As mentioned in the proposal, we’re planning to implement a “UX/frontend closely resembling the original Polis (examples linked below) but with a more modern and streamlined design”, links:

• official Polis website: https://pol.is/
• example of a Polis conversation: https://pol.is/5jbzpjw2t8
• example of a Polis report: https://pol.is/m/5jbzpjw2t8/reports

Regarding a potential collaboration with SimScore, I’d be happy to discuss it with @Maets23 and anyone interested via direct messages!

Hi @DePolis @0xDonPepe @danielo Here is a SimScore report from the beginning of discussions until today jan 17, 2025.

https://rndadocs.notion.site/DePolis-Proposal-Jan-8-Jan-17-b6441f39edf54c63b22554a7d12b431d?pvs=4

Priority 1 "I think the value of DePolis could be shown (or disproved) before we make a decision on this proposal. I suggest that the authors of DePolis use the content of this forum to show how it would look like on DePolis and what insights would it bring to DAO members."

Priority 2 "The proposal mentions that DePolis is better suited for large-scale discussions compared to forum voting and Snapshot. However, these tools are not mutually exclusive. Specifically, how do the results generated by DePolis complement forum debates or Snapshot voting? For example, might the community perceive this as a redundant process?"

Priority 3 "This proposal is innovative, along the lines of using DePolis to gather community input to help DAOs better understand what users and representatives are thinking, what I don’t quite understand is how DePolis output can be combined with forum debates and Snapshot voting. Can it be used as a pre-decision research tool to supplement background information? If the reward is too low, no one may want to participate; if the reward is too high, it may be abused by ‘water comments’. Is it possible to dynamically adjust the rewards according to the importance of the topic? Since the tool is likely to be used for a long time, why not set aside some funds for future upgrades and maintenance?"

Priority 4 "Currently DAO user participation is limited, many people are just spectators, DePolis should consider lowering the threshold of participation, such as with a simple voting + praise mechanism, with clear rules of reward, so that users feel that participation is valuable, rather than a waste of time. But if it involves rewards here there will be a big unclear mechanism,3 the incentive mechanism needs to be clear and simple, and the amount of incentive should be dynamically distributed and adjusted according to the influence and importance of the discussion. How to realize this I feel is difficult. How do you think about it. 4, on the long term question, how do you aid in integrating DePolis with existing governance forums and voting systems, such as mandatory DePolis reports attached to each proposal, formal voting, etc. How about all the links articulated?"

Priority 5 "However, I have some reservations about moving the discussion to a new platform. Introducing a separate space for conversations would fragment our community interactions. Instead, I recommend focusing on extracting and analyzing the discussions already happening in our existing forums. Similar to what @Maets23 is already doing with SimScore, using our current infra could make things run more smoothly. Perhaps there’s even potential to merge both projects, combining the strengths of DePolis and SimScore to create a better tool."

The above priorities indicate the collective will of all respondents.

Paul

Thanks for the feedback and questions!

Given the number of replies with concerns about moving discussions to a new platform, it seems this point wasn’t explained clearly enough in the proposal. I want to emphasize again: we’re not talking about moving discussions to a new platform or creating any kind of “competition” between DePolis and the existing forum. DAO members (like delegates, service providers, etc.) aren’t expected to be the main users (conversations’ participants) of DePolis!

The first iteration of DePolis we’re proposing is designed as a tool for discussions (in the form of a wikisurvey) aimed at regular Arbitrum users. The output of these discussions would be a report (similar to this report from Gitcoin DAO) that reflects the sentiment among Arbitrum users and, hopefully, helps improve decision-making in the Arbitrum DAO.

As for the risks:

• yes, Arbitrum will be the first protocol to implement DePolis (a similar tool has been implemented in Filecoin https://poll.fil.org/dashboard, but it seems to still be in a testing phase);
• the current setup works well when it comes to delegates, but when it comes to accounting for the opinions of regular users, it often involves a lot of guessing - relying on delegates to understand the sentiment and needs of those delegating to them;
• DePolis isn’t intended to be a tool that requires constant maintenance (like a forum) but rather something ad-hoc and not time-consuming;
• there’s definitely a risk that it could go unused or be unnecessary, but original Polis has already proven its usefulness in real life (you can check out case studies here) and is being promoted by some leaders in the web3 space as a necessary tool for large-scale discussions in DAOs - I’d say, odds of being useful are pretty high!

Let me know if you have any other questions - I’d be happy to answer!

Thanks for your feedback!

Totally understand your concerns, but can’t agree with the comparisons DePolis-forum and DePolis-polls you’ve made.

Regarding payments (or incentives for the “best” answers) DePolis logic and UX are not similar to a forum. Noise in a forum is generally adverse, but even noisy incentive-driven messages can add some value (as you might notice from this thread). DePolis, however, is different in this sense - it organically overcomes this issue with its built-in comment routing logic and participants’ votes.

Regarding polling in the forum and Snapshot There’s a significant difference between standard polling methods and DePolis. The output of the former is statistical information about users’ preferences based on the choices they had. In contrast, the output of DePolis is a collection of statements provided by participants in their own words, automatically analyzed by ML algorithms. I recommend checking the report from the Gitcoin DAO conversation. It includes 46 high-quality statements and 1,917 votes from 138 people (a relatively low number for a Polis conversation)! Can you imagine a forum or Snapshot poll generating 46 ideas and analyzing community sentiment about them?

Regarding the fractionalization effect I see DePolis more as an ad-hoc tool for contentious discussions. In other words, users won’t be choosing between Forum/Twitter/Telegram/Discord - instead, they will occasionally be asked through these platforms to express their opinion in DePolis when it’s truly needed. Thus, no fractionalization will occur.

As mentioned in the proposal, we’re planning to implement a “UX/frontend closely resembling the original Polis (examples linked below) but with a more modern and streamlined design”, links:

• official Polis website: https://pol.is/
• example of a Polis conversation: https://pol.is/5jbzpjw2t8
• example of a Polis report: https://pol.is/m/5jbzpjw2t8/reports

Regarding a potential collaboration with SimScore, I’d be happy to discuss it with @Maets23 and anyone interested via direct messages!

Hi @DePolis @0xDonPepe @danielo Here is a SimScore report from the beginning of discussions until today jan 17, 2025.

https://rndadocs.notion.site/DePolis-Proposal-Jan-8-Jan-17-b6441f39edf54c63b22554a7d12b431d?pvs=4

Priority 1 "I think the value of DePolis could be shown (or disproved) before we make a decision on this proposal. I suggest that the authors of DePolis use the content of this forum to show how it would look like on DePolis and what insights would it bring to DAO members."

Priority 2 "The proposal mentions that DePolis is better suited for large-scale discussions compared to forum voting and Snapshot. However, these tools are not mutually exclusive. Specifically, how do the results generated by DePolis complement forum debates or Snapshot voting? For example, might the community perceive this as a redundant process?"

