Hello everyone, Sandel Podcast number 28.
Today we're going to be going over delegates and delegations.
They have arrived in the sandbox DAO.
I have read through everything that I possibly can on the subject to include videos, to learn
more about delegations, delegates, how they worked.
We interviewed previously a delegation, Bulls on the Block, also Mocha CN, so I'm not going
into this blind.
However, the actual act of delegating, delegation, delegates, we'll get into that, the definitions
and everything else that's going on.
And special shout out to Mark, who is in the chat.
We interviewed him for the Sandbox Ambassador Program, which was, what was that?
That was SIP number 11 and that passed.
So Mark said, just received half of the first month's fund last week, a bit busy doing preparation
right now.
Excellent.
And if you don't know, the Sandbox Academy, the Sandbox Academy in the Philippines, which
was SIP 12, is all about an education and going around different universities, teaching
people, college students about the sandbox game maker, VoxEdit, to teach them how to
be involved as game makers and box editors for the community.
So that's really awesome.
And I'm wishing him all the success in the world.
Check that out.
Podcasts, I think it was 18.
So today, delegates and delegations.
That's what we're going over.
So the scope of the talk today, it's going to be a news update.
It's also going to be a little bit of an opinion piece.
I had opinions and thoughts as I read through the news of the delegate system having now
started to be implemented in the sandbox DAO.
Disclaimer, I do not represent the sandbox game or the sandbox foundation, which is the
DAO.
I am not your financial or legal advisor.
Nothing that saves to be taken as financial or legal advice.
When I say the word SIP, I mean sandbox improvement proposal.
When I say the word DAO, I mean decentralized autonomous organization.
SanFam is everyone in the sandbox community to include the gamers, the creators, the landowners,
the token holders and more, as I'll show you in a slide later.
Then the system that allows one voter to transfer their voting power to another delegate, those
you transfer your voting power to for the scoreboard.
SIPs 14 and 15 are on the voting block.
Please go vote.
They both end in how many hours?
Five hours from now.
Please go vote.
One of them is mine and I really want to resize my windows so that I can have some reasonable
window management when I create in the sandbox and I'm minting stuff and all sorts of things
or resolution options within the VoxEdit or the GameMaker.
Being able to resize things when I'm using Magic Palette as Pepe mentioned earlier today
in a tweet response.
So please go vote.
Vote SIP 15 and 14.
15 is the Metaverse and Disability Hiring Program.
14 is the Window Resizing and Resolution Options in the Game Client, VoxEdit, Launcher and
the GameMaker.
So those two are up for voting and they will be closing in about five hours.
The checkbook we have spent of our 15.5 million sand, 2.3 million, which is 15% of the budget
so far.
Dowbase we are now up to 211,000 token holders and we have about 2200 voters within the Dow.
13 proposals so far and as a collective we have casted 9,207 votes for Dowbase.ai.
My name is Lancer.
I am the Sandal podcast host.
I am a SandVAM community member since 2021 and I'm president of MetaWorld.
We've published two experiences, Floor Droppers and, and I forget my own experiences.
Floor Droppers and Lava Defense.
So we did it for Builders Challenge and GameMaker Fund.
And I'm a landowner, avatar owner.
I'm a mocha.
I'm an ape.
I'm open campus and two other things.
But I'm most important is I'm a very passionate SandFam member because the Dow to me represents
the intersection of community, gaming and business.
And I love all three of those things.
So something I'll be doing in a future podcast is the SandFam and the Sandbox ecosystem.
Here's one slide I just did this past week toward that podcast, which is upcoming in
the next few weeks probably.
But what is the Sandbox?
A little quick primer.
It started in 2012 as a mobile game and it transformed into a metaverse ecosystem since
about 2018 and it switched from mobile to PC gaming.
And it is a convergence of products, people and purpose.
That's what creates the Sandbox ecosystem.
And I'll be going into depth a little bit more later on in another podcast.
So the road to Dow.
It's been a while since I've shown this slide, but I've been keeping it up to date just to
keep track of everything that's been happening.
The Dow was originally announced May 28th and since then it went through a number of
SIP submissions and votes.
And as of right now, we have nine SIPs that have been approved, 13 have not been approved
and one has withdrawn.
So that's 13 SIPs total that we have gone through since May 28th.
And that's basically all of these things here.
Lots of AMAs, lots of different spaces you can look at.
NFC Lisbon with Seb and Cyril, the AMA between Meabow and Seb, Sand Cafe with a bunch of
community members.
And then fast forward to today's episode, in September 10th, that's when the Sandbox
Dow, Cyril from the Dow team or Geraldine from the Dow team opened up delegation applications.
So we're going to be deep diving into that.
So for the discussion, we're going to go through five things.
The form announcement, the application link, the interview by the Dow team and the delegation
dashboard ended by a dive into the code of conduct.
So form post.
So as I mentioned on, link it here.
So on September 10th, Geraldine posted, become a delegate for the Sandbox Dow, shape our
future and a nice post.
It basically talks about what is a delegate, why become a delegate, how to apply.
It gives a, it gives a process for applying.
And then some details about the FAQ and looking forward applications.
So that form post, what is a delegate?
It's a voter who votes on behalf of the community members that delegate voting power to them.
Why become a delegate?
And the three things that it goes into detail here, you can read a little bit more for yourself,
is influence, recognition and community.
Then how do you apply?
There's an application process you go through, which we will go through in depth.
There is a code of conduct that you must review.
And then there is an interview process after that.
So that's, that's basically the form post.
And then later on, there's, there's a little bit of back and forth and the community discussion
between myself, Geraldine, KCL, Crypto Sheep, Takeout Sky, a number of community members
make it clear if they're voting or if, or excuse me, if they're applying or what their
thoughts are.
So the, one of the main parts of the post is the application link and that application
link follows, this will help go into a little later, but the application link here is basically
what you see.
What is your username on the sandbox?
Dow discourse.
So you would type your username, then which country are you based in?
You type in whatever country you're from.
Question number three is what is your ENS address?
And it says while an ENS address is not required to apply, it will be required to become a
delegate and will be displayed on the dashboard of verified delegates.
