[Temp Check] Amendments to Working Group Rules

DAO-Wide Temp Check
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Introduction

This post outlines a series of proposed amendments for the community to discuss about the ENS DAO Working Group Rules. Each amendment addresses a specific aspect of the working groups structure, aiming to enhance governance and community participation.

The proposed amendments are presented separately to allow for focused discussion and individual consideration. When we move to the Snapshot vote, each amendment will be listed as a separate choice, using approval voting, which means delegates can express individual preference for these amendments that they support.

This approach allows delegates to express their preferences on each amendment individually, rather than having to accept or reject them as a package.

The proposed amendments cover the following areas:

A. Single Working Group Nomination Rule
B. Diversity in Stewardship
C. Role Exclusivity
D. Conflict of Interest
E. DAO Confirmation of Compensation Structures

All community members are encouraged to review each amendment carefully, consider its potential impact, and participate in the discussion.

A. Single Working Group Nomination Rule

  • An individual may nominate themselves for only one working group per term, replacing the previous two-working-group limit.
  • This constraint will also prevent a sitting steward from nominating themselves in a midterm election.

Rationale for Steward Exclusivity

  • Promotes focused dedication and prevents the concentration of influence
  • Ensures steward specialization
  • Creates more leadership positions within the DAO, fostering broader community participation and diverse perspectives in decision-making processes.

Proposed Changes

Edit Rule 5.3:

5.3 A Nominee elected to serve as a Steward may not take up the role of Steward for more than one working group during their Term.

Add Rule 4.5:

4.5 An individual may nominate themselves for only one working group per term.

B. Diversity in Stewardship Rule

Core Rule

In the event that all three top-ranked candidates in a working group election are current stewards of that working group, a rotation system shall be triggered to ensure new participation in governance.

Detailed Implementation

  1. Election Results Assessment

    • When the three top-ranked candidates in a working group election are identical to the current stewards of that working group, the rotation system is triggered.
    • In cases of mid-term replacements, the person who served the longest duration in that steward position shall be considered for determining if the rotation system is triggered.
    • The incumbent steward with the lowest rank in the election could be replaced based on the following replacement criteria.

  2. Replacement Criteria

    • The lowest ranked incumbent shall be replaced by the highest-ranked candidate who:
      • Is not currently a steward in any working group
      • Has received more than 50% of the quorum in votes (at least 500k ENS).

  3. Fallback Procedures

    • If an eligible replacement declines the position, the next highest-ranked eligible candidate shall be considered
    • This process continues until either a replacement is seated or no eligible candidates remain
    • If no candidate meets the replacement criteria, all three incumbent stewards shall retain their positions

Rationale

  • Prevents concentration of influence across working groups
  • Creates more onboarding of community members to be able to learn with stewards that already have experience. Ensuring we have the knowledge and experience being distributed.
  • The 50% quorum requirement criteria ensures that any potential alternates have received significant approval from the delegates.

Proposed Changes

Update Rule 5.2:

5.2 The top three ranked Nominees from the working group vote held during the Election Window will be seated as Stewards for the upcoming Term, subject to the following conditions:

i) If all three top-ranked Nominees are identical to the current stewards of that working group, the rotation system shall be triggered. In cases of mid-term replacements, the person who served the longest duration in that steward position shall be considered for determining if the rotation system is triggered.

ii) Under the rotation system, the lowest-ranked incumbent shall be replaced by the highest-ranked Nominee who:
- Is not currently serving as a steward in any working group
- Has received more than 50% of the quorum in votes.

iii) This process shall continue with subsequent eligible Nominees until either a replacement is seated or no eligible candidates remain.

iv) If no eligible candidate meets these requirements, all three incumbent stewards shall retain their positions.

C. Role Exclusivity

  • Each individual within the working group structure must hold only one Official Role. Official Role being defined as a role that is included in the DAO approved compensation structures, but does not include roles defined via an individual Working Groupā€™s discretion.
    Example:
    • Stewards may not concurrently serve as Secretary or Scribe
    • The Secretary may not simultaneously act as a Scribe

Rationale for Role Exclusivity

  • Creates more opportunities, distributing the workload across members and develops skills of more contributors.
  • Clarifies roles and responsibilities, prevents conflicts between oversight and execution duties. Aligns with traditional governance best practices
  • Ensures a minimum of four distinct signatories for Working Group multi-sig transactions

Proposed Changes

Update Rule 9.6:

9.6 Neither the Secretary nor the Scribe can be an elected steward during the term in which they serve as steward, and the Secretary may not also serve as Scribe.

