Quests and City Council

This is a proposal for a new approach to budget allocation, governance, and operations for the DAO. We view governance as an iterative process, and assume that this plan for Summer 22 will require further evolution in future seasons. See more about our governance philosophy, operational structure, and implementation plan for this proposal here: https://app.clarity.so/cabin/pages/69f2d829-f2cb-4fe7-b9a1-9800c069bbc9

Quests are:

• How Cabin allocates internal resources in order to accomplish goals
• Specific results that can be accomplished by a small group with scoped resources in a bounded time period
• Organized around a discrete team (called a fellowship) with a clear leader or steward responsible for the outcome
• A protocol for a bottom-up budgeting process (money in, results out)

How quests work

• The city council determines the budget to be allocated to each upcoming season's objectives. These objectives are each akin to a grant round. Budgets are opened by the city council at the start of the season. Any unused budget at the end of a season is retained by the DAO.
• A fellowship comes together and creates a proposal detailing their key results and budget request to the DAO. Most quests last between 1 week and 3 months. Quests can be completed by a single person or small group with a leader called a steward.
• Each week, proposals are reviewed by the city council or its designees and feedback is shared with the fellowship at a live city council meeting. Proposals approved by the city council are submitted to the DAO for a vote each week. The goal of the city council is not to pass judgment on the content of a proposal, but to make sure that proposals meet these structural requirements:
  • complete
  • clear
  • actionable
  • applicable to a given objective
  • within the budget for that objective
  • not malicious
• The DAO votes on proposals each week using quadratic multi-choice voting. Each proposal is tied to an objective, and once that objective's budget runs out, no more proposals for that objective can be approved.
• Budget allocations are transferred to a multi-sig wallet for each approved quest. The fellowship is responsible for:
  • achieving its results to contribute to an objective
  • allocating funds to members of the fellowship
  • reporting back to the DAO about progress on the quest
• Each approved quest gets a discord channel. Quest teams are public and non-permeable. This means that anyone can see what a quest team is working on, but not anyone can contribute to a quest.

City council

Great things are accomplished by small, focused teams with clear objectives. In order to effectively govern itself, we propose that the DAO rely on an elected body of servant leaders to perform the following functions:

• Provide the mission and objectives for the season. This is a bat signal for the DAO to organize around, expressed as a short written document. We've found that, in keeping with our culture, deep discussions at an IRL retreat tend to produce the type of strategic thinking necessary to set a good mission for a season.
• Provide a budget cap for the DAO to spend on each of the season's objectives. This budget determines the "cut off line" for each objective for the season and the allocation available for do-ocracy.
• Coordinate the planning process. The city council performs the administrative duties of managing budget proposals, making sure people are aware of deadlines, etc.
• Execute the multi-sig. The city council is the on-chain custodian of the DAO's treasury. They are responsible for executing transactions to allocate funds.

Structure of the city council:

• There are seven elected members of the city council
• Each session of the city council lasts one season
• Anyone who holds at least 500 ₡ABIN can self-nominate for city council elections. The city council will maintain a set of guidelines for city council membership.
• Elections for each season take place near the midpoint of the previous season. Nominees are offered as options in a multi-choice quadratic vote proposal for DAO members. The top seven vote receivers among the nominees are elected to the city council. This election process will go into effect in Summer 22, for the city council term of the Fall 22 season.