So ENS, if you don't know, is a website and it, it basically gives you like usernames
for a lot of crypto things.
So for instance, you can have sandboxdow.eth and when you type that into ETH scan, it will
shortcut to a wallet.
So here you can click in, let's say sandboxdow.eth and then you can buy it just like you would
buy a domain.
But as you can see here, it's already registered to sandboxdow and Arasakio, which is the consulting
company that Serial is the founder of and expires in two years.
And it's, it's owned by this wallet.
So what is your ENS, ENS address?
We just put sandboxdow.eth.
What ETH address will you be using to vote?
If you have an E, ENS address, your ETH address should be linked to it.
So this is where you put whatever your wallet is.
Question five, what motivates you to pursue the role of a delegate and how do you envision
contributing to the community in this capacity?
This is where you would talk about why do you want to be a delegate?
I want to be a delegate because I'm passionate about the community and want to increase voter
participation.
All right, next question.
What are your Web3 interests?
And here you can list off things that you're interested in.
For instance, staking or land ownership or creating experiences in GameMaker or creating
NFTs using VoxEdit.
Whatever your, whatever your interest is.
Do you have any Web3 qualifications?
Let's say you are a Voxel editor or a GameMaker or a graphic designer or a podcast host or
a previous delegate for XYZDAO.
Okay.
Do you have any experience in voting or decision making processes within decentralized organizations?
Or blockchain communities?
That's question number eight.
You select yes or no.
Question nine, list any relevant skills or expertise that makes you a suitable candidate
for a delegate position within the sandbox DAO.
For example, blockchain knowledge, governance, leadership, communication, critical thinking.
So here you could say, I have great critical thinking skills.
Maybe.
No, no, definitely.
Question 10, I am willing and able to participate in the governments of the upcoming DAO.
I understand this is an ongoing role that requires active participation.
You can select yes or no.
Question 11, I understand that delegates are unpaid volunteers.
Being a delegate does not qualify me for immediate payment and tokens.
Select yes or no.
I understand that becoming a delegate is a significant commitment.
Select yes or no.
And by the way, you can select no and it will let you keep going.
Question 13, do you have any conflicts of interest that might affect your ability to
serve as a delegate for sandbox DAO?
Pay special attention to this because it's very robustly defined in the code of conduct
and part of my analysis mainly centers around how all of those things are worded.
So delegates must declare if they or someone with a close personal professional relationship
is the author of a SIP.
Additionally, they must disclose any relationships that could pose a potential or that could
pose a conflict of interest in the decision making process.
So you would select yes or no to that question.
If you select no, your next question will be, is there anything else you'd like us
to know about your candidacy for the sandbox DAO delegate?
If you select yes, it will ask you, can you explain what is your conflict of interest?
And you might say, I am a landowner.
No, no, no, no, no, here's one.
I have submitted a SIP or plan to submit a SIP.
That would be a conflict of interest for some of the rules that are described in the code
of conduct.
There as you'll see in a question or two here, question 15, is there anything else you'd
like us to know about your candidacy for the DAO delegate?
I love the sandbox and the sandbox DAO.
That would be my answer.
So question number 16, I declare that that information provided is true and correct to
the best of my knowledge.
Select yes or no.
17, I agree to abide by the rules and code of conduct set for the delegates of the sandbox
DAO as a link to the code of conduct, which we'll go into more depth later.
Select yes or no.
Your ex slash Twitter link.
So you put in twitter.com slash whatever it is your Twitter handle is.
Oh, yes, you need WWW in front of that.
No.
Maybe you need HTTPS front of it.
There you go.
And then you upload your avatar that you want displayed on the dashboard.
Hit submit and then you have officially applied to be a delegate.
So all in all, there are 19 questions for you to answer.
And most of them center around resume items, your list, your qualifications, list your
skills.
What have you done before in the Web3 world?
Do you understand this is an unpaid volunteer ship position?
Do you understand this is a significant commitment that there are conflict?
Do you have any conflict of interest?
That sort of thing.
A lot of who, what, when, where, why questions.
Okay, so once you submit your application, then you wait.
You wait for the sandbox DAO to email you or contact you saying we want to interview
you.
And once that interview, oops, I forgot to finish the whole slide.
But once that interview happens, as I was interviewed about a week ago, maybe a few
days ago, the sandbox DAO team, I got on a call with them and then they asked me some
reinforcing questions about who I am, what I'm wanting to do as a delegate.
How do I want to exercise my delegate power and why do I want to be a delegate?
A lot of questions just for them to get to know you a little bit better.
And one thing that was of note is that the DAO team received many applications for delegations,
for delegates.
And it seemed like they received a lot more than they expected.
So this might take quite some time for them to interview everyone.
And a lot of people submitted applications who were previously unknown to the DAO, who
might have been significant landowners, but have not really participated in the DAO forums.
So there's going to be some time that's going to take for the DAO team to fully become aware
and familiar with all of the DAO applicants so that they can then move them on to phase
two, which is like a downward selection of the application pool into who will eventually
be selected to be a delegate.
All right, now once that happens, you'll be listed on the delegate dashboard if you are
accepted.
And the delegate dashboard right now is blank.
Looks like this.
You go to the delegate dashboard and become a delegate.
And then here, no verified delegates yet.
But eventually when delegates are approved, they'll show up here.
And below that are the delegation FAQs.
Some of these things are pretty standard.
Like what does a delegation mean?
What happens to my tokens when I delegate?
Who can I choose as my delegate?
Is there any impact to becoming a delegate?
Are there any costs to delegating?
Such as on-chain gas fees.
The answer is yes to that.
Is delegating my voting power compulsory?
What's the criteria to be showcased on the sandbox DAO delegates dashboard?
How can I change my delegate?
Can I override my delegates vote?
Yes, you can.
Can I delegate to more than one wallet?
Why am I unable to delegate?
Do delegates receive any compensation?
No, they don't.
Can I update my delegate profile?
Why was delegation not presented as a SIP?
The answer to that was delegation was implemented as a necessary solution to improve participation
and governance and implemented at the discretion of the administrator using the operation budget
and to maximize speed to market.
And it did not require a SIP for approval.
