SafeDAO Operational Manual Proposal

Proposals Phase 0: Discussion
1
  • Title: SafeDAO Operational Manual Proposal
  • Authors. @DAOstewards.
  • Created: 2023-02-14

Related discussion

  1. Forum
  2. Discord

Abstract

The information on SafeDAO governance is currently spread across various forums, posts and announcement articles, making it difficult for new members to navigate and understand the governance structure. This proposal aims to consolidate the information on SafeDAO governance by Creating a Gitbook manual. The proposal is financially supported by DAOstewards, with the DAO expected to take over the maintenance cost after the initial set-up.

The manual could be hosted on dao.safe.global or a similar URL

Proposal details.

The primary objective of this proposal is to create a comprehensive manual on Safe DAO governance that simplifies the information overload and helps new joiners understand the core principles, decision-making processes, and best practices. The manual will cover all aspects of SafeDAO’s governance structure, including the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders, voting procedures, and decision-making processes. The manual will serve as a reference guide for anyone who wants to participate in Safe DAO governance and contribute to the community.

Specifications

This Proposal aims to build a collaborative manual which enables the community to maintain and collaborate in a trust-minimised environment.

DAO members interested in collaborating and contributing can be united under a Working group organised in Discord or the forums.

Platform.

The proposed solution is to host the manual on Gitbook.

GitBook is an open-source platform for creating and publishing documentation, making it an ideal solution for consolidating SafeDAO’s governance information.

This Proposal proposes using GitBook as the Platform to host the Manual for the following reasons

  1. Open-source: the platform is open-source.
  2. Ease of Community collaboration; anyone can request a GitHub Pull and change the repository
  3. Version control: Members don’t have to fear of messing up. Just like on blockchain previous changes are easily trackable.
  4. Cost-effective: GitBook offers advanced admin and management tools to maintain the repo.

Scope:

The manual will cover the following topics:

1. Introduction to SafeDAO and Governance

2. The Constitution
  1. I. SAFEDAO
  2. II. MISSION
  3. III. GOALS
  4. IV. PRINCIPLES
  5. V. CHANGES AND AMENDMENTS

3. Decision-making processes in SafeDAO Governance (proposals)
  3.1. Voting Proposals
       a. Phase 0
       b. Phase 1
       c. Phase 2

  2. SEPs
    2.1. SEP template
    2.2. SEP log Book

4. ##### SafeDAO treasury
  4.1. Overview
 4.2. SAFE tokens
    a. Token smart contract
    b. Tokenomics

5. Best practices for SafeDAO governance

6. Governance tools and platforms used by SafeDAO.

Financial implementation

1. 10,000 SAFE for the development of the Manuel
2. 300$ in SAFE for infrastructure cost, if incurred.

  • The DAOstewards will take the initial setup cost. And is expected to be reimbursed in SAFE for the receipts in USD value.

  • Safe Guardians and team members who are willing to contribute to Manuel as an Admin or an Editor should be willing to pay $8 per for the Plus plan.

  • Individual members who wish to contribute can open a Pull Request through GitHub, and it will not cost extra.

Effects and Impact Analysis

Effects and Impact Analysis: The proposed Gitbook manual will have several positive effects and impacts on SafeDAO.

Pros:

  • Consolidation of information: The manual will consolidate all information on SafeDAO governance, making it easier for new members to navigate and understand the governance structure.

  • Onboarding experience: The manual will provide new members with a more effortless onboarding experience, reducing the information phyllo and saving time.

  • Accessibility: The manual will be accessible to all members of SafeDAO, improving transparency and accountability within the organisation.

Cost-effective: Gitbook is an open-source platform.

Cons:

  • Time-consuming: Creating the manual will require significant time and effort from contributors.

Risks:

  • Information overload: The manual may contain too much information, making it difficult for members to navigate and find the necessary information.

  • Lack of updates: If the manual is not regularly updated, it may become outdated and lose its relevance.

About the team.

DAOstewards - The Metagovernace arm of BanklessDAO.

Alternative Solutions

  1. Not having a Manuel
    The current status quo of not having a guide/manual is the main reason for bringing this proposal.

  2. Alternative solutions to Gitbook, such as HackMD and Notion, were considered. However, HackMD has limited functionality, making it unsuitable for creating a comprehensive guide. The notion was discarded due to its cost and lack of open-source functionality. @adamhurwitz.eth had made an elaborate post and underlined the pros and cons of different tools.

Technical Implementation

This proposal doesn’t require any new code.

A snap-safe snippet is not applicable, as the proposal calls for retro payments!

Open Questions

Anything that needs to be cleared up before the community can make an informed decision?

  1. Maintenance of the manual - is the Safe Foundation willing to maintain the manual after the initial set-up? If not, should someone else have custody it for the DAO,

Copyright.

Some parts of the Proposal are written with the help of ChatGPT3, As an AI language model, all the Text it generates is automatically in the public domain and free to use without attribution or permission.

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0 4.

Special thanks to @adamhurwitz.eth, and everyone who has reviewed the first draft of this proposal.

2 Likes
2

Thank you for posting this draft!

I shared prior feedback and have a few open questions in our Discord thread that would be useful to receive more info on.

TLDR

Safe Operational handbook Discord thread 2023-04-08

I think it makes sense to wait until Theo and SEF publish their version of the SafeDAO GitHub repository. That sounds like it will happen soon after ETHTokyo, so the timing you mention aligns well.

