Discussion on Removal of Members from Committees

Proposals by Gotchi Gov'nuhs
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Due to recent events, there is interest by various community members to initiate the removal of Addison from the DAO Treasury Taask Force. Currently, there are no processes or guidelines as to how to deal with this. This thread is for discussing whether Addison should be removed from the DTF, and what process would be followed to initiate any removal.

We in the DTF do not think it’s ideal for its members to decide on the removal of its members, as they are elected by the DAO. Therefore, the DAO should be the ones to decide on who stays on or off the DTF.

Importantly, the DAO needs a formal process for these kinds of deliberations. While there are plans to have regular re-elections of committee members, there is also a need to remove members in an expedient manner when the situation warrants. One possible process is to be able to hold snapshot referendums at any time meeting a certain quorum to remove a member. My personal concern is that parameters like quorum and voting period need to be set conservatively to reduce the ease of a governance attack.

This thread is not Jerry Springer. Opinions and properly sourced allegations are welcome, but this is not the place to pile on with rehashes of what is already said previously in the thread, or for pointless personal attacks. Let’s keep this thread clean and easy for the community to parse so that we can come out of this process with a transparent process and a stronger DAO.

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I’m not familiar with the situation even though I briefly caught some things in the Aavegotchi Discord #Chat channel yesterday.

What I would propose to not single any one person out would be to conduct a monthly (or bi-monthly, or quarterly) vote to maintain the members already on the various Taask Forces. This way, the nomination to a Taask Force is less permanent and gives the community an opportunity to regularly re-evaluate their opinions/votes re: the members of said Taask Forces.

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I agree that this makes sense in the long-term. (EDIT: in reference to kuwlness’s idea)

Right now I would be in favor of a SigProp to move things right along. The proposal should detail the reasons why the member is being floated for removal, though we probably don’t need a play by play.
It should also include endorsements by other DTF members if there are any.

While this game is still in its infancy, we need to be diligent and proactive in maintaining a high standard of folks running the show. Drama like what we saw in #chat the other day drives people away, especially anyone that’s showing up for the first time.

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What if there is a “flag” option in discord, that sends an alert to whomever manages the groups that designate people as having official status. If that person/people feels that there is a general consensus that this person is harming the brand or the security of the group, then they can throw up a flash poll, the results of which are temporary, and that person is temporarily locked out of the sensitive channels and roles until the situation is resolved either diplomatically, or by a snapshot vote.

A better title might be “How do we efficiently remove people from DAO positions, without internal bias”, if you are not trying to make this about one situation.

EDIT: That was my opinion on the mechanics, moving forward… for this case… the individual is an Aambassador and on the WTF, and was throwing around the N word and racist memes in multiple discords including the main, which is pretty much the definition of “lines we do not cross” and when confronted about it, proceeded to escalate, deny, and make threats, instead of simply taking it down a notch and deleting their racially charged comments.

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I think if there is any concrete evidence that this person has done something incompatible with the success of gotchi, or would be a negative influence to the future success of the game - ie onboarding users in an inclusive and frenly way, then he should definitely be removed.

Idealy id like to just see the facts and let the dao decide if it aligns with their ethics. Right?

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Are you sure? I’m sensing more of that than any kind of relevant information about what the issue was/is and why we need a blanket solution to it.

Have we given the DTF ample room to solve this internally before airing out the dirty laundry?
If someone compromised the task force then the other members of the task force should be providing a report on what happened, and a proposed solution which could then include the removal of certain member(s).

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As a DAO, we should reduce the frequency of this kind of behavior moving forward. It’s not simply a matter of punishment, or the modern-day equivalent of Hammurabi’s ‘eye for an eye’. We have bounties and incentives for content creation and joining the ecosystem. We should also have an incentive program for ethics-related content. You could do it (and gain 5/variable xp) or not (and forfeit 5/variable xp), much like how many companies have ‘training’ (slides depecting good vs. bad behavior). This behavior is not okay, but we need a DAO mechanism (better yet societal mechanisms) to reform bad behavior or reduce bad behavior from the get-go.

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I am a member of the DTF. I don’t believe it is our place to decide who is a member. The incident did not happen directly related to the DFT. It is the decision of the community if this action is something that should be cause for removal and if the apology given is sufficient. We were elected through a community voting process. I don’t think it makes sense for us to have the power to remove members without input.

