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Silo/Council Distinction

Why have two structures? Because each structure works better for different tasks

Silos​

Silos are projects. They are groupings of grants and have a specified goal, requirements, etc. These are projects that have quantifiable deliverables with a start and end date, and those working within silos request funding from the treasury to work on them via grants.

Grants, which are the funding mechanism for silos, are proposed and applied for by the parties who wish to perform the work required by the Silo specification docs. YAM governance reviews, negotiates, and approves the grant.

Councils​

Councils are more like typical, ongoing jobs. Tasks that don’t necessarily have quantifiable deliverables and ending points are done with this structure. Because these types of jobs are open ended and harder to quantify with metrics and KPIs, the scope of councils should be limited to only tasks that can’t work as silos. This is mainly the facilitation work that makes YAM work better

A few examples of tasks that may be better carried out by council members:

  • Moderation duties as this is a job that just requires being around and responding to events but the actual workload is variable.
  • Governance facilitation, which is similar to moderation, but more focused on information and the governance process.
  • Infrastructure maintenance and upkeep. There will always be things to deal with, but it is hard to say what. This should be limited to routine maintenance and not upgrade projects, which should be scoped via a silo and grants.
  • Review and vetting of changes to YAM code and information repos. This is again a limited scope. The review should be for routine actions like simple monthly on-chain transactions.
  • On chain transaction (basic functions) writing, testing, and deploying. Simple(ish), routine stuff like paying grants and

The funding mechanism for Silos is similar to grants, but the amounts and scope should come from token holders. They decide what they want the monthly scope of work to be for the jobs included in the Council and how much they want to pay for it. Those who wish to become Council members may make recommendations and suggestions about how much time they expect each task to need. Token holders then elect the council members who are then responsible for getting the work done. The council can be paid in monthly lump sums and then internally split up funds between themselves and anyone else that helped complete the work using a tool like coordinape.

This is the part of the DAO that is more like the previous model, and more similar to how many other DAOs operate with roles that need to be filled. The distinction for YAM is that these roles are intentionally kept as minimal and advisory as possible.