Priority 3 "This proposal is innovative, along the lines of using DePolis to gather community input to help DAOs better understand what users and representatives are thinking, what I don’t quite understand is how DePolis output can be combined with forum debates and Snapshot voting. Can it be used as a pre-decision research tool to supplement background information? If the reward is too low, no one may want to participate; if the reward is too high, it may be abused by ‘water comments’. Is it possible to dynamically adjust the rewards according to the importance of the topic? Since the tool is likely to be used for a long time, why not set aside some funds for future upgrades and maintenance?"

Priority 4 "Currently DAO user participation is limited, many people are just spectators, DePolis should consider lowering the threshold of participation, such as with a simple voting + praise mechanism, with clear rules of reward, so that users feel that participation is valuable, rather than a waste of time. But if it involves rewards here there will be a big unclear mechanism,3 the incentive mechanism needs to be clear and simple, and the amount of incentive should be dynamically distributed and adjusted according to the influence and importance of the discussion. How to realize this I feel is difficult. How do you think about it. 4, on the long term question, how do you aid in integrating DePolis with existing governance forums and voting systems, such as mandatory DePolis reports attached to each proposal, formal voting, etc. How about all the links articulated?"

Priority 5 "However, I have some reservations about moving the discussion to a new platform. Introducing a separate space for conversations would fragment our community interactions. Instead, I recommend focusing on extracting and analyzing the discussions already happening in our existing forums. Similar to what @Maets23 is already doing with SimScore, using our current infra could make things run more smoothly. Perhaps there’s even potential to merge both projects, combining the strengths of DePolis and SimScore to create a better tool."

The above priorities indicate the collective will of all respondents.

Paul

Thanks for the feedback and questions!

Given the number of replies with concerns about moving discussions to a new platform, it seems this point wasn’t explained clearly enough in the proposal. I want to emphasize again: we’re not talking about moving discussions to a new platform or creating any kind of “competition” between DePolis and the existing forum. DAO members (like delegates, service providers, etc.) aren’t expected to be the main users (conversations’ participants) of DePolis!

The first iteration of DePolis we’re proposing is designed as a tool for discussions (in the form of a wikisurvey) aimed at regular Arbitrum users. The output of these discussions would be a report (similar to this report from Gitcoin DAO) that reflects the sentiment among Arbitrum users and, hopefully, helps improve decision-making in the Arbitrum DAO.

As for the risks:

• yes, Arbitrum will be the first protocol to implement DePolis (a similar tool has been implemented in Filecoin https://poll.fil.org/dashboard, but it seems to still be in a testing phase);
• the current setup works well when it comes to delegates, but when it comes to accounting for the opinions of regular users, it often involves a lot of guessing - relying on delegates to understand the sentiment and needs of those delegating to them;
• DePolis isn’t intended to be a tool that requires constant maintenance (like a forum) but rather something ad-hoc and not time-consuming;
• there’s definitely a risk that it could go unused or be unnecessary, but original Polis has already proven its usefulness in real life (you can check out case studies here) and is being promoted by some leaders in the web3 space as a necessary tool for large-scale discussions in DAOs - I’d say, odds of being useful are pretty high!

Let me know if you have any other questions - I’d be happy to answer!

Thanks for your feedback!

Totally understand your concerns, but can’t agree with the comparisons DePolis-forum and DePolis-polls you’ve made.

Regarding payments (or incentives for the “best” answers) DePolis logic and UX are not similar to a forum. Noise in a forum is generally adverse, but even noisy incentive-driven messages can add some value (as you might notice from this thread). DePolis, however, is different in this sense - it organically overcomes this issue with its built-in comment routing logic and participants’ votes.

Regarding polling in the forum and Snapshot There’s a significant difference between standard polling methods and DePolis. The output of the former is statistical information about users’ preferences based on the choices they had. In contrast, the output of DePolis is a collection of statements provided by participants in their own words, automatically analyzed by ML algorithms. I recommend checking the report from the Gitcoin DAO conversation. It includes 46 high-quality statements and 1,917 votes from 138 people (a relatively low number for a Polis conversation)! Can you imagine a forum or Snapshot poll generating 46 ideas and analyzing community sentiment about them?

Regarding the fractionalization effect I see DePolis more as an ad-hoc tool for contentious discussions. In other words, users won’t be choosing between Forum/Twitter/Telegram/Discord - instead, they will occasionally be asked through these platforms to express their opinion in DePolis when it’s truly needed. Thus, no fractionalization will occur.

Thanks for your questions!

As I understand, Galxe and Zealy are mostly used to drive traffic to a website/protocol/X/whatever. The traffic, in turn, is “delivered” by users who are hoping to get an airdrop or other rewards. The idea of DePolis is quite different. The goal isn’t to get traffic for its own sake but to gather meaningful statements on specific topics that will reflect the community’s sentiment and can be taken into account by governance participants.

Why would anyone want to participate in this system? It could be the chance to shape Arbitrum DAO decisions and actually be heard (right now, there’s no real place for regular users to share their thoughts on Arbitrum-related topics - forums don’t really work for the average user). Or it could just be the desire to earn some incentives.

Thanks for you feedback!

If I understood you correctly, the idea of delayed publication is to hide author-statement connections initially but reveal them later (for example, after 10 days).

I was thinking about a different scenario where privacy matters. Imagine we have a DePolis conversation where only DAO delegates could participate (as you can see in my replies above, we’re talking mostly about DePolis as a tool for ordinary Arbitrum users in its first iteration, but DePolis as a tool for conversations between delegates is also a possible option). Then, imagine that some participant wants to express a pretty unpopular opinion but doesn’t want others to know it was he who made the unpopular statement. In this case, we’d need complete privacy where author-statement connections aren’t revealed at all.

It feels like this goal is achievable (e.g., check MACI), but it’s pretty complicated and definitely should not be a top priority.

Regarding a “system for evaluating the quality of comments, allowing the most valuable and genuine contributions to stand out,” I’d say that we don’t need such a system because DePolis conversation participants (voters) essentially play that role. The original Polis logic of comment routing helps by showing comments to participants in an order that increases the chance of quality and relevant statements being seen and voted on.

Thanks for your feedback and questions!

The short answer is yes, you’re correct. Two minor corrections:

• “participation in discussions” for an average user in the context of DePolis in most cases means upvoting/downvoting others’ statements (but not coming to the forum);
• “improving the efficiency of Arbitrum governance” mostly stems from the ability of governance participants (delegates, Foundation, large stakeholders) to understand the community sentiments from DePolis reports.

There are some other ideas on how DePolis could be integrated into governance processes (for example, it could be used by delegates and forum participants; check “5. Specifications. I. How Polis for DAOs should look” in the proposal), but the logic here is: “let’s start from the most straightforward and practically useful use case and see if it works out”.

In my opinion, for DePolis to be a working tool, we’ll need:

• some informational support from Arbitrum voices in the form of invitation to conversations in tweets/posts/etc.;
• a more or less stable framework of “when and how to use DePolis” — this is a topic for a separate discussion. If DePolis shows its usefulness (that users will come and vote, and that reports will provide some insights) after our test conversations, we’ll likely have this discussion.