So the DAO administrator decided that it didn't need to be a SIP.
If you have any questions, you can click here and go to the board where we'll eventually
can lead you to the form post that we showed earlier.
So that's the delegate dashboard.
Eventually you'll be able to delegate there via the big delegate button.
You'll see the verified delegation or the delegate list and then you can read the FAQs.
So now we get into the meat of it, the code of conduct.
So in the application, you saw the link to the code of conduct and the question that
it wanted to ask you was if you agree yes or no to abide by the rules and code of conduct
set for the delegates of the sandbox DAO.
The code of conduct is separated into eight sections.
Section one is commitment to the network's best interest.
Section two is active participation in governance.
Section three is transparency and communication.
Section four is civility and professionalism.
Section five is conflict of interest.
Section six, anti-lobbing and influence protections.
Section seven, adherence to the spirit of the code of conduct.
And eight, optional participation and accountability.
So here it is.
It is not too long.
There's quite a bit of depth to it, but it's not that long.
So what I did is I already went through it and noted some of the things that were interesting
to me.
So what we'll do is I'll scroll through, some of it is pretty standard, but I'll scroll
through and go to the sections that were most interesting to me.
So general code of conduct.
It opens with an all interactions, each member of the sandbox DAO should agree to and abide
by the sandbox DAO terms of use.
Be respectful to other community members.
There is a zero tolerance policy for any form of discrimination or hate speech.
I think maybe this is just maybe a language barrier because the DAO team is multilingual,
but also mostly based in France.
So my background, as I should have mentioned in my introduction as Lanser, my professional
background is in contract writing, proposal writing and contract negotiation.
So I have a professional expertise in the formulation of contracts and things that are
how to enforce contracts, like the exchange of goods and services for money and inputting
legal contract clauses that you can then enforce to ensure that what you pay for is what you
get.
And so I have that background and in interpreting a lot of this legalese, I'm not a lawyer,
so I don't have, I didn't pass the bar exam.
I'm a contract writer and a contract negotiator.
And I also have done quite a bit of proposal writing.
So that's, so I've been doing that for over 10 years at this point.
So the word, use the word should and shall, those things mean quite a bit, especially
when you start talking about terms of use and codes of conduct.
And so in the beginning here, it just starts off each member of the sandbox DAO should,
and then it starts talking about should agree to and abide by the terms of use.
But looking into the terms of use, it's not very optional.
And then it says there is a zero tolerance policy for any form of discrimination or hate
speech.
So that's something you would put under a should category.
It's much more authoritative to say you will not do that.
So the DAO members shouldn't, you know, have a zero tolerance policy or shouldn't decide
whether or not they want to elect to be respectful of other community members.
I'm quite sure the DAO team means that this is what you will do as someone who is abiding
by the terms of use.
And so that's an interesting thing to start off with, but it gets more interesting after
that.
So, so for the code of conduct, let's start with the very first part, which is down under
code of conduct here.
It talks about how each member of the DAO special council shall, I think they mean each
member of the sandbox DAO delegate.
I don't think they mean special counsel there.
I think it's just kind of a copy paste thing.
So yeah, I'm pretty sure they mean delegate shall commit to serving adhere to the highest
ethical standards abide by the general community code of conduct.
Again that shall statement is pretty important up there at the top and you'll see why later
disclose any conflict of interest, maintain confidentiality in case of dispute, disagreement,
strive for resolution and maintain active and transparent communication with the DAO
community.
So those are fairly standard things to expect to read for something like a code of conduct.
And the next section was delegates code of conduct.
And it talks about how it values the principles of transparency, accountability, integrity
in its governance process and to ensure that delegates act in the best interests of the
community and the ecosystem.
We established this delegate code of conduct.
I opting into this code delegates commit to upholding the highest standard of behavior
and responsibility.
So section one, the commitment to the network's best interest under primary responsibility.
So the very first thing I know appear is under the primary responsibility, delegates must
prioritize the long term success and development of the sandbox ecosystem.
Decisions should reflect the broader community's interest aiming to enhance, sustain, enhance
the sustainability, security and growth of the platform.
So the thing that I noted was that it said delegates must prioritize the long term success
and that decisions should reflect the broader community interests.
And I'm not sure how familiar people are with delegations and delegates.
Most delegates that I've seen in a few other DAOs that I've been keeping track of up until
this point, like ApecoinDAO, MakerDAO, CompoundDAO, Citidao, which is no longer in the network.
It's no longer active.
A few other DAOs, MochaDAO now.
Most delegations, most delegates, they have a focus.
They have a niche.
So for instance, MochaCN, who we interviewed for, let's look at that, it was interviewed
MochaCN, old one from MochaCN, episode six.
So check that out, Sandow Podcast episode six.
They are the largest Mocha delegate within the Mochaverse.
And they also, OldOne, who is one of the co-founders of MochaCN, he is also connected to the sandbox
through Lululand.
So very well known developer for the sandbox is OldOne.
But MochaCN stands for Mocha Chinese Community.
So where were we?
Interview, out of conduct.
Okay, so there we go.
So MochaCN is all about the Mochaverse Chinese community.
So they're Chinese speakers and they are Chinese affiliated and associated and Chinese voters.
They have things that are important to them.
And as you heard in Sandow Podcast six, we go into depth into what the MochaCN community
values.
All right, so they're not necessarily inherently focusing on the broader community's interests.
They're focused on MochaCN's interests.
That's why they're the MochaCN delegate.
So it's kind of interesting, it kind of brings up a sort of a conflict or contradiction there
that the delegates are supposed to be looking at the long term success, which long term
success is very, very broadly defined.
And it's not obvious why MochaCN or Bulls on the Block or Mochaverse or ApecoinDAO delegates
should focus on the long term success for the sandbox DAO.
Not really sure why they should do that.
Some of them, I mean, what's wrong with the short term success for the MochaCN?
I'm not really sure.
But that stuck out to me as being the delegates must prioritize long term.
What does that look like?
What does it mean to prioritize it over the short term success?
Unclear and the Code of Conduct doesn't really say.
So the decisions should reflect the broader community interests.
And as you mentioned, as I mentioned, a lot of the delegates have a focus.
