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  • Request for Comment: Internal Governance Model [KIP-19]

Hugh

Good points brought up here on both sides but I support increasing the formality of the organization. This actually leads to greater levels of transparency and accountability. The problem I am seeing with attempts at full decentralization is that people naturally gravitate into power groups to shape the community at large opinion on important matters. So this is not actually decentralized in a sense. These power groups can be opaque (DM groups outside of servers) and so conflict of interests are difficult/impossible to assess. Most DAOs have a core group that is in the know and making moves/connecting with outside orgs for partnership opportunities. Basically announcing their work to the community, often without voting. Not everything needs to be voted on but I think Klima has been very good about community governance from the start.

The very meaning of decentralization is unclear. There is always some example that is more decentralized. We have not identified the fundamental smallest building block of decentralization.

Other point is that some web3 should be more decentralized than others. I think the more ongoing development necessary the less decentralized it is. Full decentralization would imply that the whole community is essentially directing the coding process line by line, or at least fully capable of reviewing the code and commenting/voting on it. That just isn't practical so we have to delegate development authority. Same with partnership and marketing decisions. We don't vote to email a major company to see if they are interested and we don't vote on whether to release a press release with a new partnership. These activities are implied to be necessary in KlimaDAO function. Similarly, as a community member I expect the DAO organization to use contributors to their maximum potential vs many pulls in different direction. While the DAO has been doing really well, this was due to extreme commitment from a few individuals who put in major hours to organize the DAO then also deal with disgruntled contributors. What they are asking is a formal process for this, which is appropriate. The way HR has been done over the past 4-5 months is not sustainable.

If all Klima was is the base protocol with no proposed changes, then full decentralization is probably appropriate. But Klima has major growth ambitions. We want to go from $90m market cap to being the center of a several billion (trillion?) market within years. That is major growth. So it stands to reason that Klima should take some org attributes of a tech start up.

The basic thing here is that KlimaDAO has been running since October and this KIP can be looked as a way to incorporate lessens learned and improve efficiency. This doesn't affect the flow of KIPs and what rises to the level of a KIP.

json

Accountability does not need to be scalable from a top down perspective. I am suggesting that it should be cyclical. As some contributors are held accountable via top down hierarchy, those at the top should be help accountable by bottoms up democracy. Again I agree that full transparency is not practical.

I am glad to hear that there is some form of framework for accountability being developed, if it is in fact more effective than what I have suggested, I will certainly vote for it. I think that it should definitely be included in the KIP, so investors can make informed decisions.

Dionysus

I am glad there has been more process in selecting core members than I was aware of. I believe that would also be important framework to include in the KIP. Is there also a process for accountability/removal if a core member is found to be unfit for their duties? .If accountability for core members can only be determined by other core members, what safeguards can be applied to defend against cronyism in the future? To be clear I am not suggesting that is currently taking place.

Disclosure: I'm a core co-founder, and an Engineering lead.

I hope my opinion is worth something, as I've borne a significant burden of work since before launch; interfacing with all departments to help ideate, coordinate, build and test the core KlimaDAO products, while hiring and leading the frontend/web3 team. In October 2021, KlimaDAO presented an ambitious vision to the world. People loved it, and threw millions of dollars at it. Now, the ultimate responsibility falls on me and my fellow builders to turn this vision into code. A shrinking market-cap, external competition, and this brief moment in the limelight creates a sense of immediacy and pressure that I don't think outsiders can fully appreciate. We shipped a lot already, but we need to keep the pace.

I think this proposal is a great step for the DAO and I fully support it.

I should first say I appreciate the concerns of our very vocal contributors. Accountability, transparency, decentralization are important. It’s easy for me to take these things for granted— I’m just here for the carbon. So I’m glad these complaints are being surfaced now and I’m taking them to heart. Reading the discussions has already shifted my perspective quite a bit.

But I am still surprised and confused by the very emotional and reactionary responses and ultimatums given by a few contributors over the last few days. It seems to me that they either: A. misunderstand the KIP... B. entered this arena with a serious mismatch of values and priorities... or - C. Are letting emotions get the best of them. Probably some combination of the above? Not to mention some missteps of our own.

