Discussion on DAO Team's Medium article "Progressive Decentralization, SIPs, and The Sandbox DAO"

đź’¬ General
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A couple days ago, the DAO Admin Team published a really detailed article updating us on multiple things. It’s worth the read! Please share your own thoughts and let’s discuss!

Medium Article: Progressive Decentralization, SIPs, and The Sandbox DAO

I posted my responses and questions the Medium article and copied them below for convenience. You can access the article’s comments and post your own by clicking this on the article.

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“We’ve studied the journeys of other DAOs, learning not only from their successes but also from their failures.”

I really applaud the DAO Admin Team has studied other DAOs. It’s clear the Team has put a lot of effort into the Sandbox DAO.

“One common mistake we’ve seen is the rush to full decentralization…”

In your study of other DAOs, did you come across any pitfalls/mistakes indicating too much centralization took place?

“Strategic guidance comes from a Special Council…”

Could you please provide a few examples of past strategic guidance from the Special Council and to whom the guidance was given?

“That included selecting a Special Council to help build the community and provide early strategic guidance.”

Is the Sandbox Game Company or the Sandbox DAO Foundation the author of this article? It’s written in the voice of the Sandbox DAO Foundation, and this sentence makes it seem like the DAO Admin Team chose the Special Council. In their 4-Jun-2024 AMA on X Space, Cyril noted that “We selected initial Special Council members and Special Advisors from who we trusted to help guide us in the initial stages” … which I thought meant that Seb chose the Special Council. Is this incorrect?

“The Council also plays a limited role in ensuring compliance and alignment with the DAO’s principles”

What is the relationship between the Special Council and the DAO Admin Team? Is there any position the Special Council does NOT have authority over?

“…we’ve heard the community’s feedback…”

Where does the DAO Admin Team publish the feedback it acts upon? The DAO Admin Team has received a significant amount of community feedback, and it would really help to see communication from the DAO Admin Team on what other feedback it implements.

“These concerns are why we also established an Advisory Board — a group intended to reflect the many voices in The Sandbox community … We expect the Board to be instrumental in ensuring the community is represented and heard.”

Can the DAO Team please give insight into how this is accomplished?

“The Sandbox community has a lot of contributors, many of whom are not the most vocal advocates publicly but contribute to growth behind closed doors.”

I delved into how big the community is in SANDDAO 31: Intro to the Sandbox Ecosystem here https://youtu.be/FPgFQenPImc, did I catch everyone?

“Progressive decentralization is designed to balance the sometimes competing demands of democracy, efficiency, and effectiveness.”

Now that the Sandbox DAO has been active for 5 months (since May 2024), is there a timeline for how decentralization will be achieved?

“The Sandbox may occasionally work to ensure the stability of this approach. For now, that could include taking a stance on or using its Voting Power in favor of or against particular SIPs that it believes are misaligned with the DAO’s mission or threaten its long-term viability.”

Much of the community has requested clarification on this. As of now, it is unclear what the criteria is for its use. Seb stated on DAO AMA 4-Jun-2024 [timestamp 41:55] that the Sandbox wallet would refrain from being used after its mistaken use on SIPs 1 to 5. It was then used on 4-Sep-2024 to allow SIP-11 and SIP-12 to pass quorum, but then Sandbox did not vote on the SIPs after. What caused this to happen?

“In The Sandbox DAO’s current configuration, the Council and admin team can curate the proposals received.”

How does the DAO Admin Team judge when curation has become excessive?

“These SIPs are “DAO-centric” in the sense that they focus more on management matters and less on substantive value adds to The Sandbox ecosystem.”

How did the DAO Admin Team come to the conclusion that DAO-centric SIPs are not substantive to the Sandbox ecosystem? The DAO has a 15,500,000 $SAND budget with 2,200 participating voters and 211,000 token holders eligible to vote.

“Here are examples of ideal SIPs:”

The TSB Team and the DAO Admin Team wrote 5 of the 6 SIPs cited as ideal in this section. SIPs 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 were TSB and SIP-6 was community (Pepe from SAND RUSH).

