[Temp Check] ENS Retro: An ENS DAO Retrospective & Stakeholder Analysis

[estmcmxci]

@James

the proposal now articulates Metagov.org as the primary and only contributor to the DAO Retro, while also creating structures for the the wider ENS DAO ecosystem to contribute to the retro in an open, permissionless way.

That doesn’t seem very meritocratic to me. Why not invoke a tender process akin to an RFP? If a single contributor is chosen without competition, then what chance are we giving excellence to emerge? Or are we assuming excellence based on reputation alone?

—

Now this:

@James

This proposal aims to bring more accountability to the DAO’s spending, developing clear and measurable datapoints that the DAO can use to continue to build its processes and decision making mechanisms.

Followed by this:

@James

It is important to remind readers - the goal of this project is not produce a proposal of what ENS DAO does next. This retrospective and stakeholder analysis is meant to provide clarity on where the DAO is and what are the some the challenges it is facing

Is borderline contradictory. If you want to tighten it up, I suggest adding a component to the onchain proposal that follows this social proposal — explicitly stating that the findings from this retrospective should be actioned immediately by a designated or elected representative, and outlining the process for selecting that representative.

—

@James

This temp check proposes undertaking a formalised retrospective on ENS DAO; its impact, its spending, its goals and its outputs from the past two years. Examining grants, DAO service providers, DAO working groups and any other output from the DAO treasury.

Allow me to propose a framework:

1. Use the ENS Ledger app and quarterly spending reports as the basis for your quantitative research on treasury allocations.
2. Combine that with qualitative research (e.g. identifying the DRI responsible for distributing and overseeing those allocations).
3. Deliver an accountability framework that measures performance against compensation.

—

@James

Contributions and data provision can be provided by anyone (in or outside of the DAO) however the data collection and analysis will be managed independently by Metagov.org, to ensure that no internal DAO politics, or external parties acting in their own best interest, blur the intent or output of the retrospective.

@James

If any steward wants to opt out and is not willing to continue to participate as a steward (or separately from the retro), then as long as one WG lead stays on the working group can be maintained over this extension (likely with an understood reduced output level, along with hopeful participation in the retro).

I think the Motivation section has some good research questions. I’m looking forward to learning about how to contribute.

—

This claim:

@James

If any steward wants to opt out and is not willing to continue to participate as a steward (or separately from the retro), then as long as one WG lead stays on the working group can be maintained over this extension (likely with an understood reduced output level, along with hopeful participation in the retro).

and this claim:

@gregskril

Allowing a working group to operate with less than 3 stewards requires a rule change, and I think having an odd number is fairly important for decision making. Not to mention that reducing the number of signers on a multisig with hundreds of thousands of dollars is probably not ideal.

Can someone reconcile this for me? The proposal seems to suggest that a working group could continue with fewer than 3 stewards — but as noted, that would require a WG rule change. Does this mean that @James’s proposal also implicitly provisions a WG rule change?

—

@James

On top of the reality that these stewards have insight to bring, because of these retro discussions over the past ~4 weeks (which I will directly take responsibility for alongside the MetaGov WG) there hasn’t been an announcement or any space for new possible electorates to propose themselves, which is another reason to extend these elections so we can have more time to invite wider contributors to the working groups.

This seems like a non sequitur. The WG rules explicitly state that the nomination process for Stewards begins on December 6. @Meta-Gov_Stewards are already ad-hoc-ing a shift to December 8, which I don’t see as necessary.

Obviously, we are not following procedure anymore.

—

@James

This budget could be managed by a range of actors; the MetaGov Working group, ENS Labs or Metagov.org themselves. This budget would also be tied to deliverables, timeline and scope defined by Metagov.org in the subsequent proposal.

Let’s make this clear: the proposal should explicitly define who is responsible for managing this budget and accountable for delivery — if it hopes to live up to its own stated standard.

—

In short, yes, retrospective is a good idea. I’m on the side of progress and champions of internet native organizations.