Community Oversight Member Elections: Meet the Candidates

Conversation AADAO
81

Thanks for the quick response, @neshtedle

To be clear, my recommendation is for all current/ACTIVE AADAO members’ validator affiliates to abstain from voting in the Oversight election.

From what I understand, Dilan (Imperator) and Mikey (Cosmostation) are no longer active reviewers on the Grants SubDao committee. Dilan left just prior to end of Q1 2024, and Mikey stepped down before the renewal mandate went up in December 2023.

If you reason that all " ALL potential" validator relations abstain, that means requiring every hub validator to abstain from voting. One can argue that all validators have potential conflicts as infra providers are theoretically eligible/potential applicants for an AADAO grant/venture grant. I think that’s an over correction.

More simply, I’m asking AADAO to uniformly and consistently apply the de facto recusal standard that has been in effect since it’s inauguration.

2 Likes
82

I will add – at this stage, to revise the vote tallying criteria is incorrigibly messy.

If you want to redefine how or which votes are calculated, then you must redo the election. I don’t like the idea of post facto applying a counting logic that deviates from what is explicitly expressed in proposal text.

The best thing the Dao can do at this juncture is to consistently enforce the vote options as defined in the proposal; monitor and encourage correction to any substantial deviations from the articulated voting guidelines (if necessary) to avoid allegations of fostering social signaling that contradicts the spirit of democratic processes.

Bad officiating produces bad games. I’m asking for reasonable referee-ing.

In addition to the importance of enforcing “fair play” during the election, let’s rework the referee analogy to illustrate why Citadel shouldn’t be voting.

An elected Oversight member is effectively a referee to AADAO ops. Citadel or any validator associated directly or indirectly w DAO members should abstain from voting bc players/teams should not be selecting who gets to officiate the “games” they play.

2 Likes
83

1000009494
10000094941080×1193 254 KB

from: Telegram: Contact @cosmonauthq

84

Thank you for the explanation!

I understand your concern, and as a full-time contributor to AADAO I take full responsibility for the policy of the COI. However, C1 is an independent entity to AADAO and does not withhold financial relations neither with AADAO, nor with any of the candidates. We can certainly advocate for C1 to abstain, but I do not think it is fair to rob 75% of a validator team & delegators of representation. If we are that strict on a policy, we might have to keep everyone who has ever been associated with AADAO away from participation.

I have not been able to come up with a flawless solution for everyone to this moment.

85

Respectfully, it appears your COI policy is both primitive and incomplete.

I disagree. By virtue of your dual employment status with Citadel and AADAO, Citadel is not an “independent entity to AADAO.”

Are you saying that you do not recognize the inherent conflict with Citadel expressing a preference for an elected member whose role is expressly designed to hold you accountable?

To be super clear, I am urging AADAO members to adhere to an informal recusal policy established during the voting for Proposal 95 and reinforced in Proposal 865. Because the reasoning you used to have your validators previously ABSTAIN, still applies. If not, more.

The reasoning: Validators connected to you, such as Citadel, previously abstained from voting on Proposals 95 and 865 because their involvement with .91% of voting power on the hub directly influences the outcomes of proposals that position you as an paid member of the AADAO — a clear conflict of interest.

The outcome of Props 920, 921, 922 will directly impact the transparency and accountability frameworks that may be used to asses the conduct of AADAO and its members. That’s you.

Props 920-922, pertains to an extraordinary addition to the DAO’s roster that is designed to keep your paid position with the AADAO accountable — ostensibly, a community elected oversight committee member that functions to keep you, your actions, and your reasoning in check. Therefore, it logically follows that you should not be inflecting, either directly, or indirectly – any influence, as to who this elected member is going to be.

I appreciate that you did not participate in determining Citadel’s vote, but your validator should not be voting with an expressed preference due to your position.

Maintaining the integrity of the election process for critical organizational roles such as Oversight is paramount. If you can’t uphold integrity to the process, why do it? It’s pointless.

Imv, allowing the validator directly associated with you to vote in the oversight member election is a breach of ethical standards. It breaches the checks and balances the DAO puportedly wishes to actualize. Citadel voting undermines the expansion of the Oversight Committee and the mandatory impartiality required from you during this election process.

86

Thanks Grace for raising these issues.

On another note, I would love to hear about @Matt_Brown and @clydedev personal opinions on the above.

1 Like
87

Thank you for the response.

