SIP | I'll Take the Omakase

Governance Proposals Implemented
1
  • Author: Kyle Olney, Director of Product @ SuperRare Labs
  • Status: Passed
  • Type: Governance | Curation
  • Implementer: SuperRare Labs
  • Sponsor(s): Pindar Van Arman
  • Link to Temperature Check Poll: Discord
  • Created Date: 04/25/22

Summary: Allow SuperRare Labs to select 1x space operator per month as needed for strategic business development to benefit the network

Abstract: The current rules of the Space Race, which require Space Operators to compete in a public contest determined exclusively by the $RARE token holder community, prevent SuperRare from engaging in strategic business development that could benefit the Network. This proposal would allow SuperRare Labs the authority to add 1x Space operator each month, subject to final approval by the DAO Governance Council, so that strategic and/or time-sensitive business opportunities can be captured for the benefit of all network stakeholders.

Motivation: SuperRare Labs, as the curation team that helped pioneer and define standards for the cryptoart industry, is regularly presented with opportunities that would benefit the growth, reach, profitability and prestige of SuperRare Network. The need to adhere to strict rules around the decentralized governance of Spaces has begun to interfere with SuperRare Labs’ ability to directly onboard premier curators to the DAO, which would have obvious business value were SuperRare Labs still able to execute business development decisions unilaterally.

SuperRare Labs has also received interest from multiple world-class curatorial teams who’s brand prestige + operational requirements make publishing business plans and uncertainty around a successful public campaign non-starters for the normal Space Race selection process.

Allowing SuperRare Labs the opportunity to select 1x Space for onboarding each month - with confirmation from the Governance Council - would increase both the number of world class curators and partnerships that can be leveraged to enhance the reach & prestige of SuperRare Network.

Specification:

  • The DAO Governance Council may register up to one (1) Space Operator requested by SuperRare Labs’ curation team per calendar month
  • The Space Operator requested by SuperRare Labs may be registered by the Council in addition to as many as ten (10) community-approved Space Operators that the Council is already authorized to register per month (See SIP "Establish Proposed Space Race Curation Parameters”)
  • SuperRare Labs must publicly notify the DAO about each requested Space Operator under this proposal
  • The Council will have discretion to approve or deny SuperRare Labs’ request by a public majority decision occurring no sooner than seven (7) days after SuperRare Labs’ public request
  • Every registered Space Operator, as of the date of each public request by SuperRare Labs, may publicly object to the registration of an additional Space Operator under this Proposal within the seven (7) day period following each public request. The Council shall not register any requested Space Operator that is affirmatively and publicly objected to by a supermajority (>75%) of registered Space Operators
  • If passed, this change will be effective beginning the calendar month in which it was proposed
  • Unused requests will roll over to subsequent months if not utilized within the original month of allotment and will be valid until the expiration of this Proposal
  • This proposal, and the accompanying authority granted to the Council, shall expire after 12 months.

Benefits. The Council’s case-by-case deference to SuperRare Labs’ curation team will result in the addition of more high quality, prestigious curators joining the network as Space Operators.

Drawbacks: The primary drawback to this proposal is that it allows SuperRare Labs expanded authority over the selection of Space Operators instead of the community maintaining 100% control.

Outcomes:. This effect of this proposal is relatively easy to monitor, as the public will have notice of all new Space operators onboarded pursuant to this proposal. In any case, this proposal is limited to twelve (12) months. Moreover, the DAO community may submit a proposal to unwind the effect of this proposal at any time.

2 Likes
2

I think it’s worth a try. At the end of the day we want SuperRare to grow and thrive. If SR Labs has connections with operators they know will help grow the brand then why not let them have some control over that?

2 Likes
3

I am in favor of this proposal.

  1. I believe that SRL is aligned and incentivized to with keep the quality of Space Operators at a high caliber.
  2. I agree that a high profile partnership may not be willing to participate in a SpaceRace for the following reasons.
    2a. Spending resources learning about and competing in a spacerace
    2b. Lack of certainty in winning the SpaceRace slot during competition
    2c. Long SpaceRace timelines may hurt partnership impacts or outcomes
    For SuperRare to become the premium marketplace we want it to be; high profile partnerships are essential and this SIP allows SRL to take advantage of the possible partnerships when the time is ripe.

I think 12 is an appropriate amount of spaces to administer to start. I like that this SIP is capped at 1 year of enhanced powers providing a limit to SRLs powers.

2 Likes
4

I can totally see how this could be a blocker for SR Labs because Spaces is such a great idea and the potential of the product is huge. I can definitely understand how big/prestigious players want to have a Space, but would not want to compete for a Space.

As a newly minted SR Space winner and having worked hard doing two public campaigns to try and win a Space plus being very public about things like commission structure and other business plans, the key people that I think you need to make sure you do right by are the previous winners of the Space Race. My personal opinion is that their approval are the only ones that really matter in letting others come in without having to do the same work and process that they did.