The way I see it, this KIP does a great job of formalizing the structure that has already emerged organically. This KIP is a small, but important step towards accountability, transparency, decentralization! We can’t relegate ourselves without first formalizing what our powers and responsibilities are. To call this a ‘power grab’ and ‘step towards centralization’ is a complete mis-read of both the KIP and the status-quo. I’ve tried to take some of the slippery-slope arguments and ‘what-if’s to heart but they are wholly unconvincing.

Our current working model, and the one outlined in this doc, are not perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good. I worry that only those who have shipped high-impact products under pressure can really understand this. Too much of the discussions are driven by a desire for perfection and idealism. Perfect governance, ideal democracy, perfect transparency. All nice-to-haves, all wholly impractical at this early stage. We can achieve them in due time.

For these reasons I am also thrilled at the addition of a working group who can hopefully weigh my productivity concerns while still ensuring progress towards decentralization and governance to the satisfaction of all investors. A flood of good suggestions and ideas have poured over the last few days. We should take time to weigh them all, and iterate, without getting mad at the Operations team for not adopting them right here and now in this KIP.

Last point. My eyes have been opened: I would have hoped that Core had earned more respect and trust from the community by this point. I see, every day, across dozens of calls and chatrooms, how insanely brilliant, ambitious, and hard working the founders, core & leads are. I’m so humbled to even have seat next to them. But the tone in discord and in this forum seems to be largely of suspicion or skepticism towards core. It’s clear we need to do better to show our work and values to the rest of the world and earn more of your trust. Much easier said than done, but we can try!

    I appreciate that you adapting at least slightly from this conversation. I am also am developing a more nuanced perspective. I feel that although heated at times this is proving to be a productive forum.

    I would like to offer a solution I think may appease many view points, on least at one specific issue.

    Addressing the issue of the roadmap for decentralization in the future, I agree that building specific safeguards for many separate concerns may be an overly cumbersome task if want to start this reframing process sooner rather than later. Perhaps we could all (or mostly) agree on a few sweeping temporary checks and balances until specific and firm one can be created. I feel solid dead lines for the Decentralization Working, scheduled votes of confidence for processes and for leads/council/core, formalized mechanisms for input from the contributor and community bodies at large would all the worth considering and relatively easy to hammer out relatively quickly. Any applied temporary safeguards would also have renewal checks every quarter or so.

    I would like reiterate my stance that I am hella booolish on reorganizing, as long the road to decentralization is adequately protected.

    Atmosfearful It seems for us dissenters it’s (B). We thought consensual/collective organization/management was at least half the values/priorities of KlimaDAO, inherent in the name, the other half of course being climate. Like I’ve said, I came for both. If half of that is being changed (or affirmed in the eyes of Core/Council and prelude was a major misalignment with myself/others), it’s not an “ultimatum” to no longer wish to work in the DAO and let you/contributors/community know that. No one wishes anything but the best success for KlimaDAO and all our Klimates. It’s not a negotiation tactic: it’s the truth.

    For the last paragraph and related to @Dionysus’s post, severe disappointment in Core/Council’s approach to this does not equate to personal disrespect. None of us think you’re bad guys. If that has been inferred, I’m sorry. I really appreciate you, Dio, and all the Core/Council. Or I wouldn’t have worked the last 6 months with you.

    But I prefer to trust the collective system, over individual people, with 360° tangible feedback/answerability mechanisms. The KIP as is only top-down in that respect. I imagine it would be telling to see how Core/Council would vote on this KIP if the Core/Council roles rotated, like in democratic office or the EU Council. Governance systems are typically designed more fairly and resilient in those cases.

    As for feedback to the Core specifically, and particularly the founders, I’ve recommended you guys attend more of (and regularize) the contributors’ “all-hands” meetings. It doesn’t feel good when the Core is relatively consistent about attending community office hours, but are mostly usually absent from their contributor equivalent. I’ve also recommended that we do rotating weekly departmental presentations what each team is working on, and whatever is not sensitive in nature be presented to the community too. I do also recommend that Core’s compensation be made more transparent, since it implies some privilege when the other contributors’ compensation has been published internally (and I’d have been fine for it to be shared with the community, or at least an aggregation/anonymization of it).

    We understand that perfect democracy/transparency/accountability isn’t possible. But we don’t think you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater in abandoning the current green shoots self-management and turning immediately to age-old total hierarchy, since it’s simply not true our present choice is that or anarchy/failure.

