Subject
This proposal is made to inform the community that the first phase of the Ambassador program has ended as it has been 6 months since the program was first implemented. While this is the first iteration of the Ambassador program, I would like to thank the other ambassadors (@dybsy, @max-andrew, and @Frisson) for participating and providing ample feedback on how to ameliorate the program.
The ambassador program kicked off with three protocols; Arbitrum, Optimism, and Rocketpool.
The main responsibilities of the ambassadors for season one was;
Voting on behalf of Hop DAO on the respective protocolâs governance.
Acquire more delegated votes for the ambassador wallet.
Business development and work on integrations with other DAOs on top of the respective ecosystem.
Be up to date on the DAO by constantly reading the governance forum and attending community calls.
It is important to recognize the time and effort that our ambassadors put into the program. For example, MaxAndrew spent time setting up the ambassador operations by creating the multisigs and posting on proposals in the Arbitrum and Optimism governance forums. Frisson lead the delegate week campaign with Tally, which was created to enhance the delegated votes for the ambassador wallets on Arbitrum and Optimism. Dybsy was instrumental in setting up the reth bridge with rocketpool. I focused most of my effort as an ambassador on integrations by reaching out to several protocols within the Arbitrum and Optimism communities, as well as attending their community calls, and some irl events without much success.
Problems
In my opinion, a problem with this first phase of the ambassador program was that the goals werenât clear enough and responsibilities werenât clearly delineated which led to stagnation and lack of focus from ambassadors, including myself.
Questions
Ambassador compensation
While the original post stated that each ambassador shall receive $500/month for every 6-month term I believe it is a good time for the ambassadors and community to weigh in on compensation and results.
o Frisson has stated since the beginning that he will not take compensation.
Solution
My proposed solution with the help of the other ambassadors and authereum labs is that we adjust the ambassador program by:
Adding a Head of the Ambassador program which will be responsible for communicating with each ambassador twice a month to brainstorm and follow through on integration opportunities.
Reducing the number of ambassadors per protocol to one so a single person is clearly responsible for the success throughout the term.
Creating a budget for each ambassador to be able to incentivize other communities and its members to integrate and use Hop.
Refocus ambassador responsibilities towards business development and less on governance within other protocols.
Amend the compensation to a lower flat rate for the ambassadors (and the head ambassador) to a monthly rate of $200/month while adding a commission where an ambassador can request up to 10% of value created through a specific integration that they sourced and executed. This commission would be subject to a 1-year vesting period to further align the ambassadors with the protocol.
In conclusion it would be great to hear any thoughts from the community on how to strengthen Hopâs ambassador program and provide feedback on any aspect of this proposal.
I donât think scaling back compensation is the answer to dealing with divergent or disappointing results.
If the program was initiated without proper parameters, and if things were discovered throughout the process that cause us to rethink mechanics, then we change the program accordingly as discussed in the ambassador call, in this thread, and on the community call. But the program was initiated with defined compensation and all participants acted in good faith toward established goals, and all had contributions of some kind that were demonstrably beneficial.
So, acknowledging that I have an interest in this being an ambassador and therefore you should all consider my opinion accordingly, the compensation should stay as is and be allocated as such.
Thanks for the feedback @dybsy! I guess scaling back compensation wouldnât really solve anything. I am not necessarily advocating towards reduced compensation for the ambassadors but would just like to hear from the community on what to do and how to compensate when a program doesnât pan out at first.
Paying the ambassadors the full amount could signal to DAO participants that the DAO values their time and effort even if the success of a specific program isnât clear. That is why I believe adding a commission incentive for ambassadors further aligns the ambassador program in a way were an ambassador can financially benefit from the value being accrued to the DAO based on their specific efforts. To add more clarity, I believe the head of the ambassador program should also participate in that commission because the head will work in conjunction with each ambassador on setting specific goals and following through to achieve the milestones.
