Changes in DAO mechanics

Take a look at previous Nounish Discussion to have see the inspiration behind this proposal.

Nouns DAO has a long way to go in order to become the one place to go for everything web3. It’s still fairly new, has created many subDAOs and microcommunities out of here that are for sure achieve greater heights in coming year. But one thing it lacks is the rules and moderations. In previous discussion mentioned above, there are proof that shows that how easy it is to change the outcome of proposals, be it on-chain proposals or at contest level. So below are some the things that I think should be implemented that will furthermore improve the DAO as a whole.

1. Conflict of Interest :

• A delegate, under no circumstance should vote for a proposal or contest that has direct/indirect involvement
• Nouners can vote for their own proposal as long as a proposal ask is under 100ETH. For Example : 10 Nouns = Can vote as long as the asked amount is under 1000ETH.
• Hiring of a centralized team to look into each and every on-chain proposal and its conflict of interested.
• Some key hires such as Lawyers, Accountant and Partnership Managers whose job will be to take care of all major nouns investment irl. These small steps will help Nouns make strong stand within brands in future.
• A Nouns committee to look into Proof of Work of every on-chain proposal once its time period mentioned in proposal expires to see the impact or results of the proposal for Nouns. If promised things have been delivered efficiently.
• Same committee along with the centralized team decide competitive salary inside the Nouns ecosystem and on-chain proposal’s salary for more transparency and avoid waste of funds.
• Establishing irl Nounish activities that can sustain itself without the DAO’s help after a while. I.e encouraging builders to create a product or tool that can have ROI on its own without builders proposing multiple proposals after every month. Lawyers and accountant will help set up these things in various countries if proposals are passed for irl things.

These are the few things that should be implement in Nouns as rules. Right now it feels like its only limited to a dozen of people. Nouns can grow even more and make more impact in these way.
Feel free to share your views and add even more that you think can help the DAO expand.

I like that you’re going for solutions! This is a mixed bag for me because many of the solutions proposed favor governance that is:

Enforcing solutions from the top, rather than organic solutions from the bottom.
Centralized, rather than decentralized.
Removes freedom from Nouners (who paid a ton of money to be Nouners)
Removed responsibility from Nouners (which could possibly the most dangerous thing of all because it leads to voter apathy, which I believe is the driving problem for most of the problems you see.)

I actually wrote out a proposal that speaks to this idea you spelled out;

• A Nouns committee to look into Proof of Work of every on-chain proposal once its time period mentioned in proposal expires to see the impact or results of the proposal for Nouns. If promised things have been delivered efficiently.

I think this is a great idea and would be a place to start and I think it can be done in a simple, community driven way that would add a lot of value for everyone.

The rest is a very difficult balance to strike. The DAO does not employ people, it passes proposals. I also can’t imagine Nouners desiring a centralized team of overseers. That sounds like the very opposite of the goal of the project.

This point here though;

• Establishing irl Nounish activities that can sustain itself without the DAO’s help after a while. I.e encouraging builders to create a product or tool that can have ROI on its own without builders proposing multiple proposals after every month. Lawyers and accountant will help set up these things in various countries if proposals are passed for irl things.

That is something I’ve been preaching for a while. If your project isn’t sustainable after one round of funding, then it needs to have a very realistic plan for sustainability or be considered an integral part of the community if the funding is going to keep flowing. There are a lot of projects that think they deserve funding forever simply because they are willing to do the work. There is not enough conversation about the reality that if your work is not providing tangible value, then it should probably not exist. I also don’t see many conversations happening that attempt to project the ongoing costs of ‘integral’ projects.

If Nouns are going to sell for 30 ETH x 365 auctions next year, that’s about 11,000 ETH into the treasury. If Prop House, TNS, NSFW, Nouncil, DAO devs and various funding pods are all essential, then that 11,000 will go pretty quickly and not much will be added to the treasury to build it up in preparation for an ETH rebound in the future. That’s a problem that I see coming and I think the conversations about sustainability and accountability will be a big part of 2023 for Nouns.

Would love to hear your thoughts on my thoughts if you’re interested in continuing the conversation. I’ll post my solution the the committee idea as well. I’ll comment with a link once I get it posted.