New Creator Approval Process Proposal - Creator Review Council

Rally Registry
1

UPDATE: Making some edits based on replies. Will mark those in bold italics.

Picking up on part of a multi-point thread from @sixmofo (Voting and Governance: A solution), the key essence of which was: “Creator coin approval would be done by a team [no need for individual votes]. Rally leadership will suggest a team and then the community will vote on that.”

Today
At the time of this writing, based on previous proposals, we use the Rally Snapshot (https://snapshot.page/#/rally) to post all creators for approval on an individual basis with voting open to anyone holding $RLY ($RLY being the governance token for all Rally and Creator Coin proposals).

At scale, this solution may become untenable as the number of inbound creators may exceed the ability to post and vote on dozens of proposals per week.

Proposal
Rally Staff, advisors, and members of the $RLY holders community to form a Creator Review Council to review and approve/deny creators on a regular basis.

Number of Council Members and Nominations
The council would initially be comprised of 7 members, with room to add additional members in the future based on scale. Rally Staff shall comprise no more than 3 members of the council to promote community oriented governance. A couple of seats would be allotted to official Advisors. The rest of the council would be at large members of the Rally community. At large nominations would be reviewed for contributions to the Rally community and participation in $RLY governance and Creator Coin economies.

Rally Staff to create a simple form application for self nominations. Call for submissions to be made on social media (Rally.io Twitter), Discord, community calls, and blog. Call for submissions will take place over one week, then an up to two weeks to vet and select a roster to be put forward for a Snapshot proposal vote.

Scope
Council will review Creator Coin candidates, and may request to review previously approved creators.

Format
The council would be organized through a special role + private Discord channel(s). One channel for the list of creators, one channel for the discussion of creators.

Creators up for approval would be captured in a privately shared document, such as a spreadsheet, with info such as Name, Bio, and at least one social link for review purposes.

Voting
An explicit “Yes” vote would not be required on a per creator basis. Rather, any council member can request a focused discussion of a creator. A council member can then call for a vote on a single creator should that member procure 1 other member to support, or second, their request. A simple majority (51%) of Yes votes would then be required to approve the creator.

If a vote is required for a previously approved member, 67% majority is required for removal. Voting period 1 week (M-F).

Quorum
Should a vote be required, quorum for a new creator is 67% of members.

Quorum to vote on a previously approved creator for removal is 90%.

Frequency
Given current volumes of creators submitted for proposal, creator review can happen 2 days/week. This would also stress test the system as volume grows.

At future scale (dozens of creators per week), creator review should happen 1 day/week.

Oversight and Term Limits
$RLY is the governance token for voting on this future proposal, and the council members proposal. After approval, council members can be removed by $RLY token holders proposal. The council is not an extension of the company, but rather serves the community of $RLY holders.

Transparency: Rosters of recently reviewed creators will be posted to a new Discord channel. If a candidate or current creator is brought to a vote, those Yes and No votes will include the Ethereum addresses of the voters.

NDA: All council members will sign an NDA. This will be necessary should the launch of an approved creator require an embargo.

Term limits: While a sitting council member can resign or be removed through a $RLY Governance vote (via Snapshot proposal), we should consider term limits for sitting members. Initial thought is to review participation every 6 months, with a maximum term of 2 years. Council could ensure some level of ongoing attrition such that there is a mix of experience across council members.

Resignation or replacement: If a council member resigns or requires replacement, there will be a call for submissions for a new council member and a Snapshot proposal vote on a select set of candidates.

Documentation: Documentation of these rules to be posted to the Rally wiki.

Future
In the future, the Creator Review Council could also be considered for review of previously approved creators whose activity may require community review.

Let me stop there and open this for discussion. I look forward to your feedback!

Jason

3 Likes
2

Thanks for taking this up Jason.

I’m in support of this proposal.

I believe the community sentiment is largely positive on this issue, so I sincerely request that anyone with questions or concerns about the proposal speak up.

3

I am in support of this allowing rally to attain the goals of the roadmap…The make up of the team must include some community member Those members will be doing more than just saying yes or no. They will be doing some research. If that is the plan we are shooting for then we should look into compensating them for their time. As for the other the rally team members, we have to make sure we are not taking people away from their core expertise and slowing down the train. I would look to some input from leadership on this. Right now we need to have some autonomy in the hands of a trusted team to make sure the building phase does not get bogged down in red tape. I also think we should have 11 members so that there are never any ties.

2 Likes
4

Great outline, I’m sure we will iterate on this over time but this is a great first step in the right direction. Couple comments on my end:

  • Council size - why 12? Feels like a large number to manage. I think it’d be better to have a leaner group - perhaps as little as 5. That’ll make it less overhead to select the council, conduct the mentioned activities, and also add/remove members later.