“The DAO admin team ensures that the DAO functions and remains transparent, accountable, and effective in its execution by:”

What transparent, accountable, and effective functions are applied to the DAO Admin Team? It is not clear who the DAO Administrator answers to, and it isn’t clear what the DAO Administrator’s term length and compensation package is. While the Special Council and Advisory Board is transparently defined in the Constitution, it remains unidentified for the DAO Administrator.

“The good news is: There is no need to do a SIP for that!”

Shouldn’t the responsibility for determining what needs to be a SIP fall on the Sandbox community and DAO voters?

“Community members can simply make a suggestion, through the dedicated discourse channel to the DAO admin team, which has full authority to use the operation budget to implement the request, if deemed appropriate.”

Does this create an unaccountable system for the DAO Admin Team that may lead to abusive behavior? In circumstances where DAO day-to-day activities and “established guidelines” do not meet Sandbox community expectations–or threatens the Sandbox DAO’s stability, success, or viability–how does the Sandbox community change DAO Team activities and “established guidelines,” even when the DAO Team deems it “not appropriate”?

“…the admin team will reject any proposals that do not meet these criteria…”

Does this give the DAO Admin Team the power to exclude itself from accountability enforcement actions by the Sandbox community? This new approach appears to invite community members to submit suggestions that the DAO Admin Team has determined it has full authority to disregard without limitation. Is this interpretation accurate? How did the DAO Admin Team arrive at this conclusion?

“After reviewing the SIP to confirm it complies with the required guidelines and avoids any prohibited elements, we will notify the authors accordingly.”

There doesn’t seem to be a limit to the DAO Admin Team’s power to curate an author’s SIP, nor any description of when curation becomes excessive. Is there no circumstance where the DAO Team’s curation becomes excessive or counter to an inclusive and successful DAO?

At the Sandbox, we believe our approach…

Is the Sandbox Game Company and the Sandbox DAO Foundation still two separate legal entities? I’m confused about the overlap in this article. This sentence cites “the Sandbox’s” approach, which seems like TSB Game Company, but then cites activities that were conducted by the DAO Admin Team with the DAO Foundation.

“By learning from past experiences and carefully structuring our decentralization process, we aim to build a sustainable, inclusive, and successful DAO.”

I really applaud the DAO Admin Team’s effort to look at past experiences and other DAOs. The activities of ApeCoin DAO, CityDAO, CompoundDAO, MocaDAO, provide many great examples to follow, lessons learned, and areas of improvement! Thank you for your hard work!

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We have an opportunity to do this correctly.

At the moment, it feels like we’re lost.

Either the DAO establishes community messaging or it does not. Either it helps build the future of the platform or it does not. Either the DAO voice/voting matters or it does not.

Right now there’s far too much friction.

A small number of people are defining what gets proposed. Smaller number defining what is realized.

What we need is a DAO team that hears it’s people and pushes for change. Otherwise, we’ve got the same dying platform as before the DAO was established.

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It definitely feels like there is too much friction in getting SIPs to vote. I agree that the community could do with hearing more from the Special Council and Advisory Board.

Either it helps build the future of the platform or it does not

From what I’ve seen so far, I think if you asked the DAO Admin Team if they believed they were doing this, they’d say that yes, they are, by doing the things they wrote in the Medium article.

I don’t think they’re wrong in their approach but I wouldn’t approach it the same way, and I get the sense that the community doesn’t agree with their approach either.

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Just a point of clarity: the Medium article was published by The Sandbox, not the DAO.

You raise some valid questions here, @Lanzer, and we’ll address them together in the weeks ahead.

We’ll have a form to field questions for the first office hours event, which we’ll host towards the end of next week. I expect some of your questions will be included.

RE: the friction that you and @TheVisionEx refer to above – We’re going to work this together and come out stronger on the other side. Like all good things, it won’t happen overnight. Tip of the hat to you both for pushing so hard for so long and not going anywhere…

We’re also gonna drop a Community Poll later this week to better gauge people’s thoughts and concerns. Hopefully, this will capture the opinions of some of the silent folks, too.

Finally, I’d love to get DMs from both of you (Note: I will never DM first).

