Summary
This proposal outlines the Uniswap Delegate Reward Initiative, a compensation program designed to improve participation quality and dedication among Uniswap delegates. The initiative was developed by several members of the Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group, which conducted extensive research and produced findings supporting the implementation of such a program.
Background
In late February 2024, StableLab proposed the Uniswap Delegate Reward Initiative 8. After the GovSwap event in Denver, further research to plan and implement the Delegate Reward Initiative was highlighted, leading to the formation of the Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group, composed of 8 members from different organizations. After extensive research for more than a month, the Working Group produced several findings, which can be found here: https://gov.uniswap.org/t/findings-from-uniswap-delegate-reward-working-group/23702 7
The details of the findings were slightly different. However, this conclusion summarized the findings quite nicely:
“There was a general consensus across most categories that a compensation program for delegates could improve participation quality and dedication. However, the enthusiasm varied, with those deeply involved in governance showing the strongest support.”
The Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group explored several frameworks for implementing rewards, including a Committee structure that allows several non-delegates to get rewarded for helping to contribute to various scopes. However, some non-delegates in the Working Group preferred the Delegate-only model while other non-delegates in the Group suggested other alternatives.
Therefore, we believe that the delegate-focused structure can be launched, but other members can also propose structures that focus on different aspects, ultimately leaving the decision up to governance.
Proposal Details
Application Eligibility
There will be a week-long period for delegate candidates to submit their applications. If there are more than 11 eligible candidates, then the top 11 will be decided based on objective metrics outlined below. Considering past onchain votes, 19-21 delegates have been a consistent contributor amount to the voting, this acts as a mechanism to prevent sybil attack while also ensuring delegates who might have lesser voting power can be rewarded as well.
For the first cycle, the eligibility for the application will be
At least been a delegate for 3 months or more Voting Power of 10k $UNI or more OR Authored or co-authored a proposal that at least passed the Snapshot Vote The reason for the application eligibility was that the first cycle should be focusing on Delegates that have been committed to Uniswap DAO, and ideally, the Initiative can encourage more to participate and thus more delegates will be eligible by Cycle 2.
Metrics for Selection of Top 11 Candidates
In case there are more than 11 eligible applicants, the top 11 will be chosen by the following objective metrics. The highest point would be 10.
-Considering one of the primary roles of the delegate is to receive voting power from their delegators to vote on behalf for the best of Uniswap, voting participation are crucial to ensure quorums are met and malicious proposals are prevented. The Full point from this category is 5. The onchain part is weighted more heavily due to its usual frictions such as gas cost, as well as its importance that its votes directly can dictate code changes or treasury. The voting rate is based on the past 3 months.
80% and above : 2 70% till 80% : 1.5 60% till 70%: 1 50% or below but above 0%: 0.5 0% : 0 2.Onchain Voting
80% and above : 3 70% till 80% : 2.25 60% till 70%: 1.5 50% or below but above 0%: 0.75 0% : 0 2. Proposal Authorship
-Helping to write proposals for Uniswap DAO is important. However, we also want to prevent low-quality or malicious proposals. Therefore, only passed votes would count. The full point for this category is 4. The onchain part is weighted more heavily as it’s more difficult to have a proposal to pass the onchain vote as well as its importance that its proposals directly can dictate code changes or treasury.
In case of non-binary proposals, if the choice equivalent to “No” was present, and the end voting result was another choice than “No”, then it would be considered as valid for below. For example, Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG) Election wouldn’t be valid for the points as there’s no “No” vote . But [Temp] Uni Onboarding Package - BSC would be valid for the points as there was a choice of “Against”. And the voting result was “$1m”.
Yes, 2 or more : 1 Yes, 1 : 0.5 No: 0 2.Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed onchain vote before
Yes, 2 or more : 3 Yes, 1 : 1.5 No: 0 3. Other Governance Participation
-The full point for this category is 1. This category is to recognize other ways one could contribute to discussion regarding Uniswap Governance. This can be achieved by either
Yes: 1 No: 0 Or
Yes: 1 No: 0 Tie Breaker
-In rare cases if there are ties, this will be first decided by how many “likes” one received on the forum. Considering likes would ideally be tied to how many posts one has made and also how liked their posts are. We believe this is a fair way to have them as Tie Breakers.
Delegate Reward Eligibility
Once Delegates have passed the application process, the Delegates need to fulfill the following to be eligible for up to $6,000 USD worth of $UNI reward per month.
Requirements
Maintain 80% onchain and offchain voting participation for the past 3 months. Achieving this will provide $3,000 USD worth of $UNI Additional (only available if the above Requirement of Voting Participation is fulfilled)
Write rationale for the voting on their delegate profile. Achieving this will provide an additional $3,000 USD worth of $UNI
Budget We are requesting 198,000 [ 6000 *3 * 11] USD worth of UNI for the Uniswap Delegate Reward Initiative, plus an additional 64,000 USD (40 hours * 8 members * 200 USD per hour) worth of UNI as a retroactive reward for the Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group.
The total amount of 262,000 USD worth of UNI, once approved, will be sent to the Accountability Committee, which will be responsible for the monthly distribution of rewards to eligible delegates and retroactive reward for the Working Group members. In the unlikely scenario that the budget is depleted before the end of the 3-month cycle, Cycle 1 will end early.
Summary
This proposal outlines the Uniswap Delegate Reward Initiative, a compensation program designed to improve participation quality and dedication among Uniswap delegates. The initiative was developed by several members of the Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group, which conducted extensive research and produced findings supporting the implementation of such a program.
Background
In late February 2024, StableLab proposed the Uniswap Delegate Reward Initiative 8. After the GovSwap event in Denver, further research to plan and implement the Delegate Reward Initiative was highlighted, leading to the formation of the Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group, composed of 8 members from different organizations. After extensive research for more than a month, the Working Group produced several findings, which can be found here: https://gov.uniswap.org/t/findings-from-uniswap-delegate-reward-working-group/23702 7
The details of the findings were slightly different. However, this conclusion summarized the findings quite nicely:
“There was a general consensus across most categories that a compensation program for delegates could improve participation quality and dedication. However, the enthusiasm varied, with those deeply involved in governance showing the strongest support.”
The Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group explored several frameworks for implementing rewards, including a Committee structure that allows several non-delegates to get rewarded for helping to contribute to various scopes. However, some non-delegates in the Working Group preferred the Delegate-only model while other non-delegates in the Group suggested other alternatives.
Therefore, we believe that the delegate-focused structure can be launched, but other members can also propose structures that focus on different aspects, ultimately leaving the decision up to governance.
Proposal Details
Application Eligibility
There will be a week-long period for delegate candidates to submit their applications. If there are more than 11 eligible candidates, then the top 11 will be decided based on objective metrics outlined below. Considering past onchain votes, 19-21 delegates have been a consistent contributor amount to the voting, this acts as a mechanism to prevent sybil attack while also ensuring delegates who might have lesser voting power can be rewarded as well.
For the first cycle, the eligibility for the application will be
At least been a delegate for 3 months or more Voting Power of 10k $UNI or more OR Authored or co-authored a proposal that at least passed the Snapshot Vote The reason for the application eligibility was that the first cycle should be focusing on Delegates that have been committed to Uniswap DAO, and ideally, the Initiative can encourage more to participate and thus more delegates will be eligible by Cycle 2.
Metrics for Selection of Top 11 Candidates
In case there are more than 11 eligible applicants, the top 11 will be chosen by the following objective metrics. The highest point would be 10.
-Considering one of the primary roles of the delegate is to receive voting power from their delegators to vote on behalf for the best of Uniswap, voting participation are crucial to ensure quorums are met and malicious proposals are prevented. The Full point from this category is 5. The onchain part is weighted more heavily due to its usual frictions such as gas cost, as well as its importance that its votes directly can dictate code changes or treasury. The voting rate is based on the past 3 months.
80% and above : 2 70% till 80% : 1.5 60% till 70%: 1 50% or below but above 0%: 0.5 0% : 0 2.Onchain Voting
80% and above : 3 70% till 80% : 2.25 60% till 70%: 1.5 50% or below but above 0%: 0.75 0% : 0 2. Proposal Authorship
-Helping to write proposals for Uniswap DAO is important. However, we also want to prevent low-quality or malicious proposals. Therefore, only passed votes would count. The full point for this category is 4. The onchain part is weighted more heavily as it’s more difficult to have a proposal to pass the onchain vote as well as its importance that its proposals directly can dictate code changes or treasury.
In case of non-binary proposals, if the choice equivalent to “No” was present, and the end voting result was another choice than “No”, then it would be considered as valid for below. For example, Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG) Election wouldn’t be valid for the points as there’s no “No” vote . But [Temp] Uni Onboarding Package - BSC would be valid for the points as there was a choice of “Against”. And the voting result was “$1m”.
Yes, 2 or more : 1 Yes, 1 : 0.5 No: 0 2.Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed onchain vote before
Yes, 2 or more : 3 Yes, 1 : 1.5 No: 0 3. Other Governance Participation
-The full point for this category is 1. This category is to recognize other ways one could contribute to discussion regarding Uniswap Governance. This can be achieved by either
Yes: 1 No: 0 Or
Yes: 1 No: 0 Tie Breaker
-In rare cases if there are ties, this will be first decided by how many “likes” one received on the forum. Considering likes would ideally be tied to how many posts one has made and also how liked their posts are. We believe this is a fair way to have them as Tie Breakers.
Delegate Reward Eligibility
Once Delegates have passed the application process, the Delegates need to fulfill the following to be eligible for up to $6,000 USD worth of $UNI reward per month.
Requirements
Maintain 80% onchain and offchain voting participation for the past 3 months. Achieving this will provide $3,000 USD worth of $UNI Additional (only available if the above Requirement of Voting Participation is fulfilled)
Write rationale for the voting on their delegate profile. Achieving this will provide an additional $3,000 USD worth of $UNI
Budget We are requesting 198,000 [ 6000 *3 * 11] USD worth of UNI for the Uniswap Delegate Reward Initiative, plus an additional 64,000 USD (40 hours * 8 members * 200 USD per hour) worth of UNI as a retroactive reward for the Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group.
The total amount of 262,000 USD worth of UNI, once approved, will be sent to the Accountability Committee, which will be responsible for the monthly distribution of rewards to eligible delegates and retroactive reward for the Working Group members. In the unlikely scenario that the budget is depleted before the end of the 3-month cycle, Cycle 1 will end early.
https://gov.uniswap.org/t/temp-check-uniswap-delegate-reward-3-months-cycle-1/23837/36
Being a delegate is a huge responsibility, it requires time and effort and should be incentivized
https://gov.uniswap.org/t/temp-check-uniswap-delegate-reward-3-months-cycle-1/23837/36
Being a delegate is a huge responsibility, it requires time and effort and should be incentivized
We feel that delegates should be compensated for the hours of work that goes into researching, reviewing, debating, and voting.
Support the initial 3 month experiment
We feel that delegates should be compensated for the hours of work that goes into researching, reviewing, debating, and voting.
Support the initial 3 month experiment
I also participated in the working group and contributed to the stakeholder interviews alongside Gab from @she256, @Bobbay, and @jun. Thanks to @Doo_StableLab and the rest of the working group for all the work that's gone into this proposal so far.
At Butter, we spend a lot of time on problems like this, so I'd like to share some thoughts.
I also participated in the working group and contributed to the stakeholder interviews alongside Gab from @she256, @Bobbay, and @jun. Thanks to @Doo_StableLab and the rest of the working group for all the work that's gone into this proposal so far.
At Butter, we spend a lot of time on problems like this, so I'd like to share some thoughts.
First, I'd like to explain why I predict the proposal will pass and the problem this exposes, why the root cause is poor governance design, and finally propose an alternative.
This proposal to reward delegates will pass because the power to make the decision is held by delegates. Delegates play both buyers and sellers in the market for governance labor and are incentivized to pass proposals that make them better off. This should not be surprising; it's true for any stakeholder group.
The only group capable of constraining delegate power in a representative token voting system is the tokenholders who do not engage in governance work. These happen to be those who also prefer to outsource the work to delegates or free-ride on the governance work of others, so they aren’t the most reliable check.
But the problem isn’t delegates. Nor is it the proposal. It is the design of our protocol governance systems. Representative Token Voting doesn’t provide rules that guarantee a random person who votes on a proposal is aligned with the organization’s overall goals or is just farming for airdrops.