So Bulls on the Block, they own a six by six in the sandbox ecosystem and they are very
heavily focused on Apecoin.
And within the sandbox, they're focused on creatorship and what they call Bulls, their
members are interested in.
And we interviewed Bulls on the Block episode seven.
So right after we interviewed MochaCN in episode six.
So Bulls on the Block is has already been applied to be a delegate.
I am probably assume that MochaCN also applied to be a delegate already.
Unsure as of yet, but we know Crypto Sheep from MochaCN definitely applied.
So what does it mean for Bulls on the Block to must prioritize long term success and reflect
the broader community interests?
Does broader mean outsiders in the Block?
That's what it kind of insinuates.
And it's not really clear to me why that should be true or why that's reasonable to expect
of a delegation who is there to represent the interests of their delegates.
That's why they are delegated votes.
So that's the very first thing I noticed under the primary responsibility.
So moving on down the line, when we start talking about the good faith and the avoidance
of excessive delegation.
So for the avoidance of excessive delegation, I think I put here, under avoidance of excessive
delegation, it says that delegates are discouraged from encouraging excessive voting power delegation
to avoid undue influence or manipulation of the governance process.
I don't know what they mean by discouraged from encouraging excessive voting power delegation.
That meaning is very unclear.
What's an example of excessive voting power delegation?
I'm not sure.
I responded back into the Dow post.
If the, what was it here?
If the Dow team could explain a little bit what that means.
So awaiting a response back from them.
But in the meantime, it's unclear and the code of conduct doesn't explain, neither
does the FAQ.
Okay.
So, the good faith thing.
Yep.
That sounds fine.
Section two, active participation in governance.
So the voting obligation is the next thing I noted.
Delegates are expected to participate actively in the governance process by voting on all
proposals and interacting with the community on the dedicated SIP threads.
This ensures that the voting power entrusted them is used effectively.
So the words I mentioned there was participate actively.
And this pairs with below where it says diligent review.
Prior to voting, delegates must conduct a thorough, selfless, and unbiased review of
each proposal, ensuring decisions are made with full understanding of the potential impacts.
So the things I noted there was thorough in each proposal.
So there's kind of like a dual thing going on here.
Then it goes on to say under constructive feedback, delegates should provide feedback
that is well researched, supported by evidence, and devoid of personal attacks.
And under rationale for votes, delegates must communicate reasoning behind their voting
decisions.
This is awesome.
I am very happy to see this.
Because as I'm watching things going on in 8coinDAO, let me start over.
I'm going to start over.
So with those four sections that I noted, participate actively, be thorough, review
each proposal.
Delegates should be well researched and supported by evidence.
Communicate your reasoning behind your voting decisions.
This is a very, very interesting requirement.
And I think it's going to benefit the DAO.
I'm very happy to see this.
When I was watching a podcast not long ago, it's called Down the Rabbit Hole podcast,
and they were interviewing different DAO people.
So people from Compound DAO and from other DAOs.
And the Compound DAO representative said that 75% of all Compound delegates have never voted
on an on-chain proposal.
And that was fascinating for me to hear.
And that goes very well in line with what Mia Bao said when she interviewed Seb, that
after delegations are implemented, I think it was something of like there was an 80,
85% increase in voter participation after that.
I forgot to put that here, but that was only done about a month ago.
And I did a reaction video to that.
And that was Sandel podcast number 20.
A reaction.
Oh no, excuse me.
Sandel podcast number 19.
Going to the AMA with Mia Bao and Seb Bourget.
So there, there was a really, really interesting, Mia Bao is the co-founder of DAObase, one
of the slides I mentioned earlier that has a lot of analytics on over 160,000 DAOs, including
ours, the Sandbox DAO.
So Mia Bao interviewed Seb Bourget, who is the co-founder of the Sandbox.
And in it, she said after delegations, it was toward two thirds of the way through,
after delegations are implemented, there is a marked significant increase in voter participation.
So the fact that the DAO code of conduct is requiring that delegates be more actively
participative, that is awesome.
I think that's going to highly benefit the DAO and I commend them for having that in
there.
All right.
Some other things that happen is happening is if you're keeping track of what's going
on in the Apecoin DAO, Aaron Haber, who is a, he proposed the Laughing Ape AIP, I believe
that one did pass.
And so he's a background comedian and also in APEU, he recently launched a podcast called
Delegate This.
And he launched that due to the lack of delegate feedback that AIP authors were receiving.
So in the AIP process, just like in the SIP process, you submit your AIP and it goes to
vote and then everyone votes on your proposal.
Well, in Apecoin DAO, there are hundreds, hundreds of voters and very little voting
feedback.
They vote on this quite often, as do others within the Apecoin DAO communication channels
and mentions that would really be cool if voters got more feedback so they can make
their proposal stronger.
While Aaron Haber came up with the, in partnership with the Apecoin Governance Working Group
to launch Delegate This, which fosters communication between the delegates and the voters and the
AIP authors.
So really, really cool.
I've been following that pretty closely because that has direct implications on the sandbox
DAO and some model, I think for the, for our community and SanFam.
And so you can see that as a sandbox, it's struggled to meet quorum and as an SIP author
myself, where I have a SIP that's going to close in about four hours, I have, I don't
think we have not reached 30 million quorum and I've received some feedback, but not much.
And that's mostly because I have sought out all the feedback from people in the SanFam
and most of them are really supportive, but ultimately we have not been able to garner
the support of landowners to reset 30 million quorum as of yet.
So we're still contacting SIP authors, excuse me, landowners to reach quorum as best we
can and us and Meta Futura, which are, we're in the same SIP cohort.
We are, we're trying to get that done in the next few hours.
So we're struggling just like everyone else and, and we could also do with more feedback
from, from authors.
So the fact that this is part of the code of conduct from the outset, I think it's a
great thing.
Okay.
Let's keep going.
Disclosure of conflicts.
So this is where it really starts to get, where some of my critique really starts to
come through.
So under, under section three, transparency and communication, we're talking about the
rationale for votes delegates, or we just went over that delegates must communicate
the reasoning under availability delegates must should be reasonably accessible under
notification determination.