I’d say the best initial use case for DePolis is to “check the temperature” on spicy discussions. Who and when should start the conversation, and where should the incentives come from - I don’t think we can answer these questions right now. Not because they’re too complicated but because imho the best approach here is to look at how the test conversations went, articulate possible options, and discuss them all together.

Regarding “becoming part of the governance process” - I think DePolis and its reports would be useful even without deep integration into governance processes. If we have a big enough conversation conducted through DePolis, delegates would likely use these results in forum debates (hence, community opinions will be taken into account, and Arbitrum governance will already be a little bit better and more effective). Then, if we’re at this stage, it’s time to think about deeper integrations into the governance framework.

DePolis is supposed to have the lowest possible participation threshold — users can either provide their opinion in the form of a short statement or upvote/downvote others’ short statements. Afaik in the original Polis the average ratio of statement providers to voters is around 1:10, so we can expect that the default option for most users will be simple voting.

Agree, the incentive mechanism is one of the most complicated and nuanced questions. I think setting up a proper incentivization framework for DePolis is an iterative process, where we start from the most intuitive solution - determine the size of incentives in advance and incentivize two categories of statement authors:

• those whose statements received the highest number of upvotes (participants who helped identify points of consensus);
• those whose statements received the most upvotes within their opinion groups (participants who helped identify points of disagreement).

This logic provides a clear and simple mechanism (both categories of statements and authors are visible in the DePolis report).

If initial conversations show DePolis’ usefulness and DePolis is further integrated into governance processes, we can imagine various approaches to the question of incentivization (the choice of a specific approach depends on many factors, including those mentioned in question 1 above), for example:

• if the need to launch a DePolis conversation is determined/proposed by the Foundation or the proposal author, the Foundation or the proposal author could define the size and logic of reward distribution at their discretion;
• if a DePolis conversation is launched automatically and includes something like an incentivization fund, the total size of incentives could dynamically increase depending on the number of participants in the conversation (which would serve as an indirect indicator of the discussion’s importance);
• DePolis could work alongside AI tools like x23.app and adjust the size of incentives based on the level of importance of the discussion as determined by such tools.

Imho the question of DePolis integration into governance forums and voting systems is a matter of a fairly distant future and will only become relevant after:

• DePolis has a battle-tested product and has demonstrated its usefulness in numerous discussions;
• at least a few DAOs are frequently using it.

I do have some thoughts regarding long-term possibilities for DePolis, for example:

• DePolis could be integrated into forums/Snapshot/Tally so that delegates could easily access reports - however, it’s not clear whether these integrations should be done at the DAO level (e.g., attaching reports as part of a proposal standard form) or at the level of the governance venue;
• it’s not clear where DePolis will show its usefulness - only in large-scale, highly contentious discussions, or as an auxiliary tool for many proposals;
• there’s a chance that DePolis will change direction - for example, by adding AI features, which would change its value proposition (for more info on the Polis/AI intersection check out this paper) or by being integrated into info finance tools;
• DePolis could converge with other deliberation tools (some of them were mentioned by @danielo).

The bottom line here is that yes, DePolis has many positive long-term development possibilities (the most obvious being closer integration with existing governance platforms), but there are also many unknowns. Therefore, an iterative approach to DePolis development, starting with the parameters and goals described in the proposal, seems logical.

Thanks for your feedback!

Never heard of Snapshot using any Polis-like mechanics, nor have I seen any mentions of Snapshot in the Awesome Polis repository. I’d be really grateful if you could share more info on how Snapshot uses Polis!

Can’t agree with this statement. While Polis can indeed be time-consuming when used irl - for example, there’s a great description of how a multi-layered discussion incorporating Polis was organized in Austria (source) - the generalization feels off.

I see from the last five Arbitrum Snapshot votes that the average time between the start of a forum discussion and the vote on Snapshot is 2–4 months. It seems that starting a DePolis conversation in parallel with the forum discussion, running for about a week, wouldn’t consume anyone’s time excessively.

I’d also like to reference Vitalik’s post (try not to overuse references to him, but it’s particularly relevant here), where he argues that tools like Polis “allow decisions to be made quickly, at large scale, and in a way that favors quality in a dynamic way that allows experts to quickly rise and fall with each individual topic or decision”.

There’s no doubt SimScore is a great tool for transforming existing data from forum/Snapshot/Tally into actionable insights! However, I’d like to point out that DePolis has a different goal. Unlike SimScore, DePolis’s primary purpose is gathering and analyzing opinions from those who don’t currently participate in existing discussions (the 99% of Arbitrum users). I’d also recommend checking my reply to Maets23, where I mentioned other differences between DePolis and SimScore.

Could you elaborate more on this? As for Harmonica, I see that they position themselves primarily as a tool for initial sense-making in small groups (e.g., core teams), which is very different from DePolis’s objectives.

Thanks for your questions!

As I understand, Galxe and Zealy are mostly used to drive traffic to a website/protocol/X/whatever. The traffic, in turn, is “delivered” by users who are hoping to get an airdrop or other rewards. The idea of DePolis is quite different. The goal isn’t to get traffic for its own sake but to gather meaningful statements on specific topics that will reflect the community’s sentiment and can be taken into account by governance participants.

Why would anyone want to participate in this system? It could be the chance to shape Arbitrum DAO decisions and actually be heard (right now, there’s no real place for regular users to share their thoughts on Arbitrum-related topics - forums don’t really work for the average user). Or it could just be the desire to earn some incentives.

Thanks for you feedback!

If I understood you correctly, the idea of delayed publication is to hide author-statement connections initially but reveal them later (for example, after 10 days).

I was thinking about a different scenario where privacy matters. Imagine we have a DePolis conversation where only DAO delegates could participate (as you can see in my replies above, we’re talking mostly about DePolis as a tool for ordinary Arbitrum users in its first iteration, but DePolis as a tool for conversations between delegates is also a possible option). Then, imagine that some participant wants to express a pretty unpopular opinion but doesn’t want others to know it was he who made the unpopular statement. In this case, we’d need complete privacy where author-statement connections aren’t revealed at all.

It feels like this goal is achievable (e.g., check MACI), but it’s pretty complicated and definitely should not be a top priority.

Regarding a “system for evaluating the quality of comments, allowing the most valuable and genuine contributions to stand out,” I’d say that we don’t need such a system because DePolis conversation participants (voters) essentially play that role. The original Polis logic of comment routing helps by showing comments to participants in an order that increases the chance of quality and relevant statements being seen and voted on.

Thanks for your feedback and questions!

The short answer is yes, you’re correct. Two minor corrections:

• “participation in discussions” for an average user in the context of DePolis in most cases means upvoting/downvoting others’ statements (but not coming to the forum);
• “improving the efficiency of Arbitrum governance” mostly stems from the ability of governance participants (delegates, Foundation, large stakeholders) to understand the community sentiments from DePolis reports.

