Constitutional.
Increase the resilience of the DAO to outside threats, for example bribe markets, by not counting ABSTAIN votes in quorum. This will make it harder for automated bribe systems to pass contentious proposals, and also easier to defeat spammed malicious proposals which is now a larger threat than at any time the DAO's existence. We should ask ARDC to analyze the effects this change would have had on all previous votes, and if the number of votes required to reach quorum should also be updated with this potential change.
For the first time, an automated bribe market (lobbyfi) has enough delegation to create proposals. This is a major change from only the top handful of delegates, all of which are generally trusted and currently being paid by the DAO, having enough delegation to create proposals.
The recent contentious Op-Co proposal barely reached quorum, but was pushed over by abstain votes. If we only counted Yes votes towards quorum it would have passed by a <620k ARB margin (0.5% of quorum required.) For refence, there is ~35M ARB on aave available to borrow. Imagine another proposal created by LobbyFi or another market passing by this much or malicious proposals just barely
We do not want to wait until proposals can be made through automatic bribes from future protocols for the first time, or for contentious proposals which are generally disfavored to pass only because someone abstained at the last minute. It's time to fight back and be proactive in securing our governance.
Quorum - the number of votes needed to participate in order for a proposal to the DAO to pass. Currently NO votes are not counted towards quorum, but ABSTAIN votes are counted.
Governor - Contract which counts votes and controls quorum.
My understanding is this is a setting in the Governor which can not be updated by the DAO, and so would require a contract upgrade to the Governor. If there is enough interest in pursuing this strategy we will try to work with the OCL dev team who originally deployed the Governor to address the technical implementation before any onchain votes are made. It is heavily modified from the OZ Governor and may require their expertise.
Maybe 6 - 8 weeks?
Primary cost here is engineering time and ARDC time, which should already be accounted for. I believe at least asking for this analysis and possibly some worst case situation simulation is worth pursuing. I will defer to ARDC on costs.
All feedback on this strategy and any other ideas to increase resilience are greatly welcome and appreciated. Thank you.
EDIT: awesome dune dash here: https://dune.com/entropy_advisors/arbitrum-dao-governance-proposals
Constitutional.
Increase the resilience of the DAO to outside threats, for example bribe markets, by not counting ABSTAIN votes in quorum. This will make it harder for automated bribe systems to pass contentious proposals, and also easier to defeat spammed malicious proposals which is now a larger threat than at any time the DAO's existence. We should ask ARDC to analyze the effects this change would have had on all previous votes, and if the number of votes required to reach quorum should also be updated with this potential change.
For the first time, an automated bribe market (lobbyfi) has enough delegation to create proposals. This is a major change from only the top handful of delegates, all of which are generally trusted and currently being paid by the DAO, having enough delegation to create proposals.
The recent contentious Op-Co proposal barely reached quorum, but was pushed over by abstain votes. If we only counted Yes votes towards quorum it would have passed by a <620k ARB margin (0.5% of quorum required.) For refence, there is ~35M ARB on aave available to borrow. Imagine another proposal created by LobbyFi or another market passing by this much or malicious proposals just barely
We do not want to wait until proposals can be made through automatic bribes from future protocols for the first time, or for contentious proposals which are generally disfavored to pass only because someone abstained at the last minute. It's time to fight back and be proactive in securing our governance.
Quorum - the number of votes needed to participate in order for a proposal to the DAO to pass. Currently NO votes are not counted towards quorum, but ABSTAIN votes are counted.
Governor - Contract which counts votes and controls quorum.
My understanding is this is a setting in the Governor which can not be updated by the DAO, and so would require a contract upgrade to the Governor. If there is enough interest in pursuing this strategy we will try to work with the OCL dev team who originally deployed the Governor to address the technical implementation before any onchain votes are made. It is heavily modified from the OZ Governor and may require their expertise.
Maybe 6 - 8 weeks?
Primary cost here is engineering time and ARDC time, which should already be accounted for. I believe at least asking for this analysis and possibly some worst case situation simulation is worth pursuing. I will defer to ARDC on costs.
All feedback on this strategy and any other ideas to increase resilience are greatly welcome and appreciated. Thank you.
EDIT: awesome dune dash here: https://dune.com/entropy_advisors/arbitrum-dao-governance-proposals
The following reflects the views of GMX’s Governance Committee and is based on the combined research, evaluation, consensus, and ideation of various committee members.
