On the sidelines of the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) in Brussels, a vibrant gathering of over 30 decentralized technology practitioners and academics came together to explore governance solutions for decentralized tech projects. The event featured three insightful breakout sessions where the Blockchain Governance Toolkit produced by Project Liberty Institute in collaboration with BlockchainGov was used to guide the workshop discussions and solution-design process.
The Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), particularly its draft governance framework was the focus of one of these breakout session led by Wil Wade, one of the co-authors of the first DSNP whitepaper. It received a lot of valuable feedback from the governance experts who actively participated in the session.
The workshop tackled three challenges DSNP currently encounters or will in the future:
- Progressive Decentralization
A primary concern was transitioning from a centralized founding team to a more decentralized governance model. The challenge lies in balancing this decentralization with the need for expedient decision-making, especially as the user base grows.
- Participation Incentives
The “no pay for play” model aims to foster genuine participation without financial incentives. Discussions revolved around finding alternative ways to motivate governance participation, particularly as the user base expands.
- Norms vs. Rules
The framework seeks to translate social norms into enforceable rules and procedures. Establishing conditions by which web applications using DSNP can make these norms binding through contractual agreements rather than code alone is a path worth exploring to ensure the Mission & Principles of DSNP are enforced.
Key Discussions Points - Flexibility, Functionality and Legitimacy
The governance challenges DSNP is encountering are somewhat similar to a lot of other decentralized projects. Many examples of projects that faced similar governance challenges were shared, which helped derive key insights and strategies.
One of the insight shared regarding the current model displayed in the DSNP Governance Framework v.1 is that it reflects expectations of potential participants that the project might not be attracting at the present time. One practitioner in the room shared how they, in their project, designed their own governance framework based on their aspirations for participation, rather than the reality of actual participation. This approach, however, led to many challenges, including failing to attract the desired participants and overlooking the needs of those who were actually involved. Indeed, what is fundamental is that the governance represents the user base. Therefore, it was suggested to put in place a flexible governance structure that can scale and build legitimacy without prefiguring centralization to complement the current model.
The question of participation and the incentives to participate, especially given our choice of a “no pay for play” model was also at the center of the breakout session. It was suggested to reinforce functional interactions between stakeholders categories. A participation model around community (core members and other circles), recognition (access to different part of the project) and responsibility (giving participation specific role) was also suggested.
Maintaining legitimacy is essential for effective decentralization, and practices like community calls and GitHub code repositories foster trust through transparency. This needs to be continued as it now currently pursued. Addtionally, it was suggested to create a sort of “minimum viable governance” to ensure functional governance. One idea was to design a “constitution” by creating a living document to formalize governance processes.
Future Steps
The outcomes of this workshop will guide the DSNP Advisory Council’s Governance Working Group. The group will take into consideration these initial feedback and keep on refining the governance framework.
Should you be interested in joining this work towards the progressive decentralization of DSNP governance, please write directly at dsnpfeedback@projectliberty.io or post your thoughts on the DSNP Forum, section Governance.
Sarah Nicole is a Senior Policy & Research Associate for Project Liberty Institute.