There are some other ideas on how DePolis could be integrated into governance processes (for example, it could be used by delegates and forum participants; check “5. Specifications. I. How Polis for DAOs should look” in the proposal), but the logic here is: “let’s start from the most straightforward and practically useful use case and see if it works out”.

In my opinion, for DePolis to be a working tool, we’ll need:

• some informational support from Arbitrum voices in the form of invitation to conversations in tweets/posts/etc.;
• a more or less stable framework of “when and how to use DePolis” — this is a topic for a separate discussion. If DePolis shows its usefulness (that users will come and vote, and that reports will provide some insights) after our test conversations, we’ll likely have this discussion.

I’d say the best initial use case for DePolis is to “check the temperature” on spicy discussions. Who and when should start the conversation, and where should the incentives come from - I don’t think we can answer these questions right now. Not because they’re too complicated but because imho the best approach here is to look at how the test conversations went, articulate possible options, and discuss them all together.

Regarding “becoming part of the governance process” - I think DePolis and its reports would be useful even without deep integration into governance processes. If we have a big enough conversation conducted through DePolis, delegates would likely use these results in forum debates (hence, community opinions will be taken into account, and Arbitrum governance will already be a little bit better and more effective). Then, if we’re at this stage, it’s time to think about deeper integrations into the governance framework.

DePolis is supposed to have the lowest possible participation threshold — users can either provide their opinion in the form of a short statement or upvote/downvote others’ short statements. Afaik in the original Polis the average ratio of statement providers to voters is around 1:10, so we can expect that the default option for most users will be simple voting.

Agree, the incentive mechanism is one of the most complicated and nuanced questions. I think setting up a proper incentivization framework for DePolis is an iterative process, where we start from the most intuitive solution - determine the size of incentives in advance and incentivize two categories of statement authors:

• those whose statements received the highest number of upvotes (participants who helped identify points of consensus);
• those whose statements received the most upvotes within their opinion groups (participants who helped identify points of disagreement).

This logic provides a clear and simple mechanism (both categories of statements and authors are visible in the DePolis report).

If initial conversations show DePolis’ usefulness and DePolis is further integrated into governance processes, we can imagine various approaches to the question of incentivization (the choice of a specific approach depends on many factors, including those mentioned in question 1 above), for example:

• if the need to launch a DePolis conversation is determined/proposed by the Foundation or the proposal author, the Foundation or the proposal author could define the size and logic of reward distribution at their discretion;
• if a DePolis conversation is launched automatically and includes something like an incentivization fund, the total size of incentives could dynamically increase depending on the number of participants in the conversation (which would serve as an indirect indicator of the discussion’s importance);
• DePolis could work alongside AI tools like x23.app and adjust the size of incentives based on the level of importance of the discussion as determined by such tools.

Imho the question of DePolis integration into governance forums and voting systems is a matter of a fairly distant future and will only become relevant after:

• DePolis has a battle-tested product and has demonstrated its usefulness in numerous discussions;
• at least a few DAOs are frequently using it.

I do have some thoughts regarding long-term possibilities for DePolis, for example:

• DePolis could be integrated into forums/Snapshot/Tally so that delegates could easily access reports - however, it’s not clear whether these integrations should be done at the DAO level (e.g., attaching reports as part of a proposal standard form) or at the level of the governance venue;
• it’s not clear where DePolis will show its usefulness - only in large-scale, highly contentious discussions, or as an auxiliary tool for many proposals;
• there’s a chance that DePolis will change direction - for example, by adding AI features, which would change its value proposition (for more info on the Polis/AI intersection check out this paper) or by being integrated into info finance tools;
• DePolis could converge with other deliberation tools (some of them were mentioned by @danielo).

The bottom line here is that yes, DePolis has many positive long-term development possibilities (the most obvious being closer integration with existing governance platforms), but there are also many unknowns. Therefore, an iterative approach to DePolis development, starting with the parameters and goals described in the proposal, seems logical.

Thanks for your feedback!

Never heard of Snapshot using any Polis-like mechanics, nor have I seen any mentions of Snapshot in the Awesome Polis repository. I’d be really grateful if you could share more info on how Snapshot uses Polis!

Can’t agree with this statement. While Polis can indeed be time-consuming when used irl - for example, there’s a great description of how a multi-layered discussion incorporating Polis was organized in Austria (source) - the generalization feels off.

I see from the last five Arbitrum Snapshot votes that the average time between the start of a forum discussion and the vote on Snapshot is 2–4 months. It seems that starting a DePolis conversation in parallel with the forum discussion, running for about a week, wouldn’t consume anyone’s time excessively.

I’d also like to reference Vitalik’s post (try not to overuse references to him, but it’s particularly relevant here), where he argues that tools like Polis “allow decisions to be made quickly, at large scale, and in a way that favors quality in a dynamic way that allows experts to quickly rise and fall with each individual topic or decision”.

There’s no doubt SimScore is a great tool for transforming existing data from forum/Snapshot/Tally into actionable insights! However, I’d like to point out that DePolis has a different goal. Unlike SimScore, DePolis’s primary purpose is gathering and analyzing opinions from those who don’t currently participate in existing discussions (the 99% of Arbitrum users). I’d also recommend checking my reply to Maets23, where I mentioned other differences between DePolis and SimScore.

Could you elaborate more on this? As for Harmonica, I see that they position themselves primarily as a tool for initial sense-making in small groups (e.g., core teams), which is very different from DePolis’s objectives.

I’d like to emphasize again - we’re not talking about moving discussions to a new platform or creating any kind of “competition” between DePolis and the existing forum!

I’m afraid it’s impossible to use the content of this forum to test DePolis. DePolis doesn’t “work” with information that already exists in the forum but instead requires a different type of input - statements and votes from conversation participants. However, as a “proof of usefulness”, I suggest you check out these Polis reports (generated from conversations conducted through the original Polis):

• Polis report from Gitcoin DAO conversation (topic: “Gitcoin Grant Approval Policy for DAOs”): https://pol.is/report/r2dxjrdwef2ybx2w9n3ja
• Polis report from the Philippines (topic: “Pedestrian-Only Streets in Intramuros”): https://pol.is/report/r5xi5fmuhapkbhcbefikn
• Polis report from Kentucky, USA (topic: “Improving Bowling Green / Warren County”): https://pol.is/report/r2xcn2cdbmrzjmmuuytdk

DePolis and the forum serve different purposes - please refer to my reply to Argonaut above, where I’ve detailed their differences.

Thanks for your questions!

What questions should be used for your platform?

Technically, a conversation on any topic can be organized using DePolis. We can imagine various scenarios of how DePolis could be integrated into governance processes (check “5. Specifications. I. How Polis for DAOs should look” in the proposal), but as a starting point, it’s better to choose the most straighforward and solid use case. To identify this use case and understand what questions DePolis could be used for, it makes sense to explore the following:

1. Polis irl success stories:

Polis case studies can be found here. Polis has been used in numerous cases in Taiwan (and is integrated into the vTaiwan governance processes). Examples include debating technology regulation questions such as “Should Uber be allowed?” or “Should alcohol be available for purchase online?”. Other topics include:

• “What do we have to do today to live in a climate-friendly future tomorrow?” (Austria)
• “Airbnb in Athens and Thessaloniki” (Greece)
• “Improving Bowling Green/Warren County” (Kentucky, USA).