Again, I do believe that this is a reasonable request to make because we all want SuperRare to succeed. I truly believe in the brand, the company, and most importantly the incredible team of people working very hard every day and I trust Kyle and other’s assessment that this needed for SR Labs to do their job. My proposal is that the Space Race winners should play a special role in the approval process. Some ideas for this are:

  • Require majority vote of the Space Race Winners
  • A smaller review committee is selected to represent the Space Race winners in the process of bringing in these special case Space operators, so they can be more intimately involved with the decisions but also require those committee members to commit volunteer time to doing the work and being responsive
  • Allocate significant number of $RARE tokens to Space Race winners, so that their votes would be meaningful as a collective when such proposals are put to vote by the DAO Governance Council

Lots of different ways to handle this, but the key thing that I’m proposing is that Space Race Winners get an outsized voice in these decisions given the effort and process they put in to earn their Spaces.

1 Like
5

Its complex but on balance its probably beneficial. SR does seem to throw up many paradoxes.

2 Likes
6

@chikai I think you bring up a great point. I have always imagined that the Spaces themselves, as DAO-registered curation nodes, could act as a separate governance body somewhat akin to an electoral college but without the necessary implication of representative governance. Certain decision making relating to macro-curation or governance of Spaces (like this Proposal :point_up_2:t5:) could require a segmented vote from active Spaces (possibly in addition to $RARE token holder vote). Subject matter for Space-specific voting could include Space admission, Space disqualification, Space termination, controls over Space commission structures, controls over Space whitelisting ability, etc. This same concept could be applied to Artist, as an independent class of network participants.

For the sake of this proposal, I like idea of involving Spaces but I think requiring affirmative approval from Spaces may be impractical and create too many blocks. It implies a method of voting, a quorum requirement, some minimum voting window, and ultimately carves a big chunk out of the certainty that SuperRare Labs presumably is hoping from this proposal’s passage.

I think a fair middle ground would be to give Spaces a supermajority veto right to SuperRare Labs requests. That way SuperRare Labs still has an incentive to ensure that their picks are aligned with the current Spaces, but doesn’t necessarily supplant its entire authority to a majority Space vote. Spaces could consent to SR Labs’ picks by not saying anything, but if any # of Spaces are truly against a SR Labs pick they could collectively stand together and invoke the veto right.

@RareKoko

7

I can see that it benefits the economics of the network to not handicap business development and strategic partnerships through SRL– but this proposal feels like it clings to something that SRL should be distancing more from. The Space Race was the first small step towards decentralized curation– maybe its form is not perfect, but we should look for paths that feel like another step forward rather than a half-step back.

Has there been consideration of a delegate and sub DAO model? I can see it’s reasonable for there to exist a group of people who’s job it is to solicit and develop high-quality Space candidates for us all to vote for in each race. I think that’s a need and we all want to see great candidates packed into every race. That also sounds like it could be some kind of DAO committee, or node, or something.

Taking it one step further- can we set it up so that $RARE holders might delegate their votes to anyone else in the network– including these Sub-DOA/Committees?

If enough $RARE votes get delegated to this group– they might have enough voting power to be able to get anyone they want into the top 10. And it would be more aligned with the spirit of why we’re bothering with a DAO.

(Delegation of votes might be a thing we just want to do anyway– There are like 7700 $RARE token holders, and only 100-200 will vote in a given opportunity.)

SuperRare Labs has also received interest from multiple world-class curatorial teams who’s brand prestige + operational requirements make publishing business plans and uncertainty around a successful public campaign non-starters for the normal Space Race selection process.

This troubles me. I don’t want to see us give up something important for teams that aren’t interested in or don’t grok the vision here. Or worse are just entitled and expect special treatment. I also don’t buy it. High prestige means they actually don’t have to reveal very much at all in a business plan as part of their Space Race application– they will do well on name and history. I know some voters– even large ones– aren’t reading the proposals. As for the uncertainty– yep. That’s the name of the game here. All of us in web3 are taking risks– though on the relative scale– campaigning in the Space Race is one of the better asymmetrical bets you can make in crypto.

1 Like
8

I think the key thing to consider is whether this will further the long-term mission and success of SuperRare Spaces and the goal of decentralizing curation. My guess is that what any community wants in the end is to feel like they are part of the process and that their voice is heard and it matters. I also understand that for SR Labs to be able to successfully run the company, it needs some level of control over its future and have the ability to plan ahead. This just the natural consequence of a centralized company trying to transform into a decentralized DAO.

How do you strike this balance as SR makes this journey from centralized to decentralized? They key thing will be to make sure the Space Operators voice is heard and they feel like they have enough influence over the decision making process for these exceptions without it being too onerous. My feeling is that requiring a supermajority to veto for every candidate maybe a fair amount of work. I’d suggest that there be a vote among the Space Operators to elect a Space Operator Representative, who will hold that office for a limited amount of time before a vote happens again for that position. That representative is given veto power and is responsible for collecting and voicing the position of the operators.