Without this proof, it is expensive for someone to prove they are aligned with the organization’s goals. Collaboration relies on only the most basic assumption that all people are self-interested.
Regardless of whether this proposal passes, I’d like to propose an experiment that implements these rules and runs alongside the existing program or independently to provide performance-based rewards for delegates.
The basic design is:
Objective
Constraints
Incentives
Mechanism
With this mechanism, we intend to reward work that is considered most valuable by a broad category of Uniswap stakeholders. We will provide more details in a separate post.
This is a separate comment, but I’m raising this as a point that most things in governance aren't and require a lot of iteration.
Uniswaps staking delegation encourages people to delegate UNI but there is a clear loophole that stakers/delegators share in success but delegates do not.
This is a separate comment, but I’m raising this as a point that most things in governance aren't and require a lot of iteration.
Uniswaps staking delegation encourages people to delegate UNI but there is a clear loophole that stakers/delegators share in success but delegates do not.
Stake and Delegate UNI to receive staking rewards - this is optimistically assuming that delegators delegate to active delegates. AND in return stakers receive rewards.
Stake and Delegate to inactive or active delegates -> earn UNI UNI price goes up -> stakers and happy (they have earned more UNI) and have rode the win Delegates (who mainly receive delegation) who helped guide the Uniswap DAO to success have no skin in the game and won’t share in that success since they haven’t earned in UNI.
Seems unfair to me to solely support delegation but not delegates.
Once again, I believe $6k is too high for what I would consider is a “passive delegate” and would prefer to see this role lowered to something like $2-3k/month for a passive delegate and instead we spend a larger focus on converting those passive delegates to active delegates.
From my participation in the working group, I was involved in the working group where we interviewed stakeholders (Uni delegates, LP, service providers, investors etc.) In my opinion, it is clear that delegates deserve compensation, but the eligibility should be strict and shouldn’t heavily reward passive delegates.
If we break delegates down:
From my participation in the working group, I was involved in the working group where we interviewed stakeholders (Uni delegates, LP, service providers, investors etc.) In my opinion, it is clear that delegates deserve compensation, but the eligibility should be strict and shouldn’t heavily reward passive delegates.
If we break delegates down:
Inactive delegates get nothing. Passive delegates should receive minimal rewards for their contributions. Staying up to date with Uniswap DAO and its activities is no easy task, and therefore, they should be fairly, but minimally, paid. Active delegates are spearheading the DAO and making it a better place, and therefore, they deserve a multiplier from which a large amount of the compensation is coming.
The end goal should be to encourage inactive and passive delegates to become active delegates. Not everyone has the bandwidth to be active, but even rewarding and retaining passive delegates is a large win. Other DAOs are starting to reward delegates, and it would be a shame to lose talent to other DAOs.
I don’t think this delegate reward program is perfect by any means, and there are some flaws. However, Uniswap DAO delegates have gone unpaid for the past few years, while other DAOs, such as Maker, Aave, Optimism, and others, have rewarded delegates for their contributions. There has to be a conscious agreement to revisit this delegate program after this cycle and try incorporating other solutions such as Karma which can enhance the program.
I do think $6k/month is a lot for what I would consider a “passive delegate” and would prefer to see this role lowered to something like $2-3k/month for a passive delegate and instead we spend a larger focus on converting those passive delegates to active delegates.
Qualitative evaluations are important, but they should be performed by UNI holders who signal their views by how they decide to delegate their tokens.
They should not be done by paid contributors as that will bias delegate decision-making.
A more constructive approach to compensating delegates would involve recognizing their contributions. For example, through initiatives such as the Uniswap Treasury Working Group, Accountability Committee, Bridge Assessment Committee, etc.
A more constructive approach to compensating delegates would involve recognizing their contributions. For example, through initiatives such as the Uniswap Treasury Working Group, Accountability Committee, Bridge Assessment Committee, etc.
So rather than paying delegates for their work(attracting UNI holders to governance, regularly voting and communicating their votes), delegates are expected to use their position to acquire favors and reputation that they can cash in for other compensated work?
That sounds highly undesirable to me. Delegates should be fairly independent and free to vote in ways the majority doesn't agree with, which might lead to them getting passed over for those roles.
Hi there, I think that people should be paid for their work - my job is structuring grants at scale to do so ;). Just like in grant structuring, I find its part art part science. It takes time for sure, but ultimately it will lead to the outcomes I believe you are looking for, which is hard working people, engaging and contributing, and feeling appreciated and motivated for the time they are putting in. And, thank you very much for your contributions. That said the way this is structured to be tied to quantitative metrics doesn’t best achieve the goal to motivate delegates to be engaged while also being capital efficient with the treasury. You mentioned above you are open to suggestions. Here’s a couple of ways you could structure engagements that gets at the spirit of what you are trying to achieve. These views are my own, I'm not speaking on the behalf of the Uniswap Foundation.
Ecosystem Working Group
Having participated in this working group, it's important for me to chime in. These are my personal views:
I'd like to point out that seeing so many passionate replies on this topic is encouraging because it signifies that, despite the divergence of opinions, we've stumbled upon something that is important for us to clarify as a group.
Having participated in this working group, it's important for me to chime in. These are my personal views:
I'd like to point out that seeing so many passionate replies on this topic is encouraging because it signifies that, despite the divergence of opinions, we've stumbled upon something that is important for us to clarify as a group.
Eric Alston has some clever axioms about these situations that I won't try to quote.
If we agree that there are issues with quorum, informed voting, and general delegate activity, this proposal is one small effort worth exploring and discussing to at least spur more delegate activity.
In contrast to the other discussions, which propose hourly rates, oversight committees and subjective measures of impact, I favour @Doo_StableLab's approach for the following reasons:
Short timeline: With the three-month timeline for this program, we can quickly reassess the efficacy on a short interval. This timeline has a precedent of working in AAVE's orbit program, which operates every quarter.
Objective: No hourly rate computation or impact analysis is required. Eligibility is based on easily provable voting information, with impartiality toward more subjective measurements.
Lightweight: We are not required to instantiate a new committee or leverage existing committees for oversight. Without reliance on a committee, we can easily dismantle this after the three month mark. It's important to note that paid committees with voting power are incentivized to avoid disbanding.
To the credit of some of the previous points raised against this incentive program, there may be two credible oppositions to a delegate reward program. I've tried to coalesce them below in my own terms:
It would be a more efficient allocation of capital to have incentives tied directly to impact measurement and/or specific outcomes.
The incentives for professional delegates and organizations are already inherent to their participation in the protocol's governance.
To the first point, this is true at scale or over time, but it's not worth the overhead as a pilot program with a short timeline and a small budget. If this fruits the inkling of being an effective program, we should consider improving and expanding the reward program to include this component. I'm comfortable deferring.
I wholeheartedly agree with the second point. This is the future, but we're not there yet. I'd also like to note that in other ecosystems, I've seen the other extreme where professionals use proposals to extract value without regard for the protocol. With imagination, KPIs and hourly rates aren't immune to abuse. If we agree there's extraction at both ends of the spectrum, this program could turn out to be an essential test in optimizing incentives.
Note: I purposely leave out "self-dealing." This point has been brought up, but considering the amount of individual rewards, the magnitude of possible self-dealing seems like a negligible concern at this point. Candidly, and in my personal opinion, the delegate who proposes this has little financial gain for the social cost it incurs.
The voting on delegates (by delegates) to choose awards seems plutocratic. I'd recommend amending this to scrape top voting performance and involvement alone, especially if that is what we are trying to encourage.
Not a dealbreaker, but I worry that 3k doesn't really move the needle. The amount seems diluted. I would rather seen an even small number of delegates and a lower voting power threshold to increase competition on measured activity.
Would support with the above changes to selection. This is an interesting three-month experiment. We should be flexible to changes and dropping this if it does not improve participation quality.
With this being a less than straightforward topic to introduce and a long road to get here, I thank @Doo_StableLab for putting it forward, the time spent on the initial research from the working group members and the engagement from other on the forum.
I also participated in the working group and contributed to the stakeholder interviews alongside Gab from @she256, @Bobbay, and @jun. Thanks to @Doo_StableLab and the rest of the working group for all the work that's gone into this proposal so far.
At Butter, we spend a lot of time on problems like this, so I'd like to share some thoughts.
I also participated in the working group and contributed to the stakeholder interviews alongside Gab from @she256, @Bobbay, and @jun. Thanks to @Doo_StableLab and the rest of the working group for all the work that's gone into this proposal so far.
At Butter, we spend a lot of time on problems like this, so I'd like to share some thoughts.
First, I'd like to explain why I predict the proposal will pass and the problem this exposes, why the root cause is poor governance design, and finally propose an alternative.
This proposal to reward delegates will pass because the power to make the decision is held by delegates. Delegates play both buyers and sellers in the market for governance labor and are incentivized to pass proposals that make them better off. This should not be surprising; it's true for any stakeholder group.
The only group capable of constraining delegate power in a representative token voting system is the tokenholders who do not engage in governance work. These happen to be those who also prefer to outsource the work to delegates or free-ride on the governance work of others, so they aren’t the most reliable check.
But the problem isn’t delegates. Nor is it the proposal. It is the design of our protocol governance systems. Representative Token Voting doesn’t provide rules that guarantee a random person who votes on a proposal is aligned with the organization’s overall goals or is just farming for airdrops.
Without this proof, it is expensive for someone to prove they are aligned with the organization’s goals. Collaboration relies on only the most basic assumption that all people are self-interested.
Regardless of whether this proposal passes, I’d like to propose an experiment that implements these rules and runs alongside the existing program or independently to provide performance-based rewards for delegates.
The basic design is:
Objective
Constraints
Incentives
Mechanism
With this mechanism, we intend to reward work that is considered most valuable by a broad category of Uniswap stakeholders. We will provide more details in a separate post.
This is a separate comment, but I’m raising this as a point that most things in governance aren't and require a lot of iteration.
Uniswaps staking delegation encourages people to delegate UNI but there is a clear loophole that stakers/delegators share in success but delegates do not.
This is a separate comment, but I’m raising this as a point that most things in governance aren't and require a lot of iteration.
Uniswaps staking delegation encourages people to delegate UNI but there is a clear loophole that stakers/delegators share in success but delegates do not.
Stake and Delegate UNI to receive staking rewards - this is optimistically assuming that delegators delegate to active delegates. AND in return stakers receive rewards.
Stake and Delegate to inactive or active delegates -> earn UNI UNI price goes up -> stakers and happy (they have earned more UNI) and have rode the win Delegates (who mainly receive delegation) who helped guide the Uniswap DAO to success have no skin in the game and won’t share in that success since they haven’t earned in UNI.
Seems unfair to me to solely support delegation but not delegates.
Once again, I believe $6k is too high for what I would consider is a “passive delegate” and would prefer to see this role lowered to something like $2-3k/month for a passive delegate and instead we spend a larger focus on converting those passive delegates to active delegates.
From my participation in the working group, I was involved in the working group where we interviewed stakeholders (Uni delegates, LP, service providers, investors etc.) In my opinion, it is clear that delegates deserve compensation, but the eligibility should be strict and shouldn’t heavily reward passive delegates.
If we break delegates down:
From my participation in the working group, I was involved in the working group where we interviewed stakeholders (Uni delegates, LP, service providers, investors etc.) In my opinion, it is clear that delegates deserve compensation, but the eligibility should be strict and shouldn’t heavily reward passive delegates.
If we break delegates down:
Inactive delegates get nothing. Passive delegates should receive minimal rewards for their contributions. Staying up to date with Uniswap DAO and its activities is no easy task, and therefore, they should be fairly, but minimally, paid. Active delegates are spearheading the DAO and making it a better place, and therefore, they deserve a multiplier from which a large amount of the compensation is coming.
The end goal should be to encourage inactive and passive delegates to become active delegates. Not everyone has the bandwidth to be active, but even rewarding and retaining passive delegates is a large win. Other DAOs are starting to reward delegates, and it would be a shame to lose talent to other DAOs.
I don’t think this delegate reward program is perfect by any means, and there are some flaws. However, Uniswap DAO delegates have gone unpaid for the past few years, while other DAOs, such as Maker, Aave, Optimism, and others, have rewarded delegates for their contributions. There has to be a conscious agreement to revisit this delegate program after this cycle and try incorporating other solutions such as Karma which can enhance the program.
I do think $6k/month is a lot for what I would consider a “passive delegate” and would prefer to see this role lowered to something like $2-3k/month for a passive delegate and instead we spend a larger focus on converting those passive delegates to active delegates.