    Anyway, I’m proud of the 20-25% Klimates who voted for a more open and consensual DAO against this KIP, despite the full unanimity of the Core/Council for it.

    For me, this is a Faustian Bargain for contributors, but I really do hope it’s worth it and a more egalitarian yet efficient KlimaDAO will soon be with us again. In the meantime, I’ll be rooting for you all from the community. I’ve lived under authoritarianism and democracy, and the latter is much better quality of life and too often taken for granted. I believe DAOs can bring the latter to our workplace too and appreciate those that incorporate collectivism from their genesis. It was long said for 100+ years the USA couldn’t do it either, and its great democratic experiment doomed to anarchy/failure. It’s not perfect, but think we’re doing okay (same went for KlimaDAO).

    Long live KlimaDAO 💚

    My observations after reading comments here and in the chat:

    Imo, trust and respect are different things. I have huge respect for the founders, the core team for their vision, the expertise they've shown, the work they have done. But I don't think this should imply trust in a space where everything is about trustlessness. For me this is not about earning trust, it's about building systems where trust is minimized.
    It's not about being disrespectful, or suspicious, or such.

    I also think that most of us understand the need for some structure in the DAO, and I also guess we all now that decentralization is a spectrum.

    So I still think that the only problem here that this KIP is about two separate things:
    1.) should we improve some things (as far as I can see, we all agree that we should)
    2.) should we do it in this and that way (some of us don't think so)

    I feel the same as @Sirob:
    "What bothers me is that we are not experimenting. We basically have ONE option, which is not super creative."

    There was also an opinion in the chat which caught my eye, and I think it might be important to discuss eg. during office hours. It was basically about the goal being more imporant than the means.

    Anyway, I understand that this KIP is exatcly about the means. But can we have more discussion about the possibilities before voting on a particular one?

    (I must also say that I do have trust for the Core Team and I'm so happy with the fact that we are even having such discussions, I won't mind if this KIP passes, but I still vote against for the reasons above 😉 )

    Go Klima! <3

    As a contributor from day one, I appreciate and echo the calls for increased transparency, and hope that these newly-clarified roles and responsibilities can be implemented in a way that addresses this. I also appreciate the concerns that those voting against have voiced... and I know these concerns come from a place of truly wanting to see the DAO succeed and achieve the greatest possible collective good.

    At the same time, I do not share all of these concerns or hold an absolutist view about how our beloved organization ought to be structured and operated. I feel decentralization is an ideal to aspire to, and a continuum. Not every project will require or thrive with the same type of governance, and more than anything I want Klima to find its "right fit"... which on the surface at least seems to be the intention of this KIP and of the "Decentralization Roadmap" project.

    That being said, I think the proposal as it stands is lacking some clarity around the "problem definition" and would like to see the specific issues this formalization of the "status quo" is designed to solve spelled out more clearly in the final KIP. Likewise, there are no "roles & responsibilities" spelled out for internal contributors and I would like to see some formalization of processes for contributors and community to have their voices heard beyond ongoing KIPs. How, when and where will contributors and community be heard?

    With these limitations of the proposal, I'm still comfortable casting my vote in support as I feel this formalization of roles and making our journey and process of decentralization explicit via the roadmap (hopefully similar to our APY reduction roadmap) are both positive developments.

    I initially came along here out of a mild horror that KlimaDAO was to become a BCorp. However, after reading through the dialogue at play here, I am heartened to know that we are most of us aligned in values. Decentralisation is a journey across a spectrum, and I would love to see this somewhat roadmapped.

    At the same time, the ReFi space is still so young, fragile and fraught. I want for the core team to be empowered and emboldened to do the work that needs to be done—and to not burn out in the process. I want the Klima community to have their backs, and to collectively feel as though we are genuinely participating within and contributing to what is one of the most profound and vital movements in the world right now.

    If forced to choose, based on how the core team have consistently showed up—and how evident it is that their expertise in this domain is paramount—I’d be in favour for whatever helps them to pioneer the flourishing of ReFi and establish KlimaDAO at the heart of it. And so, I will be voting ‘yes’ for this, even though there are a heap of caveats to which we can collectively contribute to so as to ensure the most meaningful kind of progress.