I certainly see where you are coming from - it is something that has not been fully addressed in a policy that I know of.

I want to state my point one last time.
« Props 920-922, which pertains to an extraordinary addition to the DAO’s roster that is designed to keep your job with the AADAO in check — an expansion of the oversight committee.

Are you saying that you do not recognize the inherent conflict with Citadel expressing a preference for an elected member whose role is expressly designed to hold you accountable? »

I believe what may be happening is that you are conflating Citadel one as an entity with me as a member of AADAO.
I do not recognize Citadel expressing a preference for an elected member a conflict of interest, because I am personally abstaining from the vote and I am not in power to push everyone voting to abstain.
I am not the single controlling stakeholder at Citadel.one. There is no “virtue of dual-employment” as I am a full-time AADAO contributor with strictly strategy foundation role at C1.

Citadel gains no benefit by voting either way - or maybe you can help me understand what benefit C1 in particular is getting by voting for a selected candidate?

I would also like to get the community sentiment on whether C1 should or should not abstain - maybe it’s something C1 is to reconsider; however for now it might appear as a bias from your side as you were not the chosen candidate.

//By the way, since the very beginning of AADAO I was the one advocating for a community representative elected in addition to the recruited team - and my opinions on the current candidates may differ from the conducted vote by C1.

88

Hey Reena, I understand that Citadel isn’t a single stakeholder or owner entity.

Nonetheless, my concern stems from the precedent set during the votes on Props 95 and 865, where there was deliberate coordination within AADAO for validators associated with members to abstain. Although I acknowledge that you do not individually dictate the voting decisions of Citadel, there was perhaps direct guidance from you to Citadel’s governance that it’d be best for them to abstain in 95 and 865. And they obliged.

This being the case, I am puzzled why there wasn’t:

  • Clear internal discussion or decision within AADAO to continue applying the informal recusal policy in for the current election. @Damien @Syed @Youssef
  • Moreover, in the absence of explicit guidance from the Oversight Coordinator on how Citadel or other member-related validators should vote, I’m left questioning the appropriateness of Citadel expressing a preference in this election especially as it pertains to a position on Oversight. Because you failed to have necessary conversations prior to the election does not mean you cannot have them now.

From my understanding, your position is that Citadel does not “benefit” from expressing a preference in this election. I hear you.

However, the relevant “benefit” in this context extends beyond mere financial gain or opportunity. More critically, it involves the optics and the imperative of demonstrating impartiality from active members. Given your full time contributor status, it is necessary to abstain from voting altogether to avoid any perception of bias or conflict of interest. Via association, this necessity extends to your affiliated validator.

Bc of your role within AADAO and with Citadel, it is crucial for Citadel to show that it does not stand to benefit from the outcome of the election. To convincingly demonstrate impartiality—and to substantiate the claim/proof of “no benefit”—Citadel reflects this commitment through its voting behavior. Not despite it.

It’s notoriously ineffective to ask people to take your word. Which is why recusal standards exist. It’s not fair or reasonable to ask the community to believe there is no clear or indirect benefit despite how Citadel has voted. The distinction between these approaches are significant.

Finally, thank you for your advocacy for a community-elected representative to Oversight.

While this election marks a historic milestone under the banner of AADAO’s commitment to accountability, it’s important to acknowledge that many on chain elections often fall short of fully realizing democratic principles (and intent) due to inadequate procedures, enforcement, and processes.

Hosting an election doesn’t make you a more transparent and accountable organization. How you hold an election, matters.

With ten more days remaining in the vote period, it’s crucial that AADAO actively monitors voting behavior to minimize bias and inappropriate social signaling.

I’m not asking for perfect.
Actually, knowing the situation is imperfect, I’m asking that we do not use imperfect conditions as an excuse to justify shirking our collective responsibility to strive for the fairest possible outcome.

An immediate and straightforward step to ensure fairness with requisite impartiality is to have validators associated with actively contributing members to withhold from voting or voting with abstentions across the board. Additionally, AADAO should ensure that the use of voting options are applied consistently so that the meaning of these options do not become distorted or abused over the course of the voting period.

89

Thank you for your respectful answer & tone!

I will bring it up to the Governance Lead & the team and certainly we would like to collect more feedback on the matter from the community before passing on to the final decisions.
I want to notify you that we had an abstain policy for the respective proposals indicating creation/continuation of the mandate - even though I still believe that validators as community stewards should be able to approve or veto creation of such entities whatever the affiliation - as soon as there is no direct financial incentive.

