pDAO Signaling Governance - sentiment poll

Governance
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pDAO Signaling Governance

Status: Sentiment Poll
Related: RPIP-4, RPIP-33
Discord Discussion: #governance
RPIP Draft: RPIP-84

Previous forum discussions: Snapshot replacement, RPIP: On-Chain Signal Voting
Sentiment poll below (keep scrolling, it’s there).

Overview

This is a discussion and sentiment poll for an RPIP to move pDAO signal voting from Snapshot to a platform, RocketDash, developed by community member @steely. More generally, this RPIP sets up a Recognized Signaling Platform (RSP) and implements RocketDash as the initial RSP.

It also defines an Emergency Ballot System, using on-chain voting, to move to another RSP in the event we lose trust in a current system or it becomes unusable.

Motivation

Snapshot is too expensive.

RPIP-4 established Snapshot as the platform for Rocket Pool governance votes. Snapshot now costs approximately $600 per month. Rocket Pool currently manages this expense by activating and deactivating the service around scheduled votes.

The long term intention is for the on-chain vote system to support additional forms of governance. Until that work is complete, RocketDash provides a community developed alternative for conducting signaling votes.

Existing governance documents identify Snapshot directly rather than defining a replaceable signaling platform. This creates a continuity problem if Snapshot, RocketDash, or another future platform becomes unavailable or untrustworthy.

RPIP-4 also permits langers or a party he entrusts to publish votes, but there is no maintained public record of who currently holds that authority.

Scope

Recognized Voting Platform

The Recognized Signaling Platform will be the platform used for pDAO signaling votes under RPIP-4, rather than referring in documentation to a specific platform like Snapshot or RocketDash, we will refer to the RSP. RocketDash will be the inaugural RSP under this RPIP. The RPIP is a living document that will record the current and historical signaling platforms.

Vote Administration

The platform will have a Lead Vote Administrator that can put up votes and authorize more Authorized Vote Publishers (who can put up votes but not authorize others to). Currently, the only vote administrator under Snapshot is @langers and this RPIP maintains that. Under RPIP-4, langers can appoint new administrators. That remains and is formalized further in this RPIP.

Emergency Ballot System

The Emergency Ballot System (EBS) is simply to ensure we can move onto a new platform if the current platform becomes untrusted or is not usable. An EBS should exist regardless of leaving Snapshot or not, since Snapshot going down would make voting for a new platform problematic.

The EBS would only be used if the current RSP is not usable or not trusted and it would only be used to move to another RSP and/or install a new Lead Vote Administrator. It uses the on-chain voting system we now have but asks for a new proposal type (see RPIP-33) and Smart node command line feature to create a proposal.

The EBS would strictly use the proposal message in a standardized format to request moving to a new RSP. For example, the proposal message should take the form:

EBS: Replace RocketDash with Snapshot
Current platform: RocketDash
Proposed platform: Snapshot
Canonical location: https//snapshot.org/#/s:rocketpool-dao.eth
Lead Vote Administrator: langers
Discussion: [FORUM LINK]

There would be no on-chain calldata, lookups to a website or hashed/coded information. The proposal message (what we might think of as the title of the proposal) has all the needed information. The proposal would take effect at the completion of a successful on-chain vote but does not require execution of the payload (to avoid gaming multiple EBSs - see the RPIP link above for details).

RocketDash Specifically

RocketDash is the Rocket Pool dashboard created by Steely. It hosts a variety of useful Rocket Pool statistics. Steely is a partially doxxed member of the pDAO and multiple term holder in the Grants and Management Committee. The voting platform is at:

https://rocketdash.net/vote

and has been tested by community members. It has equivalent functionality to what we got with Snapshot and adds a proposal audit capability to see the details of a vote.

RocketDash, and any RSP in general, is intended as an interim system while broader on-chain governance functionality is developed. However, this RPIP does not require another migration on a predetermined schedule. RocketDash may remain the Recognized Signaling Platform for as long as the pDAO considers it suitable.

Poll

Should this proposal proceed to a vote?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Other - see comments
0 voters

Next Steps

If the sentiment poll is deemed successful, the RPIP will go to vote. Passage of the RPIP should be treated as authorization for these governance actions:

  1. The Recognized Signaling Platform will be immediately changed to RocketDash

  2. Langers will be recognized as the Lead Vote Administrator

  3. The Emergency Ballot System will be created

Poll will close in 7 days.

4 Likes
2

I think this alternative is great because it tackles multiple items:

  • Significantly reduces costs when the committee is determined to maximize Saturn 2 development and funding
  • Removes inefficient dependency between the protocol and snapshot
  • Lightens backlog for the team’s future development allowing Saturn 2 to remain the primary focus
  • Creates a fallback with the Emergency Ballot System (EBS) that ideally should have been implemented sooner
  • Incorporates major development features from the community in a secure way
2 Likes
3

It just makes sense to do this.

4

So i think this is a great step forward and a necessary change that will be more streamlined, more customizable, and less expensive than our current system. My only change is regarding tone.

Snapshot has been a great partner offering free customizable governance to the whole ecosystem, and has been critical for the development of decentralized organizations. Recently they’ve adopted a fee model for ‘advanced’ governance models, of which we are one for various peculiarities of our voting system. I’m not sure how they were making money before, but as we know well development is expensive. They continue to offer a “free” level, but rocket pool doesn’t have the funds from GMC to easily pay monthly installments, the desire to change our voting model to adjust to snapshot, or the dev time to figure out how to fit our governance model into the free tier.

My only suggestion is not to enshrine “Snapshot is too expensive” so prominently into the rocket pool protocol. Snapshot is very appreciated, but it’s time for us to go separate ways.

5

This sentiment poll is now closed.

Based on the result 20 to 0 in favor of proceeding to a vote and based on forum and discord discussion, the post-mortem is as follows:

From a content point of view, RPIP-84 is ready for vote.

  1. When the RPIP review stage is complete, the RPIP will be marked “Living”
  2. At that time, RPIP-84 will go to Snapshot vote
  3. If the vote succeeds, the new RSP will be RocketDash
  4. The next votes will take place on the new RSP
  5. The Emergency Ballot System will be enacted

Thank you all for your votes and contributions.