GOC-0020 Governance Committee

Oliver · September 25, 2022, 6:51pm

1. Meta Data

Original Author(s): Oliver Zerhusen (ozerhusen@gmail.com), Annie (poptones.eth@gmail.com)
Creation Date: 09/25/2022
Stage: Draft
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Last Version:
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Organization: Governance Committee
Tag(s): Governance

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2. Summary

The Governance Committee is the operating body within the Graph AdvocatesDAO overseeing governance related matters. Its key purpose is to facilitate governance processes and to ensure governance decisions within the Graph AdvocatesDAO follow established procedures. The Governance Committee is also a source of domain expertise to maintain and develop governance structures.

All members of the DAO are encouraged to participate in designing and proposing governance structures and models. Members of the Governance Committee shall foster such participation across the DAO and support all DAO members in their efforts to actively engage in DAO governance.

In accordance with GOC-0003 DAO Committees, the Governance Committee shall be compensation eligible and its committee members shall be committed to engage in the scope described in the specification of this GOC.

3. Motivation

The Graph AdvocatesDAO has significantly grown since its summoning in March 2022. DAO membership has doubled and over a dozen teams have already been formed to carry out various assignments within DAO Committees to fulfill its mission. The introduction of GOCs has enabled the DAO to begin developing decentralized governance structures and become aligned around them. Creating these structures are valuable and time-consuming tasks. A governance team was formed in June 2022 to establish a structure in which GOC development can be transparently discussed. That team also led the initiative to work in public and invite everyone into its weekly meeting, a framework that has since been broadly adopted in the DAO.

The scope of the governance team subsequently grew further and expanded to all things governance, including voting, moderation and calibration. The Q3 budget revealed that the governance team had the largest hourly team budget, close to the size of the Grant Committee. A Forum pulse check demonstrated strong support within the DAO to lift the governance team to a compensation eligible Governance Committee.

4. Specification

4.1. GOCs

The Governance Committee stewards the Graph AdvocatesDAO Operating Code (GOCs) efforts within the DAO. Committee members are encouraged to take leadership in creating new GOCs and modify existing ones. As domain experts, committee members also provide assistance to other DAO members in drafting and reviewing GOCs.

The Governance Committee shall also facilitate forum and live meeting discussions that allow GOC authors to socialize their GOCs and receive community feedback. It shall also take leadership in helping to progress GOCs through the established governance process from initial publishing through to implementation.

4.2. Alignment

Governance and voting discussions frequently take place in the DAO in different ways. Members of the Governance Committee shall provide domain expertise on governance processes wherever such discussions take place and alignment is needed. This expertise can be required in various situations where counsel can be provided, such as:

Clarify which GOC applies in certain situations to the decision at hand
Explain how to structure votes and polls on different platforms
Advise how to implement an approved governance proposal
Raise awareness to conflicting specifications proposed cross-GOCs
Clarify next steps to take in the governance process for a new proposal

4.3. Voting Procedures

In addition to the on-chain voting process in DAOHaus, DAO committees and their teams have established numerous different off-chain voting and decision making processes. The Governance Committee shall provide domain expertise to other committees and teams in identifying the most suitable voting and decision-making processes that best fits their needs.The Governance Committee shall also provide support in implementing agreed upon voting and decision-making processes, if necessary.

The Governance Committee shall keep an updated record of all established voting and decision-making processes that are implemented in the DAO across the different committees and teams in a Voting Procedure Log. That log shall be accessible to all DAO members and as such help promote transparency about all voting procedures in the DAO.

The Governance Committee shall also engage in enforcing that established voting procedures in the DAO are being adhered to across the different committees and teams. Accordingly, the Governance Committee meetings shall thus be a place where DAO members can raise awareness of potential infractions and where resolutions can be discussed and agreed upon.

4.4. Guardians

As the DAO continues to grow and progress, the Governance Committee will aid in facilitating the creation and execution of proposals and GOCs. The Governance Committee will therefore engage to keep governance discussions and proposals progressing through established processes. Examples of such facilitation include:

Facilitate in reaching consensus and compromises on proposals
Moderate governance discussions in meetings, Forum and other platforms
Monitor repos for open PRs on Github
Raise awareness to new and open proposals
Execute proposals after DAO voting

4.6. Research

Members of the Governance Committee shall engage in researching best practices in other DAOs and drive efforts to continuously improve the Graph AdvocatesDAO governance structures. As web3 is an ever-evolving space that is often reflected through practical challenges for DAOs, continuous research in best practices and governance models will allow Graph AdvocatesDAO to progressively improve in areas such as efficiency and resiliency. Research includes but is not limited to:

Graph AdvocatesDAO