Summary

Form a Klimate Review Committee (KRC) with authority to advance Requests for Comment (RFCs) to formal KIPs, and open Snapshot proposal creation permissions to token holders.

Motivation

In the current governance process, contributors from the Policy team act as a de-facto Review Committee for KlimaDAO: evaluating the community’s feedback on RFCs, drafting KIPs that will be put to a forum vote, and escalating passed forum proposals to Snapshot.

While anyone can post a Request for Comment (RFC) on the governance forum, KlimaDAO Improvement Proposals (KIPs) and Snapshot votes are curated by Policy contributors. This prevents spam and ensures a smooth, orderly governance process, but also limits the ability of aligned community members to contribute to certain stages of the KIP lifecycle. This proposal clarifies the path by which proposals may advance through KlimaDAO governance, increasing credible neutrality and further decentralizing the protocol’s operations.

Proposal

Formation of Klimate Review Committee (KRC)

Create a vetting process for identifying aligned actors from the community, in order to grant forum permissions to community members that will add value to the protocol.

Proof of Participation

Aligned community members will have:

• Demonstrated history of meaningful engagement on the forum and/or Discord (of the past 5 KIPs, engaged with 3 or more).
• Voted on past proposals via Snapshot (of the past 5 KIPs, voted in 3 or more)
• Long-term commitment, as demonstrated by at least a 50% meaningful engagement rate (excluding generic responses like “I’m for this KIP”) on governance proposals (forum and/or Discord) over the past year (May 2022 - May 2023).

Proof of Value

KRC applicants must demonstrate value added to the KlimaDAO community. This can be done in a multitude of ways. One way to demonstrate value in this context is to have your own idea for evolving the protocol, discussing that idea publicly in Discord, and gaining support of the community or contributors. Another way could be to provide insight on existing RFCs and proactively assist in vetting proposals. Proof of Value should demonstrates original thinking and practical action, so anyone can approach it with their own skill set - but it will require a Functional Steward or member of Core to sponsor the claim.

KRC Application Process

Community members who successfully demonstrate both Proof of Participation and Proof of Value will be inducted as the newly formed Klimate Review Committee (KRC) and given the opportunity to advance RFCs to KIPs.

Role & Structure of the KRC

The KRC will have the authority to advance an RFC to a KIP proposal via a shared forum account that requires majority consensus within the KRC membership to post.

To ensure transparency and accountability, discussions by the KRC will have a public, read-only channel in Discord where deliberations and voting outcomes will be visible to the community. This channel will provide a degree of oversight, ensuring that any actions or decisions made by the KRC are visible and accessible by the community.

KRC members will serve three-month terms, can serve multiple terms, and require a majority vote of the KRC to be removed prematurely. ​​This ensures that the KRC remains a dynamic and accountable body that is responsive to the needs of the community and the overall governance goals of KlimaDAO.

This proposal does not allocate any resources to compensate KRC members, though a subsequent KIP may be appropriate in order to allocate the KRC a budget.

Broaden Snapshot proposal creation permissions

In the spirit of orderly, progressive decentralized governance, this proposal would allow any token holder who meets a wsKLIMA-equivalent holding threshold to advance a passed KIP proposal to Snapshot. The thresholds under consideration are 20 wsKLIMA, 200 wsKLIMA and 1000 wsKLIMA.

Implications

Increasing decentralization always comes with risk. Each step along the journey must be taken deliberately and with careful consideration. This proposal provides a framework for opening up the latter stages of the KIP proposal process to the community, increasing the protocol’s credible neutrality and hopefully encouraging greater participation in KlimaDAO governance.

KIPs advance based on “one account, one vote” polling on the forum. If a KIP proposal passes with a 3/5 majority vote (60% minimum), it is escalated to a token-weighted Snapshot vote, where one KLIMA or KLIMA-equivalent (e.g. sKLIMA) counts as one vote.

Under the current governance process, KIPs that pass the forum vote are advanced to a Snapshot vote by a Policy contributor; in the new proposed framework, any token holder who meets the community-voted threshold in wsKLIMA-equivalent holdings can advance KIP proposals that pass the forum vote to Snapshot.

Note: Policy contributors will still advance proposals from the forum to Snapshot in the course of the ordinary governance process; this proposal simply opens the door for token holders to post proposals to Snapshot.

Proposals advanced directly to Snapshot, without going through the informal forum vote, should only be considered under extreme and urgent circumstances. Any proposals that skirt or avoid the governance process should be viewed with extreme skepticism by Snapshot token voters.

Implementation

Should this proposal pass, an application process will be created whereby any community member who demonstrates Proof of Engagement and Proof of Value will be eligible to apply to join the KRC. A community member must have a Core member or Steward vouch for their Proof-of-Value claim and sponsor them until the KRC has enough members to be formally established. The lower bound for a functional KRC is five members; the upper bound is 11 members.

Once the KRC is formally established, future addition and removal of members would be determined within the KRC itself via majority vote, subject to the specified upper and lower bounds of headcount. The application process and required qualifications outlined above would remain in place, but with final admission decided by existing KRC members.

The KRC will operate in public. A channel will be established in the KlimaDAO Discord server, writable by KRC members and readable by all the community. Each KRC cohort will elect an administrator that is responsible for carrying out the will of the KRC and operating the KRC forum account accordingly, i.e. posting passed RFC proposals and rejecting failed RFC proposals.

A Snapshot strategy will be configured allowing addresses that meet the community-voted threshold in wsKLIMA-equivalent holdings to advance KIP proposals from the forum to Snapshot. Snapshot will also be configured with a 24-hour voting delay to deter any unexpected or rushed proposals, as well as provide a window for final review to catch typos and avoid duplicate proposals.