Proposal: KONG Land Senate Formation

What would happen if there was a tie vote? I assume nothing and therefore the hurdle for taking an action would be 4 votes. Is this correct?

1 Like

I think having one main treasury and one treasury with the operating budget makes a ton of sense. The main one can be heavier on the security side with a much higher multi-sig signer requirement.

The operating budgetā€™s treasury can have a much lower signer requirement in order to optimize for speed of transactions being initiated.

4 Likes

Regarding the senate term lengths - my $0.02 is that they should be shorter than one year.

To recap what I said on the community call yesterday: There is no term limit for senators. Therefore this means that if someone is doing a great job 5 months into it, theyā€™re likely to be re-elected. However if someone isnā€™t doing a good job 5 months into it, how likely is it that they will start getting their stride 6 or 7 months into it? Highly unlikely.

My suggestion is to make the terms 6 months. Weā€™re going to lose candidates if the term length is as long as 1 year. An additional data point, the term length for the committee members at Orange DAO is 6 months.

3 Likes

Thatā€™s reasonable to me.

Another question: how much is 1M $LAND? Is that a lot or a little or just right?

Seems premature to me to set payments in $LAND when it doesnā€™t exist yet. I think thatā€™s the right move in the future and I think Senators should be well paid, but for now we should price the salary in ETH or USDC or something else that has a known value (even if itā€™s ultimately paid out in $LAND)

1 Like

$LAND hasnā€™t been distributed yet so thereā€™s no way to value it. Outside of a few $CITIZEN and the remaining $CTZN (which also has no liquid market), the treasury currently has no other significant holdings that could fund the Senateā€™s operations. Even if $LAND was distributed in the very near future, there would likely be a lot of volatility in its market and converting into a different token to pay Senators would likely result in significant slippage.

Establishing the ā€œrightā€ compensation is bound to be a topic revisited regularly and itā€™s also proposed that Senator pay determination for the upcoming term is coupled with the election process.

Thanks for your insights - super helpful! The concern around losing good candidates resonates with me and we can always shorten and streamline the nomination and campaigning process so the more frequent cycles doesnā€™t create additional overhead. o/c, that would mean the proposed 1M in $LAND comp. per Senator, per annual term > 500M $LAND per Senator, per 6-month term (at least for the initial term).

Assuming youā€™re referring to the multisig requirement and not the election votes, the multisig isnā€™t a vote, itā€™s just how many Senators need to sign a TX that involves treasury spend or $CTZN distribution.

Thank you for pulling this together. I agree this is a critical function in moving KONG Land DAO forward.

High-level feedback is to emphasize that Senators do not run KONG Land - $CITIZENS do. Thus, the role of Senators should be strategic direction, for a functional DAO structure, so $CITIZENS can grow, contribute, build, etc.

  1. Is there a justification for why voting is weighted?

  2. Why does compensation only apply to the inaugural Senate team? Governance is work, not a privilege for an elite few. Itā€™s a fine balance between financial incentivisation and encouraging people to politic for roles. Perhaps the first tranche should not be paid? On the other hand, Zcash is an interesting example here. Colloquially, Iā€™ve heard that Directors are paid but not enough to remain engaged given their competence and market value, which limits participation

  3. Is there an estimate of how much compensation will equate to? Board Directors are paid approximately $20k for their contributions (noting, clout and business opportunities which may not be valid here as intangible incentives). Also noting itā€™s fluctuating and adjusted.

  4. Are people responsible for assessing their own legal liability by participating, in line with the UNA?

  5. ā€œThe Senateā€™s scope of responsibilities include, but may not be limited to, the following functions:ā€ This is incorrect. The Senateā€™s role is strategic direction, and structural enactment for the functional settings to achieve strategic purposes. The $CITIZENS and DAO does all these functions listed. Otherwise, KONG Land is limited to the capacity of a few, volunteer-ish people.

  6. Rather than recall votes (politics), can we think about structural mechanisms to limit Senate power via accountability? For example, Lido DAO has an ā€œeasy trackā€ governance stream, where votes that donā€™t affect the entire DAO (i.e. operational functions) can easily pass but with transparency, while strategic, whole-of-DAO votes go through Aragon, to limit the volume of information and votes people have to participate in.
    There could also be scope to remove a Senator by unanimous Senator vote (if itā€™s obvious that they fail to contribute, without having to garner support from the entire DAO via politicking).

Again, the main goal is to align incentives to empower Senators to make strategic decisions to catalyze KONG Land as a functioning DAO ecosystem, ensure sufficient accountability, and limit legal liability.

1 Like

Thanks for the helpful feedback @K.9150! :pray:

  1. Is there a justification for why voting is weighted?

Itā€™s to allow the election of all Senators in a single SnapShot vote vs. having to hold multiple votes. Open to suggestions on alternate voting structures.

  1. Why does compensation only apply to the inaugural Senate team? Governance is work, not a privilege for an elite few. Itā€™s a fine balance between financial incentivisation and encouraging people to politic for roles. Perhaps the first tranche should not be paid? On the other hand, Zcash is an interesting example here. Colloquially, Iā€™ve heard that Directors are paid but not enough to remain engaged given their competence and market value, which limits participation

Compensation for Senators will apply to all terms. The proposed amount is only applicable to the initial term as itā€™s likely to change as the market for $LAND evolves. Iā€™ll tighten up the language in the actual proposal so itā€™s clearer.

