[BIP-XXX] - Orb Collective - Moving Forward

Governance General Proposal
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Thank you everybody for the discussion and insights. We have modified the BIP by incorporating this communities suggestions:

  • Eliminating reference to Beets and, in general, transitions. It’s clear that details for individuals and alternative SPs moving forward will be finalized in the coming weeks and is outside the scope of this proposal;
  • Clarifying the end date for Orb;
  • For the remaining period, Orb should provide on a month-to-month basis, a revised spending report that accounts for the spending projections of next month and reports on the previous months spend.
    The aim being to hold Orb’s spending accountable to the community over its last 3 months, whilst supporting employees through this transition period.

We believe it is now in the best interests of all that we move this forward to a vote this week.

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31

OK, thank you for the new specs.

It was my expectation that Orb’s update would require a budget solely for offboarding, not the full amount until end of July. This proposal now puts Orb against the ropes at a monthly budget - which, feels even more stressful under the present situation, but quite honestly makes much more sense as we might see other events unfolding, especially regarding transitions.

Executing on this specification might be tricky, tho. Our contract between OpCo/Orb has quarterly budgets and requires monthly invoices already, but payments are (montly) made in advance to fund their activities. So there will be a gap between monthly payments (projections) and reports (previous months). I don’t see how this can be expedited.

I just want to make clear that we won’t be able to halt payments for the approved budget unless there’s a governance vote to override it. If I may suggest, the spec can demand OpCo to cap payments by these latest projections and Orb to require additional funding as needed, including costs for July not in the latest Q2 update.

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This new version of the proposal better reflects a stable way forward for the community, which is good to see.

However the proposal actually serves no practical purpose at this point, as it seeks to compel Orb to proceed exactly the same way it already does, with some minor adjustments that we would voluntarily make if just asked.

Whether this goes to a vote or not doesn’t change the outcome, but we should be considerate of the community’s time, with the heavy load of proposals there are to review each week.

These are already the terms of BIP-20 which was ratified by the community; it’s redundant to ask the community to approve something they’ve already approved.

As @Danko8383 has pointed out, governance-based monthly approvals might not make operational sense.

Since there are only 2.5 mo left, it is logical to make our financial updates monthly instead of quarterly- happy to do it. Our accounting books are normally finalized 2 weeks after the end of each month (standard accounting practice).

So in the 2nd- 3rd week of each month, we can provide a retrospective update on the previous month regarding actual spend (vs forecasted spend) include the addition/reduction of the difference in our forecast for the next month. In August, we’ll provide our update on July spend and reconcile the difference.

This would happen whether the community votes on it or not; it’s simple to just ask us to share monthly instead of quarterly updates. We were never compelled by governance to provide quarterly financial updates either- they’ve been voluntary.

We’re open to other suggestions the community may have for ensuring transparency regarding our monthly spend if this is a concern.

I’ve already stated our intention to return unused BAL and we “return” unused USDC every month by deducting it from our next monthly invoice to the OpCo. The only difference going forward is that after July we won’t be requesting any further funds, so we’d reconcile any difference by sending back or requesting funds.

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Thank you, @immutbl, for reinforcing Orb’s commitment to transparency. Orb’s dedication to voluntarily providing these disclosures should satisfy @Danko’s concerns. This BIP is even more important due to the growing number of unanswered questions from the community. See, for instance, Orb’s updated Q2 budget (at least twice), Orb’s BAL breakdown, Orb’s path forward, and other line item reporting requests, all of which remain unanswered.

The comments on the forum over the last week establish the significance of this proposal and its spec. Rather than debate the issue or make a change to a proposal that doesn’t otherwise require one, the proposal should go to vote so governance can decide.

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Your specification:

Sorry, but OpCo will need you to be super clear on this. If “Payments to Orb are to require monthly approval from Balancer governance … on spending for the previous month”, then we will incur in a contract breach by halting payments because they are made in advance. OK to execute if a vote passes, but I’m making sure veBAL holders are properly informed of the clause.

