We really appreciate the Optimism community’s dedication to iterating on process and try new approaches. However, we don’t feel that the proposed setup solves the issues mentioned in https://gov.optimism.io/t/guide-to-season-3-course-correcting/3942. While we value diversity in experience/perspective and hope that new delegates continue to get involved in governance, it isn’t clear to us that protocols generating the most revenue for the ecosystem today are necessarily the best governance participants, or that they would have the capacity to participate in governance thoughtfully. Furthermore, we think several votes could pose as conflicts of interest for these protocols, and therefore the 70% participation rate may not be achievable, if protocols are acting honestly. A passage in the Delegate Code of Conduct mentions abstaining from votes for competitors, however there may be a lot of gray area around the term “competitor” for protocols engaging in votes.
If the following modifications were made, we believe the proposal would more likely achieve the desired outcomes:
- Protocols submit delegate commitments, just as other delegates did prior to the airdrop, to indicate interest and capacity to engage in governance
- The 70% participation rate should explicitly mention how we deal with conflicts of interest (and make sure not to incentivize conflict of interest voting), and give more guidance around what constitutes a “competitor”
- Protocols are chosen by other metrics instead of or in addition to gas fees generated that are more indicative of their ability to participate in governance (e.g. monthly active users)