You can find more case studies here.

2. Vitalik’s thoughts on using Polis in decentralized governance:

Vitalik (an active proponent of Polis) describes it as a social technology to help communities identify points of agreement between sub-tribes who might otherwise disagree on many issues (source). In another blog post, he highlights Polis as a tool for large-scale conversations to be used before governance participants solidify their opinions and input them into governance (source).

3. Polis blog and documentation:

Best practices for creating discussion topics are described in the official Polis documentation (source). Key takeaways include:

• open-ended conversations are good;
• Polis is most effective for controversial issues with a diversity of opinions;
• keep it short (long topic descriptions are bad).

Combining these insights, we can identify what types of questions would suit DePolis:

• open-ended questions that encourage participation from a large number of stakeholders with diverse opinions;
• questions that address highly contentious topics, where opinions are polarized, or where there is a significant need to identify common ground;
• questions tied to actionable outcomes, where the results of the discussion can directly inform governance decisions or policies.

Assessing how contentious a topic is requires further exploration, but we can find clues in the Arbitrum governance forum. For example, large grant programs are definitely contentious topics. Discussions related to defining key development directions, policies, or guiding principles for the DAO are also well-suited. Seasoned Arbitrum delegates likely have additional ideas for topics that meet the criteria described above.

Why can’t I use the usual built-in forum poll?

For several reasons:

• most regular Arbitrum users do not visit the forum;
• even if a specific forum poll gains significant attention and many people participate, the voting results will not be representative, as anyone can vote in forum polls (there is no protection against sybil attacks and no way to restrict the list of participants to a specific community or sub-community);
• the forum only supports standard polls where the responses are predefined by the poll creator, whereas DePolis allows participants to express their opinions in their own words;
• unlike standard polls, DePolis enables the identification of key opinion groups among participants and provides deeper insights into the community’s needs and preferences;
• several other advantages of Polis compared to traditional surveys are described in this article: Examining Pol.is as a Survey Methodology.

Thus, DePolis is fundamentally different from built-in forum polls, and the output it produces provides decision-makers with far greater and more profound insights into user perspectives.

Why is Snapshot voting not enough?

For the same reasons as with built-in forum polls. Snapshot provides voters with a predefined list of options, whereas DePolis allows participants to express their opinions in their own words. Additionally, Snapshot is designed to be a decision-making tool, while DePolis is more suited for an earlier step - determining the landscape of opinions, “checking the temperature” of the community, etc. Furthermore, Snapshot is a tool for token holders, which makes it impossible to use Snapshot to gather opinions from, for example, active Arbitrum DeFi users who may not hold tokens.

Thanks for your feedback!

From your response, I gather that there’s currently no publicly available GitHub or documentation for SimScore, correct? If there’s anything related to SimScore that can be explored, I’d appreciate it if you share it here or via direct message!

Regarding frontend vs. API

I don’t think the core entity of DePolis should exist in the form of an API. As I mentioned in my earlier replies, the primary use case of DePolis is not to analyze clusters or sentiment within the forum but rather to engage those who find the governance forum inaccessible (due to lack of time, skills, knowledge, or other reasons).

In the current governance framework, ordinary Arbitrum users lack both a way to express their opinions in a way that can be heard and the motivation to do so. I’d argue that the “opinion transmission system” operates almost identically to legacy governance systems: delegates are supposed to represent the interests of the network's end beneficiaries (Arbitrum users), but in reality, no one truly knows what those users think.

In my view, SimScore and DePolis serve different purposes:

• SimScore collects and automatically analyzes opinions from various levels of governance participants;
• DePolis gathers opinions from ordinary users who, under other circumstances, would never express their thoughts in any form (except perhaps via a "Support request").

Though there’s obviously synergy and potential for collaboration!

Thanks for your ideas and comments!

I want to reiterate - we’re not talking about moving discussions to a new platform or creating any kind of “competition” between DePolis and the existing forum. DePolis (at least in its first iteration) is intended as a useful tool for delegates and the broader Arbitrum community to gain insights into the collective views of Arbitrum users, rather than as a separate space for in-depth conversations. I also suggest checking my earlier response to Argonaut regarding the differences between the forum and DePolis.

I’m aware that x23.ai is doing a great job analyzing discussions in existing venues, but have never heard of SimScore. Will dive deeper in the project - thanks!

I expect Snapshot and Tally to integrate Polis-like mechanics in one or another form in the coming years. However, at this stage, our proposal focuses on the very first iteration of a decentralized Polis. I also want to emphasize that the goal of DePolis is not to relieve voters from “going through all the discussions on a particular proposal”, but rather to provide a tool for gathering the opinions of Arbitrum users, which can be radically different from those expressed in forum discussions.

Regarding the maintenance of DePolis, I suggest checking the response I provided to Larva above.

Thanks for your feedback and comments!

1. Statements <140 characters

Most conceptual features of DePolis mirror those of the original Polis, including a character limit for participants’ statements. To understand this limitation, it's important to highlight the key differences between governance forums and DePolis (“Gathering Arbitrum users’ opinions usecase”):

Purpose:

• forum: a decision-making hub - platform for in-depth discussions among skilled participants. Topics are debated in a sophisticated and often technical manner, with the goal of producing proposals, resolving disputes, and shaping policy.
• DePolis: a signal-gathering tool - platform for wide-scale participation, allowing anyone to express their opinion quickly and easily. Contributions are simplified, typically through short statements or by agreeing/disagreeing with others (upvoting/downvoting).

Irl-comparison:

• forum: parliament or council where elected representatives deliberate and negotiate policies.
• DePolis: “smart” non-binding (advisory) referendum, where the general population can vote or express opinions directly on key topics.

Accessibility

• forum: naturally exclusive due to the knowledge and skills required to participate effectively - primarily accessible to skilled participants, such as delegates, service providers, and large stakeholders with specialized knowledge.
• DePolis: radically inclusive by design, inviting participation from anyone regardless of expertise - open to everyone, including ordinary users.

The character limit in DePolis ensures that the platform remains accessible and manageable for broad participation. In other words, nobody is likely to vote on 100+ statements if each is over 500 characters long. This limit encourages concise, focused statements and avoids the complexity of long, forum-style debates. However, the exact character limit is flexible and can be adjusted based on user feedback.

You can also explore the vTaiwan governance framework, where Polis is used alongside other deliberation platforms like Discourse (forum).

2. The issue of manipulation

The most obvious manipulation scenario is a sybil attack. For example, a malicious actor might try to manipulate grant-related DePolis conversations to push a specific grant policy. The naive solution to this issue would be: “we must prevent sybils from participating”. In the original Polis use cases, sybil attacks weren’t a major concern. Some mitigation measures included using Facebook and Twitter authentication in combination with moderation policies. However, in a “highly-sybilled web3 environment” these approaches won’t work.