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That’s not what I said fren.
The claim is being made that this is not a certain kind post, but someone is being named because of alleged behavior outside of aavegotchi, and even this is something that as a reader… I would have to now try to find outside of this forums, because it discusses someone’s removal but never explains why?

The post invites speculation and gossip and character judgements over someone’s behavior outside of the DTF, does it not?

Do we need PC police to go around monitoring the members of our committees for what they do outside of them?
Mind you, I do not know what Addison did or did not do, which is exactly my problem with this “not Jerry Springer” post. If we are going to make a certain kind of post at least let’s be honest about the intentions and be forthcoming about what is really going on.

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Well, I guess that deserves an explanation. The DTF has been approached by multiple people inquiring about Addison being removed from the DTF. I am not initiating this as a PC employee. This post was made with the input of DTF members, including Addison. I’m really just a messenger here…

I think you have a valid point that the post could invite speculation and gossip. My intention was to create a place where aggrieved parties could lay out their concerns in a public forum as this is matter relates to a seat elected by the DAO. I want to avoid making the case for either side as much as possible.

Assuming that this was a mistake and it’s already too late to take back, are there any suggestions you have for moving forward?

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Thanks for the explanation. I now interpret this like 2 separate issues that you tried to address in a single post, which made your motives unclear to me.

I think the precedent of initiating someone’s removal based on gossip is BAD and will not support something like that. Therefore, if a member of a committee does something that merits removal, the people interested in seeing them removed should put forth the proposal/vote with evidence for the DAO to vote based on facts, vs. public opinion and outrage which can be very flimsy and reactionary. In this case if Addison is volunteering to be removed, then he could put forth a proposal himself. Those other people approaching you seeking his removal could create the proposal as well. IMHO, if people cannot illustrate or enunciate exactly what it is somebody has done wrong, or how it affects the project or committees at all, then that is an indication of an overreaction.

The separate issue you tried to address was how do we establish a framework for dealing with this in the future. My instinct is to try to determine how much of an issue we really have here… before adding procedures and complications to our DAO processes (based on what could be an emotional knee-jerk reaction).

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Yeah, this was better as two posts. There’s an individual, and a procedure.

We should have a procedure in place of some sort. Witch hunts are lame. If someone did something over the line, we should have some basic procedure we follow, and leave it at that. Preferably, this thing will be simple, not lead to more drama or piling on, and be quick enough and effective enough to matter.

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The DTF did discuss separating this into two thread at some length and there were good arguments for both. Ultimately, we created one to keep the information in the same location. Depending on what is decided here, we can create a separate forum for discussing the details of Addison’s case. The request from community members to remove Addison from the DTF was the catalyst for this posting so we included in the title. As Mori said, we’re just the messengers here trying to engage the community of how to structure this moving forward. The DTF, the DAO, and other DAO task forces would have eventually had to address how this is handled at some point. The alleged actions of Addison and the numerous request from the Aavegotchi community are ultimately what forced us needing to figure it out sooner in the development of the DAO than we would have planned for.
IMO this thread is not about debating Addison’s actions, anyone can view the discussion and post on Discord if they’re interested and decide for themselves. What we’d really like to accomplish is getting some ideas for various procedures the DTF should follow(and other Task Forces) when request from the Community are made to remove a member that the Community initially approved. Once we have a framework, we can follow that to use in the case of Addison and future cases. Keep in mind that what we are looking for is separate from the Task Force voting that we’ll have every 6 months. That is obviously a good opportunity for the community to voice their opinion on who they want to represent them, but is not expeditious enough to respond to something that may require immediate removal of a Community elected Task force member.

A few areas that we could really use some input and I’ll try to give my initial thoughts as well:

When should a vote to remove a Task Force member occur and what would trigger this?
I think it makes sense there are two mechanisms that would prompt a vote -
a) the DTF itself could initiate a vote with a majority DTF decision(many discussions happen
in private DTF chats) and incidents could occur within the DTF that would warrant the DTF
needing to take action. A majority DTF vote would move the vote to SigProp for final vote.
b) The Community initiates the vote. This could happen with a Post in the Forum and a vote
taking place within the Forum using the Polling option. If the poll receives at least 20 YES
votes with a positive YES difference we’d move to a SigProp.

