Author: Raphael Spannocchi
Original title: DAO Governance Contributor Toolkit
DAO governance can be scary. We all know that. Some of our proposals have been applauded and some met with fierce opposition, but one thing is for sure, there is nothing better than the depth of DAO governance to directly affect the direction our field is headed.
So, dear reader, if you are still hesitant to jump in and contribute to DAO governance, let us encourage you with enthusiasm:"LFG! 🚀"
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What is DAO governance?
DAO governance is the process of bootstrapping a decentralized autonomous organization. Due to its decentralized nature, DAOs should not have a central leadership (at least in theory). In practice, the founders and most active members determine much of the agenda and thus what needs to be done. Especially in the early startup phase, the founders will be in charge of doing everything.
As the DAO grew, more and more contributors took on the task and began to shape the operation of the whole. DAOs are more liquid than traditional corporations, and influence is easier to gain, but also easier to lose. A major difference from traditional organizations is that we cannot force other members or subunits to perform certain tasks.
DAOs have a different check and balance mechanism than traditional organizations. Apart from the smart contracts that make up the DAO on-chain, it doesnt have any command structure. There are no executives who can order others. Conversely, good, well-argued advice convinces others to take action.
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Should you participate in DAO governance?
Since we are working in DAO governance, we can only emphasize that:"should!". DAO governance is an exciting, diverse, and impactful profession that allows contributors to expand their network, be at the forefront of development, and make a name for themselves.
However, the overall pace of actual activity and governance is not for everyone. A better question would then be:"Who should participate in DAO governance?"
When recruiting contributors for Flipside, we look for these qualities:
Strong communication skills, both written and oral
Quick grasp of situations and ability to act under pressure and great uncertainty
Fast learner with a deep understanding of the ecosystem
Have some background in history, philosophy, or behavioral science
Governance, especially in later stage DAOs, covers a huge range of topics, and contributors are sometimes required to vote on each issue. Although"abstain"is a valid vote, but its even better if you have an opinion to express. It is important to be able to quickly grasp a problem, then do the necessary research and draw conclusions. Good communication skills require an honest mindset about what you really know and what you dont know. This way, your opinion will be understood in its precise context.
A lot of governance is about relationships, and human relationships with other human beings are based on trust and respect. Some contributors use anonymous accounts and publish great work, while others publish under their real names. Assuming you want to remain anonymous, fine. But please dont use your anonymous identity to crush everyone with cynicism and hatred. This is a negative in Web3, dont be that person.
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Tool recommendation
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Communication Tools - How to get your point across
The two main tools for contributors are Discord and Discourse. Discord is the de-facto standard for DAO group chat, and Discourse will be where DAOs discuss serious business. The DAO calls their Discourse site"forum", the word was inspired by the ancient Greek ἀγορά (agora), which translates as forum. The agora is where nobles gather to discuss the fate of their country.
Discord is a place for informal small talk. Its the place to see the general vibe of a DAO, and its the easiest way to make friends and connect. The Discussion Board is where proposals are presented, dissected, discussed, amended, and then put to a vote. Well cover voting in more detail later. Suffice it to say that the actual voting takes place outside of Discourse for the most part.
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Research Tools - How to Find the Hottest Topics
Messari Governor is a nice tool as it keeps track of many DAOs and flags interesting proposals. If the DAO you want to participate in is covered by this tool, you will have real gains.
Then there’s Tally.xyz, a self-proclaimed DAO operations tool where you can track important votes and proposals. This list would not be complete without the proposal monitoring systems Boardroom and Sybil.
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How to browse forums and chat rooms
When youre joining a new Discord server or poking around on a DAO forum, the sheer number of channels and parallel conversations can be overwhelming. Dont worry, we will guide you.
Francis Fig Gowen of Flipside likes to check in on whats going on on a daily basis to make sure he stays on the cutting edge of developments. He looks at subjects that remain at the top of a certain category. These are the topics with the highest engagement and the potential to have the greatest impact. Occasionally, he also follows the activities of key contributors. Its like asking a local to guide you through an urban maze youre just beginning to understand.