    /// As a side note: I sometimes worry that the mission of KlimaDAO is diluted a little by some of the community efforts in the ReFi space as a whole. Well intended as they are, they sometimes detract from the metasystemic/paradigmatic shift that KlimaDAO is pioneering. Cute ‘lets plant trees’ and ‘lets clean up parks’ initiatives are surface-level nice—but they often simply reinforce the existing systems, putting ownership back on individuals. The real work, which I see the core team doing, is the work that creates the leveraged shifts at scale, at higher orders of complexity. Not simply planting a bunch of trees, but changing the fundamental economics of the system so that all kinds of carbon sequestration and biodiversity goals become infinitely more viable. ///

    Anyway, rant over. I love the conversation at play here, and would love for us all to continue to engage in good faith. Alignment, if not always agreement. ✌️

    CryptoLife 100% agree. It would be good to see evidence of the need.

    Also, I agree with what @Phaedrus said:
    "I think the proposal as it stands is lacking some clarity around the "problem definition" and would like to see the specific issues".

    I can support the "in favor" vote, but, the team must be transparent all the time, approving operational budgets, compensation structures, etc.
    Also, is always good to have some KIPs along the way tho.

    I truly want to see Klima succeed in the best way.
    Cheers.

      Atmosfearful I think its important, for some of us (or maybe just me) who are simply "retail investors" to remember that we aren't the ones doing all the hard work, blood, sweat and tears. We're shielded from all the stress and drama that happens under the hood and can't understand all moving parts and internal politics. Its easy for us to throw a lot of shade and feel entitled because, we're wanna-b fat cat "investors."

      I find it important to for me to remember these are the same people I believed and trusted in from the beginning. And their intentions are still for the good of the project.

      I've voted in favor of this proposal.

        G-OHMie this KIP gives Core & Council carte blanche over the DAO wallet and operations. Don’t expect any KIPs over that, unless they feel like it. The only thing the community is retaining consent over is the treasury. For all the talk of running KlimaDAO like a startup, no angels/VCs in their right minds would give founders/management such total leeway without a business plan/white paper with clear budgets, deliverables, timelines, milestones, etc.

        I usually prefer to just observe things but I find myself itching to give my opinion.
        Few questions I would like everyone to ask themselves are:

        What is the goal of KlimaDAO? We all bought into the vision, so what was that confirmatory factor for you?
        If this was to be your own project how would you achieve this goal?
        What challenges do you think you'd face in order to achieve this goal?
        How would you go on about navigating these challenges?

        If I were to record everyone's response, I can assure you, no two people would have exactly the same path in their mind to take. However, we will all arrive at the same conclusion.

        A DAO is about FIRST recognizing all these various paths, bringing all these various paths together, merging them and finding the most OPTIMAL path towards this shared destination.

        Every path have both pros and cons, strengths and weakness, highs and lows, whatever you call it. What is most important is being able to get the line of best fit.

        How do we get this? By RECOGNITION , ANALYSIS, SOLUTION and then OPTIMIZATION.

        There is no point talking about if we should be fully decentralized or fully centralized, because I am sure everyone knows we can not be either of those. What we can be though is OPTIMIZATION which is a balance between both ends of the spectrum.

        There is clarity on the recognition for improvement to better optimize our output.
        Is there clarity on the analysis of the issues we have or could have? I can't answer this.
        Do we feel a solution or the solution have been provided? I can't answer this either.

        What I can say though is that there is really no right or wrong answer to this. So regardless of the outcome, we will arrive our destination. Perhaps faster, smoother and efficiently or perhaps rough, tiring and inefficiently. Either way the most important factor remains the goal. So feel free guys to share your path, and keep in mind just because your neighbor disagree doesn't make your contribution wrong. Vote according to your convictions! WAGMI!

        CryptoLife First of all, it is great that you will vote at all. The % of people that have historically voted has been very, very low, regardless of how important a KIP is. I have voted on all KIPs even if the voting result before my insignificant vote was 99% FOR. This low voting % is somewhat counterintuitive to the whole decentralization ethos because if people don't vote, what is the point of a DAO and these KIPs in the first place? Promoting voting and getting the % higher should be a main task for the relevant DAO people.