If the proposal is not intended to halt payments, and it’s fine with the projections made here, then it should be fine either way.

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From the beginning this proposal didnt make sense. It was poorly thought through and smelled like poorly hidden dirty dealings. Now the whole original proposal was torn up nd replaced with new terms. 1 of which is just repeating whats already established in orbs proposal from last year, 1 of which is repeating whats covered in this proposal, and 1 of which would cause a breach of contract. Seriously how I dont know how you post this stuff without thinking first.

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I find this specification a bit to vague to be actionable.
It’s still not clear to me exactly what Orb needs to do and when to maintain funding through the proposed transition.

1: By what date is Orb expected to submit said report in a given month in order to have funding available for the following month. As this is only a 3 month period, I think a schedule of deadlines would help make the specification more clear.

2: Are you expecting one consolidated report from the leader who you stated multiple times in this governance you don’t think is capable of writing it, or is this something on a departmental basis?

3: If departmental, how would partial funding work?

Being that a lot of peoples lives and livelihood are mixed up in this, and that we are potentially breaching contract as described by Danko above. It is very important that:

1: Orb employees know what to expect and understand how this will play out.
2: Executors of the BIP are working off an exact plan that is 100% clear and does not leave any question/room for interpretation that may result in said executors being responsible in part for said breach of contract.

I don’t think it is appropriate to take action on this BIP unless these conditions are crystal clear. The specification still needs more work.

I think this transition is good for the DAO in many ways, but barring a more exact specification, is this BIP really ready for snapshot?

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Thanks @Danko8383 for your concerns. To avoid further misunderstanding regarding this specific point, we will rewrite it to provide clarity:

“Ongoing funding for Orb is on a monthly basis after the presentation of detailed spending projections for the following month and approval of these projections by governance. The projections, presented at the beginning of the new month, will be accompanied by a report on spending for the previous month. The previous month report is for evaluation purposes, not retroactive governance approval.”

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Before this goes to snapshot, I’d like to make one final statement:

The current state of this BIP does not sit well with me at all.

1: It basically says that all orb funding is cut in now 13 days, unless someone who the author of this BIP has deemed to be incompetent produces something by next Wednesday. It then must be approved by a BIP. This means that June funding for Orb will not be clear until the 29th of May.

2: As a result of the very well conducted research in this proposal, the team in question is already in the process of winding down by the end of July.

3: The stated budget for Orb seems to be around$150,000 per month. The potential maximum savings produced by this move is about $300,000.

4: The proposal has been brought forward by a singular person @auramaxi who claims to be the voice of a council of an unknown number of anons, none of which appear to have spoken for themselves in this conversation.

5: My understanding is that these same Aura Maxis are seeking ratification via an AIP and hope to start working closely with Ballers in the near future.

Are there really 6-12 people that stand behind this BIP/insanity as it stands? Why haven’t we heard from any of them? Are these the kinds of people/conditions we want to work with/in?

Orb has been a wasteful entity. No doubt, that being said, there are engineers that are adding value, and if everything evaporates in 13 days. There is no proposal on the Forum from any other SP to take on engineering services, and a couple of senior engineers with many years of experience at Balancer are likely to get caught up in all of this.

This is the right thing to do. It’s the wrong way to do it. I’d really like to hear from anyone but @auramaxi who supports this BIP as it stands.

At very least, could things be pushed back a month, such that all this review and documentation was required for July funding, but not in less than 10 days? That has a total max cost of $150,000 in order to give everyone time to deal with this transition in a way that maintains talent and reduces risk.

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Hello @Tritium . I am JoJo, one of the “Aura Maxis” anon as you defined us, alongside @Matt_Alfalfa_or_Span, @Yakitori and another 8 users.