We agree that quorum is an issue that needs to be investigated, however, we do not believe including Abstain votes is a solution.
The following reflects the views of GMX’s Governance Committee and is based on the combined research, evaluation, consensus, and ideation of various committee members.
We agree that quorum is an issue that needs to be investigated, however, we do not believe including Abstain votes is a solution.
The ARDC Risk Member is investigating this and already had an AMA with delegates before beginning the research.
We look forward to the output of Nethermind’s work and their recommendations.
Notion Repo for ARDC Tasks: Explore the viability of a governance attack at the current quorum and analyze the risks involved in reducing quorum.
ARDC Communication Thread: https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/ardc-communication-thread/28279/14
The following reflects the views of GMX’s Governance Committee and is based on the combined research, evaluation, consensus, and ideation of various committee members.
We agree that quorum is an issue that needs to be investigated, however, we do not believe including Abstain votes is a solution.
The following reflects the views of GMX’s Governance Committee and is based on the combined research, evaluation, consensus, and ideation of various committee members.
We agree that quorum is an issue that needs to be investigated, however, we do not believe including Abstain votes is a solution.
The ARDC Risk Member is investigating this and already had an AMA with delegates before beginning the research.
We look forward to the output of Nethermind’s work and their recommendations.
Notion Repo for ARDC Tasks: Explore the viability of a governance attack at the current quorum and analyze the risks involved in reducing quorum.
ARDC Communication Thread: https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/ardc-communication-thread/28279/14
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
Separately, this is frustrating but it's not the first time it's happened. This proposal comes to mind for us https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/proposal-for-financial-restitution-for-arbitrumdao-grant-winners/27020. The problem wasn't that the token price had changed in a vacuum, but that there was such a delay in payment.
the same problems from then are the same problems we have now.
but now as a result of the delays the ARDC team is currently sweating, praying to market gods that the allocated ARB will cover the full budget
We were spot checking this and most of it seems right but we think a few columns are a bit off (many of the values in column Y look like they're adding the for and against votes together). We've made a slightly different sheet here, using the same counts for quorum and for/against/abstain votes, just with fewer and what we think are fixed columns, would appreciate a third set of eyes going over the numbers though. Regardless, we're finding largely the same results, with the exception of one proposal that passed but wouldn't have without the abstain votes, though it was by a relatively small margin.
We were spot checking this and most of it seems right but we think a few columns are a bit off (many of the values in column Y look like they're adding the for and against votes together). We've made a slightly different sheet here, using the same counts for quorum and for/against/abstain votes, just with fewer and what we think are fixed columns, would appreciate a third set of eyes going over the numbers though. Regardless, we're finding largely the same results, with the exception of one proposal that passed but wouldn't have without the abstain votes, though it was by a relatively small margin.
had a quorum of 122,648,495 and 121,903,727 for votes + 14,337,585 abstain votes. if we didn't count abstain it would need 744,768 more votes in favor to pass.
They are good and popular it won’t matter too much, and if they are very contentious or possibly part of a governance attack they will be harder to get through.
We're not sure this is true. As we mentioned earlier, many of the proposals that barely made it over quorum are things like network upgrades. For example, if you look at something like the BoLD proposal which had the lowest amount over quorum at 104.52%, you can see that it isn't exactly a contentious vote, with 210.66M 'for', 5.68K 'against' and 8.8K 'abstain'. This was a good and popular proposal that was still harder to get through than most.
Using the same 10 passed proposals as earlier, we can also see that the majority have near 100% support rates, but a low margin of safety over the quorum.
Given that these are some of the most important proposals in the DAO, we would not support making it any harder to get them passed, especially if quorum continues to rise as more tokens leave the main treasury.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
Separately, this is frustrating but it's not the first time it's happened. This proposal comes to mind for us https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/proposal-for-financial-restitution-for-arbitrumdao-grant-winners/27020. The problem wasn't that the token price had changed in a vacuum, but that there was such a delay in payment.
the same problems from then are the same problems we have now.
but now as a result of the delays the ARDC team is currently sweating, praying to market gods that the allocated ARB will cover the full budget
We were spot checking this and most of it seems right but we think a few columns are a bit off (many of the values in column Y look like they're adding the for and against votes together). We've made a slightly different sheet here, using the same counts for quorum and for/against/abstain votes, just with fewer and what we think are fixed columns, would appreciate a third set of eyes going over the numbers though. Regardless, we're finding largely the same results, with the exception of one proposal that passed but wouldn't have without the abstain votes, though it was by a relatively small margin.
