Formed in July 2021, the community board of the Ref Finance DAO has been an integral part of the operations of Ref Finance, from voting on key decisions of the protocol to product testing, legal dealings, community management, and marketing. After four months of organic growth and experimentation, the time has come to consolidate on the membership and structure of the Ref community DAO.
The community board proposes the following:
- Addition to the Ref Finance DAO’s council
The council of the Ref DAO are a group of core members and partners of Ref who have the capacity to put forth proposals for voting. They work in unison with the community board to put up votes for key policies and campaigns concerning Ref Finance in a timely fashion.
Hence, it is necessary that someone such as Marco Sun (sunhao.near), who is a core developer for Ref Finance is able to partake as a member of the council.
For this reason, the Ref community board moves to add sunhao.near to the Ref DAO council.
- Removing inactive members from the community board
As is the case for any organization, a successful DAO requires the enthusiasm and continued activity on the part of its members. For this reason, after almost four months of operation in its current form, the Ref Community DAO proposes to remove inactive members and open up the doors for new and engaged members.
As of October 31st, the community board of the Ref DAO consists of 20 members:
- f0e4509557e25c4fa99591e71f24365778d72b80bcf71834279a72d71df94be6
- thb0301.near
- blaze.near
- messagebox.near
- mob.near
- diamond.near
- miyagi.near
- ozymandius.near
- hieunmben100.near
- khbw.near
- realmadridcf.near
- riqi.near
- guilds.near
- wmheng.near
- rimberjack.near
- fluxbux.near
- peterflux.near
- chluff.near
- jusdao.near
- Alejandro.near
As part of the community board of the Ref DAO, members are expected to contribute in areas including, but not limited to,
Project management: planning and documentation
Product testing: unit testing and end-to-end testing
Product strategy: benchmark and market analysis
User support and community moderation
PR and Communication
An active Ref community DAO member is defined as someone who does a number of activities such as,
Challenging Council’s proposals
Sharing his / her opinion(s) on different topics raised by the Community
Being proactive and acting in the protocol’s best interests
Exercising independent judgement (Board members should not be delegates who simply implement the commands of other parties)
Exercising his / her voting right
Participating in the weekly community calls
(Further details on expected and realized contributions over the past months can be seen in this rewards proposal.)
Based on this, the community board proposes to remove two accounts, for they have met none of the baseline expectations for the community DAO members, such as voting, participation in the relevant communications channels (e.g. Telegram, Basecamp), participation in the weekly syncs, overall not showing any interest in continuing as a DAO member.
The two accounts* are:
- Realmadridcf.near - reason: inactivity
- Guilds.near - reason: inactivity
*There were other accounts with overall low activity, but they have expressed will in staying on and actively contributing from now on. To clarify, inactive members have not received rewards as part of the previous community board rewards scheme.
In addition to the above, and following his will, we suggest that Didier is removed from the board. Having already an official position in the team and being in the Dev DAO, we believe that this decision will encourage objectivity, diversification and most importantly will avoid any conflict of interest.
Didier’s account is:
- F0e4509557e25c4fa99591e71f24365778d72b80bcf71834279a72d71df94be6
Note: any other current member who thinks that his / her personal interest does affect the exercise of independent judgement for the DAO should be pro active and ask to be removed.
- Adding new members to the community board
As mentioned before, the DAO is set to evolve and welcome new members. The Ref community board is in agreement when it comes to having a good turnover to encourage commitment and diversification.
Therefore, the board moves to add new members to the community DAO based on alignment of incentives, a track record of active involvement in and contributions to the Ref Finance community, as well as expressed interest in joining the DAO. The proposed members are:
- Ethan (isan.near): founder of Stake.gg, Pulse DAO contributor
- Expected to contribute on business development, product testing, and strategic partnerships as a NEAR ecosystem partner
- Vladislav (cronus.near): Russian community manager
- Expected to contribute on product feedback, community building, and marketing
- Sanket (sanketn81.near): Ref Finance Telegram moderator
- Expected to contribute on community management, product feedback, testing, and content creation
- Ben (beng.near): Ref Finance Telegram moderator and developer (self-described “protector of the realm”)
- Expected to contribute on community management, product feedback, testing, bug bounties, and security
- Cudam (cudam321.near): Ref Finance Telegram moderator
- Expected to contribute on community management, content creation, testing and product feedback
- Establishment of the Supreme Community Board
In addition to the reconstitution of the board itself, the community DAO also moves to establish the “Supreme Community Board,” which in reference to the “Supreme Court”, is a separate community board whose purpose is to manage and arbitrate the internal operations of the community board. The purpose of the Supreme Board is to take responsibility for the managerial work required by the community board, such as revisiting the rewards and membership policies and creating proposals for them, on behalf of the community board.
Based on discussion among the DAO members, three members have been nominated to take responsibility of this initiative:
- AVB (alejandro.near)
- Didier (colibri.near)
- Rimberjack (rimberjack.near)
For this extra work, these three members will be compensated additionally, on top of their regular contributions to the community board. Further details on the amount of extra rewards will be detailed in the next rewards proposal.