I am more than happy to set up 1:1 or group calls with SandFam.

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Just a point of clarity: the Medium article was published by The Sandbox, not the DAO.

This seemed to be written in the voice of the Sandbox DAO Admin Team. Is this not the case? Who was the author of this article? The line between Sandbox Company and Sandbox Foundation is really blurry to me right now. Cyril has a @sandbox.game email address, but the Foundation is a separate legal entity that is supposed to be separate and distinct from the Sandbox Company…yes?

RE: the friction that you and @TheVisionEx refer to above – We’re going to work this together and come out stronger on the other side.

I believe you, Kunta. It feels like the Sandbox DAO is in a hole with the way it was launched and the way DAO Admin Team has communicated up until this point. There’s a lot of mistrust directed at DAO leadership and the DAO Admin Team. I think a lot of that negative sentiment and reasonable criticism needs to be unwound for us to come out stronger on the other side.

There’s too much happening in parallel with the ApeCoin DAO for it to go unaddressed. I’m really happy that you’re tackling it head on!

Hopefully, this will capture the opinions of some of the silent folks, too.

They’ll probably need significant coaxing. From what I’ve seen of the community, the DAO Admin Team and the Special Council have lost a lot of trust and faith. Seb seems to be the only exception to that rule due to the previous goodwill he’s built up.

Many early voices went silent about a month ago, and they themselves seemed to reflect a deeper layer of unspoken participants we haven’t seen on these forums yet. I sometimes saw them react to KandidlyKristen’s messages on the discord #dao-discussion channel.

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Updated my original post with a few new additions I found during the live reaction I did during SANDDAO podcast 33.

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Hello,

Some original answers and others copy/pasted from a different thread, in case new community members stumble upon this one:

In your study of other DAOs, did you come across any pitfalls/mistakes indicating too much centralization took place? – As the article indicates, DAOs are often decentralised too quickly, contributing to their ultimate failure or slow declines.

Could you please provide a few examples of past strategic guidance from the Special Council and to whom the guidance was given? – Some of the topics we’ve discussed lately include: decentralized governance in general, how to attract more voters to the DAO, brainstorms new SIPs, various web3 and ecosystem news etc etc. We are very fortunate to have brilliant SP with a lot of knowledge in the space. These conversations are on top of the SP primary constitutional mandate articulated around SIP review.

What is the relationship between the Special Council and the DAO Admin Team? Is there any position the Special Council does NOT have authority over? – This is a 3-party relationship (more precisely, it’s 4 once you account for the community). No hierarchy between us. In our DAO, there is no Chief “Something” Officer. There is no hierarchy; it’s a rather flat structure. We all have our own respectful mandates, with checks and balances between us. A quick fun example: I have helped to recruit Michael, but he is now the one with authority to approve certain bills, or sign contracts, where I’m not. It’s kind of a chicken and eggs situation, which makes it fascinating to navigate.

Where does the DAO Admin Team publish the feedback it acts upon? The DAO Admin Team has received a significant amount of community feedback, and it would really help to see communication from the DAO Admin Team on what other feedback it implements. – The best example would be the work to implement Staking in the Voting Power calculation. This is mentioned in the operation team weekly updates. This will be live in weeks ahead!
The reason why it was not included in the first place is two-fold:

  1. while discussing with some community members, it appeared as a sensitive topic as depending on the jurisdiction you live in, the staking may or may not be available to you, to comply with your local regulation.
  2. the second reason was cost of implementation: it required collaboration between several departments of The Sandbox and the DAO to make it happen, for something that represent 2% of the total voting power out there. When designing a project, you’d always want to deliver feature that are the least expensive with the maximum of impact first.

Much of the community has requested clarification on this. As of now, it is unclear what the criteria is for its use. Seb stated on DAO AMA 4-Jun-2024 [timestamp 41:55] that the Sandbox wallet would refrain from being used after its mistaken use on SIPs 1 to 5. It was then used on 4-Sep-2024 to allow SIP-11 and SIP-12 to pass quorum, but then Sandbox did not vote on the SIPs after. What caused this to happen? – This will be a judgment, from The Sandbox Game on whether the SIP are aligned or not with the DAO’s mission and long term viability.