We were spot checking this and most of it seems right but we think a few columns are a bit off (many of the values in column Y look like they're adding the for and against votes together). We've made a slightly different sheet here, using the same counts for quorum and for/against/abstain votes, just with fewer and what we think are fixed columns, would appreciate a third set of eyes going over the numbers though. Regardless, we're finding largely the same results, with the exception of one proposal that passed but wouldn't have without the abstain votes, though it was by a relatively small margin.
had a quorum of 122,648,495 and 121,903,727 for votes + 14,337,585 abstain votes. if we didn't count abstain it would need 744,768 more votes in favor to pass.
They are good and popular it won’t matter too much, and if they are very contentious or possibly part of a governance attack they will be harder to get through.
We're not sure this is true. As we mentioned earlier, many of the proposals that barely made it over quorum are things like network upgrades. For example, if you look at something like the BoLD proposal which had the lowest amount over quorum at 104.52%, you can see that it isn't exactly a contentious vote, with 210.66M 'for', 5.68K 'against' and 8.8K 'abstain'. This was a good and popular proposal that was still harder to get through than most.
Using the same 10 passed proposals as earlier, we can also see that the majority have near 100% support rates, but a low margin of safety over the quorum.
Given that these are some of the most important proposals in the DAO, we would not support making it any harder to get them passed, especially if quorum continues to rise as more tokens leave the main treasury.
We should ask ARDC to analyze the effects this change would have had on all previous votes, and if the number of votes required to reach quorum should also be updated with this potential change.
We should ask ARDC to analyze the effects this change would have had on all previous votes, and if the number of votes required to reach quorum should also be updated with this potential change.
Entropy might be able to at least partially help with this instead of the ARDC. Not all of the queries are public right now but they're already tracking quorum and voting results over time.
https://dune.com/entropy_advisors/arbitrum-dao-governance-proposals
Interesting to see that even though these are arguably some of the most important ones, of the 10 proposals that have passed with a relatively low quorum 8 of them are related to network changes or the security council, even BoLD barely made it. We're not the first to say this but regardless of whether we decide to keep abstain votes as part of quorum or not, this is probably something we should find a way to get more energy around.
We should ask ARDC to analyze the effects this change would have had on all previous votes, and if the number of votes required to reach quorum should also be updated with this potential change.
We should ask ARDC to analyze the effects this change would have had on all previous votes, and if the number of votes required to reach quorum should also be updated with this potential change.
Entropy might be able to at least partially help with this instead of the ARDC. Not all of the queries are public right now but they're already tracking quorum and voting results over time.
https://dune.com/entropy_advisors/arbitrum-dao-governance-proposals
Interesting to see that even though these are arguably some of the most important ones, of the 10 proposals that have passed with a relatively low quorum 8 of them are related to network changes or the security council, even BoLD barely made it. We're not the first to say this but regardless of whether we decide to keep abstain votes as part of quorum or not, this is probably something we should find a way to get more energy around.
Appreciate @cupojoseph for bringing up such an important topic. With Arbitrum DAO sitting on a $5B+ treasury, we totally get the worry about governance attacks. The OpCo example really drives it home—18.5M "Abstain" votes got the quorum to 140M, leaving just a 620k ARB gap for "Yes" votes. That’s only 0.5% of quorum, and with ~35M ARB up for grabs on Aave, someone could borrow enough to swing it for a few grand. That’s a bit scary, right?
But I’m not sure excluding "Abstain" votes from quorum is the best fix like what @Curia pointed out .
Appreciate @cupojoseph for bringing up such an important topic. With Arbitrum DAO sitting on a $5B+ treasury, we totally get the worry about governance attacks. The OpCo example really drives it home—18.5M "Abstain" votes got the quorum to 140M, leaving just a 620k ARB gap for "Yes" votes. That’s only 0.5% of quorum, and with ~35M ARB up for grabs on Aave, someone could borrow enough to swing it for a few grand. That’s a bit scary, right?