        Related to this, what you say is the major difference. A DAO (at least the way I understand it) should not be treated as a listed TradOrg with separation between investors and management/employees. Investors like you, me and everyone else have:

        1. Paid for the majority of the treasury assets
        2. Paid for the funds in the DAO wallet, which has been used as the operating budget for expenses
        3. Have been bearing the financial risk (loss in this case) since October given how the market has developed

        The Founders and contributors have started the project, worked very hard and thankfully gotten it so far AS a result of the continued monetary vote of confidence by everyone in the community. If these incentives hadn't worked out, Klima would have been forced to turn into a traditional startup with external funding in order to achieve its vision and goals.

        The % of Apple investors compared to Apple users is tiny as opposed to Klima where pretty much all "users" are also investors. Every new Klima user automatically becomes an investor of sorts. This is a very different (probably better) dynamic. Imagine how much more powerful and impactful the DAO will be if all the 60k Klima investors could be engaged to help out with the development, usage, marketing etc of Klima. True magic will happen that any public company would kill for.

        This is a point that I feel is getting lost a bit in the whole "Klima is a tech SaaS startup" argument. To me, the inverse makes more sense: Klima is a carbon central bank with an initial SaaS solution attached to it (one of many). But the central product is the token, the rest are utility functions of the token, which are anyway directly linked to the treasury.

        When you look at it from this perspective, the outward community product management approach makes a lot more sense than turning inwards. The first offers a much higher leverage, the second offers temporary speed / execution benefits, which are necessary, but not as important mid to long-term imo. I sincerely hope this will happen with this and future KIPs. I would hate to see a missed opportunity to innovate around the business and org models.

        In a nutshell, you and the whole community are much more important than you give yourself credit for.

        Hugh

        To be able to operate at any level, there needs to be a structure and delegation of authority. This proposal is paramount.

        A DAO does not mean that nobody reports to anyone or that there is no hierarchy of decision making. It means we have transparency and a democratic process for elevating/modifying direction of leadership.

        Good move here. Full support

        I believe that decentralization is key to the long term success of KlimaDAO even though it sacrifices short term agility. Having a central point of failure in the form of a CEO is a great strategy for a company but it is not well suited for a DAO. If the core team wants more agility in terms of decision making when it comes to certain aspects then they can bring forward separate KIPs focused particularly on those specific aspects instead of this general all-encompassing KIP.
        I will vote against this KIP.
        EDIT: After the clarifications made in today's call I might have to reconsider my vote. Still on the fence about it though.

          mak this is exactly what was the main counterproposal, but looks like it’s not gonna happen. Thanks for your reasoned dissent regardless 🌳,🌳. Let’s see what the future holds for KlimaDAO; here’s to hoping it’s brilliant 🌟

          • mak likes this.

          mak Could you elaborate on what was clarified in the call today that wasn't clear during your first read-through of this RFC? Whatever it is we should be sure to incorporate into the actual KIP & snapshot language.

          • mak replied to this.

            Trenchant, thoughtful points have been made on both sides in this debate, both here and in the contributor server. Ultimately, in aligning ourselves with KlimaDAO we have all committed to tackling the thorniest of real-world problems and one that requires us to pull in the same direction; something we have by and large managed to do so far but that demands a continued laser-guided focus on what works in shifting a whole market on chain to fight climate breakdown. This is a massive task, and I think requires some pragmatism as we find our path and try to scale. I am committed to the DAO as a decentralized entity but have not been convinced these changes mean a fundamental shift away from that. Moreover, to me, the ideal that drives us is not decentralization per se but fighting climate change. The dialogue will of course continue on how best to do that as the DAO (all KLIMA holders, not just contributors) is full of smart, passionate people. But clearer structure and focus will help us all. I respect the opposing voices enormously and am grateful to be part of the same community as them – in particular, the commitment to a working group and to foregrounding progress on decentralization are really positive steps. I vote in favor, though, as I do think this renewal and the clarity it should bring will serve the aim of the DAO.

            Atmosfearful Main takeaway for me was that the team acknowledges that the current setup is centralized and that they want to go towards more decentralization. Additionally they have made it a part of this KIP to investigate how to go about this. I was also unaware of the 3 of 5 multisig previously so as long as that's the case this KIP is just adding a clarification to the existing system instead of changing anything.
            I'm still on the fence about the KIP because I think there needs to be a deadline specified by which the roadmap to decentralization needs to be formalized and put into a new KIP. Otherwise it can create perverse incentives which may keep delaying the roadmap.