D. Conflict of Interest

  • Stewards are required to abstain from decision-making processes within the working group when they have a direct relationship with, or stand to directly benefit from, the receipt of resources in question.

Rationale for Conflict of Interest Rules

Strengthens the DAOā€™s commitment to ethical governance, transparency, fairness, and accountability in decision-making processes

  • Requiring stewards to abstain from decisions that directly benefit them or their affiliates ensures the integrity of the DAOā€™s operations and maintains community trust.

Proposed Changes

Add:
Section 13 Conflicts of Interest

13.1 Stewards must abstain from decisions that directly benefit themselves or organizations they are affiliated with, and these abstentions should be made public. Stewards must exercise this obligation in any situation that is a clear conflict, and stewards are encouraged to exercise this obligation in any situation that could possibly be interpreted as a conflict, so as to maintain the highest ethical standards.

13.2 Stewards are expected to vote on all working group funding requests, but they should abstain from any votes that directly contemplate or confirm their own compensation.

E. DAO Confirmation of Compensation Structures

  • Prior to the start of each term, the compensation structure for the stewards and supporting DAO roles in the coming term will be put up for a social vote to allow the delegates to codify. This shall be both USDC compensation and ENS token governance distributions.

Rationale

  • Current working group rules state that the Meta-governance working group is responsible for defining standards for fair compensation (ā€˜Compensation Guidelinesā€™), but the current rules have no provision or mandate for those rules to be codified by the delegates through a DAO vote. This amendment instructs the Meta-governance working group to submit the proposed compensation structure to the DAO via social vote.

Proposed Changes

Edit the Following Rule:
Section 11. Compensation for Stewards and Lead Stewards

11.5 The Compensation Guidelines shall be defined prior to the Nomination Window for each term and will only take effect for the following term if they are first confirmed by the DAO through a social vote.

Voting Process

If the Snapshot proposal receives over 1 million votes, the proposal will be considered as having reached quorum. Any individual Amendments that receive more than 50% approval will be considered as having passed and their specific rule changes will be merged into the official Working Group rules located here.

Possible conflict of interest

Iā€™ll be nominating for the meta-gov steward election, so rule B could be seen as having a conflict of interest. However, the composition of the current meta-gov stewards will probably not be the same since Avsa resigned, so the rule wouldnā€™t affect the current election. Also, the rules here will affect me if I get elected.

Anyway, it is good to call that out so there is no misunderstanding.

Notes

  • Items D and E were added by @5pence.eth, as well as the descriptions of which exact rules are affected and changed in the ā€œProposed changesā€ for each rule. Thanks for the support in refining it!!

  • Itā€™s worth acknowledging that @Limes currently holds both secretary and ecosystem steward roles (which would conflict with the proposed amended C) and has done an exceptional job in both positions. His CPA background and deep involvement in the DAO make him particularly well-suited for these responsibilities. I still think is worth for us debating this for good governance standards in future situations and terms.

  • This post and suggestions should be seen with the intention of evolving and maturing ENSā€™ DAO governance. Itā€™s about refining rules that optimize for less human error, more distribution of knowledge and long-term quality for the community.
    The idea is to have this open conversation so we can address and discuss it gracefully.

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Thank you very much for compiling this, Alex! I know itā€™s a not insignificant burden to get this all together and formulated in a way that makes voting on it viable.

My personal takes:

A. Single Working Group Nomination Rule

I donā€™t personally feel this is necessary; someone who wanted to work full-time for the DAO could likely take on two steward positions and do them both competently, and if we have such contributors we shouldnā€™t be discouraging them. We also donā€™t have an enormously deep talent pool that we can afford to introduce more barriers to participation.

If this was to be implemented, I think it would make more sense to amend the rules for taking a seat as a steward, meaning someone could stand more than once but could only assume one position if elected to more than one seat.

B. Diversity in Stewardship

Strongly against this one. As noted above, we donā€™t have a deep talent pool, and I think that itā€™s more important that we honor the democratic intent behind an election rather than erecting arbitrary barriers to participation.

This seems like something we could revisit if, later in the DAOā€™s life, we had an issue with incumbency making it impossible for new participants to enter. Right now, I donā€™t think we have that problem, and Iā€™m not sure this would fit well as a solution either - someone could simply cycle between two working groups indefinitely.