Delegates entail a step down from the role from their role must notify the community
section for civility and professionalism under respectful conduct delegates must foster a
safe welcoming harassment free environment under prohibited behaviors, unacceptable behaviors
such as harassment and the like are, are not tolerated and for constructive feedback delegates
to provide feedback that is well researched, supported by evidence.
And that's the part I just gave them kudos on.
So that was section three and section four of the code of conduct.
Then we get to section five conflict of interest.
And this is where I think some of the major loopholes start to really show themselves
or the contradictions where I think could be really improved in the language.
So conflict of interest is broken down into three, three parts as is as is section six.
They're very closely aligned.
Section five has SIP authorship and relationships where delegates must forfeit their ability
to propose a SIP disclosure of conflict says delegates must avoid conflicts of interest
and declare someone with a close personal or professional relationship is the author
of an SIP or stands to gain personal benefit from their voting actions.
Any actual or potential conflicts must be disclosed to the community promptly.
The delegates are required to not vote on any proposal where a conflict of interest
exists.
The next section is transparency and conflicts.
Even potential conflicts should be disclosed ensuring that all governance activities are
conducted without bias or personal gain influencing decisions.
Delegates are also required to not vote on any proposal where a personal or potential
conflict of interest exists.
All right, I'm going to go into section six because they're very similar.
Disclosure lobbying and influence protections.
The first part of that section is lobbying disclosure to protect the integrity of the
decision making process.
Delegates must disclose any lobbying efforts directed toward them that could influence
their voting decisions.
This includes any form of communication or pressure from external parties.
Abstention in case of influence is the next part.
If a delegate feels that lobbying or undo influence has compromised their impartiality,
they are required to abstain from voting on the relevant proposal.
And the final part is transparency and communications.
All communications that may influence a delegate's vote should be logged and disclosed to the
community.
This ensures full transparency and reduces the risk of hidden lobbying efforts.
So on the surface, this appears great.
It's detailing protections for the community, things like undisclosed payments or behind
the scenes efforts that aren't transparent.
A lot of goodness.
However, if you're thinking to yourself, there were quite a few contradictions or this was
really broadly worded so that massive loopholes could be exploited by people in positions
of power or it could be used as a weapon against the community, I think you're right.
I think there are really, really broadly worded sentences in here that could be used aggressively
by enforcers within the Dow team or the special counsel or anyone in a position of power against
the community for many different reasons.
And we'll go over one such scenario later on.
So here are the highlights.
So in section five, under disclosure of conflicts, delegates are required to not vote on any
proposal where a conflict of interest exists.
This is in parallel, this pairs nicely with in the transparency and conflict section where
it says delegates are also required to not vote on any proposal where a potential conflict
of interest exists.
Those words are very important.
So it's not only saying that you're required to not vote on any proposal where a conflict
of interest definitely exists.
You're also required to not vote on any proposal where a potential conflict of interest exists.
And that is huge.
And here's why the ecosystem within the sandbox is very highly interconnected with many, many
different businesses, DOWs, advocacy groups.
Seb has done a wonderful job connecting, networking with the Web3 community.
The sandbox is owned by Animoca Brands, one of the largest Web3 communities and companies
on the planet, which itself has a DOW, which itself votes within the sandbox and the sandbox
votes in the Mochaverse DOW.
And it votes in the Apecoin DOW and people in the Apecoin DOW vote in the sandbox DOW
and the Mochaverse DOW.
This huge interconnectivity going on.
So conflicts of interest exist all over the place already by default.
No conflict of interest probably exists with almost everyone.
That's strongly worded, but I'm pretty sure I'm not far off.
Most people are involved in multiple delegates, delegations.
Most people are involved in multiple communities.
Most people know many other people who then themselves are going to be involved in the
delegate system within the sandbox.
It's all over the place.
So my, my thought here was if this is interpreted as the entire delegation cannot vote, we're
going to need some major further discussion and refinement because some of these delegations
have thousands of members already.
WellVault, for instance, it has over a thousand lands, seven million voting power within the
sandbox right now.
It has 15,000 members.
Do you think WellVault has the ability to police or have full recognition of 15,000
people?
Most people who delegate, as we're finding out with Apecoin DOW, forget they delegate.
They don't even know they're delegated after a certain amount of time.
And so it's very easy to lose track of your delegate, who you've delegated to.
And that is just, that creates a perfect storm of people who unwittingly have a conflict
of interest and don't know it, both the voter and the delegate, both the delegate and the
delegat-y and the delegation.
The whole thing is just rife with, it's too easy to not see this from many points of view.
The mochaverse, the mochaverse has over a million people, a million members.
There is no way that you can reasonably expect the mochaverse delegate to be able to know
where a potential conflict of interest exists.
A million people?
That's unreasonable to expect.
Bulls on the Block, let's just make it local.
Bulls on the Block, a very active delegation, has over a hundred members.
They are constantly involved and they're very well networked because they have put in the
time and effort, Anthony and Crypto Sheep and the rest of the Bull Council and the Bear
Council has put in a lot of effort to be involved in their communities.
And Apecoin, New Campus, Open Campus, Mochaverse, Sandbox, just their hundred members alone,
trying to police a hundred members, fifteen thousand members, a million members.
I think it needs more refinement on this big, huge, broad language that is so open to interpretation
it can be used on anyone by someone who's looking to, who has an axe to grind or who
is resentful of someone else.
It's just too, too easy to abuse this power.
Whoever isn't using it to enforce the code of conduct on someone else.
So my recommendation is, limit it to just the delegation leaders.
Just the council, so the Bulls on the Block Council, just five or six of them, right?
It's much easier to police that.
And it's much more reasonable to police that.
For Mochaverse, the special council of the Mochaverse, whatever that may be.
The whale vault, the special council of the whale vault, or the leaders of the whale vault,
there's I think nine of them.
It's much more reasonable and much more in line with the intent and the spirit of this
where the people who wield the voting power should be the ones that you expect to police
conflicts of interest between themselves and the people that they are voting on.
Because they already have to, as we discovered in the previous section, they already have
to thoroughly, selflessly, and unbiased review of every proposal.
