Let's define the curator role

[remyroy]

The curator role is currently in limbo. Many people have different definitions of it and how it should operate in the DAO. The sooner we precisely define the curator and agree on that definition, the better and the faster we will be able to move forward.

Here are a few important questions that should be answered:

• Should curators be paid? If so, how should they be paid? Should contractors pay them to check their proposal? Should the DAO pay them for their service? Should they be paid daily, weekly or monthly? Should their pay be preallocated in a smart contract controlled by the DAO? What should be expected in return for this pay? If you think they should not be paid, please explain why.

• Should curators be the protectors of last resort against unknown attacks or majority attacks or should they simply verify the bytecode and the identity of the proposals? Should most decisions be left to the DAO token holders to take or should each curator come up with their own filtering rules before the DAO token holders can decide?

• Should the curator multisig wallet be left in the hand of the curators or should there be a more granular control by the DAO to select which curator is added or removed on the multisig wallet? Should there be a new smart contract for the curators?

• Should the curators work in the interest of the DAO token holders? If so, what are the incentives provided for this to work? How are the incentives of the DAO and those of the curators aligned?

• Should the curators be like a filter that check all the incoming proposals and come up with a short list of the genuine proposals? Should it be instead the role of DAO tokens holders to determine what are the genuine proposals?

• Should curators evaluate the merits of a proposal before whitelisting it? Should that decision be left the DAO token holders instead?

Once this is defined, curators should be given the opportunity to decide if they are comfortable with this. Remember that there might be some liability issues related this role.

[s8c]

Here we are.

What you are asking is a very relevant question. It was only a question of time that it became evident. The concerns will grow and the solution will always point in the same direction. I would sum up and rephrase in more general terms:

To what extent can theDAO be decentralised?

Because that is exactly what you are asking: the extent of the role of a centralised agent (the curators) in managing theDAO.

Up to now, the problems theDAO are facing are of technical nature. After sorting them out, it will face another large set of problems, related to the absence of any investment management process. The selection, diligence, negotiation and financial management of a portfolio of private investments won't be done magically. In this area, also theDAO will need to face reality. Mark my words.

Finally, don't forget that with centralization comes legal responsibility. Any veto role assigned to curators will increase their personal regulatory risk and potential liabilities. Curators are going to walk a very fine line. If theDAO has losses, fingers are going to point to the public faces.

[profitofthegods]

I think we have to pay the curators ourselves. If they are paid by contractors then you are just provoking them to act in the interests of the contractors when actually their job is to protect the DAO.

We should minimize their role as much as possible though.

[seki]

Can we put the six questions into dao.consider.it?

[c3works]

Great response to great questions! I believe you are right that the DAO would necessarily end up here.

To what extent can theDAO be decentralised?

This underlies everything, and is a very worthy discussion. It is inescapably ethical, so get ready . I'd like to set the table for this curator debate over degree of centralization with a probing, rhetorical question. The DAO's Manifesto upholds Democracy, but we have not yet unpacked that: Does Democracy mean that the majority may assault the minority?'

Before answering (in your own mind only), consider: We have threads answering 'no' when speaking about things like diversity, for example. Yet we also have threads that contend for 'yes' (in essence) when speaking about tax-the-rich type issues (Proposal Deposit, for example). Yet, who defines what 'assault of the majority' is, anyway...'the majority??' Would that be acceptable if it voted that excluding a group was proper? We're all philosophers now. Thus our worthy struggle.

Clearly the DAO's very existence is a statement about the significant tyranny (and that's what it is) that is evident today in our governments and economic systems, yet we are now faced with an equally-problematic opposite problem which we see reflected in the questions raised at the top of this thread: 'Who governs what?' and 'Who pays?'

We will face this over and over again (especially my rhetorical question about Democracy above), so let's continue: How about those curators?

[Cipher]

I see the curators as a temp role whilst this thing gets some "order out of chaos". It's another defense for now.

With the right user interfaces in place, it should be obvious to any voters that a proposal is just there to steal money. In fact, eventually, the proposal code should make it near impossible for such proposals to go live.

At the moment I don't see this as an easy thing to build though.

Its like we need to come up with some basic vetting/screening algorithm and eventually apply it to the proposal code.

I know this is all very difficult (feels like AI), but I think that any real advancements the DAO is going to make, are going to have to be able to be translated into code, code that is voted into being implemented. After all that is what is making the DAO different and decentralized in the first place.

I don't know if there are any such things in the investment business? Some software that you input variables into and it comes out the other end with nicely formatted data to easily asses the investment. I guess it could start with the basics?

I would hope that machine learning/deep learning industry would take some interest in this area.

[GroTheNetwork]

Without reading the thread my first thought goes towards the ultimate blockchain goal of taking-under governments through being more beneficial over time. So perhaps a curator signature or two might be offered some government agency willing to up their game?

[nvmr]

Curators exist by necessity and their role as I see it is to protect the DAO.
They also are the only thing we have that remotely resembles a governing body.

Now do we as a community see the need for a governance system to emerge? I very much think this is the case. Does it have to be the curators? Not necessarily. They will play a role in it, though.

The question about the role of the curators really comes down to the question about how we want to organize ourselves. But that question cannot be answered just by defining the role of the curator, there is much more to it. 2'500 years history of democracy, in fact.

I am very happy with the curators as they are now and see no reason to load them with any more responsibility than they already bear. That said, I also welcome the initiative to appoint more people as signatories in order to better distribute that load. This is the main reason I'm volunteering to become one.

This is not to say that I don't think we need to work on governance. To the contrary. Just leave the curators alone, at least for the moment.

[matrix]

I think the curators should be eliminated in time, when DTHs start interacting with the DAO and they should be replaced by an alarm system, that could veto the execution of a contract, or unwhitelist an address. However, at the moment I think we need them for a while.

[matrix]

How about keeping only Vitalik as curator, until we figure out how we can get totally rid of the curator function.

[perry]

We should have as many curators as possible to mitigate risk between all of them and keep their quorum low.