Qualitative evaluations are important, but they should be performed by UNI holders who signal their views by how they decide to delegate their tokens.
They should not be done by paid contributors as that will bias delegate decision-making.
A more constructive approach to compensating delegates would involve recognizing their contributions. For example, through initiatives such as the Uniswap Treasury Working Group, Accountability Committee, Bridge Assessment Committee, etc.
A more constructive approach to compensating delegates would involve recognizing their contributions. For example, through initiatives such as the Uniswap Treasury Working Group, Accountability Committee, Bridge Assessment Committee, etc.
So rather than paying delegates for their work(attracting UNI holders to governance, regularly voting and communicating their votes), delegates are expected to use their position to acquire favors and reputation that they can cash in for other compensated work?
That sounds highly undesirable to me. Delegates should be fairly independent and free to vote in ways the majority doesn't agree with, which might lead to them getting passed over for those roles.
Hi there, I think that people should be paid for their work - my job is structuring grants at scale to do so ;). Just like in grant structuring, I find its part art part science. It takes time for sure, but ultimately it will lead to the outcomes I believe you are looking for, which is hard working people, engaging and contributing, and feeling appreciated and motivated for the time they are putting in. And, thank you very much for your contributions. That said the way this is structured to be tied to quantitative metrics doesn’t best achieve the goal to motivate delegates to be engaged while also being capital efficient with the treasury. You mentioned above you are open to suggestions. Here’s a couple of ways you could structure engagements that gets at the spirit of what you are trying to achieve. These views are my own, I'm not speaking on the behalf of the Uniswap Foundation.
Ecosystem Working Group
Having participated in this working group, it's important for me to chime in. These are my personal views:
I'd like to point out that seeing so many passionate replies on this topic is encouraging because it signifies that, despite the divergence of opinions, we've stumbled upon something that is important for us to clarify as a group.
Having participated in this working group, it's important for me to chime in. These are my personal views:
I'd like to point out that seeing so many passionate replies on this topic is encouraging because it signifies that, despite the divergence of opinions, we've stumbled upon something that is important for us to clarify as a group.
Eric Alston has some clever axioms about these situations that I won't try to quote.
If we agree that there are issues with quorum, informed voting, and general delegate activity, this proposal is one small effort worth exploring and discussing to at least spur more delegate activity.
In contrast to the other discussions, which propose hourly rates, oversight committees and subjective measures of impact, I favour @Doo_StableLab's approach for the following reasons:
Short timeline: With the three-month timeline for this program, we can quickly reassess the efficacy on a short interval. This timeline has a precedent of working in AAVE's orbit program, which operates every quarter.
Objective: No hourly rate computation or impact analysis is required. Eligibility is based on easily provable voting information, with impartiality toward more subjective measurements.
Lightweight: We are not required to instantiate a new committee or leverage existing committees for oversight. Without reliance on a committee, we can easily dismantle this after the three month mark. It's important to note that paid committees with voting power are incentivized to avoid disbanding.
To the credit of some of the previous points raised against this incentive program, there may be two credible oppositions to a delegate reward program. I've tried to coalesce them below in my own terms:
It would be a more efficient allocation of capital to have incentives tied directly to impact measurement and/or specific outcomes.
The incentives for professional delegates and organizations are already inherent to their participation in the protocol's governance.
To the first point, this is true at scale or over time, but it's not worth the overhead as a pilot program with a short timeline and a small budget. If this fruits the inkling of being an effective program, we should consider improving and expanding the reward program to include this component. I'm comfortable deferring.
I wholeheartedly agree with the second point. This is the future, but we're not there yet. I'd also like to note that in other ecosystems, I've seen the other extreme where professionals use proposals to extract value without regard for the protocol. With imagination, KPIs and hourly rates aren't immune to abuse. If we agree there's extraction at both ends of the spectrum, this program could turn out to be an essential test in optimizing incentives.
Note: I purposely leave out "self-dealing." This point has been brought up, but considering the amount of individual rewards, the magnitude of possible self-dealing seems like a negligible concern at this point. Candidly, and in my personal opinion, the delegate who proposes this has little financial gain for the social cost it incurs.
The voting on delegates (by delegates) to choose awards seems plutocratic. I'd recommend amending this to scrape top voting performance and involvement alone, especially if that is what we are trying to encourage.
Not a dealbreaker, but I worry that 3k doesn't really move the needle. The amount seems diluted. I would rather seen an even small number of delegates and a lower voting power threshold to increase competition on measured activity.
Would support with the above changes to selection. This is an interesting three-month experiment. We should be flexible to changes and dropping this if it does not improve participation quality.
With this being a less than straightforward topic to introduce and a long road to get here, I thank @Doo_StableLab for putting it forward, the time spent on the initial research from the working group members and the engagement from other on the forum.
Hi there, I think that people should be paid for their work - my job is structuring grants at scale to do so ;). Just like in grant structuring, I find its part art part science. It takes time for sure, but ultimately it will lead to the outcomes I believe you are looking for, which is hard working people, engaging and contributing, and feeling appreciated and motivated for the time they are putting in. And, thank you very much for your contributions. That said the way this is structured to be tied to quantitative metrics doesn’t best achieve the goal to motivate delegates to be engaged while also being capital efficient with the treasury. You mentioned above you are open to suggestions. Here’s a couple of ways you could structure engagements that gets at the spirit of what you are trying to achieve. These views are my own, I'm not speaking on the behalf of the Uniswap Foundation.
Ecosystem Working Group
Active Diligence Delegates Role
In my opinion, what is important to avoid is something that ties a quantitative number, like word count or voting, to compensation. In making it part qualitative, it's important to think though what that might look like. In the proposal it should hammer out what the selection process is for delegates both now and in the next cohort. An element of qualitative assessment should be included to ensure that the spirit of this encourages active people to continue to do so while also being efficient with treasury capital. Even though this is a small amount relatively, the quantitative way this is structured is not the right way to compensate engagement, it doesn't align the spirit of what you're trying to achieve. Taking the time to set it up to do so is important, and I'm happy to be a sounding board if helpful.
I’m Raffi, I’m a contributor to the ecosystem as COO at Uniswap Foundation. It’s been great to see delegates involved, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my views on the forum. These are my views; I'm not speaking on the behalf of the foundation.
I am opposed to this proposal and want to express why. First, participation for participations sake isn’t the goal imo. Instead consider a specific-working groups that has clear deliverables that are helpful to the protocol. Compensation for work at a reasonable market rate for work that has clear outputs is something I'd be supportive of. That idea has been suggested before, but haven’t seen anyone put one together.
I’m Raffi, I’m a contributor to the ecosystem as COO at Uniswap Foundation. It’s been great to see delegates involved, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my views on the forum. These are my views; I'm not speaking on the behalf of the foundation.
I am opposed to this proposal and want to express why. First, participation for participations sake isn’t the goal imo. Instead consider a specific-working groups that has clear deliverables that are helpful to the protocol. Compensation for work at a reasonable market rate for work that has clear outputs is something I'd be supportive of. That idea has been suggested before, but haven’t seen anyone put one together.
Second, fundamentally, proposals that delegates believe will drive value will get participation. It’s not necessary to incentivize participation on issues that delegates don’t feel motivated to vote on.
Third, As a long term contributor I love that anyone can participate in a grant program, contribute to the code base, or take initiative like putting together the ARB grants program, which is community driven. I’d feel demotivated to continue to contribute to an ecosystem that pays people to vote. Voting to pay yourself to vote is misaligned with the purpose and need of delegate participation.
I feel strongly about the ethos behind governance and focusing on proposals that motivate governors to participate, rather than compensation for participation sake. Thank you for the consideration!
Hi there, I think that people should be paid for their work - my job is structuring grants at scale to do so ;). Just like in grant structuring, I find its part art part science. It takes time for sure, but ultimately it will lead to the outcomes I believe you are looking for, which is hard working people, engaging and contributing, and feeling appreciated and motivated for the time they are putting in. And, thank you very much for your contributions. That said the way this is structured to be tied to quantitative metrics doesn’t best achieve the goal to motivate delegates to be engaged while also being capital efficient with the treasury. You mentioned above you are open to suggestions. Here’s a couple of ways you could structure engagements that gets at the spirit of what you are trying to achieve. These views are my own, I'm not speaking on the behalf of the Uniswap Foundation.
Ecosystem Working Group
Active Diligence Delegates Role
In my opinion, what is important to avoid is something that ties a quantitative number, like word count or voting, to compensation. In making it part qualitative, it's important to think though what that might look like. In the proposal it should hammer out what the selection process is for delegates both now and in the next cohort. An element of qualitative assessment should be included to ensure that the spirit of this encourages active people to continue to do so while also being efficient with treasury capital. Even though this is a small amount relatively, the quantitative way this is structured is not the right way to compensate engagement, it doesn't align the spirit of what you're trying to achieve. Taking the time to set it up to do so is important, and I'm happy to be a sounding board if helpful.
I’m Raffi, I’m a contributor to the ecosystem as COO at Uniswap Foundation. It’s been great to see delegates involved, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my views on the forum. These are my views; I'm not speaking on the behalf of the foundation.
I am opposed to this proposal and want to express why. First, participation for participations sake isn’t the goal imo. Instead consider a specific-working groups that has clear deliverables that are helpful to the protocol. Compensation for work at a reasonable market rate for work that has clear outputs is something I'd be supportive of. That idea has been suggested before, but haven’t seen anyone put one together.
I’m Raffi, I’m a contributor to the ecosystem as COO at Uniswap Foundation. It’s been great to see delegates involved, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my views on the forum. These are my views; I'm not speaking on the behalf of the foundation.
I am opposed to this proposal and want to express why. First, participation for participations sake isn’t the goal imo. Instead consider a specific-working groups that has clear deliverables that are helpful to the protocol. Compensation for work at a reasonable market rate for work that has clear outputs is something I'd be supportive of. That idea has been suggested before, but haven’t seen anyone put one together.
Second, fundamentally, proposals that delegates believe will drive value will get participation. It’s not necessary to incentivize participation on issues that delegates don’t feel motivated to vote on.
Third, As a long term contributor I love that anyone can participate in a grant program, contribute to the code base, or take initiative like putting together the ARB grants program, which is community driven. I’d feel demotivated to continue to contribute to an ecosystem that pays people to vote. Voting to pay yourself to vote is misaligned with the purpose and need of delegate participation.
I feel strongly about the ethos behind governance and focusing on proposals that motivate governors to participate, rather than compensation for participation sake. Thank you for the consideration!
The three-month timeframe for testing makes sense. If this short-term funding model for delegates proves successful, it would need to become the norm. Otherwise, we risk seeing "professional" delegates who rely on these payments opting to leave entirely if the funding ceases, essentially creating a welfare program for delegates without any financial stake or specific objectives other than being "active."
Regarding reputational risk, should it be mandatory for delegates who own no UNI directly but have other UNI delegators and operate as a group to disclose their identities? Otherwise, the only reputational risk lies in a well-orchestrated delegate brand and vote history.
The three-month timeframe for testing makes sense. If this short-term funding model for delegates proves successful, it would need to become the norm. Otherwise, we risk seeing "professional" delegates who rely on these payments opting to leave entirely if the funding ceases, essentially creating a welfare program for delegates without any financial stake or specific objectives other than being "active."
Regarding reputational risk, should it be mandatory for delegates who own no UNI directly but have other UNI delegators and operate as a group to disclose their identities? Otherwise, the only reputational risk lies in a well-orchestrated delegate brand and vote history.
Data on the success of similar programs is mentioned in several responses here, but there's no detailed presentation of those metrics. How was success determined for these other DAO delegate programs?
Concerning value alignment: Is a delegate who personally owns x amount of UNI more financially aligned with success than a delegate who has 100k delegated to them? Is there a criterion for individual delegates with personal UNI at stake in decision-making? If a delegate holds significant voting power, lacks personal financial stake, and is a professional "active" delegate with involvement in multiple DAOs, where do their values align? And how much time do they have to make optimal decisions for those with financial stakes? Should there be lower eligibility criteria for individuals who personally own and vote?
@RaffiSapire raises several valid points.
Expanding the initiative to delegate UNI to active delegates holds merit. However, compensating them may inadvertently solidify the position of active participants, potentially discouraging newer ones. Paying for votes could prove counterproductive.
