This is the first in a series of personal blog posts about the governance of the Filecoin ecosystem.
Inspired by others’ writings about the governance of their own ecosystems (particularly Hudson James’ smattering of writings on the Ethereum ecosystem), my goal is to create a space for openly brainstorming, sharing ideas, and reflecting on the day-to-day governance of the Filecoin ecosystem.
Why? As both a lay researcher into open-source governance and web3, as well as the head of protocol governance at the Filecoin Foundation, I have the rare opportunity to think about and influence the practice of governance in a real-life, developing ecosystem.
It is my hope that this blog can both provide honest and reliable insight for Filecoin community members interested in the metagovernance of the ecosystem, and as a useful artifact for other researchers, etc., who may be looking for information.
A few notes…
Though I intend to at least write monthly reflections, this is still a personal project. The amount and frequency of content is likely to change.
This is truly a personal project, not a direct extension of my work at Filecoin Foundation. No one approved this blog post, no one at the Foundation reviews or edits my posts, and the wallet addressed with which this blog is associated is one of my own personal wallet addresses. No one else has access to it.
I do not quite know what style or format these blog posts will take. I want these to be genuine reflections- not polished essays- and so the amount and tone of content may change from week to week. A noted change reflects only my own preference to experiment, etc., and is not intended to obscure information, etc.
So, why now? One of the central challenges of working on decentralized blockchain projects is managing the dissonance between known and unknown things.
‘Governance’, conceptually, is a long-standing practice. There are many modes of both corporate and open-source governance, as well as decades (centuries?) of deep academic inquiry into the purpose and practice of governing.
And yet, much of the work that we’re doing now feels brand new. There is no silver bullet, out-of-the-box solution for governing systems (despite how hard folks try to build one), and the changing contours of the decentralized tech ecosystem makes it difficult to understand 1) what best practices exist, and 2) when they’re applicable.
Building and maintaining a robust governance system is a complex task, but this complexity is made opaque by the ease that digital tools seem to offer. Governance is more than just a polling system, and more than just a community proposals process. And yet, the smoothness and diffusion of these tools and procedures often obscures complex trade-offs and thoughtful design choices that go into building an ecosystem that is governed in an open, accountable, and scalable way.
After a series of challenging proposals that have pushed at the functional boundaries of our governance system, I believe that the Filecoin governance system is destined to change. FIP0036 and FIP0056, two cryptoeconomic FIPs, introduced existential challenges that the FIPs process could neither mediate nor effectively resolve. Stop-gap procedures were necessary in order to determine consensus; in both cases, the FIPs were rejected. Although I believe these were the most appropriate outcomes from a governance perspective, the processes used to reach each outcome are not robust enough to carry us forward.
Despite my professional role, I have no special knowledge or particular way of making these changes. I do not own FIP0001 or the FIPs process, and cannot singlehandedly change the way the Filecoin community is governed (which is a good thing). In the coming weeks I will myself begin working on a series of proposed updates to FIP0001, and will also be writing more extensively (here, likely) about constitutional governance and why I believe this is a model that our community ought to move towards.
In the meantime, however, I believe it’s important that we guard against the thrash and whiplash that usually accompanies process failure. The Filecoin ecosystem should not run to implement on-chain voting mechanisms without first considering a holistic and reasoned systematic approach to governance design, one rooted in collective principles and standards. We should guard against incremental changes that do not anticipate future needs, or those which fail to grapple with the challenge of (what I have long called) the community momentum problem of governance (more to come). To recover from failure and have the opportunity to iterate and grow is an important moment to seize, and I believe it’s critical that we do not exchange convenience for thoughtful intent.
In other news, we recently…
Reached consensus on FIP0056, which resulted in the FIP being rejected. For meeting recordings and detailed minutes, see HERE.
Launched our first Community Governance Call, a monthly community forum for discussing the governance of the Filecoin ecosystem. You can register for the monthly call series HERE. We’re working on hosting past meeting recordings; in the meantime, if you want access, you can email me at kaitlin@fil.org for access.
If you’re in Filecoin Project Slack, you can join the new #fil-gov channel to participate in async conversations too.
Spent a week of intense brainstorming to discuss current governance needs and potential strategy shifts. A summary of those notes can be found HERE; you’ll have to request access.
Started some comparative research work into other ecosystem governance models, to help establish a reference point for our own proposed process updates. This doc will be made available once it’s complete :)
That’s all for this month; I’m headed out on a much needed vacation and will return in May! Once I do, I’ll have more info to share about upcoming work and governance process improvements.
And, though this blog is a personal project, I’m always open to feedback! If you want more specific info or have questions you want addressed ,feel free to raise them in the #fil-gov channel on Filecoin Project Slack.
Ciao! 👋 🇮🇹