Delegate Responsibilities & Next Steps for Compensation Framework

Delegates Operations
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As we continue implementing the delegate compensation framework discussed in the [RFC] Compensation for Delegates and formalized in [SIP5.6], I want to clearly outline what is expected from all @Recognized_Delegates going forward into the Governance V2.

This post is meant to:

  • clarify responsibilities

  • set expectations for remaining eligible for monthly compensation

  • ensure smooth coordination for DAO operations

  • provide a direct call to action for all delegates

Please read carefully, especially if you intend to continue receiving monthly SUMR compensation.

1. Please Share Your Telegram Handle With Me

To streamline coordination around:

  • governance reminders

  • last-minute proposal clarifications

  • cross-delegate communication

All delegates should DM me on the forum with their Telegram handle.
This helps avoiding gaps in communication and ensures you get all governance pings in real time.

2. Expectations for Delegates

Compensation is not automatic, it is earned through consistent engagement, as defined in SIP5.6. Below is a simplified checklist of what is required each month:

2.1 Voting Participation Critical

Delegates must participate in at least >50% of all votes each month.
Higher participation increases payouts, and lower participation makes the delegate ineligible entirely.

This includes:

  • Informal Support Indication (Forum)
    *Applies to all RFCs that include a poll option.

  • Onchain votes (Tally)

If you want to stay eligible, you must show up to vote.

2.2 Forum Activity Essential

To maintain a minimum level of engagement and DAO memory, eligibility requires:

  • 20+ forum comments OR 1+ new forum topic per month
    (this also unlocks the Activity Boost from the SIP5.6)

This ensures Lazy Summer DAO continues to have:

  • thoughtful discussion

  • early feedback on RFCs as well as upcoming SIPs

  • risk-oriented debate

  • active governance culture

Lurking ≠ participating.

2.3 Poll Participation Required

Many RFCs include offchain forum polls (Informal Support Indicator) that gauge early sentiment before a SIP is drafted.

All delegates are expected to:

  • vote in forum polls

  • comment if they have reservations

  • signal alignment or concerns clearly

An RFC connected poll with @Recognized_Delegates participation speeds up the entire governance process.

2.4 Ethical Standards & One-Delegate Rule Mandatory

Per [SIP5.6]:

  • each entity may operate only one delegate

  • any attempt to “game” activity requirements (spam posts, artificial engagement, duplicate accounts) results in immediate disqualification

@Recognized_Delegates and the Lazy Summer community are expected to report suspicious behavior so the system remains fair.

3. If You Plan to Continue Receiving Compensation

You must consistently do all of the following:

  1. Vote on all proposals (target >90%)
  2. Comment on RFCs and SIPs
  3. Participate in offchain polls
  4. Maintain monthly forum engagement
  5. Share your Telegram handle with me (via DM)
  6. Follow the one-delegate, no-gaming rule

Compensation will only go to delegates who meet all criteria each month.

4. What Happens Next

Each month:

  • All delegates activities are tracked

  • Voting participation is calculated

    • Delegate tiers are updated
    • Forum activity is checked
    • Compensation eligibility is determined

  • Disbursement is prepared during the first week of the following month
    *Distribution calculations occur once all proposals from the month are executed (as @techsqrt highlighted).

A Dune dashboard is live to make all metrics transparent.

5. Call to Action

  1. DM me your Telegram handle.
  2. Confirm you understand the monthly expectations.
  3. Comment below any questions, concerns, or suggestions on refining the compensations rules going forward into the Governance V2.

This helps us keep coordination tight as the DAO grows and the number of proposals increases.

Looking forward to continuing next governance cycles with all of you!

–jensei

4 Likes
Ceazor Delegate Statement
Lazy Summer Governance Recap [December 2025]
[SIP3.11.3] Delegate Rewards Distribution (December)
Community Call #10: Governance, Security & Delegate Rewards
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Thanks for laying this out. I had a new delegate reach out, and I can point them to this topic now!

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I hereby confirm I understand the monthly expectations.

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We advocate against this. Actually you want people to say nothing unless they have high-signal and some conviction. The best governance is quiet and watchful. This necessitates a lot of slop, or you have to go down the rabbithole of qualitative assessment aka subjective evaluation.

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Accepted and good to have ethical considerations here.

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Nice Framework. Confirm my understanding

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I see! Thank you for your input @rspa_StableLab, I am wondering then - maybe this could be a good opportunity to reframe how the Activity Boost is calculated (below is a quote from SIP5.6):

Any thoughts here? @Recognized_Delegates

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I agree on the forum comments; you don’t want alot of spamming into the forums as it creates alot of noise that is not needed. You could also use “Likes”, and the user polls as a way to document forum activity so it shows they are at least reading the forums. I am a fan of at least 90% voting participation (need to have room encase a vote doesn’t go through when you think it did - has happend to me a few times over the years).