C. Role Exclusivity

Opposed for the same reason as A above.

D. Conflict of Interest

Strongly in favor. In fact, we should be drafting a CoI statement that applies to delegates as well, asking them to voluntarily sign up to it, and publishing a list of delegates who have made a strong commitment to ethical voting.

E. DAO Confirmation of Compensation STructures

Iā€™m in favor of this.

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Thanks Nick, for your detailed reply!

Thatā€™s exactly the reason why rules A, B, and C might be useful and have an impact. Imagine a good contributor who wasnā€™t able to become a steward. Now, heā€™s able to learn with two other experienced stewards. Over time, weā€™ll be distributing this knowledge. Depending on delegates opening this space rationally and without considering politics and relations is not enough, in my opinion.

Otherwise, weā€™ll continue with this problem, and it will become worse if we donā€™t take any other action. If this mechanism is not used, how can we create and find more talent?

Adding some real-world examples for reference:

Itā€™s common to use term limits for enabling rotation, which I think in ENS case would not reward good performance. There are other mechanisms to enable this rotation.

Iā€™m happy that we are discussing about it, so we can look to the long-term and think about it. Thatā€™s the positive outcome Iā€™m looking for, not changing rule A, X, Y, Z.

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Iā€™ll invite you to think why that is. Why is it that after 2+ years, something like ENS DAO is finding hard to attract talent? Is it the money? Surely not, enough has been thrown around. Is it career stewards warming seats and hopping between working groups? Yes. Nothing has been done to deter them, and as a consequence, there is no room for incomers. Donā€™t be surprised if the usual suspects run the show next year too, and we can all sit and wonder why no one new is showing up.

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Hey @alextnetto.eth, this is an amazing and quite thorough write-up on some changes that I fully support. All of them. I remember most of them being discussed on different occasions throughout the year. Thank you for submitting this. Great job!

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Do we have a lot of these contributors, though? At most steward elections, the nomination pool is on the order of 5-9 people; Iā€™m not seeing evidence that there are a lot of talented newcomers missing out by virtue of their newness.

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Amendment A - Single Working Group Nomination

Against. ENS should remain merit-based, allowing delegates to vote for the most qualified candidates. Creating artificial barriers through codification doesnā€™t serve our communityā€™s interests.

Amendment B - Diversity in Stewardship

Against. This amendment undermines delegate authority by imposing arbitrary restrictions on their voting power. If delegates choose to re-elect the same stewards based on proven performance and continued trust, they should maintain that right. Our focus should remain on empowering delegates to make informed choices, not adding rules.

Amendment C - Role Exclusivity

Disclaimer: I currently serve as both Secretary and Ecosystem Steward.

Against. Let me first clarify the current structure and responsibilities:

The Secretary role, defined in the Working Group Rules, is appointed by majority vote of all stewards. The Secretaryā€™s codified responsibilities include:

  • Managing the DAO-wide calendar
  • Coordinating and attending working group meetings, ensuring summary publication
  • Supporting Stewards with working group coordination
  • Serving as multi-sig keyholder for each working group

Additional non-codified contributions include:

The Scribe role, while not formally defined, focuses on documenting working group calls.

These appointments should remain merit-based. Stewards should retain the authority to select the most qualified candidates without additional bureaucratic constraints.

Amendment D - Conflict of Interest

Against. While I like the premise of this rule, I think the implementation has pervese outcomes.

This amendment could prevent token holders from supporting their chosen delegates in governance decisions. When a token holder delegates their voting power, it typically indicates trust and alignment with that delegateā€™s judgment. Restricting these delegates from voting on proposals due to potential conflicts effectively nullifies the token holderā€™s original intent and undermines the purpose of delegation.

This also doesnā€™t prevent people from moving their tokens to an anonomous wallet and voting for themselves, helping nefarious actors over honest ones.

Amendment E - DAO Confirmation of Compensation

For.

I remain committed to discussing these proposals and finding solutions that enhance our governance effectiveness.

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I am a Steward, a Service Provider, and a top 50 delegate. My involvement colors my perspective.

Broadly, we should strive to have the best people fill all available roles. For elected roles like Stewards, the delegates decide whoā€™s best. For appointed roles, the Stewards are empowered to decide. If someone is unable to perform or falls short in their duties, mechanisms exist to replace them.

Moreover, we should tread carefully when restricting delegate choice as a matter of principle, as many of these amendments do.