His colleague Ian d0bby Dobbins uses"since your last visit"feature to let him know about new questions on the forum. He then visits the emblematic affairs and governance categories because thats where he feels drawn to and where he wants to make the most significant impact. Forum posts are usually tagged, and you can search for those tags. But examining the categories themselves helps catch interesting but mislabeled proposals.
On Discord, the best thing to do is to follow the chat history of those channels you are attracted to, and then jump right in and write a reply or post. On most servers, people are warm and friendly. When DAOs are able to attract and retain new contributors and talent, they thrive. There is a built-in incentive for members to be newbie friendly. You can think of it as talent development.
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Make your posts shine
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Get great at Discourse
The most endearing qualities of a post are originality and concise good writing. You dont need to be Shakespeare to get noticed. Basic spell checking, writing and rereading forum posts before posting, and having clear, positive intentions all go a long way.
FigGowen uses Google Docs for proposals or longer responses because he can use Googles spell check and Grammarly there. Ian Dobbins types his replies directly into Discourses post editor, making full use of the preview feature on the right. Grammarly is also available in Discourse, keeping typos away.
But there is one most important question to ask yourself, which is:"What am I trying to achieve with this post? What am I actually trying to say?"Well, those are two questions, but closely related.
Above is a screenshot of the Discourse editor. You can see the Grammarly icon in the lower right corner of the editor, it will tell me that the overall feeling of my blog is neutral, I have a grammar error (red underline), that is"right "A comma is missing after it.
You can use basic HTML tags like your text here or use the Markdown language to format your Discourse posts. This blog has all the details you need to know.
The Markdown codes we use most often are:
## represents the H2 heading. One # sign represents H1, three represents H3, .... Then you get the idea.
**indicates bold**, *indicates italics*.
Lines beginning with a hyphen - will become a list of dots
Select a paragraph in another post, and click the"quote", to insert part of another post for reference
[link description](https://hyperlink.here) Insert a descriptive link in the post
Good structure helps break down long proposals into chunks that are easier to digest and understand.
Concise, expressive writing is a skill that needs to be honed and developed over time, and its what separates good contributors from great contributors. A well-structured proposal with clear goals and a positive character is much easier to get through than random nonsense. It definitely pays to give your proposal all the love it has the best chance of success. One of the best examples here is a very well written essay by TJ Ragsdale of MakerDAO that shows his deep research.
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Sparkle in Discord
or"HODL "or"jeez"。
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Make it their business, not yours
Discord allows users to change basic font parameters such as bold or italic text, box quotes and single lines of code, as well as green, red or blue text color. This blog has all the details. The main functions we use:
*your text* make text italic
**YOUR TEXT** Make text bold.
>Your text inserts a block quote, and finally,
`Your Text` formats text as code
A very handy tool is a Discord timestamp generator, such as this one. Since the DAOs contributors are in different time zones, using timestamps makes everyones life simple. Timestamps are displayed in local time for everyone reading the message, that is, there is no need to calculate UTC.
For example. This message contains a timestamp and it will be displayed like this:
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Moving the Work Ahead - How the Proposal Gets Passed (or Not)
If you followed the previous section, you should know how to browse the various channels. So lets talk about how to get things done. In order for a DAO to do something, a proposal must be made and accepted by the community. Only then can the necessary resources be provided.
Proposals usually surface first on Discord, often in the form of an informal temperature check to test the mood of the group. If the mood is overwhelmingly negative, those concerns must be addressed first. In this case, making a proposal will only result in negative reviews and will definitely not pass.
You can jump into these conversations and start bootstrapping the DAO. Being humble and being open about your knowledge gaps can help avoid awkward situations and will ensure your questions are answered. It really is that simple to start governance.
If the authors of the proposal feel that their idea has received positive feedback, they will take it to another level. Before a proposal is put to a vote, it sometimes undergoes a formal temperature check on the DAOs Discourse forum. These are called temperature checks or signal requests. At this stage, the proposal has a certain degree of completeness and development. Registered users can vote for, against or sometimes abstain. Some forums require users to participate for a period of time before allowing voting to avoid bots and other nefarious activities.