The core idea here is that preventing sybils from participating essentially boils down to properly defining the list of conversation participants. This depends on the topic of the conversation. Our approach is to define these participant lists ad hoc based on onchain data, minimizing the risk of sybil attacks. For example:

• in GameFi-related conversations, participants could be accounts that have interacted with a predefined list of smart contracts deployed by GameFi projects;
• in DeFi-related conversations, participants might include the top-500 users of the top-10 Arbitrum DeFi protocols;
• in general conversations, participants could be active users of the Arbitrum chain (e.g., those with 100+ monthly transactions and holding >10 ARB).
• and so on.

These ad hoc approaches can also be combined with other techniques, such as excluding accounts flagged as sybils or applying general conditions like “holding >0.01 ETH during the month”.

3. Incentives

As stated in the proposal, an intuitive solution seems to be incentivizing two categories of statement authors:

• those whose statements received the highest number of upvotes (participants who helped identify points of consensus);
• those whose statements received the most upvotes within their opinion groups (participants who helped identify points of disagreement).

Hence, posting low-value comments will not result in any rewards.

Whether people would want to participate in conversations by upvoting/downvoting without incentivization is a more complex question. In real-life Polis conversations, people engage because the discussed topic is important to them for some reason (e.g., it could be related to Airbnb or Uber city policies, climate change issues, etc. — you can find more case studies here. If we adopt the much-loved analogy of "blockchains = states", we can assume that people will be willing to participate in discussions simply because the topics matter to them. However, whether significant participation in conversations can be achieved without any incentivization (but with minimal informational support from Arbitrum DAO voices) can only be determined in practice.

Other questions:

• overlapping with DIP: as mentioned above, the forum and DePolis have quite different natures and purposes.
• securing more funds for incentives: if the Arbitrum community finds DePolis and its outputs valuable for governance processes, it will likely be inclined to approve incentives for new conversations.

Hello, @paulofonseca !

This proposal was primarily written by me, Roman (you can find my X and Paragraph/Mirror accounts above), and is based on ideas and input from the entire team. Regarding Alexey’s profile and the team’s profiles:

• Alexey: the link GitHub profile was broken, fixed now.
• Nikolay: an application security specialist currently working at a web2 security company. Fields of expertise include reverse engineering, penetration testing, web audits, mobile app audits, web3 audits, and software development. Holds several security certifications (OSCP, OSWE, OSED, KLCP, OSWP, BSCP) and has over 5 years of experience as a pentester and auditor.
• Bogdan, Daniil, Alexey: experienced professionals in web2 and web3 security audits, currently working at a web3 security audit firm. Along with Nikolay, they have participated in and organized numerous CTF (security) competitions and have formed a team of web3 researchers.

Thanks for the questions!

1. Purpose of Polis

The purpose of Polis (I’ll call it DePolis so we can distinguish the existing Polis from DePolis, the system we’d wanna create based on the original Polis) is not to replace existing governance mechanisms but to facilitate large-scale discussions involving many actors.

Ideas about how DePolis could be integrated into decision-making processes are described in “5. Specifications. I. How Polis for DAOs should look”. Even when these ideas focus on delegates (e.g., “Facilitating a ‘pre-forum’ exchange of delegates’ opinions to map the existing opinion landscape”), they’re not meant to replace the current forum.

Anyway, in my opinion, the most canonical, straightforward, and practically useful use case is “Gathering Arbitrum users’ opinions on contentious topics” and/or “Gathering opinions from specific protocol/domain users”. In this case, overlapping topics aren’t a problem (moreover, they must overlap!), and effective collaboration between the forum and DePolis will be organically facilitated by the delegates, who are likely interested in considering DePolis participants’ (= Arbitrum users’) opinions.

In other words, forum - for skilled participants (delegates, service providers, large stakeholders), DePolis - for ordinary users.

2. Long-term maintenance

As stated in the proposal, “we want to start with a relatively simple implementation of DePolis that … will enable the Arbitrum DAO and its delegates to independently launch conversations without our involvement (including defining the participant pool and providing incentives for participants)”. So:

• yes, the costs focus only on development;
• maintenance for DePolis after its launch does not require an additional budget, updates/improvements/issue resolutions will require it.

The point we must achieve, no matter what, is:

• the development phase (with the functionality described in the proposal) is successfully accomplished, DePolis code is open-sourced and publicly available;
• the Arbitrum community has a working system that can be used without our involvement.

In my opinion, achieving these goals ensures that the grant’s money is not wasted, and even in the worst-case scenario, the Arbitrum community has a working system and is able to maintain it on its own.

At the same time, the most preferable scenario for us is when DePolis finds its PMF (within and potentially outside Arbitrum DAO), and we continue to maintain and upgrade it as a tool for Arbitrum DAO, as well as an instrument/product for other communities. It’s really hard to predict future scenarios in this case, but they include requesting Arbitrum DAO for additional funding (the budget will depend on the scope of our future work), requesting grants from other grant providers (likely interested in governance-related products), receiving funds from investors, etc.

Thank you for mentioning me and SimScore in your reply.

I agree wholeheartedly that devs job when envisioning improvements to governance is to make delegate / voters life easier, ideally seamless.

SimScore is a clustering and prioritization tool. It accepts "replies", author and ID#. It returns clustered priority list, relationship graph and pairwise similarity table.

During SimScore's development it became clear that we should not develop a front end. Their are too many options. So instead we commissioned our dev team to change our original POC to a SimScore.API. As you probably know, SimScore results can easily be token weighted. The APIs dev is nearly complete...documentation etc is forthcoming.

I like Pol.is. It is a great tool to determine sentiment. I believe a depolis API would be another great addition. Arbitrum would then know, clusters, priority and sentiment of replies within the Discussion Forum. Making proposers and delegates life easier.

I great project depolis and SimScore could work on is "pulling" all the replies out of the forum, snapshot and tally so the APIs can connect to Forum Discussions. In fact, Proposal.APP may have already done this work @paulofonseca

Delegates would have forum replies available in chronological, priority and sentiment order with a click.

Let you guys get some sleep at night, instead of pouring over complicated strings of replies.

I’d like to emphasize again - we’re not talking about moving discussions to a new platform or creating any kind of “competition” between DePolis and the existing forum!

I’m afraid it’s impossible to use the content of this forum to test DePolis. DePolis doesn’t “work” with information that already exists in the forum but instead requires a different type of input - statements and votes from conversation participants. However, as a “proof of usefulness”, I suggest you check out these Polis reports (generated from conversations conducted through the original Polis):

• Polis report from Gitcoin DAO conversation (topic: “Gitcoin Grant Approval Policy for DAOs”): https://pol.is/report/r2dxjrdwef2ybx2w9n3ja
• Polis report from the Philippines (topic: “Pedestrian-Only Streets in Intramuros”): https://pol.is/report/r5xi5fmuhapkbhcbefikn
• Polis report from Kentucky, USA (topic: “Improving Bowling Green / Warren County”): https://pol.is/report/r2xcn2cdbmrzjmmuuytdk

DePolis and the forum serve different purposes - please refer to my reply to Argonaut above, where I’ve detailed their differences.

