I find a common theme in the Discord shutdown and this Lack of Trust vote by the Community Council: they both look wild to me.
The Discord Shutdown
The decision to shut down Discord looks wild to me because, in my decision-making matrix, I’d assign security concerns maybe a 10% weight in this particular matter, but definitely not over 50%.
In my opinion, even with Discord’s security concerns at their maximum, the value Discord provides to the DAO still far outweighs the security risks it poses. It appears that most other DAO members share a similar view.
Furthermore, the shutdown process violated the DAO’s governance practices, whether they’re documented or just the spirit of it. This decision directly affects the community, and thus it should have a say in.
It is likely that under the old BadgerDAO decision making process, this wouldn’t have happened. Decisions like these were subject to a Contributors Consensus vote.
With that old process, discussions were had, pushback was received and acknowledged, and decisions were made.
It’s hard for me to imagine this decision made and executed the way it was if that governance practice were still active.
To be fair, the decision was reversed in a couple of days. I believe the community outcry on the forum and in the builder discord was already enough to make that happen.
Had that not been enough, the community would have launched a BIP and a token holder vote to reinstate Discord and prevent future shutdowns.
And only then - if the leadership still refused to reinstate Discord despite a token holder vote, would a Loss of Trust type of vote be justified imo.
The Loss of Trust Vote
Instead, the Community Council jumped the gun in escalating the conflict, and this decision is wild to me too.
First, if the goal was to benefit tokenholders, how does trying to destroy its leadership reputation help this cause?
Second, if the goal is to decentralize, then according to my logic, a vote of distrust stands in a way of improving the decentralization of the org.
The logic is as follows:
- Trust goes both ways.
- Party A has more power than Party B.
- Party B would like Party A to share some of that power.
- Party B exserts distrust towards Party A.
- This naturally erodes Party A’s trust in Party B.
- Now, Party A is asked to share power with Party B, whom it no longer trusts, while also knowing that Party B doesn’t trust Party A.
I hope that makes sense.
According to this logic, in order to decentralize, we first need to rebuild trust.
And a good first step towards that would be to stop assigning ill intent to each other.
That logic aside, let’s get back to why the decision to conduct vote of distrust looks wild to me.
Since I can’t agree with the way the vote is phrased, I’ll try to rephrase the concerns.
Let’s assume the Association:
- Centralized decision-making within a few individuals instead of a wider group, limiting broader community involvement.
- Lacks procedural discipline, or a good understanding of how certain decisions affecting the DAO must be done collectively.
- Neglected community engagement over the last year.
Considering all the Association’s responsibilities, what weight of significance would we assign to these issues? 10%? 15%?
I struggle to see how that can reach more than 50% to warrant a vote of distrust and ‘cancelling’ the leadership.
These areas are also ones that can be improved upon relatively easily.
On the other hand, building a legit product is hard. What importance would we assign to that?
The way I see it, fundamentally BADGER the token right now is in the best place it has ever been over its entire existence.
And if not interrupted by an abrupt suicide mission, there is a decent chance that this fundamental value is going to climb considerably higher over the next few years.
This is due to the fact that now, for the first time in history, BadgerDAO has a product that makes sense - and a sensible roadmap for developing it further.
This state is largely the result of actions of the Association’s leadership - and, in my opinion, it has to be acknowledged regardless of the take on the Association’s modus operandi.
I believe Badger governance is in a relatively fragile state, and escalating this conflict has risks of leading to a colossal value destruction for the DAO and its token holders.
So, on that note, I would like to ask the Badger Community Council to reconsider its vote of distrust.
Since I don’t fully share either your or the leadership’s opinions on the history of BadgerDAO and its current state, perhaps I can offer a different perspective on the matters you find problematic and help find mutually acceptable solutions to them.
I’ll make a thread in the Discord rff if you want to chat.