Community Oversight Member Elections: Meet the Candidates

[Cosmos_Nanny]

@Damien

You can learn more about CANDIDATE NAME HERE and listen to our Twitter Space with all three candidates here.

Can you also provide link to “Community Oversight Member Elections: Meet the Candidates” thread, here?

[Cosmos_Nanny]

@Damien

CANDIDATE BRIEF DESCRIPTION.

@Damien @Syed Can you provide the copy that will be used for each candidate’s brief description? Thank you.

[Cosmos_Nanny]

@Damien

What is NOT part of the role and therefore out of scope:

@Damien

• Internal processes implementation given this falls under the Internal Auditor role. Suggestions on process improvements will be discussed among the 3 members, while their supervision is assigned to the Internal Auditor.

@Damien @Syed The wording of this bullet point appears to be contradictory and requires clarification (or rephrasing). It is not immediately clear how the “implementation of internal processes,” which is designated as the sole responsibility of the Internal Auditor, differs from “suggestions on process improvements,” a task shared by all three Oversight members.

My suggestion: “Exploratory discussions on process improvements are permitted among the 3 members, under the supervision and guidance of the Internal Auditor. The discretion as to which process suggestions are implemented in eventuality resides exclusively with the Internal Auditor (name/identify Internal Auditor).”

And rather than locating the above bullet point under “out of scope,” I feel it is more coherent to nest the bullet point under “duties and responsibilities,” instead.

[Cosmos_Nanny]

@Damien

Oversight Coordinator and the Internal Auditor and Financial Controller.

In the interest of transparency, would be good to identify names of persons currently occupying the following roles:

• Oversight Coordinator
• Internal Auditor
• Financial Controller

cc: @Syed

[Syed]

You can learn more about CANDIDATE NAME HERE and listen to our…

The plan is to link the “learn more about the CANDIDATE NAME here” to each candidate’s self-intro post. That suffice?

The links would be: Matt, Clyde, Grace

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Community Oversight Member Elections: Meet the Candidates

@Damien @Syed Can you provide the copy that will be used for each candidate’s brief description? Thank you.

And since we’re linking to each candidate’s self intro, the “CANDIDATE BRIEF DESCRIPTION” would be the 2-3 lines we used in the first post of this thread:

• Matt Brown: Strong background in Crypto and Cosmos with a strong accounting background (CPA certified) which will aid the Financial Controller with money flow. No affiliations with anything within Cosmos so brings a neutral perspective to the Oversight.
• Clyde Carver: Cosmos OG with a great understanding of the ecosystem and Community, thanks to his role as DevOps Architect at SG-1. Brings a credible yet neutral voice to the Oversight.
• Grace (Cosmos Nanny): Cosmos OG with a great understanding of the Community, thanks to her previous role as Head of Growth & Strategy at All in Bits. Brings a strong voice to the Oversight.

[Syed]

Sorry, the wording was a bit confusing - “Internal Auditor and Finanicial Controller” is one role.

• Oversight Coordinator = Damien B.
• Internal Auditor & Financial Controller = Patricia M.
• Community-elected oversight member = soon

[Syed]

This suggestion makes sense to me but @Damien to confirm.

My only edit would be to not include the name of the “Internal Auditor and Finanicial Controller” - we want to refer to the “office” not the current role holder, if that makes sense.

[Cosmos_Nanny]

@Damien

What is NOT part of the role and therefore out of scope:

• Under the defined roles within the Oversight Committee, it is understood that all areas of responsibility designated for Oversight Committee #1 (Coordinator) and Oversight Committee #2 (Internal Auditor/Controller) are expressly excluded from the scope of responsibilities for Oversight Member #3.

@Cosmos_Nanny

Some clarification is needed here.
Is it an absolute exclusion, or more of a de-facto exclusion from which exceptions can be made, per discretion of Committee Member #1 or #2 (and relevant qualifications of Committee Member #3)?

@Damien

There are cases where an exception could be made to leverage certain skills of the newly elected member, however, It is important to note that (for example) Matt’s role with respect to auditing would be limited and he would only aid the Financial Controller if / when needed.