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  1. I Confirm I understand the monthly expectations.
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Agreed.

I’m personally for as little governance as needed to be a productive protocol

Off topic, but I believe the amount of delegate compensation can even be reduced if a group gets formed that propose new yield sources based on clear cut criteria. The reduced compensation to delegates can then be used to fund such a group.

In general I think a user can think of lazy summer similar to an ETF, there should be clear rules for what gets included and what doesn’t in terms of underlying, and the governance should only step in there where the rules are opaque.

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Maybe the Delegate Compensation (SIP5.6) should be reviewed and enacted post transferability of SUMR as we will have more understanding of the value that is being allocated to delegates for their work.

Great to kick off this discussion early, and already explore some mechanics that would make it easier for us to come up with a Compensation for Delegates V2 - starting from distribution of the February 2026 compensation?

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February sounds appropriate to me.

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Building on the shared concern here about minimizing noise (e.g., +20 comment requirements) while still recognizing meaningful engagement, we’ve actually been refining a concept called the Peer Recognition Score (PRS) that solves this exact trade-off. It’s designed to replace arbitrary quantity metrics (like the +20 comment rule) with weighted peer validation.

This allows a delegate to remain quiet and watchful, posting just one high-signal analysis, and still unlock the Activity Boost if their peers validate it. Unlike a simple “5-like” threshold which is easily gamified, PRS uses an algorithm to weigh likes based on the forum user’s reputation/ “likers” thus providing clear rules without needing subjective committee oversight.

As we reframe the Activity Boost for Governance V2, would anyone be interested in seeing the adjusted parameter for this framework to make it more relevant to lazy summer dao? It’s still a work-in-progress, but we’d love to post it here to get your feedback on potentially using it as an objective “Quality Metric”.

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Lazy Summer DAO Delegate Dashboard by CuriaLab
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yes! sounds good! definitely interested in exploring more about the PRS

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This seems very sensible. In general you want to incentivize behaviour that is positive. Engagement quantity isn’t.

So potentially forming working groups or councils is better than predicating incentives on number of replies.

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Pinging @Recognized_Delegates here for the next steps in shaping the compensation framework as the month of January is coming to an end with expected delegate rewards to be proposed during the first week of February (latest). We can continue exploration and set it in stone as proposed starting from February 2026 - if you guys agree.

So far, what I am sensing is:

  1. SUMR token is now trading and with the present valuation, how are delegates feeling about the payment totals (split in Tiers).
  2. Discounting the quantified forum contributions as means for calculating the bonus rewards.
  3. Possibility of utilizing Peer Recognition Score (PRS) - as shared during a community call and here on the forum by @Curia.

What are we missing and what would be your ideal case-scenario on the setup going forward?

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Thanks @jensei for summarizing the discussion. To build on your points, we wanted to share some data-driven observations from 2025 that strongly support this direction.

We analyzed the Delegate Rewards data from 2025 to understand the correlation between Treasury spend and Governance activity. Through this, we identified a significant misalignment in our current incentive model: the DAO currently pays the highest rate per decision during the months with the least amount of activity.

The data shows an inverse correlation between governance workload and treasury payout.

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Evidence 1: The current system creates an imbalance between effort and reward during high-activity vs. low-activity months.

  • For May, there were 14 proposals but pay out was only ~126,500 SUMR
  • For June, there was only 1 proposal the payout was 152,000 SUMR.

In June, the DAO paid nearly the second-highest monthly total of the year for a single proposal. By contrast for May, one of the busiest governance months, resulted in significantly lower total compensation.

This highlights a structural misalignment: treasury spend does not scale with the amount of governance work being done. Under the current system, quiet months are effectively paid at a premium, while busy months are discounted.

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Figure 1: Line Graph comparing “Number of Proposals” vs “Total Payout” showing the June spike

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Figure 2: Bar Graph comparing “Number of Proposals” vs “Total Payout” showing the June spike

Evidence 2: The Activity Threshold Challenge

The Activity Boost was originally designed as quantitative incentive to reward delegates who go beyond simple voting and actively contribute to governance discourse. However, the current structure allows delegates to qualify through two distinct paths: forum based (comment volume & topic threads) or 100% participation (voting attendance).