A. Single Working Group Nomination Rule

Against.

If someone is capable of doing multiple roles well, they should not only be able to, but encouraged to do so. I believe ENS is better when people are willing & able to dedicate the majority of their time to this ecosystem vs. splitting it among many others.

B. Diversity in Stewardship Rule

Against. We should strive to have the best people fill all available roles.

C. Role Exclusivity

Against. We should strive to have the best people fill all available roles.

D. Conflict of Interest

I support this concept, but have concerns about the wording, especially the bolded part:

Stewards must exercise this obligation in any situation that is a clear conflict, and stewards are encouraged to exercise this obligation in any situation that could possibly be interpreted as a conflict, so as to maintain the highest ethical standards.

Interpreted by who? A literal reading of this would say that if the CEO of Blockful buys me a beer (he has) and then I vote for a security related bounty for their work on ENS (I did) Iā€™m violating this standard as a Steward and Delegate. Clearly this is not what this is meant to solve.

A conflict of interest policy should have:

  1. Clear, defined scope focused on specific, objective criteria for identifying conflicts.
  2. Review process allowing for reviews and ability to grant justified exceptions.
  3. Consequences for violations to ensure accountability.

I donā€™t envy anyone who has to write such a policy since it is a difficult task. I appreciate Nettoā€™s first pass via this amendment.

I prefer no conflict of interest policy over an ambiguously worded one. I fully support the development of a coherent conflict of interest policy.

Amendment E - DAO Confirmation of Compensation

For.

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I support this. It is important to understand that it is always easier for current managers to prove that they are better, because the proof will be their very presence in the position. Stewards do not make political decisions, and accordingly, they do not bear political risks. In order for a current steward to lose an election, they must directly make an effort to lose (current stewards have never lost elections in ENS DAO, correct me if I am wrong).

A team of 2 experienced stewards + 1 newcomer is much more likely to bring new meanings to the community.

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A. Single Working Group Nomination Rule

Against.

I believe Nickā€™s sentiment on assuming a single seat makes more sense

B. Diversity in Stewardship Rule

Against. I also donā€™t believe there is a deep enough talent pool and would be worried about suboptimal stewards. I would also be worried about it being gamed and having stewards rotate

C. Role Exclusivity

Against. Talent pools are not deep enough at the moment

D. Conflict of Interest

Generally For, but this likely needs clarifying so it is more instructive about what to do in an ambiguous situation.

Amendment E - DAO Confirmation of Compensation

For.

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I feel like this reflects the current wording of the amendment rather than any fundamental issue with the idea of a CoC. Would you support it if it were reworded to require that the secretary or the MG WG establish a code of conduct?

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Finally ā€¦ :saluting_face:

On the talent pool - I already made a post on this arguing, that Steward positions should be widely marketed across the DAOs and generally within Ethereum ecosystem. How can you apply for something if you donā€™t know about it? I made an argument that this marketing should start no less than 6 months before the election. At a time @AvsA argued that 6 months ā€œis a lifetimeā€, and yet we are 1 month into election and still no effort been done in that direction whatsoever - of course the pool is not deep.

On the voting,I would, take it even further - make is so that current acting Stewards cannot vote any election at all, also make it a blind election, so that nobody can see the progress and who is voting and how. There are many reasons for that - by the very least, that eliminates ā€œleader influenceā€ factor, on top of that I myself witnessed situation whereby someone pressured delegates to drop votes during election for personal reasons. This kind of election manipulation would notā€™ve been possible, if the voting progress was hidden.

For the rotation I would add hard cap on the amount of years a Steward can serve in total, for example 3 or 4 years, after which he has step down either way.

If we donā€™t put those rules into effect in some form, there is bound to be stagnation within Steward institute.

Everything else fully supported, good job, I wish we could pass this before the election.

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There are versions of a code of conduct I would support, but my main concern with asking people to abstain is illustrated in this example:

  • Alice has 100k tokens
  • She delegates to Bob, trusting his judgment
  • Bob runs for steward
  • Due to conflict-of-interest rules, Bob canā€™t vote with Aliceā€™s tokens
  • Alice would have voted for Bob if self-delegating

This creates a problematic dynamic where delegates would actively discourage token holders from delegating to them, seeking direct votes instead when running for positions.

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This seems easily resolved with a reasonably worded CoC. And most stewards have voted for themselves in elections prior to this, if they had votes.