  1. Is there an estimate of how much compensation will equate to? Board Directors are paid approximately $20k for their contributions (noting, clout and business opportunities which may not be valid here as intangible incentives). Also noting itā€™s fluctuating and adjusted.

I donā€™t see BODs as good proxies for compensation. Iā€™ve seen their pay well-exceed $20k, and I anticipate Senators will put in more work than any board member. That said, hard to say what is this initial compensation will amount to until a liquid market for $LAND emerges. I consider the initial compensation as a bit of an experiment. I expect that weā€™ll receive a ton of feedback from the initial group of Senators on compensation and other topics that will help shape how future Senate administrations are managed.

  1. Are people responsible for assessing their own legal liability by participating, in line with the UNA?

The proposal is aligned with the terms established in the UNA.

  1. ā€œThe Senateā€™s scope of responsibilities include, but may not be limited to, the following functions:ā€ This is incorrect. The Senateā€™s role is strategic direction, and structural enactment for the functional settings to achieve strategic purposes. The $CITIZENS and DAO does all these functions listed. Otherwise, KONG Land is limited to the capacity of a few, volunteer-ish people.

Agree. Will adjust the language in the final proposal to reflect your suggestion.

  1. Rather than recall votes (politics), can we think about structural mechanisms to limit Senate power via accountability? For example, Lido DAO has an ā€œeasy trackā€ governance stream, where votes that donā€™t affect the entire DAO (i.e. operational functions) can easily pass but with transparency, while strategic, whole-of-DAO votes go through Aragon, to limit the volume of information and votes people have to participate in.
    There could also be scope to remove a Senator by unanimous Senator vote (if itā€™s obvious that they fail to contribute, without having to garner support from the entire DAO via politicking).

While the recall process is far from elegant and definitely not final form, it allows us to move forward with the Senate proposal without being bogged down with implementing a technical solution that requires resources that Kong Land currently doesnā€™t have at its disposal. After the Senate is formed and a treasury exists, I anticipate weā€™ll find much better solutions to tackle this and other tricky functions, such as arbitration.

2 Likes

Awesome feedback everyone - ty! Really encouraged by all the engagement on the proposal.

Hereā€™s the schedule I see to get us from here to an actual Snapshot vote:

  • 5/9 - last call for feedback by EOD
  • 5/9 - requests Senator nominations via a separate forum thread and leave open until 4/15 EOD; will also create a temporary Discord channel for nomination discussions and campaigning
  • 5/10 - post v2 proposal incorporating feedback received and will leave open for additional feedback until 5/15 EOD
  • 5/16 - create a Snapshot vote for the Senate formation that will run for the default 3-day duration
  • 5/16 - create a Snapshot vote for the Senate compensation (currently proposed at 500M $LAND) for Term 1 that will run for the default 3-day duration
  • 5/16 - create a Snapshot vote for Senator elections that will run for the default 3-day duration
  • 5/19 - Senate formed and initial group of Senators elected :crossed_fingers:
1 Like

Senator nomination thread :point_down:

2 Likes

My proposal for the multisig was a 9/12 multisig for the overall treasury and a 4/6 for the Senate discretionary budget.

We could increase the m/n for the master treasury if there are enough willing participants, but the simple majority would appear desirable for the purposes of the Senate address

2 Likes

Thoughts on who should comprise the other 6 signers for the overall treasury? A 9/12 multisig req is fairly onerous and weā€™d need to ensure that the signers are trustworthy, accessible, and reasonably engaged with the project so they have some level of context for any tx requests.

1 Like

Certainly the core contributors, advisers, consultants, and citizens who have previously made it to a Kong embassy would be good candidates. Selecting from past consumers of Kong chips could also align buyers with the producers. If we canā€™t find 9 people we trust out of 225 citizens, I think we have a larger problem.

In the end, the initial Senate is likely to be largely comprised of core contributors, so thereā€™s not really much of a point to separating the multisigs if they both require a 4/6 signature and the signers are mostly the same people.

Ideally the larger multisig should only be required twice a year plus special disbursements requested by the Senate and ratified by citizen vote

1 Like

Hey everyone, just dropped a revised proposal based on all of your awesome feedback :point_down: Please direct any additional feedback to the v2. Thanks!

Fyi, you bumped senator pay to 500M land which is 1/3 of all land. Did you mean 500k?

yougotme

1 Like

haha dammit. def meant it to be 500K :man_facepalming: the perils of doing work late in the evening :sleeping: I just updated all the 500M > 500K

good looking out :pray:

1 Like

This is more of a question than feedback. Will the Senators also be responsible for forming committees to look at special issues that arises (new Kong initiative) or maybe a risk committee to keep track of any systematic risk facing the community?

1 Like

Thanks for your question! The answer is ā€˜yesā€™.

Whether theyā€™re called ā€˜committeesā€™ or something else, as mentioned in the proposal under Scope of Responsibilities, ā€œthe Senate may secure help necessary to fulfill the above functions, including creating grants and bounties, new organizational roles and their compensation structures, software and tooling, etc.ā€

Also, just a heads up that weā€™re working off the revised v2 proposal which you can find here.