So they'll have done their due diligence by that point.
But you can't expect them to do the due diligence and the connections of a million people within
their delegation and a SIP author.
There's just too much anonymity for that to be reasonable.
So my recommendation, limit this to just the delegation leaders.
Just the delegates, not the members.
All right, so the next part, and here's where a contradiction really inserts itself.
And I read it a little bit earlier up top.
It started with each member of the sandbox, DAO, it says special council, I'm pretty sure
they meant sandbox DAO delegate, Xiao.
And it says commit, adhere, abide, maintain all these sorts of things.
So within section five, disclosure of conflicts and transparency and conflicts, you start
to see this dual contradiction emerge.
Under disclosure of conflicts, it says any actual or potential conflicts must be disclosed.
The keywords there, actual or potential conflicts.
And in transparency and conflicts, it says even potential conflicts should be disclosed.
That's a contradiction from what I'm reading.
If you're saying that for the disclosure portion, any actual or potential conflicts must be disclosed.
And then in transparency and conflicts, you're seeing even potential conflicts should be
disclosed.
Don't use the word should, because you're saying on the one hand, potential conflicts
should be disclosed, but you don't have to.
But then elsewhere, you're saying conflicts, whether actual or potential, must be disclosed.
You're sending mixed messages there.
It's not good.
It's just, you're creating a bad situation.
So I recommend that you either change the word should to must, or take out the word
potential conflicts from any actual or potential conflicts must be disclosed.
So either potential conflicts should be disclosed all throughout the code of conduct, or they
must be disclosed.
Don't shoot, don't mix and match that language.
All right.
And then the second contradiction was under avoidance of excessive delegation.
Oh, no, that's, I already went over that one.
That meaning was unclear and I don't know what's an example of excessive voting power
designation allegation.
And so we get to part of my feedback.
Another contradiction.
Under section eight, let's keep going.
So we were past section six, now we're into section seven, which is adherence to the spirit
of the code.
So it then talks about how the code of conduct may not cover all possible scenarios.
Delegates are expected to adhere to its spirit.
They should refrain from exploiting any potential loopholes, acting in good faith and the best
interests of the community at all times.
But the reverse is actually true.
This thing is so broadly worded that people who are enforcing it can use loopholes to
get after community members who might not deserve your scrutiny or punishment.
And then section eight, that's where the next contradiction I find occurs.
Optional participation and accountability.
So the first part of that says opting commitment, delegates may choose to opt into this code
of conduct by indicating their agreement in the application form.
By doing so, they signal their commitment to uphold these standards.
Next section, ongoing feedback.
The community is invited to provide feedback on this code of conduct.
Finally held views and constructive suggestions will be considered for incorporation into
future versions of document, ensuring it remains robust and fair.
And the last portion, penalties for non-compliance.
Delegates who fail to adhere to this code of conduct, particularly regarding the conflict
of interest disclosures, that's why I said earlier it was so important to go through
all that, may face penalties, including the loss of delegate status and the SIP being
canceled.
That is a double whammy of a penalty.
Not only can the delegate lose their delegate status, but the SIP that is in question, that's
associated with whatever mishaps occurred there, can be canceled.
This is why I'm saying that the massive loopholes that we talked about, the broad language,
the over-excessiveness of the way it's worded, can be used against the community as a weapon.
Because you're saying here at the very end, oh, by the way, you can lose your delegate
status and we can cancel the SIP that's affected by this.
There's a pretty obvious abuse thing that emerges here.
So, here's the part that contradicts itself.
Under 8, section 8, it says optional participation and accountability.
So, the keyword is optional.
And then the first part of that section, the opt-in commitment, delegates may choose to
opt into this code of conduct.
And when I went through this code of conduct and when I saw the FAQ, read through the FAQ
and the interviews, this didn't seem very optional.
All right, the question 17 says, I agree to abide by the rules of the code of conduct.
You can select yes or no.
It will let you go forward if you select no.
But how likely is someone selecting no really to have a shot at being approved by the Dow
team?
Does the Dow team intend to approve anyone who selects no?
If not, then I'd say this is just a trap.
It looks like a trap.
If anyone selects no, and reasonably, if you were to read the code of conduct, it says
optional.
Delegates may choose to opt into this code of conduct, maybe not realizing that the Dow
team makes a very, very strong recommendation that you need to select yes or else you won't
be approved as a delegate.
So why even say that?
Why say that they may choose to opt in?
I mean, if you choose to opt out, then if it's automatically, you're not going to be
approved as a delegate, it doesn't mean anything.
The opt-in doesn't mean anything.
So that's the part where it says, adhere in the FAQ.
What are the criteria to be showcased on the Sandbox delegates dashboard?
It says you must propose your candidacy, have voted on at least one of the last three steps,
present your manifesto, which it means like your vision statement and all that stuff,
like we went over in the interview application, and the most important part, adhere to the
delegate guidelines and code of conduct.
So this doesn't look like it's a choice at all.
It doesn't look like you choose to opt in.
Looks like you must opt in in order to be approved as a delegate.
So the way this makes it seem like it's optional is unfortunate.
I recommend that you, if you don't mean it to be optional, don't write that word there.
Don't write the word optional participation, right?
Mandatory participation.
And for opt-in commitments, delegates must choose to opt in.
That's my recommendation.
If you really mean it to be that you won't approve a delegation, if they don't opt in,
don't choose to opt in.
It's a very contradictory language.
So that's my recommendation.
And let's get into the very last bit of this, which is the abuse scenario.
So I mentioned a number of times that the broadly worded scenarios, the broadly worded
language creates scenarios which can be exploited and used as a weapon against the community.
And I did a little thought experiment to what that abuse scenario would look like.
And here's something that jumped out at me as I was thinking about this.
Because what I'm interested in is who benefits from this?
Who wields the power?
And it's obviously in favor of the Dow team wielding the power against the community if
they choose to.
If you hit someone who is really angry at a delegate, or if you have someone who secretly
resents them, or if they have an axe to grind, or if just for whatever reason they want to
make an example of someone, whatever.
Here's a potential abuse scenario given the way the code of conduct is written and the
FAQs are written right now.
All right.