After signaling a request, the next step is to formally vote on the proposal. Voting is sometimes done in Discourse, or in the case of token-weighted voting, on a custom website. Polls are also occasionally held in Discord with the help of chatbots. Its voting tools include Snapshot and Coordinape for reward distribution. The latter two work off-chain, so activity there does not incur transaction fees, enabling token holders who hold a small number of tokens to participate.
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Learn more about Snapshot and Coordinape
Snapshot allows users to vote with their tokens. To participate in voting, a user needs to hold tokens in his wallet, namely MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, Portis, and all other wallets that support WalletConnect.
If you do not hold any tokens, you cannot vote. This is by design, as most DAOs believe that only those affected by a vote will be able to participate.
Below is a screenshot of a somewhat controversial vote on BanklessDAO. We can see that icecool.eth, one of BanklessDAOs core contributors and developers is a moderator, and a user with Discord handle links #7868 supports the proposal.
The proposal asks for funding so that BanklessDAO in Q4 can be funded for this discussion.
The actual discussions leading up to this proposal are already taking place on Discord and the forums. Snapshots are just polling stations. Polls run for a week, and keeping an eye on the time shows that polls are centered around Eastern Standard Time. The author is on Greenwich Mean Time, which is ET+5, and voted from 12:00AM ET on May 3, 2022 to 12:00AM ET on May 10, 2022.
The final voting results were written to the Ethereum blockchain at block height 14,702,090. Snapshot does not store votes on the Ethereum blockchain, as storage there is prohibitively expensive.
Instead, it stores votes, messages signed by the respective users wallet, to the Interplanetary File System, a decentralized cloud service.
We can see that the vote passed, ~82% of tokens were delegated to yes votes, ~15% were delegated to abstention votes, and 3% were delegated to no votes. Token holders can sometimes vote on multiple options if voting allows it. Holders can then allocate a percentage of their tokens to each of the options they favor.
Yes, no, abstaining votes are usually limited to one option only.
Some DAOs have their own front ends for on-chain voting. Tokens are usually required to participate, and token weights are factored into determining outcomes. Here is a screenshot of the MakerDAOs voting page as an example:
What we would like to mention is that some DAO proposals must appear in the form of smart contracts in order to make the execution of automatic proposals go smoothly. This is also the closest to the true definition of an autonomous organization, whose execution does not depend on any one member or group. Voting can happen without a human by invoking the corresponding smart contract, and some DAOs require this level of technical expertise.
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What Makes a Contributor Great
The measure of a good contributor is their impact on the DAO. Ian Dobbins suggested giving priority to having a sense of presence in the community, showing yourself, and putting forward good ideas, and dont be afraid to raise different opinions. As someone who is constantly being courteous to others"nice guy", it is unlikely that you will have many friends, and it will not affect you. Focusing on issues and having a voice is critical.
Following voting requirements is another sign of making sure your participation is up to scratch. Some DAOs measure participation, and regular contributors are rewarded for their efforts. Put voting events on your calendar and be active on the forums, because sometimes missing a vote can mean you forfeit your rewards for the month.
Fig Gowen believes that a good understanding of the wider ecology is the hallmark of being a Top Contributor. Many original forms will circulate in multiple ecology, and this can help to grasp the interaction between DAO and protocol. For example, understanding the dynamics of Curve and Convex helps to understand Saber and Sunny on Solana. Contributors with this foundational understanding can point to best practices and be able to show what similar experiments have been done and what results have been achieved.
Both Fig and Ian believe that being able to organize ones opinions and express them in concise words is one of the most important skills for contributors. Having a unique voice can make a post relatable and recognizable.
Summarize
Summarize
We hope this blog has given you the tools and understanding to navigate the field. DAO Governance is a great place to meet smart people and influence the development and direction of projects you care about.
Gaining influence in a traditional company means being hired for a full-time position of influence. DAOs lower the barrier to entry. Even new contributors can make a difference when they submit well-researched and well-written proposals that provide solutions to current problems.