What should the quorum on the SigProp be?
It’s not reasonable to expect a quorum like what we see with our normal game mechanic props that often go to CoreProp. For starters, these wouldn’t go to CoreProps and there will be no incentive for voting on them like XP. Also, these are fairly unpleasant events that revolve around some drama that most people just don’t want to get involved in. A simple majority vote with no Quorum requirement may be the best initial approach for the SigProp.

If the DAO or task force member is voted out, how should their replacement be handled?
Perhaps the questions here is does the Task force operate down a person and replace at the next scheduled vote, or immediately follow up with a Forum post collecting volunteer candidates and then after a few days post the SigProp for voting on the single replacement? The 6month vote would remain on normal scheduled vote and the incoming single replacement would still be subject to the 6 month voting process.

How should the SigProp be worded?
I think the SigProp itself should be as simple as possible with no bias. It should link to a specific DAO forum on the topic where concerns can be aired and reference the alleged incident with a url, date, channel, members, and times(if incident occured within a chat forum for the community to view for themselves).

I also think its important to remember we can always pivot and try different approaches if something isn’t working so well. This process will definitely evolve and hopefully improve over time, but for now we just need to agree on a decent initial starting approach for events like this so we can start learning.

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Totally agree. This is why were asking the community for thoughts on what is required to bring forth a vote outside of the scheduled 6 month period otherwise there could be many frivolous votes and the community would tire of it. I think Mori answered this already, but the alleged incident took place outside of the DTF discussions and occurred in a Discord chat. I don’t think most of us were even aware of this until some community members brought it to our attention. There was some debate on how a Community elected member of the DTF should be removed and if the DTF even has authority on that. I tend to agree with the position that a Community elected volunteer should be also removed by the community if they choose and not by a small group with potential personal bias.

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Pretty difficult to vote someone out of a position with 0 context. I understand not wanting drama but without reason this actually seems like the drama portion of the issue. Not saying it is, but it seems like it when you say you want to remove someone from office, give no reason, but expect the dao to vote on it. Context is necessary whether you consider it drama or not. Truth is what we need most of all. Not obscurity.

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Topic was changed…

Looks like this is to decide what a procedure even is, and then the other thing can be handled via that procedure. :slight_smile:

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At least on Jerry Springer the ugly truth is laid bare. This is more like the regular media because you are trying to shape opinion while obscuring relevant facts and circumstances. Don’t HALF-ASS loud someone out and expect us to vote on that crap. Has the community had a chance to consider what code of morality, if any, it wants enforced?

Also, why does is seem a lot of content in the DTF discord server was memory holed? If the community is going to be holding task force members accountable for morality and speech we will definitely need more transparency about the members of task forces and their activities (apparently whether they pertain to the work of the task force or not).

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So true! Reading the DAO chat in discord I finally read that the reason for all this was “overt racism”, although an air of gossip and secrecy remains.

I regret not being present to capture this overt racism because I would gladly edit the crude facts/images of what happened, down to a tolerable level, but enough to initiate an informed removal vote by the DAO, and create the prop.

I volunteer to make the removal prop, if anybody wants to provide me with the evidence we have of what happened.

That should be the process plain and simple.

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Maybe we should write up two ways of doing it, and have a vote real quick to decide the process, before making that thread. The main issue this situation highlighted, is that we have no process. Anything, that is consistent, will be fair, IMHO.

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In the Sigprop, what do you think a reasonable quorum would be for a passing vote and the required difference between YES and NO votes? Also, do you think there should be a smaller required vote in the DAO forum prior to a community member submitting a sigprop, or that anyone at anytime can submit a sigprop for removal of community member in a Task force? The content of the proposal should probably be fairly standard as well, however the two aforementioned things are probably the most important for determining whether a sigprop vote of this nature passes or fails.

So far, we’re not getting much feedback on the details needed on this. Honestly, if we don’t get more feedback, then it’s probably best to table the “emergency removal” procedures until we have more engagement. The DTF does have a vote scheduled every 6 months on members so that is an existing built in method for the community to make decisions on who represents us. We formed on Feb 8th though, so the vote would be 4 months away. I don’t think the issue of needing an emergency vote goes away, but i would rather discuss the process and get it right than be rash and sloppy which could cause even more problems.