@RaffiSapire raises several valid points.
Expanding the initiative to delegate UNI to active delegates holds merit. However, compensating them may inadvertently solidify the position of active participants, potentially discouraging newer ones. Paying for votes could prove counterproductive.
A more constructive approach to compensating delegates would involve recognizing their contributions. For example, through initiatives such as the Uniswap Treasury Working Group, Accountability Committee, Bridge Assessment Committee, etc.
Delegates should be incentivized to foster innovation and provide tangible deliverables for the Uniswap community, rather than solely prioritizing compensation for a select few entities with significant delegation. It's worth noting that much of this delegation is not actually owned by the delegates themselves (e.g., A16z, UNI DAO, and other large delegators). A freeloader problem may arise where delegates putting in work feel it's unfair that those only voting are paid the same.
Additionally, passing this proposal without making any progress on the fee switch-governance staking doesn't seem appropriate.
perhaps some tax guidance as to the legal status of the 2-6k. I see professional DAOlegates plus community members so given there's no employer, some clue as to impact might be useful b4 people get hit with an audit
The three-month timeframe for testing makes sense. If this short-term funding model for delegates proves successful, it would need to become the norm. Otherwise, we risk seeing "professional" delegates who rely on these payments opting to leave entirely if the funding ceases, essentially creating a welfare program for delegates without any financial stake or specific objectives other than being "active."
Regarding reputational risk, should it be mandatory for delegates who own no UNI directly but have other UNI delegators and operate as a group to disclose their identities? Otherwise, the only reputational risk lies in a well-orchestrated delegate brand and vote history.
The three-month timeframe for testing makes sense. If this short-term funding model for delegates proves successful, it would need to become the norm. Otherwise, we risk seeing "professional" delegates who rely on these payments opting to leave entirely if the funding ceases, essentially creating a welfare program for delegates without any financial stake or specific objectives other than being "active."
Regarding reputational risk, should it be mandatory for delegates who own no UNI directly but have other UNI delegators and operate as a group to disclose their identities? Otherwise, the only reputational risk lies in a well-orchestrated delegate brand and vote history.
Data on the success of similar programs is mentioned in several responses here, but there's no detailed presentation of those metrics. How was success determined for these other DAO delegate programs?
Concerning value alignment: Is a delegate who personally owns x amount of UNI more financially aligned with success than a delegate who has 100k delegated to them? Is there a criterion for individual delegates with personal UNI at stake in decision-making? If a delegate holds significant voting power, lacks personal financial stake, and is a professional "active" delegate with involvement in multiple DAOs, where do their values align? And how much time do they have to make optimal decisions for those with financial stakes? Should there be lower eligibility criteria for individuals who personally own and vote?
@RaffiSapire raises several valid points.
Expanding the initiative to delegate UNI to active delegates holds merit. However, compensating them may inadvertently solidify the position of active participants, potentially discouraging newer ones. Paying for votes could prove counterproductive.
@RaffiSapire raises several valid points.
Expanding the initiative to delegate UNI to active delegates holds merit. However, compensating them may inadvertently solidify the position of active participants, potentially discouraging newer ones. Paying for votes could prove counterproductive.
A more constructive approach to compensating delegates would involve recognizing their contributions. For example, through initiatives such as the Uniswap Treasury Working Group, Accountability Committee, Bridge Assessment Committee, etc.
Delegates should be incentivized to foster innovation and provide tangible deliverables for the Uniswap community, rather than solely prioritizing compensation for a select few entities with significant delegation. It's worth noting that much of this delegation is not actually owned by the delegates themselves (e.g., A16z, UNI DAO, and other large delegators). A freeloader problem may arise where delegates putting in work feel it's unfair that those only voting are paid the same.
Additionally, passing this proposal without making any progress on the fee switch-governance staking doesn't seem appropriate.
perhaps some tax guidance as to the legal status of the 2-6k. I see professional DAOlegates plus community members so given there's no employer, some clue as to impact might be useful b4 people get hit with an audit
Updates regarding the proposal https://gov.uniswap.org/t/next-steps-for-uniswap-delegate-reward/24070?u=doo_stablelab
Updates regarding the proposal https://gov.uniswap.org/t/next-steps-for-uniswap-delegate-reward/24070?u=doo_stablelab
The onchain vote is live. Thank you everyone for making this possible.
Thanks for this proposal @Doo_StableLab and good points from all sides. Continuously iterating on this model will be crucial, as it allows for experimenting and testing new processes, reward systems, and incentive structures to find what works best.
Without compensation, only those with ample free time or financial resources can participate effectively, which would undermine the DAO’s inclusivity and diversity. Proper compensation levels the playing field, allowing for a wider range of voices and perspectives to be heard.
Thanks for this proposal @Doo_StableLab and good points from all sides. Continuously iterating on this model will be crucial, as it allows for experimenting and testing new processes, reward systems, and incentive structures to find what works best.
Without compensation, only those with ample free time or financial resources can participate effectively, which would undermine the DAO’s inclusivity and diversity. Proper compensation levels the playing field, allowing for a wider range of voices and perspectives to be heard.
We've encountered this ourselves with limited resources to operate a delegate, as well as with many student clubs.
Thus we believe compensation for delegates is important. It takes significant time and effort to thoroughly review, research, discuss, and vote. With proper compensation, delegates can also commit more time to publishing their thoughts about the reasons behind their votes, leading to more governance discussions and informed decision-making.
There are good points that paying people to vote can be problematic, as it might lead to voting for voting sake. This could be remedied by requiring compensated delegates to contribute in other ways beyond just voting, and taking active roles in educating and onboarding more delegates.
Thanks for your feedback and all of these are indeed great foundations to build for future cycles
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We appreciate the time spent on this proposal, and we’ll be voting in its favor, with the hope of seeing it positively impact participation in governance.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We appreciate the time spent on this proposal, and we’ll be voting in its favor, with the hope of seeing it positively impact participation in governance.
We were part of the Delegate Incentives Working Group and followed the conversation after the proposal was submitted to the forum, both here and in the working group's Telegram group.
Creating a delegate incentives program is a very nuanced thing as there are many factors to take into account and challenges that are inherent to the governance structure as a whole, as we’ve learned from our experience in other DAOs. We understand the feedback the proposal has received, but as @Doo_StableLab suggests, it’s very hard to come up with a design that leaves everyone happy.
The proposal is a good starting point to help move things forward in a way that recognizes the value active delegates bring to the DAO. At the same time, it can also be a stepping stone to allocate more time towards not only researching the problems with delegate incentives programs but also workshopping potential solutions.
This proposal will pass because it's the first real program presented for the delegates to be compensated after +3 years of no compensation. We believe most delegates voting to support the proposal want a better implementation but decided that getting something temporary going is better than the status quo.
We look forward to it. And it could make an interesting experiment for cycle 2 so we can see the difference, as long as the new model's administrative details are hammered out by then.
Completely agree with you Erin – the goal of compensation should be to maximize Uniswap's EV as an ecosystem. To me, disclosing conflicts of interest is a key part of this.
As you can imagine, those are quite complex questions, and similar to how the current systems whether that’s in grants or operations or others have areas that are not black and white. We wanted to implement parts that are objective as much as possible.
Hello everybody! We are the SEEDGov team from SEEDOrg.
We would like to give you an insider’s vision from our experience as proposal creators and program administrators of the Arbitrum DAO’s Delegate Incentive Program.
The onchain vote is live. Thank you everyone for making this possible.
Thanks for this proposal @Doo_StableLab and good points from all sides. Continuously iterating on this model will be crucial, as it allows for experimenting and testing new processes, reward systems, and incentive structures to find what works best.
Without compensation, only those with ample free time or financial resources can participate effectively, which would undermine the DAO’s inclusivity and diversity. Proper compensation levels the playing field, allowing for a wider range of voices and perspectives to be heard.
Thanks for this proposal @Doo_StableLab and good points from all sides. Continuously iterating on this model will be crucial, as it allows for experimenting and testing new processes, reward systems, and incentive structures to find what works best.
Without compensation, only those with ample free time or financial resources can participate effectively, which would undermine the DAO’s inclusivity and diversity. Proper compensation levels the playing field, allowing for a wider range of voices and perspectives to be heard.
We've encountered this ourselves with limited resources to operate a delegate, as well as with many student clubs.
Thus we believe compensation for delegates is important. It takes significant time and effort to thoroughly review, research, discuss, and vote. With proper compensation, delegates can also commit more time to publishing their thoughts about the reasons behind their votes, leading to more governance discussions and informed decision-making.
There are good points that paying people to vote can be problematic, as it might lead to voting for voting sake. This could be remedied by requiring compensated delegates to contribute in other ways beyond just voting, and taking active roles in educating and onboarding more delegates.
Thanks for your feedback and all of these are indeed great foundations to build for future cycles
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We appreciate the time spent on this proposal, and we’ll be voting in its favor, with the hope of seeing it positively impact participation in governance.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We appreciate the time spent on this proposal, and we’ll be voting in its favor, with the hope of seeing it positively impact participation in governance.
We were part of the Delegate Incentives Working Group and followed the conversation after the proposal was submitted to the forum, both here and in the working group's Telegram group.
Creating a delegate incentives program is a very nuanced thing as there are many factors to take into account and challenges that are inherent to the governance structure as a whole, as we’ve learned from our experience in other DAOs. We understand the feedback the proposal has received, but as @Doo_StableLab suggests, it’s very hard to come up with a design that leaves everyone happy.
The proposal is a good starting point to help move things forward in a way that recognizes the value active delegates bring to the DAO. At the same time, it can also be a stepping stone to allocate more time towards not only researching the problems with delegate incentives programs but also workshopping potential solutions.
This proposal will pass because it's the first real program presented for the delegates to be compensated after +3 years of no compensation. We believe most delegates voting to support the proposal want a better implementation but decided that getting something temporary going is better than the status quo.
We look forward to it. And it could make an interesting experiment for cycle 2 so we can see the difference, as long as the new model's administrative details are hammered out by then.
Completely agree with you Erin – the goal of compensation should be to maximize Uniswap's EV as an ecosystem. To me, disclosing conflicts of interest is a key part of this.
As you can imagine, those are quite complex questions, and similar to how the current systems whether that’s in grants or operations or others have areas that are not black and white. We wanted to implement parts that are objective as much as possible.
Hello everybody! We are the SEEDGov team from SEEDOrg.
We would like to give you an insider’s vision from our experience as proposal creators and program administrators of the Arbitrum DAO’s Delegate Incentive Program.
This proposal will pass because it's the first real program presented for the delegates to be compensated after +3 years of no compensation. We believe most delegates voting to support the proposal want a better implementation but decided that getting something temporary going is better than the status quo.
At Optimism, the DAO has normalized "seasons" as ways to update their governance systems and reflect on their performance. Perhaps Uniswap doesn't need seasons, but it would be great to see a new model of delegate compensation attempted every three months utilizing our prior learnings.
We would be delighted to see Butter, and other organizations present the DAO with options.
Completely agree with you Erin – the goal of compensation should be to maximize Uniswap's EV as an ecosystem. To me, disclosing conflicts of interest is a key part of this.
As you can imagine, those are quite complex questions, and similar to how the current systems whether that’s in grants or operations or others have areas that are not black and white. We wanted to implement parts that are objective as much as possible.
I agree that it can be complicated to evaluate if these are positive/negative signals - on the one hand, you have experiential factors + economies of scale that you can have things to be more efficient. But on the other, you may have vested interests to propel interests that are not necessarily maximally beneficial to Uniswap as an ecosystem.
I would suggest a mandatory and periodic system of disclosure of other protocol involvement, as well as if there's paid compensation in these other protocols. Whether these are net positive or negative can be subject to deliberation. But there should be a higher bar of transparency for compensated delegates.
Hello everybody! We are the SEEDGov team from SEEDOrg.
We would like to give you an insider’s vision from our experience as proposal creators and program administrators of the Arbitrum DAO’s Delegate Incentive Program.
We’ve been following the discussion over the past weeks and we think it’s already time to jump on and give our vision about a topic we’ve been working on for almost a year. Let’s take a step-by-step approach:
Governance is an important sector of the industry that needs to be empowered, and to this end, we need to professionalize the work of the delegates.
One of the current challenges in DAOs is to promote the active participation of community members in governance. For this, a community member must invest time and resources, which strengthens governance and prevents possible attacks by malicious actors both on-chain and off-chain. Such attacks could be directed at the general protocol, governance resources, or decisions contrary to the community’s interests.