Don’t worry, we will very soon present ourself with an official AIP in the Aura forum. Unfortunately, the aforementioned AIP got delayed quite a bit because we were all busy working on this proposal, on analyzing 1 year of documents and financial statements of Orb, with the goal of objectively analyzing performances and facts that lead us to the conclusion that Orb did not properly operate as expected in the last year.

Let me briefly answer you point by point:
1- Yes. The whole point is having clarity, and oversee on the spending. As demonstrated by the “Financial reporting” section of the BIP, there was no clarity nor oversee.
2- Yes. The whole point of the BIP is to wind down Orb.
3- Yes, math seems correct.
4- Yes. Some details on “Aura Maxis” are provided above.
5- Yes, indeed.

A little side note: even if “Aura Maxi” was just an anon account made by a single person, does the author of a proposal matters if as a collective we are all aiming toward a more decentralized ecosystem and if the thesis is properly backed up by facts?
This part of the discussion, while interesting, is also totally off topic in the current BIP, and feels also very like “messenger over message” kind of thing.

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I think we are aiming for decentralisation. A single voice representing a voting block that is almost impossible defeat is a very very very far cry from it.

Matters are worse when said voice seems unwilling to compromise. You came here to deal with Orb’s waste. It ended Orb. Isn’t that enough? Do you really need to create this huge cliff with 0 buffer time?

Do all 12 Aura maxis think that?

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  • as you should know there is currently a proposal to move to a weighted voting systems from wrappers, to specifically address concentration of votes of wrappers. Our aip should be up by monday
  • this is not gang street war. We are not here to “end orb”. We are here to have community vote on this matter, as good practice in the crypto governance industry advocate. Immutbl saying “We have no intention to continue working as an SP for Balancer after July 31” does not guarantee nor ratify what is going to happen neither tomorrow nor in 2 months nor in 6 months.
  • yes, the maxis involved in the governance’s tasks are all aligned on this. They also can or cannot post on this to testify. But to be honest, it feels like discussion is really falling in the “messenger over message” fallacy above mentioned. Again.
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There is no budget for Orb past the end of July without a Year 2 funding BIP passed by governance, which Orb has stated they will not apply for, and governance could very easily reject if they did.

The message was already delivered loud and clear. Now the governance process being put forward, with the specification as it stands, is creating far too much risk and personal stress on people for no good reason.

I’ve said my part, thank you for taking the time to come here and speak for yourself. I encourage the other Aura Council members to use their own voices more often.

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Do you expect people to show up for work on June 1st without knowing if they’ll be paid for the month of June?

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@auramaxi you dont seem to take Balancer governance very seriously which makes me angry as a holder of veBAL. the amount of power aura wields over balancer governanc e without regard for real consequences is really frustrating. you guys are a clown show. all that time you spent attacking others should have been spent getting your own shit together and making more productive polished proposals. you keep posting vague half baked nonsense and then trying to rush it to a vote
and clearly you didnt write all of it yourself, you had plenty of help and still failed miserably to do anything useful.
youre tone deaf to the whole discussion happening about giving some stability to valued talent. no SP has to get approved each month for funding not knowing if they are about to lose their jobs. if they post a budget thats egreigous we have time to objecta nd even propose a vote to stop it if it comes to that. if you guys can be more pro-balancer than anti-orb it would help you make beneficial contributions.

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I suggest we tone down the rhetoric here. This is governance. We are collectively working through governance. This proposal has now been pending for 9 days and has 44 comments. To label this as a rush ignores the facts and the process that have actually unfolded. Nor is anyone attacking anyone else here (aside from a few burner account exceptions).

This proposal has prompted a healthy dialogue. The process, along with the bigger picture of everything that has unfolded over the last 10 months, has provided anyone paying attention with substantial learning experience in terms of how we can all can do better.

