RFP: Conflict Resolution Council

Proposals
1

The intent of this proposal would be to have a framework for Archway governance that can be enacted by the community when proposals become divisive. This framework would provide a safeguard to ensure proper discussion is had and that the community has full context to promote informed voting.

I envision this framework as follows:

  • A review team of 5 people (3 need to participate for any given conflict) is nominated, all with different roles in the community to prevent conflicts of interest.
  • Community members can invoke the council to take a look at a given RFP or Proposal if it is causing discord within the community.
  • Once the council is invoked, the given proposal needs to spend an additional week on the forum before going into voting.
  • The framework ensures there are no conflicts of interest among the 3 reviewers nominated to work on this conflict, speak to all parties involved, and write an assessment of all sides of the given conflict. Then, a separate “conflict resolution call” is held to discuss all sides of the contentious proposal. The community can ask questions and we ensure full transparency and disclosure.
  • The purpose of this council is not only to (when relevant) find a middle ground, but also to appropriately inform our community of all sides of a contentious proposal to come to their own decision. Sometimes, no “resolution” needs to be come to, it is simply enough to have the issue thoroughly discussed, and that the community understand all the risks to voting in/not voting in a particular proposal.

What other considerations should be taken into place when drafting something like this?

2 Likes
2

Proposal Name: Creation of a Conflict Resolution Council

Type of Proposal: Signaling Proposal

Objective: To create a framework that the community can invoke to extend governance proceedings to properly evaluate what is being discussed. This framework would provide a safeguard to ensure access to the full context around a proposal to promote informed voting.

Details:
The Council
The council must have 10 members at all time. Each seat on the council must come from a different area of Archway, divided as such:

  • seat 1-2: Validator
  • seat 3-4: Dapp builder
  • seat 5-6: Community participant
  • seat 7-8: Core contributor
  • seat 9-10: Member of the Foundation
    Let us consider that the most appropriate members would be members that participate in any one capacity only.

To invoke the Council
1 community member must request a draft proposal on the forum be taken to the council within the 7-day requisite period. This request must reach a quorum of 10 likes (which will be taken as “seconding”) on the comment on the forum.

What happens once the council is invoked?
2 members of the council will take on the “conflict”. These 2 members must have no conflict of interest, meaning no vested interest in the passing or failing of this proposal.

These 2 members must schedule an additional governance call to discuss this proposal, with 1 representative for every “side” of the conflict. These representatives must also send their “arguments” to the 2 members of the council in charge of the “conflict”. The council members will then post a summary on the forum discussion in a clear, objective manner on all sides, arguments, and possible outcomes.

Once this governance call is had, and the community has received sufficient, unbiased context on the proposal, it is then considered “cleared” and the proposers can go forth with putting up the proposal in its current form, workshopping the proposal, or withdrawing the proposal, at their discretion. At this point, the “conflict” is considered “resolved”.

Definitions/specifications:

  • Conflict of Interest would be defined as a party that directly benefits from the passing/failing of a proposal, ie. you’re a validator and the proposal asks to increase validator rewards. However, indirect benefits, such as suggesting parameter changes that could potentially affect validators if xyz conditions are met, would not be considered conflicts of interest.

Voting Options:

By voting yes, you agree with the proposal and would like to see it passed.
By voting no, you disagree with the proposal and would not like to see it passed in its current state.
By voting abstain, you are recognizing this proposal is irrelevant to you and would not want your vote to be counted in either direction.
By voting no with veto, you fundamentally disagree with the proposal and would not like to see it reworked nor revisited.

Proposer: Valeria Salazar, Phi Labs

2 Likes
3

As discussed in the call today, I have a number of questions about the proposed format:

  1. Council Seats - 5 is far too few for a body intended to deal with contentious issues that are likely to involve conflicts of interest for one or more parties. Strongly advise bumping this up substantially and getting more granular with the breakdown.

  2. What is a Conflict of Interest (COI)? I have seen this tear communities apart, most recently the SCRT Network. This should be very clearly and carefully defined

  3. Who decides if a party has a COI? This is even more critical than the above. A body that holds itself as mediator in situations such as proposed must be above reproach, and if that body can just decide it doesn’t have a COI when the parties it is representing disagree, it sabotages the entire process.

  4. How are Seats filled? For how long?

  5. Who decides the community has received “sufficient context”, and by what metric?

4

Thank you @Karnthis for your contributions!

  1. I agree with you on this… would 10 make more sense, doubling up on each type of contributor?

2/3. Conflict of Interest would be defined as a party that directly benefits from the passing/failing of a proposal, ie. you’re a validator and the proposal asks to increase validator rewards. However, indirect benefits, such as suggesting parameter changes that could potentially affect validators if xyz conditions are met, would not be considered conflicts of interest. I believe the community should decide, when nominating an issue for a conflict resolution, who their ideal candidates would be. It can be discussed on the forum. Any thoughts on this process?

  1. I would want the seats to be filled by active members of the community, so they’d probably be picked via voting on telegram or discord, and later confirmed during the gov call. How long should an ideal “term” be? I think 6 months works, with the possibility of re-nomination.

  2. I believe all sides in the dispute should agree that they have been adequately represented in the summary, and the community must have no further question on the implications of the proposal passing/failing. The first can be decided once the summary is posted on chain, and the second can be decided during the scheduled call on the topic.

Thank you for your thoughts! Are there any other areas of improvement you see?

5

I am supporting! thanks!

1 Like