Constitution Feedback

[salmad3]

Context:

Sharing some feedback and suggestions on the Constitution. Some of these points aim to offer additional perspectives and spark further consideration for both the Constitution and GovDAO.

General:

• What happens in the case of an exploit or emergency (not necessarily the steps but what should the Constitution enable)?
• Are gnomes’ rights and tokens automatically recognized in forks, or do forks inherit constitutional obligations?
• Should there be anything in place for cross-fork (gno.land <> fork or fork <> fork) governance?

By Section:

Preamble

• The aspirational language ("transparent, innovative, decentralized world") lacks binding ties to operational mechanisms. Suggestion to anchor ideals to structural guarantees:

  Decentralization shall be enforced through immutable on-chain governance (Article 4), censorship resistance via cryptographic primitives (e.g., abc, xyz cryptography), and transparency via public auditability of DAO decisions (Article 2.1)."
  

Section 1: Fundamental Principles

• Absence of enumerated and immutable principles can create ambiguity in constitutional supremacy. Suggestion to codify non-derogable principles, such as:

  1. Protocol neutrality: No entity may alter user-owned assets or restrict permissionless participation.
  2. Subsidiarity: Governance decisions must reside at the lowest feasible DAO hierarchy level.
  3. Immutable due process: No penalty may be imposed without on-chain, community-ratified slashing conditions (see Article 3).
  

Section 2: General Mission and Objectives

• "Authentic content" risks subjective enforcement which invites governance capture. Suggestion to define via cryptographic primitives if possible. Here is a hypothetical example:

  Content authenticity is verified through decentralized attestation networks (e.g., a reputation scheme) and multi-validator consensus (≥3 independent signers).
  

• "Censorship resilience" lacks technical specificity. Suggestion to include more details, for instance:

  Resilience is achieved through distributed storage mechanisms (example), validator set rotation (mechanism), and forkability guarantees (Article 4.3)."
  

Article 1: The GovDAO

• "Known identities" could exclude pseudonymous but high-value contributors. Suggestion:

  GovDAO membership requires pseudonymity-compatible credentials: cryptographic proof of contributions (e.g., GPG-signed Git commits) and staked GNOT (≥1% of circulating supply)."  
  

• Unilateral Sub-DAO dissolution undermines subsidiarity. Suggestion for checks:

  Dissolution requires (a) GovDAO Supermajority (≥67%), (b) 14-day public challenge period, and (c) arbitration by a randomly selected GNOTDAO panel."  
  

Article 2: DAOs and Sub-DAOs

• Parent DAO override via Simple Majority may come off as a centralization design choice instead of a safeguard. Could be addressed by focussing on Sub-DAO autonomy:

  Parent DAOs may only intervene if Sub-DAOs violate constitutional principles (Section 1) or threaten protocol security (e.g., consensus-layer exploits).
  

• No default participation threshold (quorum) enables minority decisions. A hypothetical example:

  Proposals require 33% Council participation. If unmet, voting extends by 48 hours; persistent quorum failure triggers automatic dismissal and deposit forfeiture.
  

Article 3: Citizen Rights

• "Uphold integrity" lacks behavioral specificity. Can strengthen with incentive alignment. For instance:

  Integrity violations (e.g., plagiarism, Sybil attacks) trigger progressive slashing of staked GNOT, calibrated to offense severity (see Slashing Schedule, Appendix B). 
  

• Inflation proposals bypass proactive GNOTDAO veto power. There should be an economic safeguard, such as:

  Inflation changes require concurrent GovDAO Supermajority (≥67%) and GNOTDAO Simple Majority (>50%). GNOTDAO may veto post-approval within 14 days via 60% vote."  
  

Article 4: Governance

Procedural Shortcomings

• 40% threshold enables capture by minority stakeholders. What about tiered legitimacy:

  Quorum escalates with proposal impact: 40% (routine), 60% (constitutional amendments), 75% (treasury allocations >100k GNOT).
  

Chain Governance

• "Alignment with vision" criteria lack objectivity. This can be meritocratic. Hypothetical example:

  Validators are elected via (specific scheme) voting by GNOT holders, conditioned on (1) ≥99% historical uptime, (2) third-party security audits, and (3) public key rotation every 6 months.
  

• Similar to the centralization interpretation above, the GovDAO unilateral assessment risks interpreting as favoritism. It can be meritocratic:

  Contributions are scored via plural voting (1 contributor = 1 vote) among verified DAO members, weighted by GNOT staked in reputation 
  contracts.
  

Article 5: Amendments

• No timeline for resolving constitutional conflicts. There could be something like:

  ArbitrationDAO must convene within 7 days of dispute and issue binding rulings within 21 days. Failure annuls the contested amendment.
  

• 90% threshold risks stagnation (deadlock). What about delegating voting power:

  Unbonded GNOT holders may delegate amendment voting power to GovDAO members, weighted by their staked GNOT
  

[salmad3]

Vetting Against Literature:

Context:

I came across an interesting paper "Designing Governance: A Framework for DAO Constitutions". This is an attempt to apply the framework and considerations mentioned in the paper (by considering the Constitution draft in its current form and not including the potential incorporation of suggestions and feedback). There is likely other literature that can provide useful perspective.

Main takeaways:

The paper uses quantitative and qualitative measures, such as MoSCoW prioritization, word counts, tone analysis, and defined voting thresholds, to assess DAO constitutions.

1. MoSCoW Prioritization
The framework assigns “Must,” “Should,” and “Could” ratings to constitutional elements.

• In its own right, the gno.land Constitution should be unique. However, as an exercise, we could create a table listing each major section (e.g., Core Principles, Governance, Technical Operations, Finance) with its corresponding MoSCoW rating.
• Then use these ratings to ensure that “Must” items (like core rights and amendment procedures) are unchangeable without a very high threshold, while less critical sections (“Could” items) allow more flexibility.

2. Quantitative Content Analysis
The paper examines factors such as word counts and tone to gauge the depth and formality of each section:

• We could compare the word counts of each section to those in the sample DAO constitutions. For example, ensure that the “Preamble” and “Governance” sections are comprehensive enough without being verbose.
• We could adjust the tone where necessary so that sections like the technical or amendment parts are clear and formal, while community-related parts might adopt a slightly more accessible tone.

3. Transparency and Amendment Logging
A critical metric in the paper is the traceability of changes:

• We could incorporate an on-chain log for every amendment. This log becomes a metric in itself by tracking the frequency, scope, and impact of changes.
• Periodic reviews of this log can be used to assess whether the amendment process is being used appropriately or if it indicates instability in governance.

Suggested Additions:

• Add a "Code of Conduct" section under Article 3: Citizen Rights to outline behavioral expectations (e.g., transparency, integrity, dispute resolution).
• Formalize communication channels (e.g., forums, voting platforms) in Article 4: Governance to clarify off-chain deliberation processes.
• Explicitly define financial mechanisms in a new Article 6: Treasury & Financial Governance.
• Add a "Legal Recognition" clause to Section 1: Fundamental Principles.
• Address End-of-Life Scenarios in Article 5: Amendments.
• Introduce Multiple Amendment Pathways in Article 5.
• Expand Dispute Arbitration in Article 2: DAOs and Sub-DAOs.
• Clarify Smart Contract Upgrades in Article 4, Section 4 (even if interim solution that can be updated via amendment).