@Damien @Syed

Given that:

1. The primary duties and responsibilities of the third member are clearly defined; and
2. Internal Auditor/Controller activities are explicitly designated as “out of scope”
3. Ability to “leverage certain skills” e.g., auditing will be “limited”

the language in Matt’s brief description stating that he “will aid the Financial Controller with money flow” has caused – and will continue to cause confusion. The current phrasing suggests that the role involves and or emphasizes accounting/auditing as primary 3rd member responsibilities, which is not accurate.

I recommend revising this description to avoid potential misunderstandings.

You can emphasize @Matt_Brown’s qualifications as a CPA without implying that the elected member’s role includes auditing tasks.

The short descriptions of candidates appear at the top of the proposal text (most widely read portion of gov proposals), and there’s a tendency for readers to interpret this information as a kind of summary of the responsibilities expected of an elected member. Thus, clarity and accuracy in these descriptions are crucial for setting correct expectations about the role.

[Cosmos_Nanny]

@Damien

Three candidates were shortlisted for the role, each with a separate Cosmos Hub governance proposal, so that governance may select a candidate.

Suggested change: Three candidates have been shortlisted for this role. Since multiple-choice proposals are currently not feasible, AADAO is facilitating vote options by presenting each candidate through separate governance proposals. This method allows the community to clearly express preference for their chosen candidate.

[Matt_Brown]

Agreed Grace, I can also provide some copy that makes those two items distinguished and make sure we don’t imply auditing tasks, because you are right, this role does not perform auditing in any form. @Syed pm me if you’d like me to help offer some notes on this relating to CPA and its education around governance.

[Syed]

@Matt_Brown

this role does not perform auditing in any form. @Syed pm me if you’d like me to help offer some notes on this relating to CPA and its education around governance.

Thanks Matt. Reaching out on DM

[Cosmos_Nanny]

Just want to highlight this tweet from AADAO.
https://twitter.com/ATOMAccelerator/status/1788631163793440850?t=_tIR7wp65LbxkiOy0QIl5g&s=19

Proud of the productive conversations we’ve been having in here.

Elections are a great way to identify and galvanize community asks. Props to AADAO again for organizing this, and being rapidly receptive to suggestions given.

[Matt_Brown]

Can’t say enough about this - I’m proud of the discord that @Cosmos_Nanny, @clydedev, and myself were able to have over the past couple of weeks and happy to hear that its going to have a positive effect for the AADAO and the community going forward. Regardless of the outcome, whoever is elected will do a fantastic job! Good luck to everyone and please go vote!

Matt

[arlai-mk]

Hi @Damien,

Even if I try to follow the topic quite closely, this is my first comment here, as I usually am more active on Telegram.

Anyway, I am an advocate (in general) of not giving governance power to validators (consensus power should be what they get from our stake), except of course their self stake.
I do recognize though that with the current governance model / SDK module, validators votes with full VP from delegators need to be recognized or we probably would never reach any quorum.

However, in this very specific case, I understand that there is no quorum, and only Yes votes will be tallied on each vote, to find the elected oversight member.
I would like to ask whether it could be considered that only individual votes (or validators self-bond) be counted for this vote? I don’t see any reason why validators should have voting power on their personal opinions from ATOM that doesn’t belong to them.

Additionally, I intend to try and build a small tool to run the tally with the above formula, and would like to know if you would be interested in looking at it once it’s ready (if I can get it ready before the end of the elections).

Thank you for reading me.

Regards,
arlai

[StunZeed]

Hey @clydedev

SG1 voted Yes to your prop, Abstain to @Matt_Brown and no to @Cosmos_Nanny

I’ll use the most authentic wording:

Wtf? Is this a joke?

Even if SG1 decided to play it ‚fair‘ before the end of the voting by abstaining on all candidates, imo you already deserve to be disqualified.

It’s community oversight. With a Yes vote from your validator and one of the biggest ones out there, how can you say you’re just a community guy willing to represent the community?