But I’m not sure excluding "Abstain" votes from quorum is the best fix like what @Curia pointed out .
Here’s what we’re thinking instead. First, let’s set a minimum "Yes" vote rule—like, 40% of quorum has to be "Yes" to pass. For OpCo, that’d mean 48.72M "Yes" votes (with a 121.8M quorum), so the 620k margin wouldn’t cut it. Second, how about higher quorum for big spends? Say, proposals over 10M ARB need a 5% quorum and 60% "Yes" votes, but smaller ones stick to 3%. It’s kinda like what @Chris_Areta suggested, just with clearer numbers. To get more people voting, why not reward delegates who vote in 75% of monthly votes with a small ARB bonus from treasury yield? That could help with turnout.
This way, we tackle the security issue without ditching "Abstain," which a lot of folks like for staying neutral. Thanks again, @cupojoseph, for getting this convo going!
After listening to @cupojoseph's arguments during this week's call, I am heavily leaning towards supporting this change. Abstain votes within a DAO serve a very different purpose as opposed to you country's Parliamentary process where votes are often counted 1 to 1.
This is why some company bylaws require that the sum of YES votes outnumbers NO and ABSTAIN in certain circumstances.
After listening to @cupojoseph's arguments during this week's call, I am heavily leaning towards supporting this change. Abstain votes within a DAO serve a very different purpose as opposed to you country's Parliamentary process where votes are often counted 1 to 1.
This is why some company bylaws require that the sum of YES votes outnumbers NO and ABSTAIN in certain circumstances.
Amassing large voting power lets anyone indirectly back unpopular proposals without compromising themselves or their stances.
The sole fact that we can reference examples where Abstain votes' effect on quorum could have influenced voting outcome is enough to warrant at least revising this topic.
Also, NOBODY SAID WE ARE REMOVING THE ABSTAIN OPTION :sweat_smile:
gm @cupojoseph,
This is certainly an interesting topic to ponder on. We would like to update all delegates that Castle Labs is currently collaborating with Nethermind and we are already looking into governance challenges and risks within the research topic for ARDC.
gm @cupojoseph,
This is certainly an interesting topic to ponder on. We would like to update all delegates that Castle Labs is currently collaborating with Nethermind and we are already looking into governance challenges and risks within the research topic for ARDC.
The impact of not including ABSTAIN votes to quorum is being explored along with other metrics to have a better gauge of governance in its totality. The research is currently in progress.
We think that there needs to be considered several vectors here, these are some of the most popular comments within the community
Removing the "abstain" option - hurts a lot of stakeholders because they can no longer voice opinion due to conflict of interests and some other reasons like not being technical enough to properly understand the proposal but still willing to participate etc.
There are plenty of examples within the traditional voting system on all levels where "abstain" not only exists, but counts towards quorum. In a way how the system is designed right now is aligned with global best practices.
Indeed, there may be such a situation (in theory) that 99% will abstain, and 1% will accept some proposal. However, in this case, I think it is obvious that the vote is not important, since everyone does not care and votes by abstaining.
This is a misunderstanding of how governance works. If we want to make it harder to pass proposals, then we can require a supper majority for support (e.g. 75% in favour vs against).
But eliminating Abstain from quorum is compounding over the mistake already of not including Against for quorum.
This is a misunderstanding of how governance works. If we want to make it harder to pass proposals, then we can require a supper majority for support (e.g. 75% in favour vs against).
But eliminating Abstain from quorum is compounding over the mistake already of not including Against for quorum.
Quorum is there to ensure proposals can't be sneaked through e.g. during a holiday break. And that's not what this is about.
What we need are solutions so more people vote, and Arbitrum Tokens are more valuable. Not breaking down governance.
Personally I feel like having "No"-votes not count towards quorum in the first place is counter-intuitive, but I can understand the intent behind it. Having "Abstain"-votes also not count towards quorum seems like it would align with that intent, so for that reason I don't oppose the suggestion.
However as has been pointed out, I'm not sure this will have a great degree of impact towards increased resilience. Some impact, granted, but not a great degree.
Personally I feel like having "No"-votes not count towards quorum in the first place is counter-intuitive, but I can understand the intent behind it. Having "Abstain"-votes also not count towards quorum seems like it would align with that intent, so for that reason I don't oppose the suggestion.