Not only is participation and its quality crucial, but also diversity in terms of the number of voices present in governance. A frequent and known problem in most governance is the challenge of maintaining these characteristics.
In our experience on Arbitrum, we dedicated ourselves to creating a Delegate incentive program based on the following principles:
Also, it’s important to consider the following subjects when developing and running the program:
The proposal have some strong point that we’d like to mention:
Also, there are some things that we consider can be improved:
Also, we believe it’s important to mention that an expansion of this program should be considered in the short/mid term. Having only 11 seats for 22 active contributors might discourage delegates to keep participating. A delegate program not only should increase the quality of discussions but should also increase the number of voices participating in debates to make better proposals.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We participated in the Delegate Rewards Working Group, voted in favor of the proposal during the temp check, and we are also voting in favor of the proposal at the on-chain vote.
Speaking for myself and not the UF, and with the recognition that I am in the privileged place of being paid for my governance activities.
Also, want to mention that I've been (largely an observer) in the Telegram channel where the Delegate Comp Working Group has been coordinating this proposal. I'm appreciative to all of the delegates and non-delegates who've spent time thinking about the topic and advocating for their positions to be represented (even if in the end they haven't been included in the final product).
Speaking for myself and not the UF, and with the recognition that I am in the privileged place of being paid for my governance activities.
Also, want to mention that I've been (largely an observer) in the Telegram channel where the Delegate Comp Working Group has been coordinating this proposal. I'm appreciative to all of the delegates and non-delegates who've spent time thinking about the topic and advocating for their positions to be represented (even if in the end they haven't been included in the final product).
With that said, I do think if the proposal is implemented as it is currently structured, we are missing an opportunity to actually address the hard problems of delegate compensation. In my mind those problems are "How do we incentivize delegate activity that is maximally valuable to Uniswap" and "How do we mitigate delegate conflicts of interest". In my opinion, this proposal and the conversation around it:
Objective measurements of delegate activity are potentially a good starting point to determine eligibility for a compensation program, but certainly we will hit a point where the program generates a declining marginal return if they are the only criteria. Determining eligibility solely via such objective measurements also presents an opportunity for governance capture via delegates gaming the system (or writing the rules as they go to benefit themselves rather than the DAO). In my opinion, if we don't try to address how to measure the positive impact of a delegate's activity, we'll have failed here.
I believe that the perfect delegate compensation system would align the interests of delegates with those of Uniswap Governance such that the work delegates do is guaranteed (or at least very very likely) to benefit Uniswap. That system does not exist, but I don't think that this proposal is a step in that direction. Instead, I think it guarantees that delegates will do some work, but leaves open the question of who that work will benefit.
Wondering if we should consider conflicts of interest, esp. if delegates receive compensation from other protocols?
Wondering if we should consider conflicts of interest, esp. if delegates receive compensation from other protocols?
Conflict of Interest is a topic that's quite complex. For example, many of large delegates at Uniswap are service providers that received or receiving grants from the Uniswap Foundation program, then should they be prevented from voting to prolong or funding the Uniswap Foundation because the Foundation is your client and also source of funding?
Or if you are a Service Provider such as in risk analysis or security, should they be punished or considered as of lower priority to Uniswap because they offer their service to others? Probably not. In fact, usually that works as an experience booster for applications for many of these service Providers. Then if delegates are providing their services to multiple DAOs, should they be penalized or boosted for such?
As you can imagine, those are quite complex questions, and similar to how the current systems whether that's in grants or operations or others have areas that are not black and white. We wanted to implement parts that are objective as much as possible.
In the proposal it should hammer out what the selection process is for delegates both now and in the next cohort. An element of qualitative assessment should be included to ensure that the spirit of this encourages active people to continue to do so while also being efficient with treasury capital. Even though this is a small amount relatively, the quantitative way this is structured is not the right way to compensate engagement, it doesn’t align the spirit of what you’re trying to achieve.
In the proposal it should hammer out what the selection process is for delegates both now and in the next cohort. An element of qualitative assessment should be included to ensure that the spirit of this encourages active people to continue to do so while also being efficient with treasury capital. Even though this is a small amount relatively, the quantitative way this is structured is not the right way to compensate engagement, it doesn’t align the spirit of what you’re trying to achieve.
Thank you the comments. As you might be aware, the proposal itself was shared in February, and it went through months of discussion and researches via Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group and events such as Uniswap Govswap. Qualitative assessment was of course in the discussion, but it was largely decided that quantitative and simple method is preferred. As also adopted by various DAOs including MakerDAO to AAVE. Another Delegate Reward Working Group member @coltron.eth noted,
Which is also echoed by another Delegate Reward Working Group member @AbdullahUmar
I mention the above points to illustrate much of what @Doo_StableLab and the rest of this WG have been discussing. Although the forums may miss some points and arguments from our video calls and telegram chats, we’d like to highlight that the best course of action in the present moment seems to be moving forward with a simpler framework that prioritizes:
Now of course, the point of not just Working Group but Governance in general is to incorporate various feedback, which the proposal has indeed adopted, including changing to objective assessment for selecting top 11 delegates, lowering the barrier to apply, and shortening the trial period to 3 months.
Fundamentally, the issue actually comes down to different opinion about this, which I personally can understand because I used to work for Maker Foundation, which did not reward delegates at first.
If one believes being a delegate is not a work, then as you mentioned, it's rational to try to give more "tasks" and "assignments" to delegates that you would consider as works. But the delegates spending their time and resources (literally in gas fee as well) to vote and thus helping to reach the quorum and prevent malicious votes from passing, as well as helping to making and commenting on proposals is crucial for governance.
But there are few ways the proposal is helping to reward delegates who are giving priority to more than voting. The details are here: https://gov.uniswap.org/t/temp-check-uniswap-delegate-reward-3-months-cycle-1/23837?u=doo_stablelab But for example, we do recognize the importance of proposal writing, and proposals that were well received by the community. And therefore, a big part of the points come from such.
-Helping to write proposals for Uniswap DAO is important. However, we also want to prevent low-quality or malicious proposals. Therefore, only passed votes would count. The full point for this category is 4. The onchain part is weighted more heavily as it’s more difficult to have a proposal to pass the onchain vote as well as its importance that its proposals directly can dictate code changes or treasury.
In case of non-binary proposals, if the choice equivalent to “No” was present, and the end voting result was another choice than “No”, then it would be considered as valid for below. For example, Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG) Election wouldn’t be valid for the points as there’s no “No” vote . But [Temp] Uni Onboarding Package - BSC would be valid for the points as there was a choice of “Against”. And the voting result was “$1m”.
1. Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed offchain (snapshot) vote before.
2.Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed onchain vote before
Strongly support the overall principle of compensating delegates for voting. 3 month timeline/pilot is reasonable. Wondering if we should consider conflicts of interest, esp. if delegates receive compensation from other protocols?
The Uniswap snapshot for delegate reward cycle 1 is now live https://snapshot.org/#/uniswapgovernance.eth/proposal/0xfe8cb4e08138df2f0d136480e85edadf22679cca73b68f3f376d12f322dd2565 thanks everyone for the inputs!
The application requirements have been changed to :
It’s a bit tricky because many of Delegate Code of Conduct at the moment are subjective, and it was believed that objective measurements are better ways to start off.
It’s a bit tricky because many of Delegate Code of Conduct at the moment are subjective, and it was believed that objective measurements are better ways to start off.
On a different note, I get the feeling that we're trying to reinvent some aspects that may have already been resolved and are time-tested in more traditional settings. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for improving traditional politics (and finance), but thinking about improvements might be better approached from a starting point familiar with existing best practices. For example, democratic parliaments have clear rules on:
It's also notable what they don't do. For instance, they do not tie the compensation to any quality measurements, likely because such measurements can become political very quickly.
Again, please don't see this as a recommendation to copy any EU rules verbatim :see_no_evil:. It's the underlying ideas that are relevant.
In case there are more than 11 eligible applicants, the top 11 will be chosen by the following objective metrics. The highest point would be 10.
1. Voting Participation
In case there are more than 11 eligible applicants, the top 11 will be chosen by the following objective metrics. The highest point would be 10.
1. Voting Participation
-Considering one of the primary roles of the delegate is to receive voting power from their delegators to vote on behalf for the best of Uniswap, voting participation are crucial to ensure quorums are met and malicious proposals are prevented. The Full point from this category is 5. The onchain part is weighted more heavily due to its usual frictions such as gas cost, as well as its importance that its votes directly can dictate code changes or treasury. The voting rate is based on the past 3 months.
1. Offchain Voting (Snapshot)
2.Onchain Voting
2. Proposal Authorship
-Helping to write proposals for Uniswap DAO is important. However, we also want to prevent low-quality or malicious proposals. Therefore, only passed votes would count. The full point for this category is 4. The onchain part is weighted more heavily as it’s more difficult to have a proposal to pass the onchain vote as well as its importance that its proposals directly can dictate code changes or treasury.
In case of non-binary proposals, if the choice equivalent to “No” was present, and the end voting result was another choice than “No”, then it would be considered as valid for below. For example, Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG) Election wouldn't be valid for the points as there’s no “No” vote . But [Temp] Uni Onboarding Package - BSC would be valid for the points as there was a choice of “Against”. And the voting result was “$1m”.
1. Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed offchain (snapshot) vote before.
2.Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed onchain vote before
3. Other Governance Participation
-The full point for this category is 1. This category is to recognize other ways one could contribute to discussion regarding Uniswap Governance. This can be achieved by either
1. Joined Uniswap Gov Workshop Before
Or
2. Joined Uniswap Community Call Before
Tie Breaker
-In rare cases if there are ties, this will be first decided by how many “likes” one received on the forum. Considering likes would ideally be tied to how many posts one has made and also how liked their posts are. We believe this is a fair way to have them as Tie Breakers.
@Juanbug @AbdullahUmar @coltron.eth @Userisky as well as many others. Thank you for your comments, and we believe that such conversations are crucial.
After reading various comments, another change will be in case if there are more than 11 eligible delegates, instead of deciding top 11 delegates via voting. This will be decided by objective metrits such as voting participation, number of proposals authored, and the number of comments.
@Juanbug @AbdullahUmar @coltron.eth @Userisky as well as many others. Thank you for your comments, and we believe that such conversations are crucial.
After reading various comments, another change will be in case if there are more than 11 eligible delegates, instead of deciding top 11 delegates via voting. This will be decided by objective metrits such as voting participation, number of proposals authored, and the number of comments.
In addition, "80% onchain and offchain voting participation for the past 3 months" application requirement will be removed. Therefore, those with below such voting rates can also apply. However, high voting participation in the past 3 months will still translate to high score. In practice, this could mean some delegates who are on 60-70% voting participation able to at least claim a month or two months as ideally, their voting participation rate improves as the experiment progresses.
The details will be shared tomorrow.
Proposals like this are messy--there's not really a way for a delegate to propose paying themselves without sounding extractive to some extent. It's even more amusing when people consider proper delegate work to bo conducted out of the kindness of one's heart...
This is simply wishful thinking.
Proposals like this are messy--there's not really a way for a delegate to propose paying themselves without sounding extractive to some extent. It's even more amusing when people consider proper delegate work to bo conducted out of the kindness of one's heart...
This is simply wishful thinking.
The lack of a financial incentive begs the question--why be a delegate? This answer is more clear if you're a large token holder. Here, you actually have a financial stake in the protocol. But numerous delegates have little to no financial stake. Therefore this isn't exactly a plutocratic system.
So why are these delegates here? There is no clear or objective reward for a delegate to participate in governance in the long-run. If the DAO's pitch to delegates is purely something fuzzy like do it "for the sake of decentralization" or "to democratize finance"...good luck attracting serious long-term contributors.
Sure, you could argue that it builds you a reputation in the crypto space or enables you to attain experience with DAOs--but those are all a means to an end. They're resume builders and credibility establishers. We need delegates who contribute to the development and sustainability of the protocol in the long-term. We should be optimizing for governance work not simply to be a means but as the pursuit itself.
And as any rational actor would devise, a system without financial incentive alignment that merely acts as a temporary means for folks to attain "experience" is not conducive to Uniswap DAO's success.
--
proposals that delegates believe will drive value will get participation. It’s not necessary to incentivize participation on issues that delegates don’t feel motivated to vote on.