I appreciate you putting this together @francom and think it summarizes the discussions around moving the ambassador program forward really well. Overall, I think giving ambassadors the opportunity to have a bigger impact with their own incentive budget and having more success-aligned compensation with vesting terms will be a step in the right direction.
Regarding compensation for original delegates:
While the original post stated that each ambassador shall receive $500/month for every 6-month term I believe it is a good time for the ambassadors and community to weigh in on compensation and results.
I think itâs most important that we get this right moving forward and that should be the focus but it would be good to find some consensus regarding compensating the original delegates in the next day or two so that payments can be made with the next rewards cycle.
I want to push back on this characterization a bit. The duties were well defined in the original proposal and I think it would set a poor precedent for compensation for Hop DAO roles to be seen as absolute even if duties are not fulfilled. Here is the original wording:
Duties of a Hop DAO Ambassador
These ambassadors would be responsible for the following:
Governance Participation through Voting and Proposal Writing: Ambassadors will participate in governance by voting on proposals, communicating their rationale, and writing proposals.
Seeking Business Development Opportunities through Integrations: An ambassador could potentially broker a discussion in another DAO that would lead to an asset being added to the Hop Protocolâs list of supported assets; an example would be rETH getting listed as a supported asset on the Hop Protocol.
Increasing Hop Protocolâs Governance Power in selected Protocols: An Ambassador would start out as a delegate in a protocol and, over time, increase their governance power on behalf of the Hop DAO.
Attending Community Calls of the Selected DAOs, and also attending the Hop DAOsâ community call: Forming a strong tie with a DAOs community is an important aspect of participation. Ambassadors must attend the DAOs community call and also attend the Hop Community call. This way, they have an opportunity to provide feedback to the community that they represent.
Delegate Thread
Each Ambassador shall maintain a delegate thread on the Hop forum for the DAO the ambassador participates in on behalf of Hop DAO. The thread shall contain the ambassadorâs votes and the decision and rationale for every vote.
I.e.
Vote: [Yes/No/Abstain/Missed]
Rationale:
Quarterly Report
Every quarter, each ambassador shall post a Quarterly Report of its activities within the quarter. This report will include the following:
Hop Protocolâs Governance Power (Changes)
Number of votes done by the ambassador (including any missed vote)
Proposals are written by the ambassador
Progress of business development opportunities.
That being said, there are circumstances that should be acknowledged.
@max-andrew put a lot of effort into getting multisigs set up for the program and making steps toward getting voting power delegated.
@francom has taken the lead and put a lot of effort into rethinking the program as shown in this proposal.
@dybsy helped with business development around the launch of rETH bridge. There hasnât been many opportunities since but I hope he will still help recruit Rocket Pool node operators to participate as bonders in Hop v2 even if the timing lands after this program has ended.
@Frisson has declined compensation from the beginning but still worth mentioning that he has been really helpful with bringing perspectives from a broad set of DAOs back to Hop.
With all of this in light and if others agree, I think full compensation ($3k for @max-andrew@francom
and @dybsy) could makes sense given the above contributions, some of which fall outside of the defined duties. Ultimately, the changes suggested above should help address alignment and the varying degrees of effort an ambassador may take on.
I think the point @dybsy is making that I agreed with is that often programs like these seem very well-defined initially but incrementally change over time â often somewhat informally â following community call discussions and different RFC and election posts. This means thereâs a lot of tribal knowledge that isnât reflected in any one post in addition to the responsibilities that are required but werenât considered in the drafting. I think it will be important to consider this moving forward with DAO operations.
Separately, based on my reading of the HIP and given @francom and I were ambassadors for two organizations, doubled our workload by getting involved in multiple communities, and were expected to do twice the work within the Hop DAO to manage them, full compensation would actually be $6k as calculated by the HOP price 6 months after the program launch on Oct 29.