9

I totally feel Keegan’s sentiments in the last paragraph. The key consideration is whether this will move SR towards or away from decentralized curation.

My theory is that overtime the number and quality of the candidates for SR Spaces will decline. In order for this to be successful, I do think you will need to recruit and encourage potential Space Operators to apply for this to succeed in the long-term. This proposal suggests that there will be significant effort put into bringing in these high prestige curators and so you may want to consider putting in the same amount of effort to recruit and bring in those that are unseen and under appreciated.

One solution is to require SR Labs to put as much effort and resources to bringing in the ones of “less prestige” and for every one they bring in of “high prestige” and maybe require that they also bring in one of “less prestige”, so there is always two candidates proposed for each of these votes.

But the longer term issue will be how do keep the Space Race vibrant and whether this selection process will need to evolve in the coming months to truly bring in the diverse set of curators that I think are needed for decentralized curation to succeed.

2 Likes
10

Very much in favor of this idea. SR Labs’ ability to curate over the last few years has proven to be a tremendous asset in the growth of the greater SuperRare network. I would like to see some threshold for SR Labs discretion that empowers the team to continue its great work in curation of the network.

Risk of possible abuse by SR is mitigated by The Council here – which backstops approval/denial by a majority decision.

In favor of seeing this move forward! :fire:

2 Likes
11

The permitted # of requests that Labs’ can make under the proposal is still well below the number of anticipated $RARE-elected Spaces over the course of this proposal’s term. I think this is a tolerable comprise on “pure decentralization” especially considering that SR Labs is a sensible point of contract for outsiders hoping to add value to the network through curation/content creation and they have the business chops around onboarding/advising new entrants.

I don’t think that it makes sense to try to put too many rules around the types of entities SR Labs could request (high prestige or low prestige) because that is difficult to enforce and the point of the proposal is to afford Labs curatorial discretion. But creating a backstop on the discretion is reasonable, which is why this proposal still contemplates Council approval.

There a few ways Spaces could have power here without standing in the way of the desired discretion this proposal seems to contemplate:

  • Require a notice period so that Spaces have time to vocalize concerns to the Council about an entity SR Labs requested to be registered as a Space operator

  • Mobilize talent search/A&R efforts at the Space-level so that Spaces themselves can send potential curators to SR Labs to be streamlined in.

  • Establish a Space Rep as suggested by @chikai and have that person act as a proxy vote to a hypothetical extra Council seat so that it can sway the “majority” decision required under the current proposal

@chikai I am a mega fan of creating a unique governance mechanisms for Spaces in general, but am not convinced that their effective approval should be required for this proposal. Spaces’ curatorial input is valued, but the purpose of this proposal is to give partial discretion to SR Labs’ curatorial abilities, not to create a Space-wide method of onboarding new curators. That seems like a different proposal, which may be interesting to explore. In that proposal, maybe all the Spaces collectively also get a 1 new Space per month wild card just like this proposal. If some threshold of Spaces (probably at least majority or supermajority) could agree on how to use that free slot, then that request goes up to Council just like SR Labs’

12

Yup, hear all the concerns and issues around the ideas I put forth and do agree a special Space governance maybe something to propose separately. Here’s a really simple idea. Maybe change the length of time to 6 months so that we can see how well (or not well) it’s going and then put it up to vote again with more data to consider continuing the proposal at that point?

13

Hey all - thank you for the spirited debate on this proposal!

Over the last month of discussion - on the forum and at the DAO town-halls - we’ve circled in on a model that sounds agreeable to everyone. The primary change we’ll be making to the original proposal is to include an additional mechanism for registered spaces to veto a SRL selection in the event of supermajority vote. This allows the spirit of fast action and independent curation to continue while allowing elected Spaces a way to express their interests if/when a proposal was contentious for some reason.

I’ll be updating the proposal accordingly and we’ll be moving it to a snapshot vote shortly. Great teamwork everyone!

1 Like
14

After thinking about this for a couple months, and realizing that there are just some opportunities that SR would need to jump on, I have decided to sponsor this proposal.

While I will accept it as is, the one suggestion I had is that it should not be limited to 1 a month, but instead be open to as many worthy opportunities as possible. There is a requirement that all such spaces go before the council, and that is enough of a check on this for me.

1 Like
15

We are ok with the idea, as long as the focus keeps on being in decentralization. We think ELLE can bring visibility from other groups of persons and maybe economic support. Though, we would very much like to know who selects these companies? Is it the crew of SuperRare labs, are we space operators be given the opportunity of deciding on each actor that forms part of the omakase dao? The voting system will continue in each round a megacompany joins?

That are some doubts we have as a group,
All the best

CRYPTOARG Team