However as has been pointed out, I'm not sure this will have a great degree of impact towards increased resilience. Some impact, granted, but not a great degree.
Perhaps a more impactful change would be: "Yes"-votes count towards quorum proportional to weight "Abstain"-votes have no effect on quorum "No"-votes actively decrement quorum proportional to weight
It is a bit of a shift in how things work, granted, but it would certainly go a long way towards enforcing "controversial proposals require a higher degree of participation to pass", which is the proposal intent.
To play devil's advocate on my own proposal, this would create a new kind of vulnerability in that a saboteur with significant voting power could just vote "No" on every proposal to raise the bar on quorum, so that may need to be addressed. On the other hand such a vulnerability already kind of exists, in that said saboteur could already vote no to every proposal if they had an overwhelming majority, so perhaps it just lowers the bar on that kind of attack rather that introducing a new issue.
As mentioned by @Atomist the ARDC V2 is currently working with Nethermind & Castle Cap on this. We aim to have a first version of this report available within the next 2 weeks - if then there is the desire to dive deeper on certain aspects e.g., exploring scenarios and its impacts on past and future proposals we are happy to further investigate it.
Appreciate @cupojoseph for bringing up such an important topic. With Arbitrum DAO sitting on a $5B+ treasury, we totally get the worry about governance attacks. The OpCo example really drives it home—18.5M "Abstain" votes got the quorum to 140M, leaving just a 620k ARB gap for "Yes" votes. That’s only 0.5% of quorum, and with ~35M ARB up for grabs on Aave, someone could borrow enough to swing it for a few grand. That’s a bit scary, right?
But I’m not sure excluding "Abstain" votes from quorum is the best fix like what @Curia pointed out .
Appreciate @cupojoseph for bringing up such an important topic. With Arbitrum DAO sitting on a $5B+ treasury, we totally get the worry about governance attacks. The OpCo example really drives it home—18.5M "Abstain" votes got the quorum to 140M, leaving just a 620k ARB gap for "Yes" votes. That’s only 0.5% of quorum, and with ~35M ARB up for grabs on Aave, someone could borrow enough to swing it for a few grand. That’s a bit scary, right?
But I’m not sure excluding "Abstain" votes from quorum is the best fix like what @Curia pointed out .
Here’s what we’re thinking instead. First, let’s set a minimum "Yes" vote rule—like, 40% of quorum has to be "Yes" to pass. For OpCo, that’d mean 48.72M "Yes" votes (with a 121.8M quorum), so the 620k margin wouldn’t cut it. Second, how about higher quorum for big spends? Say, proposals over 10M ARB need a 5% quorum and 60% "Yes" votes, but smaller ones stick to 3%. It’s kinda like what @Chris_Areta suggested, just with clearer numbers. To get more people voting, why not reward delegates who vote in 75% of monthly votes with a small ARB bonus from treasury yield? That could help with turnout.
This way, we tackle the security issue without ditching "Abstain," which a lot of folks like for staying neutral. Thanks again, @cupojoseph, for getting this convo going!
After listening to @cupojoseph's arguments during this week's call, I am heavily leaning towards supporting this change. Abstain votes within a DAO serve a very different purpose as opposed to you country's Parliamentary process where votes are often counted 1 to 1.
This is why some company bylaws require that the sum of YES votes outnumbers NO and ABSTAIN in certain circumstances.
After listening to @cupojoseph's arguments during this week's call, I am heavily leaning towards supporting this change. Abstain votes within a DAO serve a very different purpose as opposed to you country's Parliamentary process where votes are often counted 1 to 1.
This is why some company bylaws require that the sum of YES votes outnumbers NO and ABSTAIN in certain circumstances.
Amassing large voting power lets anyone indirectly back unpopular proposals without compromising themselves or their stances.
The sole fact that we can reference examples where Abstain votes' effect on quorum could have influenced voting outcome is enough to warrant at least revising this topic.
Also, NOBODY SAID WE ARE REMOVING THE ABSTAIN OPTION :sweat_smile:
gm @cupojoseph,
This is certainly an interesting topic to ponder on. We would like to update all delegates that Castle Labs is currently collaborating with Nethermind and we are already looking into governance challenges and risks within the research topic for ARDC.
gm @cupojoseph,
This is certainly an interesting topic to ponder on. We would like to update all delegates that Castle Labs is currently collaborating with Nethermind and we are already looking into governance challenges and risks within the research topic for ARDC.