  • Quorum - If a creator needs to go to vote, 67% to pass makes sense. Quroum actually represents how much RLY needs to turn out to vote to be considered a viable proposal. Currently we’ve set this at 500 RLY. For removing a creator, isn’t 100% vote requirement too high? That makes it basically impossible to remove a creator. Maybe 90% to start?

1 Like
5

I think you guys have all hit the nail right on the head. Forming a streamlined council that can work in an efficient and effective manner will allow the team to focus 100% of their efforts on development and other tasks that need their attention. I think the magic number could be 7 and comprised of staff, advisors, and a few community members as suggested. The “Creators” are a vital part of Rally and what we intend to build. I believe having a dedicated council that can onboard these creators, but also serve as sounding board and a support line should they need assistance in the process. I’m excited for this proposal to move forward and looking forward to seeing what this new process will look like in action. The Rally Team never fails to impress with the new ideas and ingenuity. It’s awesome to see the DAO machine working how intended!

2 Likes
6

It seems the primary goal in appointing a Creator Review Council is to speed up Creator approvals. Would you still maintain transparency by publishing the list of proposed Creators in advance to allow a brief community comment period prior to the Council’s vote? Is the Council’s vote record public?

In the interest of decentralization, would Creator approval eventually revert to a community vote or would the Council structure / membership be up for review after some term?

I’m not sure how many new Creators are anticipated over what amount of time but would freezing or removing a CC likely to be for some offense / misuse, or for inactivity / system constraints?

1 Like
7

@Robb good points, I think the act of trusting the Creator Review Council is to remove “advance notice” to the broader community, but perhaps this can still be surfaced by the council? Maybe more of an operational question as to what’s feasible. I’d like to emphasize that we should be thinking about potential creator sign-up velocity in terms of dozens of creators PER DAY, not per week. When you think about it that way, adding friction for the broader community to comment seems counterproductive.

I think the community can propose a new structure and/or evolve the one being proposed here at any time.

I’d leave it up to the council to propose to the community a set of guidelines for freezing or removing a CC that we all agree on initially but can also evolve over time

1 Like
8

Good points by both of you guys. I think trust in the council is the ultimate goal. As you said, the future could mean dozens of creators signing up per day. Having a vote for each creator currently makes things somewhat inefficient. I think the term we’re looking for is thoroughly efficient meaning the council will still need to be thorough in vetting new creators, but also efficient in the onboarding/offboarding process.

2 Likes
9

I’m with @Mvellank on starting with a 5 person group, and could see this council growing to 7 as @PilotVietnam suggested, should the community want broader representation or we see some other need.

I don’t think the community has turned down a creator yet, so I see these reviews as focused on research to flag lack of viable use cases, limited following, or potential controversies/regulatory that require a longer review and/or vote from the larger community.

I agree with some compensation for those not currently being compensated by Rally as advisors or core team since there is meaningful responsibility and time commitment here. I could see reviews being done asynchronously with an expectation that the council would self organize for however many live meetings they feel are necessary. Need for both of these likely to grow in time, and the council should be vigilant in measuring their time commitment to inform future decisions on council membership/comp/scope etc…

I understand the role of the council is to streamline the Creator onboarding and inclusion, but not to eliminate the visibility into pending Creators. To that end, I’m of a mind with @Mvellank to have the council approve on behalf of the community first without visibility into the candidates. Sharing out the pending or approved candidates in batches twice a month could provide ample transparency here, allowing community members to flag any potential problem candidates to the council or add their endorsement. However, I’m all ears if there’s a compelling reason not to share out the list periodically. I expect there’s still a couple weeks lag time or more on average between approval and coin launch?

I can imagine scenarios where Top Tier creators ask or require some degree of anonymity pre-launch, and I think it’d be in the interest of the community to allow the Council to honor that and trust that their appointments to the council would not abuse this flexibility.

An exciting development for Rally and an important step further towards decentralized governance! I’d be interested in joining the council in service of the community, and would work towards developing a sustainable review and reporting (to the community) process based on our learnings.

Also, would like to voice my strong support for diversity of thought, race and gender representation on the council. I hope this will be taken into consideration.

Cheers,
Grand

3 Likes
10

I believe in the early phases of a project there needs to be more autonomy by the “founders/owners”. In most projects that touch defi… the early decision making is in house and then the community is brought in slowly. Once RALLY attains critical mass it can then be turned over to the community. As RALLY is streamlined and somewhat running itself then you can turn the keys over to the community but in the early stages here it is imperative that RALLY is not just taking every application … as the old saying goes its about quality not quantity. The quality will allow for a strong base and a strong pool for mentors that will be a resource for budding creators in the future.

2 Likes