This case is - to my mind - is more complicated than that. But a lot of things in governance and policies are broken to this present moment unfortunately.
We have no concept of “ethical” running for governance - nothing stops a candidate or a project seeking community funds, potential consumer chain to go into DMs of their validator acquaintances & ask for support. We can only vouch for validators to act independently and in unbiased way following their “validator constitutions”. Mind you, C1 even has one - unfortunately nothing on community elections in particular but we narrowed down a lot on the community funding :smiley:

Anyways, will be happy to see what people think -unlike me, community has the power to influence decision making of validators!

1 Like
90

And I’m appreciative of your prompt and thorough responses.

Thank you, Reena.

1 Like
91

Understanding and identifying conflicts of interest extend beyond just monetary or financial benefits.

Conflicts can also arise from situations of undue influence, where individuals or entities might gain non-financial advantages that could affect their decisions or actions inappropriately. For instance, it is considered a conflict of interest for a public interest organization to select members for its oversight committee, as this could compromise the committee’s ability to function independently and impartially.

I would argue that AADAO is similar to a public, grant making organization bc it was established with an endowment derived from what can be characterized as “public resources.”

This being the case, all the more important to ensure that your selection processes for oversight do not lead to biases that influence the oversight committee’s judgments and decisions, thereby undermining the governance and accountability mechanisms the committee is meant to uphold.

Adopting a broader view of conflicts of interest beyond the financial, is necessary to ensure integrity and fairness within organization ops. Many daos tend to forget this. But we can do better.

92

I find citadel voting very odd. Shouldn’t be up to validators connected to aadao who’s becoming oversight. Also why abstain first and then vote for SG1 Clyde?

1 Like
93

Citadel one also informed me very clearly that they always vote no on funding anything like aadao from community pool because it is not valuable and just serves to burn money… (this was in response to voting no on OSL funding multiple times)

My theory is that many validators will just say whatever the fuck they want whenever it is convenient for them. Actions speak louder than words, especially when those actions completely betray their words. In reality they likely don’t give a shit about anything aside from extracting value through the least possible contribution.

1 Like
94

Because they hahe no spine nor the capability to form an independent thought or opinion. All they care about is extracting value, and avoiding anything that may hinder that goal.

95

hey

do you feel this is fair the validator you’re working with is voting for you with its massive vote power while voting no or abstain for the other candidates?

this election sucks if such conflict of interest plays out this way.

@ATOMAcceleratorDAO you should do something about this kind of behaviour.

96

Due to SG1’s vote power on the hub (6.71%) and their NO vote on proposal 920, Mintscan’s graphical representation of 922’s lead over 920 is exaggerated.

In actuality, the difference between proposals 920 and 922 is only 109,704 ATOM (at the present time).

Screenshot 2024-05-14 at 10.10.47 AM
Screenshot 2024-05-14 at 10.10.47 AM1432×636 42.5 KB

from: Mintscan, May 14th, 10:13 EST

Screenshot 2024-05-14 at 10.13.47 AM
Screenshot 2024-05-14 at 10.13.47 AM2468×362 49 KB

from: https://elections.atomaccelerator.com/, May 14th, 10:15 EST

@clydedev I respectfully ask you to speak with your employer/validator SG1 about changing their NO on 920 to an ABSTAIN. As a candidate in the race, your affiliated validator should fully abide by the defined voting guidelines.

While voting NO does not impact the final vote count of the race – it can affect the voter consideration period for the next 10 days.

Therefore, voting NO in the context of this specific race can be perceived as an abuse of voting options or deliberately exercising an option voters were asked not to use, to manipulate voter perception by signaling an unhealthy bias.

If this NO vote was an unintentional error made by your validator, please correct it immediately. The voting behavior of organizations associated with us reflects our character. As a candidate for Oversight, you should demonstrate your integrity without being prompted to do so. It’s disappointing that I have to bring this to your attention instead of seeing you take the initiative to address it yourself.

The assumption conferred to every candidate in this race is that each candidate has the ability to recognize and practice proper conduct without needing it to be defined for them.

The last thing we need is oversight for oversight members.

2 Likes
97

agreed with this, it’s certainly sketchy

98

Hi Everyone,

Apologies for the delay, I wanted to take in the discourse that was had and understand it before providing some thoughtful feedback/opinion in a concise manner.

