Request for feedback: Integrations Guild Committee Expansion

General
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The Integrations Guild Committee has been operating with five members since inception, and the DAO recently decided on increasing the number of committee seats from five to seven through GP-021, with the snapshot concluding on March 1.

Snapshot for Integrations Guild Committee elections clearly stated, “The Integrations Guild Committee has five seats. The top two nominees by vote weight will be appointed for a 12-month term upon expiration of this snapshot vote. You may split your vote among candidates. Rules for the elections are available here: TIP-031: Rules for Guild Committee Elections and Management”

I would like to begin by saying that in retrospect, this could have been avoided by simply specifying in GP-021 what the selection process would be if the proposal passed, or alternatively by delaying the snapshot for GP-019 until the snapshot for GP-021 had concluded. But because our most active DAO contributors were focused on ETHDenver and we have relatively low participation in governance, this problem didn’t become apparent until the snapshot was already well underway for GP-019.

The reasons behind this change in the number of IGC seats are highlighted here:
“IG is absorbing a lot of stuff outside its initial scope of protocol integrations.

We’ve been tackling with diverse subjects that otherwise fall through the cracks in the DAO, such as e.g.:

  • bug bounty program and relationship with Immunify

  • Subgraph development and grant management

  • Tokenlists

  • Discourse implementation

  • Monitoring for nodes

  • Tech support for the DAO

  • Guests for community calls

We have great skills to cover these. Irl tech jobs & experience of various of our actual IG committee members makes it comfortable thinking about these wider scopes, but we’re running out of availability and we’re feeling short at hands. We could use more BD oriented people in the IG.”

Running almost simultaneously to the vote to increase the number of committee seats from five to seven, which concluded on March 1, we had our epoch 3 election snapshot for the Integrations Guild, which began on February 27th and concluded on March 3rd for two of the five IGC seats.

We now need to appoint two additional committee members to the IG to bring the total headcount to the DAO-approved seven seats. Numerous questions and opinions about the process, timeline, and our DAO’s rules have surfaced in the #governance and #rules-committee channels on Discord.

Our established rules can be found here:

GP-011 Rules for Guild Committee Elections and Management

TIP-034 Rules for New Proposals

After carefully considering the feedback, our established rules, the concerns raised on Discord and participating in the Integrations Guild weekly call, I would like to ask for feedback on a solution.

I believe that we have three options for moving forward:

  1. Queue up a snapshot with the candidates nominated for the last election (GP-019)
  2. Take the 3rd and 4th candidates from the Epoch 3 snapshot here, as some community members have asked
  3. Ask the current IGC of five to vote and internally select the two new committee members

My opinion on each of these paths forward after carefully considering everyone’s feedback on Discord:

  1. Is the best solution and the most transparent
  2. This is not the best path forward, as the Snapshot for GP-019 clearly stated, “The Integrations Guild Committee has five seats. The top two nominees by vote weight will be appointed for a 12-month term upon expiration of this snapshot vote. You may split your vote among candidates. Rules for the elections are available here: TIP-031: Rules for Guild Committee Elections and Management”
  3. This could be seen as a “good ol’ boys club” decision by allowing the current five IGC members to choose based on the unfortunate timing of these various proposals and governance decisions

Based on all of this, I would like to request that a snapshot be queued after 72 hours of feedback and with the support of a minimum of three of the five IGC members, as long as no major concerns are raised by DAO members about my proposed path forward.

During this 72-hour feedback period, I also believe there is no reason not to allow additional candidates to be nominated or come forward and nominate themselves for the IGC.

I ask that we proceed with selecting the two new IGC members by queueing up a snapshot on March 11th that includes the remaining candidates from GP-019 and any additional nominees that come forward in the 72-hour period.

Going forward, any proposal to increase or decrease the number of seats on a committee should also specify the process for doing so.

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A big thank you to @JohnPackel @Eastban @the_egg1 @Luna5 and @Vict0r for brainstorming, reviewing and providing feedback on this! :purple_heart:

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Thank you @MrsNuBooty et al for taking action here.

I agree with your sentiment. Hindsight is 20/20 and I am confident that we will learn from this niche circumstance.

I am in favour of proceeding with Option 1 since it is most integral with existing DAO rules, and to the letter of GP-019.

Options 2 & 3 may reduce voter fatigue, but would require a compromise of the rules set out in GP-011.

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I support what has been said here, I also favor creating a snapshot to fill those two new seats for the IG. Thanks all for contributing to this healthy discussion, this is how we improve our processes as a DAO.

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Thank you @MrsNuBooty for compiling notes and distilling numerous conversations into this post.

I do want to point out that providing tech support for the DAO is not one of the reasons for the expansion request. We’ve eagerly awaited the launch of tBTC, we prepared as best as we could, but now that it’s here, there are more tasks than could be handled by 5, and time is of the essence.

Option 1 is an easy, rational choice, but I think the justification(s) is/are complex.

As @MrsNuBooty stated, the voting instructions were flawed. At first thought option 2 appears reasonable and sound, however, after careful consideration, I believe this option is the wrong course forward. The instructions were flawed, however, if considered as written, voters were electing two seats, not four. In my opinion, this would affect vote splitting percentages for candidates.

Option 3 would make sense as the IG committee knows the needs of the DAO and would be in a good position to appoint members that will drive the mission forward. I welcome @sap and @eh_ethan to the IG committee and look forward what we can accomplish, but their first task shouldn’t be choosing teammates.

I understand that another snapshot vote may be bothersome, but I believe it is my responsibility to support what is in the best interest of the DAO. After careful deliberation, I will support Option 1.

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Thanks @MrsNuBooty for setting this up !
Fully in support for the proposed Snapshot vote on two additional IG committee members. Looking forward to it.

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