How does the DAO Admin Team judge when curation has become excessive? – The curation stops when both parties (author and project management team) mutually agree on content, and when the admin team remarks have been taken into account.

What transparent, accountable, and effective functions are applied to the DAO Admin Team? It is not clear who the DAO Administrator answers to, and it isn’t clear what the DAO Administrator’s term length and compensation package is. While the Special Council and Advisory Board is transparently defined in the Constitution, it remains unidentified for the DAO Administrator. – All budget expenses (operation, maintenance, SIPs…), when effectively executed on chain, are transparently shared to the community via the dashboard section of the website.

How did the DAO Admin Team come to the conclusion that DAO-centric SIPs are not substantive to the Sandbox ecosystem? The DAO has a 15,500,000 $SAND budget with 2,200 participating voters and 211,000 token holders eligible to vote. – The goal of The Sandbox DAO is NOT to become a perfect entity, but rather to improve the life of The Sandbox players/creators. We’re also doing all we can to open channels of communication with folks like yourself, so we can simply hear your feedback and make operational improvements as the need may arise. See my comments on the questions below.

Shouldn’t the responsibility for determining what needs to be a SIP fall on the Sandbox community and DAO voters? – Some things like modifying the website, improving the financial and voting reporting, and connecting the DAO to a third-party system, can be requested directly. As these modifications falls under the operation budget, of which the admin team has authority to spend, there is no need to do a SIP. This is for efficiency’s sake, so we don’t need to ask the community when we need to increase our cloud space, or buy some pencils :slight_smile: But it does not mean that a form of polling cannot be done, to make sure the feature is useful to most.

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I deeply appreciate your responses, Cyril.

Understood, I was asking if in your research you ran across any lessons learned about centralization.

Some of the topics we’ve discussed lately include…

So I think I interpret that to mean the strategic guidance mentioned in the Medium article is received from the SC as part of your informal 1-on-1s with them. Correct?

A quick fun example: I have helped to recruit Michael, but he is now the one with authority to approve certain bills, or sign contracts, where I’m not. It’s kind of a chicken and eggs situation, which makes it fascinating to navigate.

That is definitely very fascinating. What led you to knowing Michael was the right choice? (I appreciate the stories and examples you’ve responded the past week. It’s been very educational)

This is mentioned in the operation team weekly updates. This will be live in weeks ahead! … the staking may or may not be available to you, to comply with your local regulation.

I’m VERY excited to hear that it’ll be available in the near future. As for the complying with local regulation…fair enough. I’m glad to see that you and the team are stepping through that with all due diligence.

for something that represent 2% of the total voting power out there. When designing a project, you’d always want to deliver feature that are the least expensive with the maximum of impact first.

Fair. I can appreciate that approach. :slightly_smiling_face:

This will be a judgment, from The Sandbox Game on whether the SIP are aligned or not with the DAO’s mission and long term viability.

So per your other post, the DAO has custody of the treasury wallets, and now we know that the Sandbox Company has custody of the voting wallet. Understood, thank you for clarifying this. Have they made any comment you can share about why they voted in SIP 11 & 12?

All budget expenses (operation, maintenance, SIPs…), when effectively executed on chain, are transparently shared to the community via the dashboard section of the website.

I’m certainly appreciative that the wallets are listed. I’m unable to decipher what the expenses are for in the listed Etherscan and Polygonscan wallets. What’s the thought behind revealing/not revealing the DAO Admin Team compensation packages?

This is for efficiency’s sake, so we don’t need to ask the community when we need to increase our cloud space, or buy some pencils

This part makes sense to me. I voice no concern about the 1.8M operations budget approved in SIP-3. My concern was that the Medium article seemed to also say that SIP strategy (like review scope by DAO Admin Team) and SIPs increasing quorum also couldn’t be proposed by the DAO. My SIP was moved out of SIP Drafts and cited as a “Constitutional SIP” that only the DAO Admin Team could propose if it decided to. That was concerning to me. Am I misunderstanding? Please let me know if “DAO-centric SIPs” do not apply to these things.