So let's say you have delegation X. Delegation X just got approved.
They're listed on the sandbox Dow dashboard.
They have 1 million voting power and 1000 members.
Okay.
Delegation X. Not an unreasonable thing to start off with.
Given that we know as part of DowBase.ai we have 2000 voters and 211,000 token holders.
So we, of the 211,000, you roughly have 209,000 people who could delegate their power to someone
else.
So a thousand of 211,000 isn't unreasonable.
So you've got delegation X. They have a thousand members with a thousand voting power.
They see the current SIP.
SIP 15.
SIP 15 is metaverse and disability, a new work frontier.
If you have not voted, please go vote now on SIP 14 and 15.
My SIP is SIP 14, which is window resizing and SIP 15 is disability hiring program.
All right.
Very, very worthwhile effort.
Please go vote.
So they see SIP 15 delegation X with a thousand members and they vote.
They cast their vote.
They say, yep, this is a great thing.
We're going to cast our vote for a hundred percent of our voting power.
All right.
But then we discover member number 968 of those thousand members who only has 50 sand
delegated to delegation X. So it's 50 voting power of the 1 million voting power that delegation
X has was the author of SIP 15 and delegation X missed it.
They didn't see that one of their a thousand members was the author.
This is very easy to do because maybe member 9068 actually has a second wallet that they're
using not to conceal their vote, but no, they're not participating much.
They forgot that they delegated to delegation X and of the many, many delegations that exist
or delegates that exist, maybe 50 of them that are approved just doesn't really realize
it.
I mean, they submit a SIP and the delegation X doesn't realize that one of their members
is the author and the member doesn't communicate with delegation X.
So neither of them realize that a potential conflict of interest exists here.
And why would that be a potential conflict of interest?
Because as we learned in the code of conduct that in section three, there we go, in section
five under conflict of interest, delegates forfeit their ability to, delegates forfeits
their ability to propose a SIP and it later talks about how delegates are not required
or are required to not vote if, and I confirmed this in an interview with the sandbox Dow
team when I interviewed for the delegate, if you're one of your delegation members
is the author that constitutes a conflict of interest.
So they would be expected by the code of conduct to not vote, but it's so easy to not realize
that a conflict of interest has been created here.
So delegation X has already voted, doesn't realize one of their members, one of the thousand
members has is a SIP author, SIP author forgets to tell delegation X or just doesn't communicate
with delegation X.
So delegation X doesn't realize that and boom, you have a conflict of interest.
So let's say one eagle eyed community member or someone on the Dow team realizes this,
discovers this, and then through one reason or another, maybe they don't like delegation
X or maybe they have something against the SIP author, or maybe they just want to make
an example because they want to show the community that they really mean business when they say
conflict of interest is very important for you to not run afoul of, which we learned
toward the autumn that it's very important for this to happen, for conflict of interest
to be avoided and the Dow values the principles of transparency, accountability and integrity
in its government processes and really wants this to be enforced.
So they decide that it's time to throw the book at delegation X and the SIP author.
So what do they do?
They go to sections five, six and seven and they start listing all these things that are
so broadly worded that it could apply to this scenario.
Things like any actual or potential conflict must be disclosed.
Uh oh, delegation X didn't disclose that in violation of section five.
Any potential conflicts should be disclosed, ensuring that all governance activities are
conducted without bias or personal gain.
Uh oh, delegation member number 968 is part of delegation X.
Delegation X gains from this SIP author, SIP passing.
Another violation of section five.
And also in section six and the anti-lobbering efforts, this includes any form of communication
or pressure from external parties of which a SIP author would be.
Also communications that may be influencing the delegates vote should be logged and disclosed.
A failure to do that by delegation X and the SIP author.
Keep going in section seven.
While not all possible scenarios are covered by the code of conduct, you must adhere to
the spirit of conflict of interest rules.
So that just reinforces the external pressure or the potential conflict of interest or anything
that might be construed as personal gain or bias.
There's definitely bias that one of your members of the Dow delegate, you would vote for a
SIP author who you're a delegate to.
So that's a bias.
So there you go.
In violation of one, two, three, four, five sections, five parts in the code of conduct.
So what happens?
Well, in section eight, as I mentioned, it says you can lose your delegate status and
your SIP can be canceled.
So guess what happens after that?
The the Dow team member who wants to either make an example of resents or wants to seek
revenge on the SIP author or the delegation.
Then cancels the SIP, SIP 14, which was all about hiring disabled people into the sandbox
Dow and has connection with European Parliament and the disability strategy, a massive amount
of opportunity there for goodness to happen.
One of the sandbox budgets is sandbox good.
The SIP is canceled.
And what happens to the delegation?
They get banned.
Their delegation status is revoked and goodbye delegation.
A thousand members, a thousand, a million voting power, all of the power, all of the
good that the delegation may have done doesn't matter anymore.
They're done.
So that right there is just one abuse scenario that can occur with the broadly worded language
of the code of conduct.
So I already gave my recommendations for how to reword some of that.
And I'll go over that one more time, just to kind of wrap this up.
So for the in the code of conduct where it talks about the the primary responsibility
of delegates must be to prioritize the long term success and delegates should reflect
the broader community interests.
It's too vague for the most delegates who have a focus or a niche.
I don't think you should be saying reflect the broader community interests.
I don't think you should be saying you must prioritize the long term success is as I've
seen within my own dealings with the Dow team, the long term success could mean that they
don't want another podcast to be funded by the Dow because they themselves want to publish
their own podcast.
So suddenly that's no longer in the interest of long term success of the Dow to have a
competing podcast.
So that could that could really put a few delegates in a bind.
So I don't think you should be I don't I recommend striking those words.
The next part I gave kudos to the the sections below where it talks about voting obligations
being diligent in review, providing constructive feedback.
That was great.
I don't have any recommendations there.
I think that that solves a very a very well known problem within the Dow and voter participation.
But contradictions start to emerge in the disclosure portions and the conflict of interest
portions which are sections five and six where delegates are required to not vote on any
proposal where a conflict of interest exists.
That by itself is great.
But then you pair that with delegates are also required to not vote on anything where
a potential conflict of interest exists.