It’s ridiculous and a shame really. It’s the first election in crypto history afaik and you/your validator already making it dirty as hell.

[Govmos]

As we previously explained earlier in this discussion, (link here), our validator has casted abstain votes today to all three candidates while we strongly invited our delegators to vote individually. We wish all the best of luck to all of pretenders and we will welcome the chosen one with great warmth!

[Cordtus]

Keep in mind this is the guy who pretty clearly opposes the very spirit of this role and from what I can tell, hardly believes it is even necessary. How can he be expected to perform the duty?

unless you interpret this comment in some other way

[Syed]

For those tracking the results as they come in, check out our Elections Dashboard

Thanks to@DefiantLabsfor building out this dashboard, powered by the Cosmos Indexer (supported by a grant from AADAO).

Additionally, a reminder for all:

• There are currently 3 proposals onchain - one for each of the candidates shortlisted to join our Oversight Committee. Candidate with the most YES votes (by number of ATOMs) wins.
• Please vote YES only on ONE proposal - for the candidate you support
• There is no need for a NO vote on any of the proposals. NO votes are not counted, and they will not impact the election results in any way. Vote ABSTAIN instead for the other candidates.

And a small request to not NWV any of the 3 props - we’d like to get the 750 ATOMs back!

[Cosmos_Nanny]

Here are some thoughts on the need for oversight in electing a third member to the AADAO Oversight Committee:

1. The hub’s first election is currently being conducted live on-chain — this social consensus experiment is unfolding ahead of implementing the multiple-choice option in the Cosmos SDK/gov module. Given this scenario, AADAO has provided explicit voting guidelines (defining vote options) to facilitate the process. Although the guidelines are straightforward—vote ‘Yes’ for your preferred candidate and ‘Abstain’ on others—the lack of preemptive and proactive efforts to ensure participants abide by the defined vote options is concerning.

• A competitive election does not mean we have to have an ugly election. However, when a validator with 6.72% voting power (16.89m ATOM) votes ‘Yes’ for an employee/affiliate, ‘Abstain’ for one candidate, and ‘No’ for another, it introduces bias and social signaling that creates unfair advantages and disadvantages. I will also add here, that as candidates, if any of us are affiliated with active validators on the hub, the manner of the validator’s voting behavior can be perceived as a direct expression of conduct the candidate deems permissible.

2. Historically, validators associated with AADAO team members have consistently abstained from voting on proposals directly affecting their interests, such as in the proposals to establish and renew the Atom accelerator fund and mandate (prop 95, prop 865). This (albeit) informal recusal standard has been in place since the DAO’s inception. Why then is this standard not being upheld in the current election?

• For example, Citadel initially abstained from voting on all three candidates but later voted YES for Prop 922 (Clyde Carver) while maintaining their abstentions for Prop 921 and Prop 920. Given that @neshtedle, is an active AADAO reviewer and a Founding Team Member and Head of Business Development and DevRel at Citadel One, doesn’t this represent a conflict of interest? Shouldn’t impartiality be maintained in the Oversight election by active AADAO members and their validator affiliates?

For the record, I have already communicated the above concerns to the AADAO team. I was informed that they are considering various response strategies but are hesitant about potentially upsetting the validators.

Who cares? Or rather, that’s the wrong this to care for.

The more critical issue here is ensuring a fair and clean voting process — and this objective should take precedence over all other considerations.

cc: @Damien @Youssef @Better_Future @Syed @neshtedle @clydedev @Matt_Brown

[neshtedle]

Hey Grace!
I appreciate your alertness, but I can confirm I abstained internally from the board voting at Citadel.one. I am only 1/5 of the founding voting team & we have a governance lead to research and evaluate proposals.
I do not believe that a big validator like Citadel.one should abstain from governance because I have affiliation with AADAO. Citadel =/= Reena Shtedle
However, if you wish to exclude ALL potential relations with validators, we should advise Cosmostation, Chorus one, Simply Staking & Imperator co against voting as well. We are willing to collaborate for the fair elections as per community guidelines.
Thank you!