The impact of not including ABSTAIN votes to quorum is being explored along with other metrics to have a better gauge of governance in its totality. The research is currently in progress.
We think that there needs to be considered several vectors here, these are some of the most popular comments within the community
Removing the "abstain" option - hurts a lot of stakeholders because they can no longer voice opinion due to conflict of interests and some other reasons like not being technical enough to properly understand the proposal but still willing to participate etc.
There are plenty of examples within the traditional voting system on all levels where "abstain" not only exists, but counts towards quorum. In a way how the system is designed right now is aligned with global best practices.
Indeed, there may be such a situation (in theory) that 99% will abstain, and 1% will accept some proposal. However, in this case, I think it is obvious that the vote is not important, since everyone does not care and votes by abstaining.
This is a misunderstanding of how governance works. If we want to make it harder to pass proposals, then we can require a supper majority for support (e.g. 75% in favour vs against).
But eliminating Abstain from quorum is compounding over the mistake already of not including Against for quorum.
This is a misunderstanding of how governance works. If we want to make it harder to pass proposals, then we can require a supper majority for support (e.g. 75% in favour vs against).
But eliminating Abstain from quorum is compounding over the mistake already of not including Against for quorum.
Quorum is there to ensure proposals can't be sneaked through e.g. during a holiday break. And that's not what this is about.
What we need are solutions so more people vote, and Arbitrum Tokens are more valuable. Not breaking down governance.
Personally I feel like having "No"-votes not count towards quorum in the first place is counter-intuitive, but I can understand the intent behind it. Having "Abstain"-votes also not count towards quorum seems like it would align with that intent, so for that reason I don't oppose the suggestion.
However as has been pointed out, I'm not sure this will have a great degree of impact towards increased resilience. Some impact, granted, but not a great degree.
Personally I feel like having "No"-votes not count towards quorum in the first place is counter-intuitive, but I can understand the intent behind it. Having "Abstain"-votes also not count towards quorum seems like it would align with that intent, so for that reason I don't oppose the suggestion.
However as has been pointed out, I'm not sure this will have a great degree of impact towards increased resilience. Some impact, granted, but not a great degree.
Perhaps a more impactful change would be: "Yes"-votes count towards quorum proportional to weight "Abstain"-votes have no effect on quorum "No"-votes actively decrement quorum proportional to weight
It is a bit of a shift in how things work, granted, but it would certainly go a long way towards enforcing "controversial proposals require a higher degree of participation to pass", which is the proposal intent.
To play devil's advocate on my own proposal, this would create a new kind of vulnerability in that a saboteur with significant voting power could just vote "No" on every proposal to raise the bar on quorum, so that may need to be addressed. On the other hand such a vulnerability already kind of exists, in that said saboteur could already vote no to every proposal if they had an overwhelming majority, so perhaps it just lowers the bar on that kind of attack rather that introducing a new issue.
As mentioned by @Atomist the ARDC V2 is currently working with Nethermind & Castle Cap on this. We aim to have a first version of this report available within the next 2 weeks - if then there is the desire to dive deeper on certain aspects e.g., exploring scenarios and its impacts on past and future proposals we are happy to further investigate it.
We think that there needs to be considered several vectors here, these are some of the most popular comments within the community
Removing the "abstain" option - hurts a lot of stakeholders because they can no longer voice opinion due to conflict of interests and some other reasons like not being technical enough to properly understand the proposal but still willing to participate etc.
There are plenty of examples within the traditional voting system on all levels where "abstain" not only exists, but counts towards quorum. In a way how the system is designed right now is aligned with global best practices.
More importantly it is vital to understand what kind of problem we are trying to solve, and it appears that we are going in the wrong direction. The definition of the problem is to prevent malicious attacks on DAO. Governance does not exist in DAO space only, it is all around us in tradefi space, the key differences here are mechanisms. Typically traditional tradefi corporate governance is a very "red taped" system, which relies on courts to enforce the mechanisms. DAO's operate in a completely different reality where "code is the law" and no courts, if someone maliciously takes control over your entity / assets you are pretty much on your own. For example "airdrop" is a very new instrument which only works on blockchain.
