We need to talk about undisclosed financial interests

[katie]

As a delegate, this information is definitely concerning. It looks like these actions violate the self dealing clause of the code of conduct below. This would be the same thing as me helping one of my portfolio companies write a grant, promote them in the forum, approve them for voting, then also take a portion of the grant they received. Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way, happy to be proven wrong here.

@system

No Self-Dealing

• Mandatory (Violation 10): Optimists must avoid conflicts of interest where possible and mitigate their impact when not possible. We recommend over-communicating and disclosing potential conflicts of interest even when they do not warrant abstaining from a vote.
  • 10a. Any actual or reasonably anticipated conflicts of interest must be disclosed in writing and prominently displayed ahead of any voting (i.e. when submitting delegate commitments, when running for an elected position, when making public recommendations, etc.).
  • 10b. Any offer for external compensation relating to delegation or external compensation relating to the Optimism Protocol must be promptly disclosed.
  • 10c. Delegates are prohibited from approving and voting on their own proposals. Delegates may not vote for their own candidacy in an election. In the case of approval/ranked choice votes, delegates may vote for themselves, so long as they also cast votes for the remaining elected positions.
    • Example: I can vote for my own candidacy on the Growth Experiments committee, so long as I also cast 4 additional votes (a total of 5 votes, as there are 5 open positions on the sub-committee.)
  • 10d. Badgeholders should not vote for organizations where they expect any portion of funds to flow to them or any projects they are affiliated with. At a minimum, badgeholders must disclose any project they have a meaningful financial or reputational stake in.

Additionally, protocols participating in the Protocol Delegation Program must:

• Mandatory (Violation 11): Abstain from using voting power delegated via the Protocol Delegation Program on any proposals that directly involve themselves or a direct competitor.
• Mandatory (Violation 12): Abstain from providing voting recommendations to the general public, separate from any representative’s participation on the Grants Council.