Thanks for your questions!

What questions should be used for your platform?

Technically, a conversation on any topic can be organized using DePolis. We can imagine various scenarios of how DePolis could be integrated into governance processes (check “5. Specifications. I. How Polis for DAOs should look” in the proposal), but as a starting point, it’s better to choose the most straighforward and solid use case. To identify this use case and understand what questions DePolis could be used for, it makes sense to explore the following:

1. Polis irl success stories:

Polis case studies can be found here. Polis has been used in numerous cases in Taiwan (and is integrated into the vTaiwan governance processes). Examples include debating technology regulation questions such as “Should Uber be allowed?” or “Should alcohol be available for purchase online?”. Other topics include:

• “What do we have to do today to live in a climate-friendly future tomorrow?” (Austria)
• “Airbnb in Athens and Thessaloniki” (Greece)
• “Improving Bowling Green/Warren County” (Kentucky, USA).

You can find more case studies here.

2. Vitalik’s thoughts on using Polis in decentralized governance:

Vitalik (an active proponent of Polis) describes it as a social technology to help communities identify points of agreement between sub-tribes who might otherwise disagree on many issues (source). In another blog post, he highlights Polis as a tool for large-scale conversations to be used before governance participants solidify their opinions and input them into governance (source).

3. Polis blog and documentation:

Best practices for creating discussion topics are described in the official Polis documentation (source). Key takeaways include:

• open-ended conversations are good;
• Polis is most effective for controversial issues with a diversity of opinions;
• keep it short (long topic descriptions are bad).

Combining these insights, we can identify what types of questions would suit DePolis:

• open-ended questions that encourage participation from a large number of stakeholders with diverse opinions;
• questions that address highly contentious topics, where opinions are polarized, or where there is a significant need to identify common ground;
• questions tied to actionable outcomes, where the results of the discussion can directly inform governance decisions or policies.

Assessing how contentious a topic is requires further exploration, but we can find clues in the Arbitrum governance forum. For example, large grant programs are definitely contentious topics. Discussions related to defining key development directions, policies, or guiding principles for the DAO are also well-suited. Seasoned Arbitrum delegates likely have additional ideas for topics that meet the criteria described above.

Why can’t I use the usual built-in forum poll?

For several reasons:

• most regular Arbitrum users do not visit the forum;
• even if a specific forum poll gains significant attention and many people participate, the voting results will not be representative, as anyone can vote in forum polls (there is no protection against sybil attacks and no way to restrict the list of participants to a specific community or sub-community);
• the forum only supports standard polls where the responses are predefined by the poll creator, whereas DePolis allows participants to express their opinions in their own words;
• unlike standard polls, DePolis enables the identification of key opinion groups among participants and provides deeper insights into the community’s needs and preferences;
• several other advantages of Polis compared to traditional surveys are described in this article: Examining Pol.is as a Survey Methodology.

Thus, DePolis is fundamentally different from built-in forum polls, and the output it produces provides decision-makers with far greater and more profound insights into user perspectives.

Why is Snapshot voting not enough?

For the same reasons as with built-in forum polls. Snapshot provides voters with a predefined list of options, whereas DePolis allows participants to express their opinions in their own words. Additionally, Snapshot is designed to be a decision-making tool, while DePolis is more suited for an earlier step - determining the landscape of opinions, “checking the temperature” of the community, etc. Furthermore, Snapshot is a tool for token holders, which makes it impossible to use Snapshot to gather opinions from, for example, active Arbitrum DeFi users who may not hold tokens.

Thanks for your feedback!

From your response, I gather that there’s currently no publicly available GitHub or documentation for SimScore, correct? If there’s anything related to SimScore that can be explored, I’d appreciate it if you share it here or via direct message!

Regarding frontend vs. API

I don’t think the core entity of DePolis should exist in the form of an API. As I mentioned in my earlier replies, the primary use case of DePolis is not to analyze clusters or sentiment within the forum but rather to engage those who find the governance forum inaccessible (due to lack of time, skills, knowledge, or other reasons).

In the current governance framework, ordinary Arbitrum users lack both a way to express their opinions in a way that can be heard and the motivation to do so. I’d argue that the “opinion transmission system” operates almost identically to legacy governance systems: delegates are supposed to represent the interests of the network's end beneficiaries (Arbitrum users), but in reality, no one truly knows what those users think.

In my view, SimScore and DePolis serve different purposes:

• SimScore collects and automatically analyzes opinions from various levels of governance participants;
• DePolis gathers opinions from ordinary users who, under other circumstances, would never express their thoughts in any form (except perhaps via a "Support request").

Though there’s obviously synergy and potential for collaboration!

Thanks for your ideas and comments!

I want to reiterate - we’re not talking about moving discussions to a new platform or creating any kind of “competition” between DePolis and the existing forum. DePolis (at least in its first iteration) is intended as a useful tool for delegates and the broader Arbitrum community to gain insights into the collective views of Arbitrum users, rather than as a separate space for in-depth conversations. I also suggest checking my earlier response to Argonaut regarding the differences between the forum and DePolis.

I’m aware that x23.ai is doing a great job analyzing discussions in existing venues, but have never heard of SimScore. Will dive deeper in the project - thanks!

I expect Snapshot and Tally to integrate Polis-like mechanics in one or another form in the coming years. However, at this stage, our proposal focuses on the very first iteration of a decentralized Polis. I also want to emphasize that the goal of DePolis is not to relieve voters from “going through all the discussions on a particular proposal”, but rather to provide a tool for gathering the opinions of Arbitrum users, which can be radically different from those expressed in forum discussions.

Regarding the maintenance of DePolis, I suggest checking the response I provided to Larva above.

Thanks for your feedback and comments!

1. Statements <140 characters

Most conceptual features of DePolis mirror those of the original Polis, including a character limit for participants’ statements. To understand this limitation, it's important to highlight the key differences between governance forums and DePolis (“Gathering Arbitrum users’ opinions usecase”):

Purpose:

• forum: a decision-making hub - platform for in-depth discussions among skilled participants. Topics are debated in a sophisticated and often technical manner, with the goal of producing proposals, resolving disputes, and shaping policy.
• DePolis: a signal-gathering tool - platform for wide-scale participation, allowing anyone to express their opinion quickly and easily. Contributions are simplified, typically through short statements or by agreeing/disagreeing with others (upvoting/downvoting).

Irl-comparison:

• forum: parliament or council where elected representatives deliberate and negotiate policies.
• DePolis: “smart” non-binding (advisory) referendum, where the general population can vote or express opinions directly on key topics.

Accessibility

• forum: naturally exclusive due to the knowledge and skills required to participate effectively - primarily accessible to skilled participants, such as delegates, service providers, and large stakeholders with specialized knowledge.
• DePolis: radically inclusive by design, inviting participation from anyone regardless of expertise - open to everyone, including ordinary users.