Data suggests that the 100% participation criteria has become the default path for most delegates, effectively bypassing the intended focus on forum contribution. This creates a paradox where reward eligibility actually increases as governance demand decreases:

  • In June (1 proposal): With a minimal governance proposal, 100% of eligible delegates (17/17) qualified for the boost. In a low-activity environment, maintaining 100% participation required lower effort.

  • In October (6 proposals): Despite an increase in governance activity compared to quiet months, qualification for the boost dropped to ~52% (13/25).

This indicates that the 100% participation path has inadvertently become a substitute for the intended forum contribution. During quiet periods, this quantitative threshold is easily met, allowing the boost to be triggered by attendance alone rather than meaningful contribution. As a result, the current framework incentivizes meeting participation-based metrics rather than rewarding the high-quality discourse it was originally designed to focus on.

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Figure 3: Graph for “Eligible for Activity Boost” vs “Total Delegates” across months

Scaling Decentralization and Fixed-Cost Trends

As the DAO matures, the delegate set has expanded significantly, which is a positive indicator of increasing decentralization. However, this growth also establishes a higher fixed-cost baseline for the Treasury each month.

  • March: ~118k SUMR (14 Delegates)

  • December: ~165k SUMR (23 Delegates)

While expanding the delegate set supports a broader and more decentralized governance base, it also results in a higher baseline expenditure that scales with headcount. The increase from March to December is driven primarily by this growth in the delegate set; as more members join, Base Pay obligations scale linearly, even during cycles where governance activity remains flat.

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Figure 4: Line graph showing the “Subtotal (SUMR)” trend line rising from Feb to Dec

Forward Paths for Realignment

To address these observations, we propose exploring two distinct approaches to optimize the incentive structure. These paths aim to balance the need for decentralization with efficient treasury management.

A. Lowering pay to better match workload

B. Raising the bar for delegate activity to qualify for bonuses

Path A: Optimizing Resource Allocation (Dynamic Base Pay)

The Logic: Align treasury expenditure with actual governance throughput to ensure sustainable scaling.

Instead of a static monthly retainer, Base Pay could be structured to scale based on the governance workload of each cycle. We suggest a tiered model that differentiates compensation based on activity levels:

  • Low-Activity Tier: A reduced base rate acting as a retainer to ensure delegate availability and context maintenance.

  • Standard Activity Tier: The baseline compensation for a typical volume of proposals.

  • High-Activity Tier: A baseline rate supplemented by an activity multiplier to reflect expanded workload.

This “responsive” approach allows the Treasury to scale its spend based on the volume of work required. In months like June, payout would naturally adjust to reflect the lower demand, while in high-volume months like May, compensation would increase to reflect the expanded workload.

Path B: Raising the Bar (Quality-Based Boost)

The Logic: If we are paying full price, we demand higher standards. Hence a transition from quantitative participation metrics to qualitative contribution standards.

To return the “Activity Boost” to its original intent, we propose moving away from easily met quantitative thresholds (such as 100% participation or comment volume) and and exploring more robust qualitative filters.

  • Potential Mechanic: The use of peer-driven validation models, such as the Peer Recognition Score (PRS) mentioned above or other community-based signaling mechanisms.

  • Framework: Rather than rewarding attendance or volume, the system would track engagement and validation from other verified delegates or community members to identify high-signal contributions.

  • Intended Outcome: Under this model, the Activity Boost would transition into a signal-based reward. This would allow delegates to qualify based on contributions recognized by the community or peers as high-value, aiming to decouple the incentive from simple participation and re-align it with meaningful governance discourse.

Request for Feedback

We are looking for community sentiment on these two approaches.

  1. Would a Dynamic Base Pay model provide a fairer and more sustainable approach to treasury management?

  2. Should the Activity Boost be restructured to prioritize qualitative signals over quantitative participation?

  3. Are there other approaches the DAO should consider?

Looking forward to hearing from @jensei and the other @Recognized_Delegates.

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Thanks for bringing this back up!

Quick math: At ~$0.007, the current ~10,000 $SUMR/month would equate to roughly $70 USD/month for delegates (depending on what tier you are).

What is everyone thinking for Delegate compensation? Due note Summer is a small to midsize DAO, and the token MC is low atm.

Explore the tiered range again (maybe from $300 to $1500 a month? (revisit after 5-6 months after the token PA matures)

Ex:

  1. Low Activity (basic voting >50% + having X amount of SUMR delegated to you): $300 equiv. (retainer-style).
  2. Standard (voting + forum contributions): $800–$1,000.
  3. High Activity (voting, proposals, qualitative boosts via Peer Recognition Score): $1,200–$1,500.