborators, volunteers, and teachers, the number is around 50 people. And if we consider students, the number goes up to +400.

Both positions were communicated on July 19, 2023, in this forum:

For more details about the structure of SEED Latam, please check this post. You can review the updated organization chart here.

Rules and Criteria for Choosing Badgeholders

Now I would like to focus on the rules and criteria because these are what we must adhere to. As a badgeholder, I was instructed to nominate a new person to receive the badge. In this regard, I have two types of criteria to follow:

Rules and Code of Conduct: In this case, subjectivity is minimal because the text does not require much interpretation as its meaning is clear:

:white_check_mark: JoĂŁo did not work with me, nor does he work with me now. The rule is satisfied.

:white_check_mark: JoĂŁo does not represent any project or company. He acts on his own.

:white_check_mark: JoĂŁo can help with the process. His fresh perspective and common sense will help provide the necessary insights.

:white_check_mark: JoĂŁo is a lawyer. He follows multiple Web3 governance structures. I trust his input will be crucial when evaluating initiatives in the Collective Governance category.

:white_check_mark: JoĂŁo will definitely expand the diversity of perspectives, for the reasons I mentioned here:

My own personal assessment: having experienced being a badgeholder in RPGF2, I understand the responsibilities we are subject to. When I thought of JoĂŁo, I considered the following aspects:

  • Time availability
  • Proactivity
  • Critical judgment
  • Objectivity
  • Dissemination and impact

My Relationship with My Nominee, JoĂŁo Kury

Under no circumstances do I believe that members of any DAO should disclose personal details or aspects of the relationships they form both within and outside the Web3 ecosystem. However, given the relevance of the relationship between JoĂŁo and myself to his nomination, I am sharing some paragraphs summarizing our interaction.

TL;DR: JoĂŁo is not my friend. We do not have a pre-existing relationship. He is just another builder I had the opportunity to meet at a crypto event.

Brazil: ETH Samba

I met JoĂŁo on March 31, 2023, in Rio de Janeiro, at the ETH Samba event organized by Solange Gueiros and other builders from Brazil. It was my first time in Brazil, and I was invited as a speaker.

I use this paragraph to digress briefly: I had the honor of being the first speaker at the event (you can verify this by clicking on “Program” on the event’s website), opening with a talk about Public Goods where I discussed RPGF2 and the importance of the experience (you can access the presentation here).

I remember it was my first experience in a country where neither English nor Spanish was the norm. Despite the excellent atmosphere and everyone’s willingness to communicate using a mix of languages and gestures, I naturally ended up having more extensive conversations with those who spoke Spanish or English. João was one of the people who surprised me because his Spanish was quite good, and we began discussing various topics. I was impressed by his understanding of DAOs and governance, as well as his particular interest in privacy issues for governance participants. We greeted each other and shook hands with the promise that we would collaborate on governance in the future. However, we did not communicate again until months later.

Argentina: Governance Day, “La CaSEEDta,” and ETH Argentina

In anticipation of the ETH Argentina conference, we at SEED Latam worked diligently to organize an exclusive side event on Governance (we believe it was the first of its kind in the region). Upon learning of João’s possible trip, we invited him to give a lecture at the #GovernanceDay, which you can find here (in English).

Before that, we had our first concrete collaboration, where he wrote an article called “Governança Web3 na América Latina” (Web3 Governance in Latin America), featuring testimonials from @Joxes and @Gonna.eth, as well as other members from various governance communities.

João was in contact with different members of our team at the house rented by SEED Latam to host people from different countries (nicknamed “La CaSEEDta,” a play on words for “little house”). João did not stay there, but he visited us on some days along with many other guests. He conducted interviews since several people from both Optimism Español and SEED Latam had traveled from different countries. I must admit that I was not aware of these interviews until I saw them published. You can watch the videos on his YouTube channel.

As a member of @ETHKipu, I was also in close contact not only with JoĂŁo but also with different members of the Brazilian community. We do not have an English version, but I wrote this article myself. I was in touch with multiple members from different countries. This means that my contact with JoĂŁo during those days was within the normal range of interaction as with other people.

Post-Argentina

JoĂŁo inspired confidence in me to nominate him for the role. In fact, while these questions were being raised on the forum, I saw this message in the SEED Latam Telegram community.

The impact of nominating a badgeholder in advance is being questioned, and I believe we can already see results https://www.optimismpt.com/

This is definitely the result of dozens of conversations that took place during those days when people from 7 different countries came together. Meeting @Pumbi and other members of Optimism Español was crucial for this initiative to emerge. In fact, we had suggested it, but we didn’t know they were going to launch a website. It was a pleasant surprise today, but I experienced it with a bittersweet feeling due to the accusations in the forum.

Communication

We have been involved in the governance of Optimism from day 1 at SEED Latam. All communication is concentrated in the communication thread of the SEED Latam delegate Joxes, active since July 16, 2022, and earlier this year, we created an institutional communication thread for SEED Latam, where we take special care in ensuring clarity and detail in our actions both politically and organizationally.

In light of this, such allegations are unacceptable and even immature. Badgeholders are also subject to a conflict of interest declaration. Voting for organizations in which they are involved is prohibited.

Both Joxes and I decided to take a proactive role and communicate our nominations on the forum. While this is not mandatory, we believe it is positive to do so. Most nominations have not been reported.

Last year, it was also not mandatory to report the rationale behind votes. However, Joxes did it here, and I did it here.

Therefore, this statement is malicious, incorrect, and attacks our culture and work ethic:

We have instructed our nominees on this point from the very beginning, emphasizing the need to make a final post informing about the decision-making process, the review of all proposals (even if they are more than 200, last year there were 195), and the communication of all of this on the forum, Discord, and personal networks.

I understand that this was a personal initiative and was not mandatory. In any case, Gonna can clarify. In my case, I prioritized a face-to-face interaction where I sat down with JoĂŁo to calmly discuss the importance of the responsibility in this role and asked him targeted questions to understand if he was genuinely interested.

Final Personal Conclusions

Apathy and Concentration.

In the last Citizens’ House meeting held 2 days ago (September 12), it caught my attention that three days before the deadline, 82 badges had not yet been distributed. This is at least concerning because the failure to distribute and accept the badge ultimately leads to the centralization of decision-making. Why do we not have at least 100 badgeholders at this point? Are we fully comprehending the importance of distributing 30M OP?

Incentives to be a Badgeholder

The role of the Badgeholder is not paid. There are no financial incentives to get involved. This narrows down the options when thinking about valid candidates. It is common for people in Web3 to be involved in two or more projects.

Proposal for New Badge Distribution Methods

I believe we can work during the reflection period to suggest new distribution methods. Unfortunately, right now, I can only think of bureaucratic layers for the process. While I have tried to strictly follow the criteria set by the forum, some sectors are not satisfied with it. This is an excellent opportunity to revisit parts of the process that are constantly evolving and make quality suggestions to improve the badgeholder selection mechanisms.

But it is the task of all members of the Optimistic collective.

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