The above would be the case in a perfect world--but anecdotally, there are very few things people actually seem to care about. Notably for Uniswap, it's the fee switch. When it comes to other forms of proposals, like those that pertain to governance operations or deployment incentive programs, the effect those proposals have may seem negligible to many delegates and token holders--enough to cause voter apathy. This apathy is persistent even amongst some of the largest delegates. For example, the latest treasury working group onchain vote only reached quorum a couple of hours before its deadline on a Saturday night. And we had to nudge multiple delegates over the course of a couple of days to make sure they voted. Plus, those who voted last minute likely just skimmed parts of the proposal without giving the details much heed, let a lone reading through the forum post.
I’d feel demotivated to continue to contribute to an ecosystem that pays people to vote.
The concept of high quality pro bono work is quite frankly fanciful. Sooner or later, you’ll likely see attrition from delegates who decide that their opportunity cost for partaking in active Uniswap governance is too high. And competent people have no shortage of opportunity cost. There are numerous other ventures that they could be working on.
give the DAO real things to decide, compensate the delegates at a similar rate to other DAOs.
Plus, by paying delegates, you're more likely to motivate those delegates to put in the time and effort to create initiatives that further the protocol. The idea to "give the DAO things to decide" ultimately comes from the delegates themselves. And to incentivize them to come up with things to do, they should to be paid. Catch-22.
A more constructive approach to compensating delegates would involve recognizing their contributions. For example, through initiatives such as the Uniswap Treasury Working Group, Accountability Committee, Bridge Assessment Committee, etc.
we could require delegates to participate in at least one committee, which is then tasked with creating research reports and/or new governance proposals.
As Doo mentioned, the above suggestions could be an approach, but it begs the question of double compensation. Working groups are composed of both delegates and non-delegates, and they tend to have an hourly rate already associated with their respective list of duties. You could argue that a delegate in a WG is more value-add than one who isn't--but I don't think they should be compensated beyond their WG rate. Where WG participation could help is in the screening for delegates. Like if we go with 11 total delegates for this program, and there are 15 that technically qualify, then the factor for deciding who gets included is if that delegate went above and beyond by partaking in a WG. In other words, a delegate with WG experience may deserve priority in being admitted to the cohort of compensated delegates--but not paid more beyond a base rate given to all delegates.
rather than solely prioritizing compensation for a select few entities with significant delegation. It’s worth noting that much of this delegation is not actually owned by the delegates themselves (e.g., A16z, UNI DAO, and other large delegators). A freeloader problem may arise where delegates putting in work feel it’s unfair that those only voting are paid the same.
If a delegate has considerable voting power, that's usually--but not always--for a reason. It can either be based on the general merits of a group/individual or in relation to their experience and history with the protocol. So, voting power is not a metric that should be gleaned over, and yet, it should be taken with a grain of salt. There should be room for "upward mobility", where smaller delegates can demonstrate their contributions through sustained participation. The "Delegation to Active but Underrepresented Delegates" proposal helped in this area. Plus, the following criterion also helps wrt this proposal:
Voting Power of 100k $UNI or more OR Authored or co-authored a proposal that at least passed the Snapshot Vote
-- A final concern that we've been trying to decide on is how comprehensive this program should be. The more details and oversight of compensation criteria, the better...maybe. Ideally, we have a situation where a small group of auditors, perhaps a mix of the foundation, delegates, and neutral third-parties like Butter, could more intricately monitor delegates' impact. For example, the mere fact that you vote and comment on a proposal doesn't mean as much if you didn't put time and effort into that decision. There is such thing as a good and bad comment. The auditing group would read through the delegate's response and give it a quality score. More quality means higher compensation. Same goes for proposals. If a delegate helps author and pass high impact votes, then they should be paid more. You could also argue that a delegate that's been around for a longer period of time is more valuable than one who's been around for a couple of months. A lot of governance is based on the people you know and how involved you've been in the development of a DAO. A new delegate has to invariably play catch up and thus may make less informed decisions. Therefore, the value of a long-term delegate, as mentioned above, increases.
As you can see, the minutiae here is taxing--and quite subjective. How does one actually determine the quality of a response, for example? There would need to be a dispute and resolution structure in place for appeals and disagreements. Plus, the auditing group would also be required to conduct a decent amount of work. This would entail another WG. And even here, we would have to decide what portion of that group should be delegates vs non-delegates.
I mention the above points to illustrate much of what @Doo_StableLab and the rest of this WG have been discussing. Although the forums may miss some points and arguments from our video calls and telegram chats, we'd like to highlight that the best course of action in the present moment seems to be moving forward with a simpler framework that prioritizes:
For some background, I say this rather biased, and that I’ve always wanted to get some sort of system out there to pay delegates for their work. A couple years ago, @mhonkasalo, @teemulau and I worked on a draft of a system that would do this. It was deemed too early and not supported by the foundation.
At the time, it felt like this made sense. Not too much was happening in governance at the time, and only a few protocols had set something like this up. Hence, we decided it wasn’t the most pertinent issue and we followed the Foundation’s guidance to revisit this at a later time.
For some background, I say this rather biased, and that I’ve always wanted to get some sort of system out there to pay delegates for their work. A couple years ago, @mhonkasalo, @teemulau and I worked on a draft of a system that would do this. It was deemed too early and not supported by the foundation.
At the time, it felt like this made sense. Not too much was happening in governance at the time, and only a few protocols had set something like this up. Hence, we decided it wasn’t the most pertinent issue and we followed the Foundation’s guidance to revisit this at a later time.
In the last two years, a LOT has changed with respect to protocol governance. In addition to just “more things happening” in the Dao, dozens of ecosystems are now incentivizing and allocating benefits to delegates, as well as many of the largest delegators we’ve talked are in favor of some sort of incentivization.
Therefore, revisiting the conversation seems at the very least to be justified. Thank you @Doo_StableLab for setting up a working group around this for the last couple of months and restarting these discussions. For those that have been keeping track, the ultimate goal of this is how do we create a system that keeps good delegates around, so that we aren’t struggling to meet quorum every vote, in a fair and appropriate manner. It has been stated that the foundation doesn’t want to take this role/decision, and so it’s up to the delegates and community members. That’s exactly what has happened. This proposal isn’t perfect and there are likely things with it everyone wants slightly different, but that’s just how things are with dozens of opinions.
In my opinion, this is just about as good of a system we came down to that combines the most people’s goals and ideas, while also keeping the door open for alternative proposals and situations. @RaffiSapire if you or the foundation have a better idea, I think everyone is all ears. Please join the tg group (dm your username?) and I’m sure we’d love to chat about anything.
Ultimately, I think it just comes down to trying “something” as opposed to the “let’s wait” message we’ve received the last couple of years. We’ve been having discussions around this for a while now and it seems like as finally there is some group consensus around the matter, it’s being halted again. I will say that a few extra days before snapshot just for people to catch up over the weekend is appropriate in my opinion.
We believe it's important to share the context that various ideas were discussed and also put into document.
We believe various compromises are important but there is no perfect solution
I’d feel demotivated to continue to contribute to an ecosystem that pays people to vote.
Instead consider a specific-working groups that has clear deliverables that are helpful to the protocol. Compensation for work at a reasonable market rate for work that has clear outputs is something I’d be supportive of. That idea has been suggested before, but haven’t seen anyone put one together.
After receiving further feedback, we decided to make two following important changes to ensure it's more competitive and also inline with the experiment ethos.
eligible candidates will be reduced to 11
Instead of cycle 1 being 6 months, it will be reduced to 3 months.
It's a bit tricky because many of Delegate Code of Conduct at the moment are subjective, and it was believed that objective measurements are better ways to start off.
Made few changes
Added application requirement of 100k $UNI voting power OR authored or Co authored a proposal that passed snapshot in response to feedback that there might be "Bot" delegate accounts that might qualify.
Removed "community calls" for additional reward part in response to feedback that community calls are not yet funded nor integrated to the official governance process, and thus would be better to be left out
I see professional DAOlegates plus community members so given there’s no employer, some clue as to impact might be useful b4 people get hit with an audit
Recently, many of the onchain voting that passed quorum, they were only able to pass the quorum narrowly within 12 hours of the voting ending. And the current ongoing Onchain voting which has 99% in support is going through the same issue. Considering such, delegate reward is becoming even more important issue.
This proposal will pass because it's the first real program presented for the delegates to be compensated after +3 years of no compensation. We believe most delegates voting to support the proposal want a better implementation but decided that getting something temporary going is better than the status quo.
At Optimism, the DAO has normalized "seasons" as ways to update their governance systems and reflect on their performance. Perhaps Uniswap doesn't need seasons, but it would be great to see a new model of delegate compensation attempted every three months utilizing our prior learnings.
We would be delighted to see Butter, and other organizations present the DAO with options.
Completely agree with you Erin – the goal of compensation should be to maximize Uniswap's EV as an ecosystem. To me, disclosing conflicts of interest is a key part of this.
As you can imagine, those are quite complex questions, and similar to how the current systems whether that’s in grants or operations or others have areas that are not black and white. We wanted to implement parts that are objective as much as possible.
I agree that it can be complicated to evaluate if these are positive/negative signals - on the one hand, you have experiential factors + economies of scale that you can have things to be more efficient. But on the other, you may have vested interests to propel interests that are not necessarily maximally beneficial to Uniswap as an ecosystem.
I would suggest a mandatory and periodic system of disclosure of other protocol involvement, as well as if there's paid compensation in these other protocols. Whether these are net positive or negative can be subject to deliberation. But there should be a higher bar of transparency for compensated delegates.
Hello everybody! We are the SEEDGov team from SEEDOrg.
We would like to give you an insider’s vision from our experience as proposal creators and program administrators of the Arbitrum DAO’s Delegate Incentive Program.
We’ve been following the discussion over the past weeks and we think it’s already time to jump on and give our vision about a topic we’ve been working on for almost a year. Let’s take a step-by-step approach:
Governance is an important sector of the industry that needs to be empowered, and to this end, we need to professionalize the work of the delegates.
One of the current challenges in DAOs is to promote the active participation of community members in governance. For this, a community member must invest time and resources, which strengthens governance and prevents possible attacks by malicious actors both on-chain and off-chain. Such attacks could be directed at the general protocol, governance resources, or decisions contrary to the community’s interests.
Not only is participation and its quality crucial, but also diversity in terms of the number of voices present in governance. A frequent and known problem in most governance is the challenge of maintaining these characteristics.
In our experience on Arbitrum, we dedicated ourselves to creating a Delegate incentive program based on the following principles:
Also, it’s important to consider the following subjects when developing and running the program:
The proposal have some strong point that we’d like to mention:
Also, there are some things that we consider can be improved:
Also, we believe it’s important to mention that an expansion of this program should be considered in the short/mid term. Having only 11 seats for 22 active contributors might discourage delegates to keep participating. A delegate program not only should increase the quality of discussions but should also increase the number of voices participating in debates to make better proposals.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We participated in the Delegate Rewards Working Group, voted in favor of the proposal during the temp check, and we are also voting in favor of the proposal at the on-chain vote.
Speaking for myself and not the UF, and with the recognition that I am in the privileged place of being paid for my governance activities.
Also, want to mention that I've been (largely an observer) in the Telegram channel where the Delegate Comp Working Group has been coordinating this proposal. I'm appreciative to all of the delegates and non-delegates who've spent time thinking about the topic and advocating for their positions to be represented (even if in the end they haven't been included in the final product).
Speaking for myself and not the UF, and with the recognition that I am in the privileged place of being paid for my governance activities.
Also, want to mention that I've been (largely an observer) in the Telegram channel where the Delegate Comp Working Group has been coordinating this proposal. I'm appreciative to all of the delegates and non-delegates who've spent time thinking about the topic and advocating for their positions to be represented (even if in the end they haven't been included in the final product).
With that said, I do think if the proposal is implemented as it is currently structured, we are missing an opportunity to actually address the hard problems of delegate compensation. In my mind those problems are "How do we incentivize delegate activity that is maximally valuable to Uniswap" and "How do we mitigate delegate conflicts of interest". In my opinion, this proposal and the conversation around it:
Objective measurements of delegate activity are potentially a good starting point to determine eligibility for a compensation program, but certainly we will hit a point where the program generates a declining marginal return if they are the only criteria. Determining eligibility solely via such objective measurements also presents an opportunity for governance capture via delegates gaming the system (or writing the rules as they go to benefit themselves rather than the DAO). In my opinion, if we don't try to address how to measure the positive impact of a delegate's activity, we'll have failed here.