Max, in previous discussions you said that you had stopped doing ambassador duties when you started taking on work with Labs (starting in July) and only wanted compensation for the early months. Ultimately, this program needed to be reworked because Hop had not voted in Optimism or Arbitrum and was missing out on key opportunities in both DAOs. Why the change of heart now?
I personally have no issue with full compensation if thatâs what folks think is fair but would love to hear from folks that arenât being directly compensated as well. (cc @fourpoops@thegreg.eth@Bob-Rossi@olimpio@lefterisjp)
Chris, I absolutely never stopped doing ambassador duties as you should know when I recently sent you extensive details about the state of intra-Superchain bridging and shared sequencer research for Optimism or when I had direct conversations with the founders of Arbitrum about finality and their vision of bridging on the request of Labs at Pragma New York which I paid for out of pocket.
Furthermore, Franco and I voted in Optimism for as long as we could â at which point I personally pivoted to seeking new ways to get voting power. Snapshot
Similarly, the ability to vote in Arbitrum was severely hampered by the necessary process of the multisig election and handoff but I nevertheless continued to beat the drum with Hop Labs to make sure we created an Arbitrum community multisig that would be able to delegate to the ambassador multisig I also created. This is in line with the proposal I authored. Snapshot
I am fully entitled to claim the full amount and I will be doing so. I more than welcome all members of the community to weigh in as well as Iâm sure theyâll agree with the basic fairness of equal pay for equal work.
Going forward having a more of a commission based structure seems logical, and if reducing the fixed amount is needed to balance this, i see no issues with that.
To set a good precedent, perhaps the existing ambassadors could still each draw up a retrospective Quarterly Report thread as per the original ambassador proposal. While understanding there were challenges to voting, etc, having consistency of reporting going forward, even if the reports are light, is prudent.
It might be that the new Head Ambassador has different ideas, but initially anyway, it would be good for the future ambassadors to update their threads on an ongoing basis. This way the community can be kept abreast of the activities outside of community calls, and possibly assist with initiatives.
Also, if patterns or themes emerge across all the Quarterly Reports, those can be incorporated as more formal responsibilities for future periods.
While there were both positive and negative aspects, it is crucial to extract lessons from both unfavorable and favorable moments and consider them as valuable insights for future improvements. Regarding compensation, it is advisable to consider ambassadors as eligible recipients, and Chrisâs newly proposed compensation model aligns with the notion of acknowledging and rewarding the proactive efforts demonstrated by the ambassadors in the future.
It sounds like most people are aligned based on the information here and on the community call. It feels like the efforts by the ambassadors (whether explicitly successful or not) and lessons learned/experienced gained has paved the way for a better iteration of this program and others like it.
Based on this, I agree that the full compensation to all 6 ambassador roles should be made, per the original proposal. Going forward, I think future programs can learn from this and more explicitly define all aspects of a proposed program to avoid ambiguity, as discussed on the community call. The next payment is scheduled to go out in the coming days, so please add any final comments here if desired before then.
In order to incorporate the feedback provided here and on the community call, it sounds like @thegreg.eth suggestion of a retrospective report is widely accepted and should be great data for the DAO! I do believe, however, it should not block the compensation payment, as it is an additional task to be completed that was added after the conclusion of the program. With that said, I think a great path forward would be to execute the payment to fulfill the original program and to ask the ambassadors to submit this report for the benefit of the DAO as a final transfer of knowledge to the DAO.
If that sounds good to everyone, the compensation can be made soon and the DAO can move forward with all these learnings.
I will post some thoughts on how we can improve the ambassador program moving forward at a later date where I have some more time to fully write them up, but due to the time-sensitive nature of compensation payments Iâll note here now that I donât have issue making the payouts as initially discussed due to reasoning below:
Based on the duties and responsibilities as noted in the initial thread ( [RFC] Hop DAO Ambassador Program - Hop Ecosystem - Hop), it seems the four âdutiesâ were attended to, or at least attempted to be done within the constraints of the other DAOs. As we found out, some of the âdutiesâ were beyond the scope of the project as it stood. Or impossible to do due to the other DAO rules. From what Iâve heard and seen it seems that anything not accomplished was not due to lack of trying.