The character limit in DePolis ensures that the platform remains accessible and manageable for broad participation. In other words, nobody is likely to vote on 100+ statements if each is over 500 characters long. This limit encourages concise, focused statements and avoids the complexity of long, forum-style debates. However, the exact character limit is flexible and can be adjusted based on user feedback.

You can also explore the vTaiwan governance framework, where Polis is used alongside other deliberation platforms like Discourse (forum).

2. The issue of manipulation

The most obvious manipulation scenario is a sybil attack. For example, a malicious actor might try to manipulate grant-related DePolis conversations to push a specific grant policy. The naive solution to this issue would be: “we must prevent sybils from participating”. In the original Polis use cases, sybil attacks weren’t a major concern. Some mitigation measures included using Facebook and Twitter authentication in combination with moderation policies. However, in a “highly-sybilled web3 environment” these approaches won’t work.

The core idea here is that preventing sybils from participating essentially boils down to properly defining the list of conversation participants. This depends on the topic of the conversation. Our approach is to define these participant lists ad hoc based on onchain data, minimizing the risk of sybil attacks. For example:

• in GameFi-related conversations, participants could be accounts that have interacted with a predefined list of smart contracts deployed by GameFi projects;
• in DeFi-related conversations, participants might include the top-500 users of the top-10 Arbitrum DeFi protocols;
• in general conversations, participants could be active users of the Arbitrum chain (e.g., those with 100+ monthly transactions and holding >10 ARB).
• and so on.

These ad hoc approaches can also be combined with other techniques, such as excluding accounts flagged as sybils or applying general conditions like “holding >0.01 ETH during the month”.

3. Incentives

As stated in the proposal, an intuitive solution seems to be incentivizing two categories of statement authors:

• those whose statements received the highest number of upvotes (participants who helped identify points of consensus);
• those whose statements received the most upvotes within their opinion groups (participants who helped identify points of disagreement).

Hence, posting low-value comments will not result in any rewards.

Whether people would want to participate in conversations by upvoting/downvoting without incentivization is a more complex question. In real-life Polis conversations, people engage because the discussed topic is important to them for some reason (e.g., it could be related to Airbnb or Uber city policies, climate change issues, etc. — you can find more case studies here. If we adopt the much-loved analogy of "blockchains = states", we can assume that people will be willing to participate in discussions simply because the topics matter to them. However, whether significant participation in conversations can be achieved without any incentivization (but with minimal informational support from Arbitrum DAO voices) can only be determined in practice.

Other questions:

• overlapping with DIP: as mentioned above, the forum and DePolis have quite different natures and purposes.
• securing more funds for incentives: if the Arbitrum community finds DePolis and its outputs valuable for governance processes, it will likely be inclined to approve incentives for new conversations.

Hello, @paulofonseca !

This proposal was primarily written by me, Roman (you can find my X and Paragraph/Mirror accounts above), and is based on ideas and input from the entire team. Regarding Alexey’s profile and the team’s profiles:

• Alexey: the link GitHub profile was broken, fixed now.
• Nikolay: an application security specialist currently working at a web2 security company. Fields of expertise include reverse engineering, penetration testing, web audits, mobile app audits, web3 audits, and software development. Holds several security certifications (OSCP, OSWE, OSED, KLCP, OSWP, BSCP) and has over 5 years of experience as a pentester and auditor.
• Bogdan, Daniil, Alexey: experienced professionals in web2 and web3 security audits, currently working at a web3 security audit firm. Along with Nikolay, they have participated in and organized numerous CTF (security) competitions and have formed a team of web3 researchers.

Thanks for the questions!

1. Purpose of Polis

The purpose of Polis (I’ll call it DePolis so we can distinguish the existing Polis from DePolis, the system we’d wanna create based on the original Polis) is not to replace existing governance mechanisms but to facilitate large-scale discussions involving many actors.

Ideas about how DePolis could be integrated into decision-making processes are described in “5. Specifications. I. How Polis for DAOs should look”. Even when these ideas focus on delegates (e.g., “Facilitating a ‘pre-forum’ exchange of delegates’ opinions to map the existing opinion landscape”), they’re not meant to replace the current forum.

Anyway, in my opinion, the most canonical, straightforward, and practically useful use case is “Gathering Arbitrum users’ opinions on contentious topics” and/or “Gathering opinions from specific protocol/domain users”. In this case, overlapping topics aren’t a problem (moreover, they must overlap!), and effective collaboration between the forum and DePolis will be organically facilitated by the delegates, who are likely interested in considering DePolis participants’ (= Arbitrum users’) opinions.

In other words, forum - for skilled participants (delegates, service providers, large stakeholders), DePolis - for ordinary users.

2. Long-term maintenance

As stated in the proposal, “we want to start with a relatively simple implementation of DePolis that … will enable the Arbitrum DAO and its delegates to independently launch conversations without our involvement (including defining the participant pool and providing incentives for participants)”. So:

• yes, the costs focus only on development;
• maintenance for DePolis after its launch does not require an additional budget, updates/improvements/issue resolutions will require it.

The point we must achieve, no matter what, is:

• the development phase (with the functionality described in the proposal) is successfully accomplished, DePolis code is open-sourced and publicly available;
• the Arbitrum community has a working system that can be used without our involvement.

In my opinion, achieving these goals ensures that the grant’s money is not wasted, and even in the worst-case scenario, the Arbitrum community has a working system and is able to maintain it on its own.

At the same time, the most preferable scenario for us is when DePolis finds its PMF (within and potentially outside Arbitrum DAO), and we continue to maintain and upgrade it as a tool for Arbitrum DAO, as well as an instrument/product for other communities. It’s really hard to predict future scenarios in this case, but they include requesting Arbitrum DAO for additional funding (the budget will depend on the scope of our future work), requesting grants from other grant providers (likely interested in governance-related products), receiving funds from investors, etc.

Thank you for mentioning me and SimScore in your reply.

I agree wholeheartedly that devs job when envisioning improvements to governance is to make delegate / voters life easier, ideally seamless.

SimScore is a clustering and prioritization tool. It accepts "replies", author and ID#. It returns clustered priority list, relationship graph and pairwise similarity table.

During SimScore's development it became clear that we should not develop a front end. Their are too many options. So instead we commissioned our dev team to change our original POC to a SimScore.API. As you probably know, SimScore results can easily be token weighted. The APIs dev is nearly complete...documentation etc is forthcoming.

I like Pol.is. It is a great tool to determine sentiment. I believe a depolis API would be another great addition. Arbitrum would then know, clusters, priority and sentiment of replies within the Discussion Forum. Making proposers and delegates life easier.

I great project depolis and SimScore could work on is "pulling" all the replies out of the forum, snapshot and tally so the APIs can connect to Forum Discussions. In fact, Proposal.APP may have already done this work @paulofonseca

Delegates would have forum replies available in chronological, priority and sentiment order with a click.

Let you guys get some sleep at night, instead of pouring over complicated strings of replies.