I believe that the perfect delegate compensation system would align the interests of delegates with those of Uniswap Governance such that the work delegates do is guaranteed (or at least very very likely) to benefit Uniswap. That system does not exist, but I don't think that this proposal is a step in that direction. Instead, I think it guarantees that delegates will do some work, but leaves open the question of who that work will benefit.
Wondering if we should consider conflicts of interest, esp. if delegates receive compensation from other protocols?
Wondering if we should consider conflicts of interest, esp. if delegates receive compensation from other protocols?
Conflict of Interest is a topic that's quite complex. For example, many of large delegates at Uniswap are service providers that received or receiving grants from the Uniswap Foundation program, then should they be prevented from voting to prolong or funding the Uniswap Foundation because the Foundation is your client and also source of funding?
Or if you are a Service Provider such as in risk analysis or security, should they be punished or considered as of lower priority to Uniswap because they offer their service to others? Probably not. In fact, usually that works as an experience booster for applications for many of these service Providers. Then if delegates are providing their services to multiple DAOs, should they be penalized or boosted for such?
As you can imagine, those are quite complex questions, and similar to how the current systems whether that's in grants or operations or others have areas that are not black and white. We wanted to implement parts that are objective as much as possible.
In the proposal it should hammer out what the selection process is for delegates both now and in the next cohort. An element of qualitative assessment should be included to ensure that the spirit of this encourages active people to continue to do so while also being efficient with treasury capital. Even though this is a small amount relatively, the quantitative way this is structured is not the right way to compensate engagement, it doesn’t align the spirit of what you’re trying to achieve.
In the proposal it should hammer out what the selection process is for delegates both now and in the next cohort. An element of qualitative assessment should be included to ensure that the spirit of this encourages active people to continue to do so while also being efficient with treasury capital. Even though this is a small amount relatively, the quantitative way this is structured is not the right way to compensate engagement, it doesn’t align the spirit of what you’re trying to achieve.
Thank you the comments. As you might be aware, the proposal itself was shared in February, and it went through months of discussion and researches via Uniswap Delegate Reward Working Group and events such as Uniswap Govswap. Qualitative assessment was of course in the discussion, but it was largely decided that quantitative and simple method is preferred. As also adopted by various DAOs including MakerDAO to AAVE. Another Delegate Reward Working Group member @coltron.eth noted,
Which is also echoed by another Delegate Reward Working Group member @AbdullahUmar
I mention the above points to illustrate much of what @Doo_StableLab and the rest of this WG have been discussing. Although the forums may miss some points and arguments from our video calls and telegram chats, we’d like to highlight that the best course of action in the present moment seems to be moving forward with a simpler framework that prioritizes:
Now of course, the point of not just Working Group but Governance in general is to incorporate various feedback, which the proposal has indeed adopted, including changing to objective assessment for selecting top 11 delegates, lowering the barrier to apply, and shortening the trial period to 3 months.
Fundamentally, the issue actually comes down to different opinion about this, which I personally can understand because I used to work for Maker Foundation, which did not reward delegates at first.
If one believes being a delegate is not a work, then as you mentioned, it's rational to try to give more "tasks" and "assignments" to delegates that you would consider as works. But the delegates spending their time and resources (literally in gas fee as well) to vote and thus helping to reach the quorum and prevent malicious votes from passing, as well as helping to making and commenting on proposals is crucial for governance.
But there are few ways the proposal is helping to reward delegates who are giving priority to more than voting. The details are here: https://gov.uniswap.org/t/temp-check-uniswap-delegate-reward-3-months-cycle-1/23837?u=doo_stablelab But for example, we do recognize the importance of proposal writing, and proposals that were well received by the community. And therefore, a big part of the points come from such.
-Helping to write proposals for Uniswap DAO is important. However, we also want to prevent low-quality or malicious proposals. Therefore, only passed votes would count. The full point for this category is 4. The onchain part is weighted more heavily as it’s more difficult to have a proposal to pass the onchain vote as well as its importance that its proposals directly can dictate code changes or treasury.
In case of non-binary proposals, if the choice equivalent to “No” was present, and the end voting result was another choice than “No”, then it would be considered as valid for below. For example, Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG) Election wouldn’t be valid for the points as there’s no “No” vote . But [Temp] Uni Onboarding Package - BSC would be valid for the points as there was a choice of “Against”. And the voting result was “$1m”.
1. Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed offchain (snapshot) vote before.
2.Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed onchain vote before
Strongly support the overall principle of compensating delegates for voting. 3 month timeline/pilot is reasonable. Wondering if we should consider conflicts of interest, esp. if delegates receive compensation from other protocols?
The Uniswap snapshot for delegate reward cycle 1 is now live https://snapshot.org/#/uniswapgovernance.eth/proposal/0xfe8cb4e08138df2f0d136480e85edadf22679cca73b68f3f376d12f322dd2565 thanks everyone for the inputs!
The application requirements have been changed to :
It’s a bit tricky because many of Delegate Code of Conduct at the moment are subjective, and it was believed that objective measurements are better ways to start off.
It’s a bit tricky because many of Delegate Code of Conduct at the moment are subjective, and it was believed that objective measurements are better ways to start off.
On a different note, I get the feeling that we're trying to reinvent some aspects that may have already been resolved and are time-tested in more traditional settings. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for improving traditional politics (and finance), but thinking about improvements might be better approached from a starting point familiar with existing best practices. For example, democratic parliaments have clear rules on:
It's also notable what they don't do. For instance, they do not tie the compensation to any quality measurements, likely because such measurements can become political very quickly.
Again, please don't see this as a recommendation to copy any EU rules verbatim :see_no_evil:. It's the underlying ideas that are relevant.
In case there are more than 11 eligible applicants, the top 11 will be chosen by the following objective metrics. The highest point would be 10.
1. Voting Participation
In case there are more than 11 eligible applicants, the top 11 will be chosen by the following objective metrics. The highest point would be 10.
1. Voting Participation
-Considering one of the primary roles of the delegate is to receive voting power from their delegators to vote on behalf for the best of Uniswap, voting participation are crucial to ensure quorums are met and malicious proposals are prevented. The Full point from this category is 5. The onchain part is weighted more heavily due to its usual frictions such as gas cost, as well as its importance that its votes directly can dictate code changes or treasury. The voting rate is based on the past 3 months.
1. Offchain Voting (Snapshot)
2.Onchain Voting
2. Proposal Authorship
-Helping to write proposals for Uniswap DAO is important. However, we also want to prevent low-quality or malicious proposals. Therefore, only passed votes would count. The full point for this category is 4. The onchain part is weighted more heavily as it’s more difficult to have a proposal to pass the onchain vote as well as its importance that its proposals directly can dictate code changes or treasury.
In case of non-binary proposals, if the choice equivalent to “No” was present, and the end voting result was another choice than “No”, then it would be considered as valid for below. For example, Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG) Election wouldn't be valid for the points as there’s no “No” vote . But [Temp] Uni Onboarding Package - BSC would be valid for the points as there was a choice of “Against”. And the voting result was “$1m”.
1. Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed offchain (snapshot) vote before.
2.Authored or Co authored a proposal that passed onchain vote before
3. Other Governance Participation
-The full point for this category is 1. This category is to recognize other ways one could contribute to discussion regarding Uniswap Governance. This can be achieved by either
1. Joined Uniswap Gov Workshop Before
Or
2. Joined Uniswap Community Call Before
Tie Breaker
-In rare cases if there are ties, this will be first decided by how many “likes” one received on the forum. Considering likes would ideally be tied to how many posts one has made and also how liked their posts are. We believe this is a fair way to have them as Tie Breakers.
@Juanbug @AbdullahUmar @coltron.eth @Userisky as well as many others. Thank you for your comments, and we believe that such conversations are crucial.
After reading various comments, another change will be in case if there are more than 11 eligible delegates, instead of deciding top 11 delegates via voting. This will be decided by objective metrits such as voting participation, number of proposals authored, and the number of comments.
@Juanbug @AbdullahUmar @coltron.eth @Userisky as well as many others. Thank you for your comments, and we believe that such conversations are crucial.
After reading various comments, another change will be in case if there are more than 11 eligible delegates, instead of deciding top 11 delegates via voting. This will be decided by objective metrits such as voting participation, number of proposals authored, and the number of comments.
In addition, "80% onchain and offchain voting participation for the past 3 months" application requirement will be removed. Therefore, those with below such voting rates can also apply. However, high voting participation in the past 3 months will still translate to high score. In practice, this could mean some delegates who are on 60-70% voting participation able to at least claim a month or two months as ideally, their voting participation rate improves as the experiment progresses.
The details will be shared tomorrow.
Proposals like this are messy--there's not really a way for a delegate to propose paying themselves without sounding extractive to some extent. It's even more amusing when people consider proper delegate work to bo conducted out of the kindness of one's heart...
This is simply wishful thinking.
Proposals like this are messy--there's not really a way for a delegate to propose paying themselves without sounding extractive to some extent. It's even more amusing when people consider proper delegate work to bo conducted out of the kindness of one's heart...
This is simply wishful thinking.
The lack of a financial incentive begs the question--why be a delegate? This answer is more clear if you're a large token holder. Here, you actually have a financial stake in the protocol. But numerous delegates have little to no financial stake. Therefore this isn't exactly a plutocratic system.
So why are these delegates here? There is no clear or objective reward for a delegate to participate in governance in the long-run. If the DAO's pitch to delegates is purely something fuzzy like do it "for the sake of decentralization" or "to democratize finance"...good luck attracting serious long-term contributors.
Sure, you could argue that it builds you a reputation in the crypto space or enables you to attain experience with DAOs--but those are all a means to an end. They're resume builders and credibility establishers. We need delegates who contribute to the development and sustainability of the protocol in the long-term. We should be optimizing for governance work not simply to be a means but as the pursuit itself.
And as any rational actor would devise, a system without financial incentive alignment that merely acts as a temporary means for folks to attain "experience" is not conducive to Uniswap DAO's success.
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proposals that delegates believe will drive value will get participation. It’s not necessary to incentivize participation on issues that delegates don’t feel motivated to vote on.
The above would be the case in a perfect world--but anecdotally, there are very few things people actually seem to care about. Notably for Uniswap, it's the fee switch. When it comes to other forms of proposals, like those that pertain to governance operations or deployment incentive programs, the effect those proposals have may seem negligible to many delegates and token holders--enough to cause voter apathy. This apathy is persistent even amongst some of the largest delegates. For example, the latest treasury working group onchain vote only reached quorum a couple of hours before its deadline on a Saturday night. And we had to nudge multiple delegates over the course of a couple of days to make sure they voted. Plus, those who voted last minute likely just skimmed parts of the proposal without giving the details much heed, let a lone reading through the forum post.
I’d feel demotivated to continue to contribute to an ecosystem that pays people to vote.
The concept of high quality pro bono work is quite frankly fanciful. Sooner or later, you’ll likely see attrition from delegates who decide that their opportunity cost for partaking in active Uniswap governance is too high. And competent people have no shortage of opportunity cost. There are numerous other ventures that they could be working on.
give the DAO real things to decide, compensate the delegates at a similar rate to other DAOs.
Plus, by paying delegates, you're more likely to motivate those delegates to put in the time and effort to create initiatives that further the protocol. The idea to "give the DAO things to decide" ultimately comes from the delegates themselves. And to incentivize them to come up with things to do, they should to be paid. Catch-22.
A more constructive approach to compensating delegates would involve recognizing their contributions. For example, through initiatives such as the Uniswap Treasury Working Group, Accountability Committee, Bridge Assessment Committee, etc.
we could require delegates to participate in at least one committee, which is then tasked with creating research reports and/or new governance proposals.
As Doo mentioned, the above suggestions could be an approach, but it begs the question of double compensation. Working groups are composed of both delegates and non-delegates, and they tend to have an hourly rate already associated with their respective list of duties. You could argue that a delegate in a WG is more value-add than one who isn't--but I don't think they should be compensated beyond their WG rate. Where WG participation could help is in the screening for delegates. Like if we go with 11 total delegates for this program, and there are 15 that technically qualify, then the factor for deciding who gets included is if that delegate went above and beyond by partaking in a WG. In other words, a delegate with WG experience may deserve priority in being admitted to the cohort of compensated delegates--but not paid more beyond a base rate given to all delegates.
rather than solely prioritizing compensation for a select few entities with significant delegation. It’s worth noting that much of this delegation is not actually owned by the delegates themselves (e.g., A16z, UNI DAO, and other large delegators). A freeloader problem may arise where delegates putting in work feel it’s unfair that those only voting are paid the same.
