Proposal: Solace Signers Elections

Proposals
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Summary:

The Solace Signer Elections proposal aims to establish a transparent and community-driven process for electing multisig signers in the Solace governance system. The proposal outlines the role of multisig signers, emphasizing that they do not possess decision-making powers, and focuses on ensuring the Solace Multisig council remains accountable to the Solace community. The proposed election process involves a nomination phase, nominee vetting, community discussion, and approval of the final list of multisig signers.

Objective:

The objective of this proposal is to establish a community-driven nomination and vetting process for electing multisig signers, incorporating best practices in decentralized governance to ensure a democratic, transparent, and fair representation of the Solace community’s interests in the governance council.

Motivation

To complement the Solace Governance Formation proposal, this second proposal aims to provide a detailed process for electing multisig signers that strengthens community involvement, incorporates best practices in decentralized governance, and ensures the Solace Multisig council remains accountable to the Solace community.

Specification

Decision-Making Powers Clarification: Multisig signers do not hold decision-making powers. Their role is solely to enact on-chain the decisions made by SGT holders via off-chain voting.

Multisig Signer Duties:

  1. Ratify Decisions: All signers are expected to create an Ethereum transaction ratifying each decision made by SGT holders through snapshot votes within two weeks after the snapshot vote was concluded.
  2. Loss of Role: A signer may lose their role in case they act against SGT token holders’ off-chain voting or go through a specified period without performing any of their signer duties.

Community-Driven Nomination Process:

  1. Nomination Phase (Duration: 1 week)
  2. Nominee Vetting (Duration: 1 week)
  3. Community Discussion (Duration: runs parallel to the Nominee Vetting process)
  4. Approval of the Final List of Multisig Signers (Duration: a few days)

Detailed description of each phase:

Nomination Phase:

The nomination phase allows SGT holders to nominate themselves or other community members as candidates for the multisig signer council. A special channel on Discord will be created where users can submit their applications in a standardized format, including information on their experience, expertise, and contributions to the Solace ecosystem.

Nominee Vetting:

Once the nomination phase is complete, the Multisig signers will review the nominees based on the information provided in their applications. They will create a shortlist of candidates for the multisig signer council, ensuring transparency by publishing the vetting criteria and the rationale behind the shortlisted candidates on a publicly accessible platform.

Community Discussion:

During the community discussion phase, the Solace community will have the opportunity to voice their opinions, provide feedback and share their thoughts on the shortlisted candidates. The Multisig signers will be in contact with the nominees and can share their findings/opinions on a running basis. This will run parallel to the nominee vetting process.

Approval of Multisig Signers:

Once the Multisig signers and community discussion phase is complete, each candidate will be voted on separately by SGT holders via snapshot votes. If a candidate receives a sufficient number of votes, they will be selected as a multisig signer.

Re-election Timeframe:

Multisig signers will be elected through governance every year. The process can be revisited in the future through another proposal.

Amendments to the Election Process:

The election process outlined in this proposal can be amended at any time by the initiative of the SGT holders. Any proposed changes to the process should be presented to the community for discussion and subsequently put to a vote for approval.

Conclusion:

By implementing this proposal, the Solace community can create a more democratic, accountable, and diverse multisig council that is aligned with the best practices in decentralized governance. The community-driven nomination and vetting process, along with the emphasis on diverse stakeholder representation, ensures that the Solace governance remains firmly in the hands of the SGT holders. The inclusion of a community discussion phase and periodic reviews further strengthens

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Looks good. My only concern is that the whole process takes more than three weeks. In my opinion, it should take no longer than two weeks.

We may also need to clarify the process of snap elections in case we need to remove a signer for any reason.

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3

The proposal’s looking solid, thank you @zinzin! However I do have a few takes that I think could help streamline the process a bit.

Nominee Vetting: I think it should be the Multisig Signers who perform the vetting process, instead of a separate council. So all reference to the “committee” should be substituted for Multisig.

Community Discussion: in order to shorten the time frame, imo this stage can run in parallel with the vetting process. Once the shortlist is decided, the community can voice their opinions and share feedback. I don’t see a need to vet the candidates ahead of the discussion. Also the Multisig signers being in contact with the nominees can share their findings/opinions on a running basis. This would cut down the process by a week.

Approval of the Final List of Multisig Signers: I strongly disagree that the candidates can be voted on as a list. This would ultimately result in conflicts, so each candidate must be elected in a separate vote.

We should also set re-election timeframe, like how often would the Multisig Signers get re-elected through governance. I think running the process every year should be sufficient for now, but ofc can the matter can be revisited in the future through another proposal.

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4

Your feedback was super helpful and gave me some great ideas for improving the proposal, really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts!

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