Once that is done I’m not sure if there is a need to create a proposal. I think the next steps would be to submit pull requests to the repository incrementally. It could be good to share the contributions in the forum for feedback and visibility.

It’d be a great idea to keep track of your contributions in terms of content and perhaps time input in order to create a retroactive funding for grants. From my understanding grants will be coming this year to SafeDAO. Hopefully, somewhere towards the middle of the year, but I do not have insight on a specific timeline.

HackMD

@0xBaer, What areas of HackMD have limited functionality?

I’d like to add any opportunities to improve to the HackMD open info I’ve created. The HackMD team has been responsive to feedback. From experimenting with Markdown based collaboration tools this year HackMD has the most impressive published UX. Here are the platform features I based the tests on.

My favorite features are the dynamic published UX that is great to interact with on any device, sized screen, and browser. It’s also great for creators being able to fully customize with Markdown. Long-term, HackMD offers progressive decentralization with self-hosting and even Arweave storage. It would be a great long-term investment to partner with a tool and team that is aligned with the Safe ecosystem’s values.

Gitbook

This makes sense if we’re starting with SEF created documentation because we can easily integrate with their existing workflow.

If we’re creating something new it could be a an opportunity to improve upon the existing toolset.

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hey @adamhurwitz.eth, thanks for the posting the tl;dr from Discord.

may of @daostewards’ proposals are related to building basic infra for Governance, and often, they can be achieved without a proposal if all the stakeholders are comfortable without a governance vote. example of one such proposal: [SEP #X] Improve Communication in SafeDAO.

So on to

I think it makes sense to wait until Theo and SEF publish their version of the SafeDAO GitHub repository. That sounds like it will happen soon after ETHTokyo, so the timing you mention aligns well.
[/quote]

This conversation has been active since January, and ETHTokyo was almost 1 month ago, and I haven’t seen any communication from Safe or @theobtl since then. Thus moving this ‘idea’ to a proposal might add some area for broader community discussion.

We will be tracking our contributions in GitHub through PRs, and also have Mad Hatter Bot in the BanklessDAO server, which can keep track of our Hrly work.

HackMd is excellent for publishing 1-page guides but limited to options when dealing with complex Wikis with subpages. I know there are workarounds to publish Wikis, but that won’t have the best UX in terms of content management.

There are Web3 alternatives for like Chamverse but i haven’t done much research into those to provide an answer.

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I feel Gitbook is nearly a standard these days. All the teams I’ve worked with have the last year or so have all been comfortable with it over anything else. If there’s a FOSS alternative that’d be great, but I haven’t found one. If one exists I’d be more than happy to volunteer hosting/infrastructure as well as maintenance.

I’m not sure where the grant committee size sits, but I’d be interested in serving as a member. The majority of my career has been in some type of technical project management role. I feel I’d be a good fit.

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[SEP #X] Improve Communication in SafeDAO is a great initiative led by @daostewards!

Moving docs forward with temporary hosting

Creating the proposed docs sooner is certainly an advantage to waiting, as long as the plan is to merge the docs into SEFs structure once created. I imagine SEF will create a GitHub repository soon and we can start submitting pull requests of our Markdown based info. For example, this is the intention with the existing SafeDAO open info I’ve created.

Once the docs are merged with SEF, we can begin the process of progressively decentralizing them. For example, it would be useful to have onchain votes for role-based access with Safe accounts. For example, SafeDAO votes to give @0xBaer edit access to docs A, B, and C. Then, @0xBaer can update docs A, B, and C by signing with their Safe account. This is the long-term goal with crypto access controls.

If the newly created docs are done well it will provide clarity within the Safe community and for the broader crypto ecosystem which has many benefits. I’m glad to hear you have a well organized system for tracking contributions too.

Publishing tools

I created a multi-page open info on Safe with HackMD. @0xBaer, I’d love feedback on what parts of the multi-page experience can be improved. Also, you mentioned some other UX issues. It would be great for me to include these in the Opportunities page to share with the HackMD team.

I enjoy the collapsible global navigation left menu for multi-pages because it lets me focus on 1 page at a time with the clean UX, and easily open the menu to access another topic quickly.

A nice improvement would be to have a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor. However, I do not foresee this being a large issue for those accustomed to contributing to docs.

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I find this proposal for creating a SafeDAO Operational Manual to be highly beneficial for the community. Consolidating the governance information into a comprehensive manual is a fantastic idea that will greatly benefit both new and existing members.
With DAOstewards providing financial support for the initial setup, it’s a collaborative effort that shows a strong commitment to transparency and accessibility. The choice of GitBook as the hosting platform seems ideal, given its open-source nature and ease of collaboration. However, it’s important to address potential challenges like information overload and ensuring the manual remains up to date. Regular maintenance and updates will be key to keeping it relevant and valuable.
Overall, this proposal shows a proactive way to enhancing the onboarding experience and empowering the SafeDAO community with a centralized resource for governance knowledge.

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hopping to get some attention from @theobtl and safe team on this issue

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Unfortunately, Theo is on leave from the Safe Ecosystem Foundation (SEF). From what I understand, someone will be taking over for his role. Hopefully, there will be an official update from SEF.

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Hey everyone, unfortunately, we are having a change of personnel in the governance department. We are currently onboarding a new governance expert to close the current gap and emerge from the situation even stronger than before. We are optimistic that we will be able to share more information soon. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me with any governance-related questions.

7 Likes