[RFC] - Supporting Tally’s Continued Development and Enhancements for Uniswap DAO Governance

[SEEDGov]

Although we consider Tally as a key piece in decentralized governance in general and in Uniswap in particular, we unfortunately voted against this proposal because we believe it contains numerous deficiencies that have not been addressed after the offchain vote. Once these have been addressed and the issues clarified, we will undoubtedly support a proposal to support Tally from Uniswap.

You can read our rationale in our delegation thread:

@SEEDGov

In the Snapshot voting opportunity, we voted in favor on the grounds that Tally is a key infrastructure for various decentralized governance, including Uniswap, and that the proposed improvements will enhance the experience in the exercise of governance, so we generally considered that the proposal was positive and that Uniswap should support Tally. But we raised some important concerns that we understood should be addressed when submitted to the onchain vote, which unfortunately did not happen, so we voted against on this occasion.

We understand that the final proposal has serious deficiencies that prevent us from supporting it:

• Although requested by @Tane, no breakdown was provided of the required budgeted costs in general and for each functionality (number of assigned personnel, assigned man-hours, expenses, etc.).
• The KPIs established in the proposal are unclear and imprecise and do not establish milestones or delivery dates for new features, which will prevent the DAO and UAC from accurately tracking compliance prior to authorizing payments, which we fear will result in UniswapDAO effectively making automatic payments without verifying compliance with milestones or specific objectives.
• The proposed new features, as indicated by the proponent, will not be exclusive to Uniswap, but will be general features to be used by other DAOs and governance, which we do not see as questionable, but the proposal does not clarify whether the funding required from Uniswap is the full funding of its development or whether Tally will have other funding, and if so who and which other DAO will also fund it. It would be unreasonable for Uniswap alone to fund the development of tools for the benefit of Tally that will be used by other governances. However, since it has not been clarified what the total cost of development is and what other funding besides Uniswap they will receive for it, it is impossible for us to know what the situation is in this regard.
• Are the proposed new features real UniswapDAO needs that justify DAO funding for their development? The need for all these new tools has not been discussed in the DAO, which we understand is a necessary step before funding their development.

Therefore, we request the proponent @dennisonb to reformulate the proposal, to clarify and detail the issues raised.

And in the event that the proposal is approved, we strongly urge the UAC -CC: @AbdullahUmar- to be extremely diligent in analyzing quarterly reports, reporting KPIs and approving payments.

[kaereste]

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’re voting FOR the proposal.

Following our support during temp-check, we’re also voting in favor of Tally’s proposal during the onchain vote.

While we have seen the discussion in the comments above and the concerns raised, we don’t think they are severe enough to vote against this initiative. However, we encourage Tally to make an effort to address any concerns if the proposal is passed.

[pepo]

Hey everyone,
First of all, congratulations on passing the proposal!

I truly respect the effort and dedication you’ve put into the Uniswap DAO. Personally, I voted against the proposal because I felt it didn’t meet the merits of a fundraising proposal. If it had been formatted as a service agreement, I likely would have voted in favor, all things considered.

That said, I’d love to understand when the roadmap is expected to be announced.

@dennisonb

(3) Tally has an exciting roadmap for Uniswap DAO coming up.

Tally needs you, the DAO participant, to help shape the future of Uniswap DAO’s governance tooling. We would like to offer a monthly office hours as an open feedback session for Uniswap DAO contributors to suggest new features and contribute to our roadmap. We receive a lot of inbound from Uniswap DAO contributors in informal settings and we would like to open this process up to the DAO in a more formal way.

Having clarity on this would greatly enhance the ability of the UAC and delegates to assess whether the proposal is progressing towards completion or if it has become stagnant (stagnant meaning inactive or reduced to a simple service agreement).

[SamSmith]

looking at the vote results, it seems that some conversations are taking place in a more private place.
The major voters did not participate in the discussion and tried to explain which option was their favor. More so, non of them felt the need to answer any critical questions about the justification to spend $500k on a solution with no clear roadmap.

Good luck to Tally and I hope they prove us wrong with the stellar solution they will build from here on.

[drllau_LexDAO]

@SamSmith

several points which are “red flag”

numerous deficiencies that have not been addressed after the offchain vote.

didn’t meet the merits of a fundraising proposal

@SamSmith

need to answer any critical questions about the justification to spend $500k on a solution with no clear roadmap

Whilst I’ve no comments on the project/deliverables, I’d point out a compromise which is a riff off Singapore’s govt programmable money.

1. give each delegate a sum equivalent to taking a course in proposal drafting, milestone measurement and Uniswap governance workflow … toss in ~10 places for UF since they may wish to use/foster it for their initiatives
2. designate a set of recipients (Tally, that UF in-house governance project, I think Lighthouse put up their hand, etc) for which the course voucher can be redeemed … This will put the “service” choice in the hands of people who are most likely to use it
3. allow the course participation to be tradeable, so larger delegates may push out inactive delegates for a cash sum (marginal utility) and become more “productive”

I’d note that in ICT, the cost of training people to use new software roughly same ballpark of developing the software. The above courseware rebate allows
a) productivity as KPI, not feature set = actual users to pick the proposal software that best meets their skill level … Not everyone is a MSword power user and googleDocs templates + a few polls + hackMD/charmVerse might be 80% of desired functionality at 20% of the cost
b) development escrow there is a known sum (time-limited) for upskilling, so if a roadmap feature is perceived to lead to uptake in a), the risk is on the developer side, not the payment
c) contestable … The list of permissible redemption can be expanded over time to allow for more diversity provided data export between platforms is mandatory. Since the total sum is known in b) what % goes to which project is based on usability merits as determined by delegates, not squeakiest wheel.

Stepping back, one should ask given $500k (which is not insignificant) is it the best deployment in context of the treasury working group 2 objectives

1. Adoption of Uniswap (metric) via delivery of value
2. Sustainability in covering future costs in perpetuality

The total ask is as per proposal but what is the value? The nominated approach focuses on productivity of delegates (which has their own submetrics). Sustainability is under my point c) that cost sharing (the programmable money can spread to other DAOs and their delegates) will foster improved governance (more transparent working groups) whilst attempting higher participation (greater familiarity with the proposal process including Uniswap Foundation applications). I note that the participation is ~10% from highs of 35+%.