Exploring Medium-Term Initiatives with GovAlpha: Seeking Community Feedback for Prioritization
As GovAlpha pushes forward with various governance initiatives, we’re keen to involve you in directing our efforts for the medium term. We’ve described some options below, and we would appreciate a moment of your time to vote (poll below) or comment.
1. RPIPs Portal Revamp
Objective: Modify the RPIPs portal (https://rpips.rocketpool.net/) to better meet the most common use cases in the community.
Reasoning
As it stands, the RPIP portal is more or less a direct clone of the EIP portal. While this was the obvious starting point, there are differences in requirements between the EIP process and the RPIP process.
The portal can better support the two main use cases of an actively voting DAO:
- Low-friction access to a list of binding RPIPs (living, final).
- Low-friction access to a list of the most ‘current’ RPIPs (active votes, recent drafts, recently updated living).
We can also throw some branding and such up there to better match the other official Rocket Pool sites.
2. Snapshot Vote Templates
Objective: Standardize the language and format for snapshot votes for better comprehension and participation.
Reasoning
We have experience (doing this at MakerDAO), and there are a few low-hanging fruit here in terms of vote UX. Specifically:
- Ensure that the summary lines displayed on the snapshot proposal list page summarize the vote effectively.
- Ensure that outcomes are clearly and consistently present in the vote text.
- Ensure that the process that has led to the vote is transparently communicated.
We would aim to keep templates fairly minimal. We went a little overboard with the Maker templates, so would be looking to find a happier medium between clarity and brevity.
3. Redraft RPIP-4 - Community Resolutions and Voting
Objective: Resolve the issues of ambiguity in RPIP-4 that are currently impacting Rocket Pool governance. Note this would be separate from the effective stake discussion, and more focused on having an approachable RPIP for governance procedure.
Reasoning
Again, we’ve done drafting of improvement proposals before, and have a strong understanding of the need to be as clear and unambiguous as possible.
As it stands, the wording in RPIP-4 could be improved, with the goal being the avoidance of similar debates over ambiguity issues in the future.
4. Updating RPIP Types and Statuses
Objective: Update the options of statuses and types to better suit Rocket Pool.
Reasoning
We found the current options for Type and Status of RPIP are not optimal for Rocket Pool’s governance. We believe the reason for this is that they were forked wholesale from the EIP process, which has different requirements than Rocket Pool governance.
To give some concrete examples:
- An ‘Obsolete’ status would make it easier for readers to identify superseded RPIPs.
- ‘Informational’ does not fit well as a type of improvement proposal, information is not a proposal, nor is it voted on. Existing informational RPIPs should be moved to documentation portals.
- ‘Review’ appears to be unused currently, but is a useful status. Potentially could be renamed or usage encouraged more highly.
- ‘RPRC’ appears to be largely unused, we would consider removal or merge with an existing type.
5. Propose Rocket Pool Operational Process
Objective: Create a formal operational process structure for the Rocket Pool DAOs.
Reasoning
As more responsibilities are moved to the Rocket Pool DAOs, more operational processes will be required. Currently, there is no strong way to distinguish, record, or structure these operational processes separately from RPIPs.
Some examples of existing operational processes are:
- oDAO membership votes.
- GMC / IMC elections.
- GMC Adminstrator elections.
- Grants Appeals.
- Core developer funding.
These represent reoccurring processes (many of which involve token votes), that are not ‘improvement proposals’, they are a maintenance cost of existing structures.
Separating these processes creates clarity and allows better prioritization of time by voters.
6. Governance Participation Recommendations
Objective: Create a set of recommendations aimed at increasing participation in Rocket Pool governance.
Reasoning
This is a problem that is widely experienced across the crypto space which is very difficult to solve, but that is essential to build legitimate and effective long-term DAOs.
Using our time working in MakerDAO and @prose11’s Political Science background, we would seek to identify the current issues causing a drag on participation and convert this into actionable recommendations.
While Rocket Pool has a strong foundation in their voting history, we believe participation in decision making (which often goes beyond casting votes) is an area where we could provide tangible value.
7. Community Participation Recommendations
Objective: Create a set of recommendations aimed at increasing value-adding participation in the Rocket Pool community.
Reasoning
Similar to the above, this is an issue that is widely experienced and can be difficult to solve.
We think we could provide some valuable input on the community side of the DAO as well. While intertwined with governance, community participation is less about decision-making and more about identifying how Rocket Pool can better convert interested parties into contributors to the DAOs.
8. Decentralization of Permissions
Objective: Decentralize permissions to reduce single points of failure and improve coverage.
Reasoning
The DAOs currently rely on the Rocket Pool devs to moderate community coordination spaces. Safely transferring these responsibilities to the DAO:
- Would further empower the community
- Could result in increased moderation coverage.
- Would reduce the workload of the Rocket Pool developers.
We’d like to recommend options for decentralizing these sorts of permissions based (in part) on our experience during Maker’s decentralization .
9. Facilitate Strategic Discussions
Objective: Hold bi-monthly calls or workshops to discuss progress towards Rocket Pool’s strategic direction.
Reasoning
Members of the Rocket Pool community appear to lack clear agreement over instrumental goals for the Protocol and the DAOs.
We think these conversations could help engage the community and lead to a focus of efforts towards Rocket Pool’s strategic goals.
What are your thoughts on these initiatives? We’re particularly interested in your views on which of these are most urgent and currently unaddressed. The results of the poll below will inform our course of action.
To help us gauge community interest, please select all the initiatives listed above that you would like to see us tackle.
- 1 - RPIPs Portal Revamp
- 2 - Snapshot Vote Templates
- 3 - Redraft RPIP-4 - Community Resolutions and Voting
- 4 - Updating RPIP Types and Statuses
- 5 - Propose Rocket Pool Operational Process
- 6 - Governance Participation Recommendations
- 7 - Community Participation Recommendations
- 8 - Decentralization of Permissions
- 9 - Facilitate Strategic Discussions