That said, it was a little disappointing to see the lack of delegate threads & updates in the form of quarterly reporting. This is probably something to look more into as the moves into the future. The lack of quarterly reporting seemed to have left any updates occurring on the bi-weekly calls, which will be completely missed for those who canât attend. Or even for those who attend, we then lack a place to reference back too. That then leaves us in a situation like this⌠Given the payment amount and responsibilities, there really is no excuse not to be doing this type of reporting.
While I donât necessarily want to set precedent that ignoring certain stated duties of the program can be handwaved when it comes to payment, I also think itâs clear any initial run of a program is going to have speedbumps along the way. As such, an imperfect output realistically is expected. The ambassadors all looked to have put in a good-faith effort given the challenges faced, and while I was hoping for more (non-biweekly call) communication⌠I donât think that alone is enough to not pay out / reduce the payout.
Hey Bob appreciate the feedback and largely agree with what youâre saying. I think context matters a lot here so I just wanted to clarify a couple points as not just an ambassador but also a co-author of the proposal.
First, the facts on the ground were different than we expected. The delegate thread looks for âthe ambassadorâs votes and the decision and rationale for every vote.â When this program was drafted, there was an expectation we would build a long list of votes which members of the community might want to weigh in on.
Instead, and because of the challenges you mentioned, the entirety of the Arbitrum and Optimism delegate threads would have been a single post approving 4 broad Optimism Intents. I felt there was an understanding there wouldnât be much benefit to a formal thread given the circumstances. We posted our rationale on Optimismâs forum, but I agree it would have been helpful to post a central one to Hop as well regardless if not just to highlight the issues we were facing around garnering voting power.
Second, my understanding of the quarterly report section was less about satisfying filing requirements and more about staying on the same page with the community broadly about how weâre building the program and generating value for the DAO. Thereâs a difference in language between the delegate thread section and the quarterly report section as well. While the delegate thread sections asks ambassadors to âmaintain a delegate thread on the Hop forum,â the quarterly report section just calls for them to âpostâ a report.
I donât think Iâm the only ambassador who felt that by consistently getting on stage to present our work during community calls we not only satisfied the spirit of the requirement, but in some ways exceeded it. My understanding was that I wasnât just submitting a document, but presenting my work âin personâ in real time and making myself available for immediate questions and feedback. Still, I agree having written records of our learnings is valuable. Your interpretation is totally reasonable and itâs since been corrected with my recent threads.
Ultimately, like you also point out, the drafters of the program knew it would be experimental and not just benefit from, but also need to, evolve over time. I believed we were making sensible decisions given our situation, but agree this could have been communicated more clearly and broadly and it will be useful to carry through into the next iteration.
Hey Max, all good points. Especially on the bi-weekly calls. They were appreciated for sure, and hope I didnât come off as dismissive of them above!
A big part of why Iâd like to see the posted communication is so you all can get credit for what you do. Some of the things listed above I had no clue was going on (or probably more likely I heard them on the call and forgotâŚ). So I donât want that to get lost when it comes to any re-election, or if we institute a commission model it helps with proving the compensation is deserved.
The simplest solution may just be a dedicated thread for each project where any update can be posted. Doesnât even have to be crazy detailed, just some indication of what is being done and updates. And it gives a place for non-ambassadors to contact you if need be.
Do appreciate your follow-up posts on the OP / ARB retrospectives. Both for the info, but also I think it will be useful for determining success and pain points as the we discuss future ambassador goals.
Everything you said was completely reasonable and things I also wouldâve wanted to know about â not dismissive at all. Totally agree with this point about the written communication as well. Glad to see weâre on the same page and really do appreciate the feedback as it will just make our processes better moving forward.
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