Problem Statement:
In the current Minswap governance process (voted by the community in this proposal), the Temperature Check Poll requires a proposal to receive at least 20 total votes, with a majority “yes,” to advance to the next stage. This can sometimes lead to a counterproductive dynamic where not voting is a more effective strategy than voting “no” to prevent a proposal from passing. For instance, if a proposal receives 19 “yes” votes, a participant who is against it might refrain from voting altogether to avoid pushing the vote count to 20, which would allow the proposal to advance.
This creates inefficiencies and reduces voter engagement, as participants may feel incentivized to abstain from voting rather than expressing their opinion. It also introduces potential for manipulation, which undermines the governance process.
Proposed Solution:
To address this issue, I propose modifying the Temperature Check Poll rules as follows:
- Maintain the 20-vote quorum: Keep the current requirement that a proposal must gather 20 total votes to advance. This ensures that only proposals with sufficient community engagement progress.
- Add a Secondary Passing Condition: Introduce an additional clause that allows a proposal to pass with a minimum of 15 positive votes, even if it doesn’t reach the 20-vote quorum. This ensures that proposals with strong positive backing from active members can still advance, without the risk of manipulation by abstention.
- Add 2 more days to the poll: change the time the poll can be open from 5 to 7 days, since given the nature of the DAO we cannot expect member to be so engaged. I personally failed to vote on several proposals because I was on vacation, and the extra days would have allowed me to vote.
- Give flexibility to the poster: Even if the maximum days the porposal can be posted is 7, if something is marked urgent and needed to be passed with speed, I would leave to the hands of the drafter the tools to do so, by choosing the number of days as long as its lower than the maximum. If this was chosen it would need to be clearly stated in the proposal as a separate paragraph so that people see it, and don’t need to be looking at the clock on the poll.
Benefits of the Proposal:
- Reduces Manipulation: The additional passing condition prevents non-voting from being used to block proposals, encouraging more transparent decision-making.
- Encourages Voter Engagement: Extending the voting period from 5 to 7 days gives more time for community participation, ensuring more voices are heard.
- Improves Efficiency: Proposals with strong support can pass even with lower participation, making the governance process more responsive to community sentiment, and urgent matters may be addressed faster.