Keeping that in mind we should not be trying to break some of the basic best practices of governance, but rather think about new innovative ways how we can protect our DAO.
Admittedly in my eyes it's not the most elegant solution, but it works quite well - ENS implemented a security council which is a multisig which has power of veto over any proposal passed.
We should be working more closely with a community of delegates to create a large diverse base of voices with voting power spread more or less evenly - that reduces the probability of successful governance attack significantly.
Suggesting to break down the "abstain" mechanism, seems like a wrong solution to the posed problem. Since blockchain is a completely new world, we should invent new ways to protect DAO's from attacks.
Indeed, there may be such a situation (in theory) that 99% will abstain, and 1% will accept some proposal. However, in this case, I think it is obvious that the vote is not important, since everyone does not care and votes by abstaining.
Agree with this. As mentioned in my previous comment, if a malicious proposal were to be posted, delegates still have the option to either not vote or vote against. I don't see a situation where a malicious proposal is posted and it is passed because of delegates voting abstain.
Again, as mentioned in my previous post, the real situation we're tackling here is controversial proposals. For that, I think higher thresholds is a much better approach.
Having looked at all the pros and cons, I would also like to speak out:
Indeed, there may be such a situation (in theory) that 99% will abstain, and 1% will accept some proposal. However, in this case, I think it is obvious that the vote is not important, since everyone does not care and votes by abstaining.
The problem, however, exists, and it can be solved in another way. For example, for critical votes, where key decisions are made and/or where a large amount of funds are sent (for example, from 10-20 million ARB), you can apply not changes to the quorum, but set requirements for 60-70% of votes FOR. Such a solution exists in other DAOs (for example, Jupiter on Solana). Also, this is used in state parliaments for key decisions (from 2/3 to 3/4 of the votes)
Having looked at all the pros and cons, I would also like to speak out:
Indeed, there may be such a situation (in theory) that 99% will abstain, and 1% will accept some proposal. However, in this case, I think it is obvious that the vote is not important, since everyone does not care and votes by abstaining.
The problem, however, exists, and it can be solved in another way. For example, for critical votes, where key decisions are made and/or where a large amount of funds are sent (for example, from 10-20 million ARB), you can apply not changes to the quorum, but set requirements for 60-70% of votes FOR. Such a solution exists in other DAOs (for example, Jupiter on Solana). Also, this is used in state parliaments for key decisions (from 2/3 to 3/4 of the votes)
If we are going to set such a vote, then I would like this option to appear in it as well.
A simple analysis shows that the OpCo and Hackathon votes would not have passed (and if there was a limit on funds, only OpCo). I believe that the DAO would have benefited from this, since both proposals brought out a lot of debate in the community, and the goal of the community is not to divide, but to come up with the best solution. With a threshold of 70% FOR, we know for sure that the majority of the community accepts this solution.
We think that there needs to be considered several vectors here, these are some of the most popular comments within the community
Removing the "abstain" option - hurts a lot of stakeholders because they can no longer voice opinion due to conflict of interests and some other reasons like not being technical enough to properly understand the proposal but still willing to participate etc.
There are plenty of examples within the traditional voting system on all levels where "abstain" not only exists, but counts towards quorum. In a way how the system is designed right now is aligned with global best practices.
More importantly it is vital to understand what kind of problem we are trying to solve, and it appears that we are going in the wrong direction. The definition of the problem is to prevent malicious attacks on DAO. Governance does not exist in DAO space only, it is all around us in tradefi space, the key differences here are mechanisms. Typically traditional tradefi corporate governance is a very "red taped" system, which relies on courts to enforce the mechanisms. DAO's operate in a completely different reality where "code is the law" and no courts, if someone maliciously takes control over your entity / assets you are pretty much on your own. For example "airdrop" is a very new instrument which only works on blockchain.
Keeping that in mind we should not be trying to break some of the basic best practices of governance, but rather think about new innovative ways how we can protect our DAO.
Admittedly in my eyes it's not the most elegant solution, but it works quite well - ENS implemented a security council which is a multisig which has power of veto over any proposal passed.
We should be working more closely with a community of delegates to create a large diverse base of voices with voting power spread more or less evenly - that reduces the probability of successful governance attack significantly.