That is too broadly worded.
It basically means any member of a delegate.
And as we mentioned, some of these delegates already have over 15,000 members.
One of them has over a million members.
And then more realistic, but most of them have over 50 or over 100.
So it's not reasonable to expect the delegate which which may be one or a small delegate
of nine to police over 15,000 members.
So my recommendation is limited to just the delegation leaders where potential conflict
of interest may exist and conflict of interest may exist.
There is middle ground there to be found.
But my recommendation is way too overbearing to especially for an unpaid volunteer ship
role for an unpaid volunteer to police a million members.
No, no.
And then the contradiction that emerges with the avoid the excessive delegation, which
is in section one, where it says delegates are discouraged from encouraging excessive
voting power delegation.
I don't know what this means.
Please provide an example of that because that that I don't know what excessive voting
power delegation means.
Could mean anything.
It's it's an unknown.
The next thing was the contradiction later on in section eight, where it talks about
optional participation, where a delegate may choose to opt into this code of conduct as
if you would be approved to be a delegate if you didn't opt in this code of conduct.
And everything about this code of conduct, the FAQ, the application process, the interview
makes it seem like you must opt in.
So please make it clear, is it really a choice?
Because if it's a choice to opt in, but you're automatically denied delegation, then it's
not really a choice.
You might as well just say it's mandatory to be a delegate.
So please make it clear which way it is.
And those are the those are the biggest loopholes, I think the biggest broadly worded things
that need to be shored up, because as we mentioned that abuse scenario, it's just too it's too
lopsided toward the Dow team, the special counsel and people who willed power and authority
within the Dow to use it against the community.
And the community has very, very little recourse because this Dow is still very centralized.
And it's it's very difficult to get your SIP through the process if the Dow team denies
you, you don't really have a recourse.
And so I mean, what let's just say all this happens, right?
Delegation X gets banned and the SIP voter gets canceled.
The SIP voter then has to wait 30 or 60 days to re per the Constitution, 30 or 60 days
to re-submit.
It then has to go back through the SIP process where it goes through the same Dow team, one
of which just improperly lose their power to ban the delegation of a thousand members
and cancel the SIP of a SIP author.
So now that same person is re-reviewing the SIP that gets re-submitted.
And because we don't really get to see into too much what that process looks like, unless
you submitted, you get to see the back and forth between yourself and the Dow team.
But it's very, very behind the scenes.
And it's it's rife with people just denying and delaying your SIP to where you have no
way, no way to balance that power.
So it's just too, it's too, it's too much abuse that can be introduced into that scenario.
And it's not, it's not good.
It's not good.
So please, Dow team, special counsel, consider how broadly worded the code of conduct is
and the recommendations that I gave.
I'm going to be putting this also into the forum post.
I'll be summarizing my thoughts there.
And yeah, yeah, those are my thoughts.
Overall, I'm super happy that delegation is here.
If I didn't make that clear in the beginning, but that was my review of the forum announcement,
the application link, the interview by the Dow team, the delegation dashboard and the
code of conduct.
And I'm super happy to see delegations arrive.
I think they're going to greatly increase voter participation, as is evidenced by compound
Dow's research and Mia Bow's research with Dow base that it could, you know, upwards
of 80% of those 211,000 voters, or maybe it was 80% increase of the 2000 voters right
now that are participating.
I'm excited.
I'm very, very excited.
So let's go ahead and move on through to the, to the rest of this future episodes.
We have an episode coming up this Thursday.
So a couple of days from now, it is a Dow identity with when airdrop from tech talk
podcast.
He has a background in, in, in web three identity, and we want to connect that I want to connect
that with the sandbox Dow and how we approach identity within our San Fam community.
I'm trying very, very hard to lock in a, the interview with Touche, we just need to confirm
the date.
And then we should be good to go on that.
And as I mentioned, I'm going to be doing a San Fam and sandbox ecosystem where I kind
of showed the, the, what is the sandbox slide here.
I have a much deeper slide deck on this explaining the ecosystem, how they all relate to each
other.
And I'm super excited about that.
I think I'm about 80% done with it.
So you'll, you'll see that coming up.
Okay.
Sandbox spaces.
So if you're wanting to connect to the sandbox Dow or the sandbox and the San Fam, as we
call ourselves and the discord, go to the sandbox game discord.
There is a channel called Dow discussion.
You can also go to the sandbox Dow forums where you can talk with the SIP authors, input
on SIP ideas and different governance posts that are being made about the sandbox Dow
on Twitter.
Look at hashtag San Fam, hashtag the sandbox Dow one word and the hand and hashtag the
sandbox game, all one word, no spaces.
And you can also follow at the sandbox Dow.com.
I'm sorry.
And the at the sandbox Dow and for sandbox spaces throughout the week on Mondays, there
is mocha verse hall on Saturdays.
There's bulls on the block Monday through Friday.
There is coffee with captain whale members does natively digital on Tuesdays and San
Fan Cafe does things periodically monthly with different San Fam members.
This is where a lot of San Fam are congregating are discussing.
And in addition to the forums, Twitter and, and discord.
So get connected and in.
Yeah, vote, please vote.
I need you to vote.
We only have 2000 voters.
And and right now, our proposals are in need of more participation.
So sip 14, which is my sip right now has a 55% yes vote, 26% abstain vote, only 17% no
vote, but only 6.5 of 30 million quorum.
That's 21% really, really need voters.
And then sip 15, which is metafuturas, metaverse and disability hiring program is in the same
same boat as I am 49% yes, 27% no 22% abstain, but only 21% of the 30 million quorum obtained.
So as we interviewed them not long ago, they, it was really surprising to hear they have
really deeply thought about this and making sure that they hire disabled individuals.
So that's, that's deaf, blind, or physically impaired and give them a way to learn the
skills to be San Fam community members, creators and box edit and game makers within the experiences
and a very, very well thought out proposal.
So please go vote.
Go vote.
We need your participation.
And with that, we will conclude.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for being in, in the San Fam.
My name is Lancer at sign Mr. Lancer and at sign meta worlds meta.
Please like follow and subscribe to sandbox out podcast and thank you all for your time.
Have a great day.