If a delegate has considerable voting power, that's usually--but not always--for a reason. It can either be based on the general merits of a group/individual or in relation to their experience and history with the protocol. So, voting power is not a metric that should be gleaned over, and yet, it should be taken with a grain of salt. There should be room for "upward mobility", where smaller delegates can demonstrate their contributions through sustained participation. The "Delegation to Active but Underrepresented Delegates" proposal helped in this area. Plus, the following criterion also helps wrt this proposal:
Voting Power of 100k $UNI or more OR Authored or co-authored a proposal that at least passed the Snapshot Vote
-- A final concern that we've been trying to decide on is how comprehensive this program should be. The more details and oversight of compensation criteria, the better...maybe. Ideally, we have a situation where a small group of auditors, perhaps a mix of the foundation, delegates, and neutral third-parties like Butter, could more intricately monitor delegates' impact. For example, the mere fact that you vote and comment on a proposal doesn't mean as much if you didn't put time and effort into that decision. There is such thing as a good and bad comment. The auditing group would read through the delegate's response and give it a quality score. More quality means higher compensation. Same goes for proposals. If a delegate helps author and pass high impact votes, then they should be paid more. You could also argue that a delegate that's been around for a longer period of time is more valuable than one who's been around for a couple of months. A lot of governance is based on the people you know and how involved you've been in the development of a DAO. A new delegate has to invariably play catch up and thus may make less informed decisions. Therefore, the value of a long-term delegate, as mentioned above, increases.
As you can see, the minutiae here is taxing--and quite subjective. How does one actually determine the quality of a response, for example? There would need to be a dispute and resolution structure in place for appeals and disagreements. Plus, the auditing group would also be required to conduct a decent amount of work. This would entail another WG. And even here, we would have to decide what portion of that group should be delegates vs non-delegates.
I mention the above points to illustrate much of what @Doo_StableLab and the rest of this WG have been discussing. Although the forums may miss some points and arguments from our video calls and telegram chats, we'd like to highlight that the best course of action in the present moment seems to be moving forward with a simpler framework that prioritizes:
For some background, I say this rather biased, and that I’ve always wanted to get some sort of system out there to pay delegates for their work. A couple years ago, @mhonkasalo, @teemulau and I worked on a draft of a system that would do this. It was deemed too early and not supported by the foundation.
At the time, it felt like this made sense. Not too much was happening in governance at the time, and only a few protocols had set something like this up. Hence, we decided it wasn’t the most pertinent issue and we followed the Foundation’s guidance to revisit this at a later time.
For some background, I say this rather biased, and that I’ve always wanted to get some sort of system out there to pay delegates for their work. A couple years ago, @mhonkasalo, @teemulau and I worked on a draft of a system that would do this. It was deemed too early and not supported by the foundation.
At the time, it felt like this made sense. Not too much was happening in governance at the time, and only a few protocols had set something like this up. Hence, we decided it wasn’t the most pertinent issue and we followed the Foundation’s guidance to revisit this at a later time.
In the last two years, a LOT has changed with respect to protocol governance. In addition to just “more things happening” in the Dao, dozens of ecosystems are now incentivizing and allocating benefits to delegates, as well as many of the largest delegators we’ve talked are in favor of some sort of incentivization.
Therefore, revisiting the conversation seems at the very least to be justified. Thank you @Doo_StableLab for setting up a working group around this for the last couple of months and restarting these discussions. For those that have been keeping track, the ultimate goal of this is how do we create a system that keeps good delegates around, so that we aren’t struggling to meet quorum every vote, in a fair and appropriate manner. It has been stated that the foundation doesn’t want to take this role/decision, and so it’s up to the delegates and community members. That’s exactly what has happened. This proposal isn’t perfect and there are likely things with it everyone wants slightly different, but that’s just how things are with dozens of opinions.
In my opinion, this is just about as good of a system we came down to that combines the most people’s goals and ideas, while also keeping the door open for alternative proposals and situations. @RaffiSapire if you or the foundation have a better idea, I think everyone is all ears. Please join the tg group (dm your username?) and I’m sure we’d love to chat about anything.
Ultimately, I think it just comes down to trying “something” as opposed to the “let’s wait” message we’ve received the last couple of years. We’ve been having discussions around this for a while now and it seems like as finally there is some group consensus around the matter, it’s being halted again. I will say that a few extra days before snapshot just for people to catch up over the weekend is appropriate in my opinion.
We believe it's important to share the context that various ideas were discussed and also put into document.
We believe various compromises are important but there is no perfect solution
I’d feel demotivated to continue to contribute to an ecosystem that pays people to vote.
Instead consider a specific-working groups that has clear deliverables that are helpful to the protocol. Compensation for work at a reasonable market rate for work that has clear outputs is something I’d be supportive of. That idea has been suggested before, but haven’t seen anyone put one together.
After receiving further feedback, we decided to make two following important changes to ensure it's more competitive and also inline with the experiment ethos.
eligible candidates will be reduced to 11
Instead of cycle 1 being 6 months, it will be reduced to 3 months.
It's a bit tricky because many of Delegate Code of Conduct at the moment are subjective, and it was believed that objective measurements are better ways to start off.
Made few changes
Added application requirement of 100k $UNI voting power OR authored or Co authored a proposal that passed snapshot in response to feedback that there might be "Bot" delegate accounts that might qualify.
Removed "community calls" for additional reward part in response to feedback that community calls are not yet funded nor integrated to the official governance process, and thus would be better to be left out
I see professional DAOlegates plus community members so given there’s no employer, some clue as to impact might be useful b4 people get hit with an audit
Recently, many of the onchain voting that passed quorum, they were only able to pass the quorum narrowly within 12 hours of the voting ending. And the current ongoing Onchain voting which has 99% in support is going through the same issue. Considering such, delegate reward is becoming even more important issue.
I’d feel demotivated to continue to contribute to an ecosystem that pays people to vote.
Having run the leading professional delegate organization for 2.5 years, I find this comment incredibly out of touch. Being a top delegate involves much more than just voting; it requires a lot of work. There is a general lack of fair compensation for governance-related contributions, and this is a clear example of why.
Comparing the proposed numbers to what other contributors in the Uniswap DAO receive, it's no where near what others are receiving, on the contrary it's a small budget to ensure one of the most important things of a well functioning DAO. To say that you would feel demotivated if people who put in the work gets their fair compensation is honestly a bit insulting to all the amazing delegates who spends hours upon hours every week to push the DAO forward.
Additionally, without our recent delegation program none of the current votes would have been able to pass. You can just minus 10 million UNI votes and see if they would pass the quorum.
Instead consider a specific-working groups that has clear deliverables that are helpful to the protocol. Compensation for work at a reasonable market rate for work that has clear outputs is something I’d be supportive of. That idea has been suggested before, but haven’t seen anyone put one together.
Hi, that was exactly one of the ideas and in fact inner proposals, but then the question became "How to assess such work and admin work of it"
Another idea was letting the Uniswap Foundation deciding and contributing to it but believed legally it would be risky for them to comment and influence how the governance decisions are made.
Either way, appreciate the idea.
It's a bit tricky because many of Delegate Code of Conduct at the moment are subjective, and it was believed that objective measurements are better ways to start off.
For instance, we could require delegates to participate in at least one committee, which is then tasked with creating research reports and/or new governance proposals.
This was indeed some of ideas but then it brought up question of whether it lead to too many committees getting created with less effectiveness. So mixed opinion but believed that such objectives will be each independent budgets and scopes, rather than connecting with Delegate reward
I see professional DAOlegates plus community members so given there’s no employer, some clue as to impact might be useful b4 people get hit with an audit
That's a good point and one of options was to have a Committee to explore such issues including legals. Though it became hard to bridge all participants as
In practice, it's similar to working groups across DAOs whose contributors manage their own income and tax issues
The system itself would be application based so for those delegates who don't want such concerns don't need to apply for delegate rewards.
Scope of legal can be quite broad and difficult to hammer out all the details
The snapshot voting itself will be live on late Monday to allow other alternatives to also post to Governance
Can we add "follows the Delegate Code of Conduct" as a requirement? The delegates can indicate that they agree with the code of conduct in their delegate profile on Uniswap Agora. Most delegates probably already agree with the CoC; if not, they can suggest revisions that should be incorporated in the CoC. This would allow to stop compensating delegates that break the CoC, for instance, blatantly vote in their own interest.
Another idea would be to ask some additional duties from the delegates who want to receive the full compensation. (More of a longer term suggestion, probably too late to incorporate it in the first iteration.) For instance, we could require delegates to participate in at least one committee, which is then tasked with creating research reports and/or new governance proposals. In addition to the super valuable work done by DAC, there could be a committee for Uniswap v4 related research from governance perspective; for UniswapX; protocol integration; liquidity mining programs; etc. In this way, the whole DAO could benefit from this work, and delegates who want to get involved could get paid for it. (But not more than once, e.g. joining two committees instead of one brings no additional compensation, to ensure decentralization and diverse perspectives.)
I’d feel demotivated to continue to contribute to an ecosystem that pays people to vote.
Having run the leading professional delegate organization for 2.5 years, I find this comment incredibly out of touch. Being a top delegate involves much more than just voting; it requires a lot of work. There is a general lack of fair compensation for governance-related contributions, and this is a clear example of why.
Comparing the proposed numbers to what other contributors in the Uniswap DAO receive, it's no where near what others are receiving, on the contrary it's a small budget to ensure one of the most important things of a well functioning DAO. To say that you would feel demotivated if people who put in the work gets their fair compensation is honestly a bit insulting to all the amazing delegates who spends hours upon hours every week to push the DAO forward.
Additionally, without our recent delegation program none of the current votes would have been able to pass. You can just minus 10 million UNI votes and see if they would pass the quorum.
Instead consider a specific-working groups that has clear deliverables that are helpful to the protocol. Compensation for work at a reasonable market rate for work that has clear outputs is something I’d be supportive of. That idea has been suggested before, but haven’t seen anyone put one together.
Hi, that was exactly one of the ideas and in fact inner proposals, but then the question became "How to assess such work and admin work of it"
Another idea was letting the Uniswap Foundation deciding and contributing to it but believed legally it would be risky for them to comment and influence how the governance decisions are made.
Either way, appreciate the idea.
It's a bit tricky because many of Delegate Code of Conduct at the moment are subjective, and it was believed that objective measurements are better ways to start off.
For instance, we could require delegates to participate in at least one committee, which is then tasked with creating research reports and/or new governance proposals.
This was indeed some of ideas but then it brought up question of whether it lead to too many committees getting created with less effectiveness. So mixed opinion but believed that such objectives will be each independent budgets and scopes, rather than connecting with Delegate reward
I see professional DAOlegates plus community members so given there’s no employer, some clue as to impact might be useful b4 people get hit with an audit
That's a good point and one of options was to have a Committee to explore such issues including legals. Though it became hard to bridge all participants as
In practice, it's similar to working groups across DAOs whose contributors manage their own income and tax issues
The system itself would be application based so for those delegates who don't want such concerns don't need to apply for delegate rewards.
Scope of legal can be quite broad and difficult to hammer out all the details
The snapshot voting itself will be live on late Monday to allow other alternatives to also post to Governance
Can we add "follows the Delegate Code of Conduct" as a requirement? The delegates can indicate that they agree with the code of conduct in their delegate profile on Uniswap Agora. Most delegates probably already agree with the CoC; if not, they can suggest revisions that should be incorporated in the CoC. This would allow to stop compensating delegates that break the CoC, for instance, blatantly vote in their own interest.
Another idea would be to ask some additional duties from the delegates who want to receive the full compensation. (More of a longer term suggestion, probably too late to incorporate it in the first iteration.) For instance, we could require delegates to participate in at least one committee, which is then tasked with creating research reports and/or new governance proposals. In addition to the super valuable work done by DAC, there could be a committee for Uniswap v4 related research from governance perspective; for UniswapX; protocol integration; liquidity mining programs; etc. In this way, the whole DAO could benefit from this work, and delegates who want to get involved could get paid for it. (But not more than once, e.g. joining two committees instead of one brings no additional compensation, to ensure decentralization and diverse perspectives.)
