Hi all - duncand from Boardroom 2 here

Part of our team’s mission is to increase informed participation in governance, and as a project supporting Optimism voters we thought it would be useful to provide a weekly recap of recent governance activity in the Optimism community. While the Foundation releases a fantastic general weekly recap 1, we feel a governance-focused summary will be useful for delegates and voters due to the rapid pace of governance news and updates. When appropriate we’ll also note a few specific areas for action on timely subjects.

Within our weekly recap, we’ll provide a look back at:

• Proposals
• Governance changes
• Impactful operating suggestions, and
• Critical governance-related discussions across Discourse, Twitter, and Discord.

The recap is intended to provide an overview of what’s happening in governance and easy access to the most critical information—so that it’s easy to stay up-to-date and make informed decisions.

The first recap will be posted today. We’d love to hear your feedback and any suggestions you have!

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Week of August 15, 2022

TL;DR: Optimism is in the midst of a reflection period and considering significant updates to the governance process. See below for all the details.

Summary

A brief recap of where we’re at (it’s been busy!):

• Season 1 of Optimism Governance voting ended on August 3rd with Voting Cycle #4.
• We entered the second week of a reflection period during which ideas about and feedback on the governance process have been actively solicited.
• A special Voting Cycle #5 will be held from August 25 through September 7 to vote on proposed governance process improvements.
• Season 2 will begin on September 8 with Voting Cycle #6, which will enact any governance improvements passed in the previous cycle.
• See this governance update from @ben-chain for a full review.

Proposed Changes

Operating Manual

Optimism’s Operating Manual, which describes the mechanics of the governance process, is being updated by the Foundation in response to observations made and feedback received. Draft v0.2 2, will go into effect with Season 2. Among the many changes contemplated:

• switching from a two-week to a three-week voting cycle
• increasing to two the number of delegate approvals needed for a proposal to move to a vote
• changing the quorum from 10% to 30% of votable $OP supply

This is the time to provide feedback on the draft 2 if you haven’t already.

Proposal Template

A new grant proposal template 1 has also been put forward by the Foundation during this reflection period. The draft template incorporates a number of suggestions from the community and should make the merits of each proposal easier to assess.

Provide your feedback here 1.

Governance Committees

In response to observations made of Season 1 and in keeping with their experimental spirit, the Optimism Foundation has proposed the use of Governance Committees 1 in Season 2. The committees (five in different areas are suggested) are meant to help distribute the work of assessing proposals, which has been overwhelming, particularly for delegates.

The details 1 of committee formation and responsibility are worth an attentive read.

Proposals for committees are to follow a specific template and will be voted upon in special Voting Cycle #5 (which opens this week, on August 25). Here are the committee proposals that have been put forward:

• @katie’s proposal for a DeFi committee.
• @Dhannte’s Committee Proposal for DeFi
• @MoneyManDoug’s proposal for a DeFi committee
• @Krzkaczor’s proposal for a tooling committee
• Plus, a query 1 from @OPUser about the utility of a "conflict committee"

In The Forums

• Delegate updates: The Delegate Updates Thread collects communications directly from a number (currently six) of active Optimism delegates.
• Delegate commitments: Keep your eye on this thread to learn more about each delegate.
• Valuable observations: @raho and @tnorm provide productive commentary on Season 1 of the Governance Fund. They’ve also created a spreadsheet 1 that tracks the participation rate (among other things) of the top 50 delegates.
• Pause for decentralization? @polynya suggests pausing Governance Fund voting cycles until "minimum viable decentralization" is achieved.
• OP for gas? Long thread about whether to switch OP 1 from being a governance token.

On Governance Calls

Governance calls are an excellent way to stay up-to-date and contribute:

• @katie is organizing and hosting bi-weekly governance calls, and they’re open to anyone.
• Recordings of the first call and the second call 1 are available.
• The next call is scheduled for August 30.

Download the .ics file 1, import it to your calendar, and read the previous call notes here.

On Twitter

• Delegate dashboard: Michael Silbering points us 2 to Optimism’s dashboard on Dune.
• Poor participation: @polynya argues 2 that delegate participation "is getting very low."
• Token transfers: The Optimism Foundation explains 1 recent $OP transfers from a multisig.
• #OPSummer is heating up!

This is good summary, thank you for doing this.

We can also use such update to measure engagement, if same stuff is repeating or list is getting smaller, we know that the overall engagement is going down and vice-versa.