To start, I’m going to clarify my understanding of the role as I think that will help set the stage for some of the commentary here. The role, based on the description above and my interpretation of it, is primarily to relay communication for the community to/from AADAO, provide feedback on internal protocols/controls and ensure compliance with said protocols, and support the oversight committee in its transparency reports (which will now be bi-monthly!). That being said, what I explicitly do not see is any ability to make financial or material non-financial decisions and influence, whether it be approving grants or approving specific policies that would benefit individuals or a group. In fact, this is specifically said to be out of scope.

This context is important to highlight the multiple potential conflict of issues that have been brought up. Conflicts are always difficult to decide what to do with, but given the successful candidate of this election will have no financial authority and no material non-financial authority, I think its prudent to accept that there is minimal exposure to material conflicts. For instance, I do not see a conflict with Citadel One voting, but I tremendously respect @neshtedle decision to abstain from the validator vote in an abundance of caution, and these are generally good guiding principals to have with governance. She also had a lot of great points that I generally agree with, and I’d argue she has a lot of qualities of a qualified person I would want to see operating on behalf of the AADAO. To add, @Govmos made the point that they were abstaining, again, very respectable. I think there are positive decisions being made here and they should be mentioned.

Further, on prop #95 and #865, there was a direct conflict with financial incentives, so they recused themselves, but good governance should treat each recusal/conflict separately, and a blanket AADAO voting recusal policy does not need to be presumed here. Everyone in the community deserves to have a voice on this matter, and that it is a oversight position for a community funded project.

I feel that everyone involved is doing their best to make sure this election operates as smooth as possible, and I genuinely believe that AADAO has made it as fair as possible. And I understand that when attempting something for the first time, it will need improvements, that always the case, but I respect them for trying. If there were material issues with the process of election itself, we should have deliberated on them before the election began. I feel its unfair to the community, validator or not, to continue to scrutinize who can and cannot vote, for a variety of reasons. I ran for this position because I genuinely thought I was well suited and could make a difference for the community, and I’m here to participate fairly and do the best I can. Maybe I will be successful, and maybe I wont, and that’s totally okay. But I don’t feel that this election process was unfair.

With regards to @clydedev and SG-1 voting No on Prop #920, I don’t think its fair to hold Clyde to a standard of verifying that the validator that nominated him voted correctly re: voting no vs abstain, and ill even give him the benefit of the doubt that he would have verified when he has time. But when asked, he dealt with the situation appropriately and it has now been resolved. I respect and appreciate Clyde for doing that. Someone voting at SG-1 could have made a mistake, and I think its fair to be respectful that if you disagree with a situation, that we allow for patience to fix and admit mistakes. I make mistakes from time to time, and I’m not going to fault anyone for genuinely doing the same.

I understand where the thought process is coming for regarding the different ending of the votes, however my counterpoint is that if large voters start changing votes in the final 3 minutes of Prop #920-922 for a part time community oversight position, do you think they would risk their reputation for this type of on chain activity? Voting with your dollars (Or ATOM, in this case) is the most impactful action you can take, and its important to choose validators that align with your ideas of good governance, values, and leadership. The Validators have their reputation at stake every time they vote, and I believe they put a lot of effort into making sure they make the best decisions possible, small or large, so while this could be a potential issue, I believe that they are acting in good faith.

In closing, I understand that some people may agree or disagree with what I have said here, and I am always willing to have discourse about these issues because I think its beneficial for the ecosystem, and heck I might even be incomplete or wrong on my thoughts, and my only ask is that we do it in a way that is respectful to everyone in the conversation. Everyone here deserves that.

Matt

5 Likes
99

What about SG1 first voting No on Grace and abstain On you?

Before the voting started, the concern that Clyde is SG1 employee was voiced already. It has nothing to do with what the term ‘community’ in the jobs name is supposed to mean.

A candidate with 17mil atoms in his back by his validator is like the opposite of what we’re looking for.
What about those who casted their vote because sg1 was voting for Clyde?

Also, I would have expected 1) Clyde to solve it himself. And 2) Clyde to make it very clear to sg1 that this is the opposite is what they should be doing.

I feel confirmed with my issue about a sg1 employee applying for a community job role.

Ps.: you’re asking for respect, but how is it respectful to not at least abstain to Grace in the first place instead of voting no?

2 Likes
101

@clydedev what do you think?
Should Citadel1 abstain, or do you not see an issue with them voting in this election?