The main benefits are the healthy discussion and dialogue this BIP has produced, along with the voluntary undertakings, additional disclosures, and other follow-on proposals, RFCs, and updates that this proposal prompted after it went live on May 8. (See BIP-301, this proposal, the RFC from the Integrations team, reconciliation of invoices paid by OpCo to Orb, Orb BAL inventory breakdown, and Orb updated Q2 budget forecast).

There remain difficult and nuanced issues and questions to be worked through and answered, but the loose ends don’t take away from the fact that things are now moving in the right direction.

The main concern now being expressed is if Orb’s detailed budget projection for June cannot, for whatever reason, be produced in time for governance approval for funding by next month, then there are serious real life consequences that people will experience. I get that. I think most of the people participating here get that AND want to avoid that situation.

At this point, it makes the most sense to me to avoid those consequences by not taking this proposal to a vote. Instead, we give the process more time to breathe by allowing it to continue to unfold, with monitoring, and continue to engage in healthy dialogue while collectively solving these difficult and nuanced problems. We should allow more answers to be given to the various outstanding questions (the current ones are all in the comments of the links above), allow follow-on questions to be made and answers to be provided, and continue to collectively work towards a peaceful, practical, and productive transition.

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We thank everyone for the healthy dialogue. This proposal aimed to set forth an analysis to help all stakeholders determine the future relationship with Balancer DAO, Orb, and its contributors. The community discussions, BIPs, RFCs, proposals, and updates we’ve seen on the forum show that the purpose has been fulfilled. We view this as real progress. We appreciate the RFC posted by integrations and look forward to formalizing its transition plan and the specification of its tasks and deliverables. Given this progress and Orb’s commitment to providing monthly financial updates until it sunsets its current relationship as of July 31st, we agree there is no reason to take this proposal to a vote at this time.

Decentralized governance often requires the expression of competing points of view. While this process may be difficult, particularly when the resolution of these perspectives directly impacts individual stakeholders, we have found it often leads to the best results.

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This closure gives Orb and the ecosystem an opportunity to move forward and maximize the next 2.5 months.

I’m encouraged to see the community speak up and prevent the damage that was so close to happening. I also hope community members walk away from this with learnings that lead to more healthy and productive discourse in the future.

This proposal/thread has brought:

  • Panic
  • Distraction
  • Lost productivity
  • Community anger
  • Flight risk for key talent
  • A bad look for Balancer

I hope for Balancer that this does not become the culture moving forward. The reports our team provided in response to this discussion could have just been requested without all of the unnecessary damage that was done.

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Respectfully, the forum is littered with unanswered, insufficiently answered, or belatedly answered questions and requests for information. A number of them still exist. I get the selective response approach, but c’mon man.

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I tend to agree with @Matt_Alfalfa_or_Span, that this should be more of a lesson for SP’s then for the community, that transparency is important, and at some point there has to be something tangible to show for DAO funds being spent.

I didn’t show up to defend you ser. You ran Orb into the ground, while spending more money than any other SP in the DAO. You started with a team of good people. It’s pretty bad.

You have been paid a lot of money, and ran an org full of good people into the ground in a rather intransparent way. This needed to happen, and it seems like the only way it could have.

This is on you Jeremy. I hope you understand that. I showed up here to defend the integrations team and basic human decency. Not Orb, which is broken. I also stand by a well functioning governance process where the community can raise up and cut out clear fat that is draining the DAO. This was a model in good decentralised governance if you ask me. It’s bound to be a little messy when leadership is so tone deaf. Every escalation had to do with something stupid you wrote.

One thing is clear: While governance has no good way to dictate it, no one thinks that you will do much for the next 2.5 months. At best you would step down and find someone else to wrap things up, this would be better for reducing all of the situations that you created then listed here:

Panic
Distraction
Lost productivity
Community anger
Flight risk for key talent
A bad look for Balancer

It’s your SP though, and how this transition happens is also on you. Please start showing some degree of competence or get out of the way.

Sorry to be so blunt, but your message above is painfully tone deaf.

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