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I would support a reasonably worded CoC

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I believe a lot of these debates stem from the question of either the DAO should be more like a government, or more like a company. Term limits make sense in government, an elected representative that many years on the same position is regarded as a bad outcome, because that might be an indication that the elections themselves have been rigged, or at least that the person is not so much a representative of the people but rather a professional career politician. In a corporation, a career professional is usually seen as a positive thing: it means the company is able to retain talent, institutional knowledge and provide a viable career path allowing people to spend decades on the company. This might be related to the question of talent pool also: in a democracy any citizen should be able to be a politician, but not everyone is expected to do a decent job as an executive of a highly technical field.

I believe the ENS DAO is more akin to a company in that sense: we should strive to retain talent, to keep institutional knowledge and to make sure people who come in can feel they can dedicate years of their life to the DAO as a plausible career path. I believe itā€™s important to increase access to more diverse talent, but Iā€™m not sure a Steward job is a great entrance for new talent, but rather a position to grow into. I am currently having meetings with service provider to provide a better framework for season 2 next year, but part of the goal will be to imagine better ways for new entrants to be able to start working for the DAO.

A. Single Working Group Nomination Rule
I am in favor of this, for technical reasons. Currently we have stewards and secretary as signers for the working group wallets. If in an extreme case, the same 3 people were elected to all working groups, then we would have only 3 signers for all these wallets. I donā€™t think that would be a positive outcome for the DAO. Even if we were to solve all technical problems with having just 3 keys with so much importance, I think if 9 roles were done by 3 individuals, that would be an indication that we should reduce the amount of working groups. By using reverse logic, the same would be true if there were only 4, or 5 orā€¦ up to 8 signers.

B. Diversity in Stewardship
I think itā€™s an elegant solution for a problem we donā€™t have right now. If we had the same working group stewards for many years in a row we should be considering other symptoms: is the DAO not providing enough career opportunities that none of the current stewards are willing to jump to something else? Is the DAO not being able to put spotlight on existing talent that nobody else decent is showing up? Are we not doing a good job at distributing governance to all participating parties? Are we not doing a good job at making sure there are entrances for new talent?

C. Role Exclusivity

I tend to be in favor of this for the same reasons listed in point A above. We definitely should make a rule regarding having a single individual holding multiple keys in a working group. Regardless of that technical question, I am on the fence on either a secretary should also be a steward. I believe Limes did a great job at both, but the fact that these roles are the same person makes me wonder similar questions posted on B above: is the DAO not providing opportunities of career growth that stewards need to accumulate more jobs?

D. Conflict of Interest
Support. Thatā€™s already common practice.

E. DAO Confirmation of Compensation Structures
Support.

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Thanks for initiating the discussions from the proposal, @alextnetto.eth. The proposal itself is very articulated and well-thought-out.

We support the proposal as a whole.

First, we would like to express our strong respect and gratitude to the existing Working Group contributors who have managed the DAO operations with a limited capacity up to this point.

Ideas A through C are based on the concept of ā€œluxuriously utilizing human resourcesā€, which can only be implemented under the premise of already having abundant personnel, as pointed out by many community members.

On the other hand, as several dissenting opinions suggest, the current challenge of the ENS DAO might precisely be the inability to acquire the pool of excellent talent.

We are now at a phase where we should actively work to expand this talent pool, even if it means forcibly bringing in some new talent.

We also assume that, despite election rules being fair and open to everyone, we may not have many candidates. We believe this might be because the incumbent stewards have all been excellent, and mature experts, which makes it very difficult for newcomers to attain the seats to display their contributions to the DAO.

Idea B seems to be particularly a direct method, but as a compromise, we could consider an intermediate approach such as adding one slot for ā€œSteward Candidateā€ in each group, with the requirement that this slot must be filled by the most voted candidate who has no previous steward experience.

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I can see the clear division of opinions depending on the priority of increasing talent pool vs retaining existing talent. When the DAO WG first started back in 2022, it had 4 working group with 5 stewards (20 in total), but was reduced to 3 x 3 (9 in total) later in the year. Rather than making new rules to make it difficult for existing talent to stay in the position, how about temporarily(or permanently depending on the DAO budget) increasing the stewards back to 5 (15 in total) to welcome new stewards while the current stewards still retaining equal chance of remaining in position?

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Thatā€™s good idea. In terms of the number, keeping stewards number odd is easier to make decisions when stewards within each working group have split opinions.

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