Suggesting to break down the "abstain" mechanism, seems like a wrong solution to the posed problem. Since blockchain is a completely new world, we should invent new ways to protect DAO's from attacks.
Indeed, there may be such a situation (in theory) that 99% will abstain, and 1% will accept some proposal. However, in this case, I think it is obvious that the vote is not important, since everyone does not care and votes by abstaining.
Agree with this. As mentioned in my previous comment, if a malicious proposal were to be posted, delegates still have the option to either not vote or vote against. I don't see a situation where a malicious proposal is posted and it is passed because of delegates voting abstain.
Again, as mentioned in my previous post, the real situation we're tackling here is controversial proposals. For that, I think higher thresholds is a much better approach.
Having looked at all the pros and cons, I would also like to speak out:
Indeed, there may be such a situation (in theory) that 99% will abstain, and 1% will accept some proposal. However, in this case, I think it is obvious that the vote is not important, since everyone does not care and votes by abstaining.
The problem, however, exists, and it can be solved in another way. For example, for critical votes, where key decisions are made and/or where a large amount of funds are sent (for example, from 10-20 million ARB), you can apply not changes to the quorum, but set requirements for 60-70% of votes FOR. Such a solution exists in other DAOs (for example, Jupiter on Solana). Also, this is used in state parliaments for key decisions (from 2/3 to 3/4 of the votes)
Having looked at all the pros and cons, I would also like to speak out:
Indeed, there may be such a situation (in theory) that 99% will abstain, and 1% will accept some proposal. However, in this case, I think it is obvious that the vote is not important, since everyone does not care and votes by abstaining.
The problem, however, exists, and it can be solved in another way. For example, for critical votes, where key decisions are made and/or where a large amount of funds are sent (for example, from 10-20 million ARB), you can apply not changes to the quorum, but set requirements for 60-70% of votes FOR. Such a solution exists in other DAOs (for example, Jupiter on Solana). Also, this is used in state parliaments for key decisions (from 2/3 to 3/4 of the votes)
If we are going to set such a vote, then I would like this option to appear in it as well.
A simple analysis shows that the OpCo and Hackathon votes would not have passed (and if there was a limit on funds, only OpCo). I believe that the DAO would have benefited from this, since both proposals brought out a lot of debate in the community, and the goal of the community is not to divide, but to come up with the best solution. With a threshold of 70% FOR, we know for sure that the majority of the community accepts this solution.
If you don’t understand how quorum works please do not waste everyone’s time by commenting.
Those are easy words to say behind a screen ;) respect. We are here helping each other.
If you don’t understand how quorum works please do not waste everyone’s time by commenting.
Those are easy words to say behind a screen ;) respect. We are here helping each other.
A proposal with 1 million yes votes, and 500,000 no votes is failing because of lack of quorum.
Here is where you could had misunderstood my words. I wouldn’t call this proposal failing; I would call it winning but not passing.
That's a winning proposal without enough people looking into it. The moment other folks look into it and abstain, they are communicating that they don’t have the expertise/time to look into it in the detail it deserves and are trusting the people who are voting to decide. If the majority of voters vote no, that proposal will not pass.
And what you are proposing is to remove quorum from abstain votes, which honestly makes no sense. There are technical decisions where I personally do not want to participate, but I don’t want to block the decision from happening via quorum.
We appreciate the proactive approach to fortify our governance against potential threats. However, excluding 'Abstain' votes from quorum calculations may have unintended consequences as explained by @juanbug.
Delegates often use the ‘Abstain’ option when they have conflicts of interest or lack sufficient information on a proposal. Removing ‘Abstain’ from quorum calculations might discourage participation from those who prefer neutrality, potentially leading to lower overall engagement.
We appreciate the proactive approach to fortify our governance against potential threats. However, excluding 'Abstain' votes from quorum calculations may have unintended consequences as explained by @juanbug.
Delegates often use the ‘Abstain’ option when they have conflicts of interest or lack sufficient information on a proposal. Removing ‘Abstain’ from quorum calculations might discourage participation from those who prefer neutrality, potentially leading to lower overall engagement.
We agree with @Chris_Areta that changing threshold requirements on critical proposals seems a better alternative to increase resilience to outside attacks.
If we want to move forward with changing requirements, we recommend that the Arbitrum Research and Development Council (ARDC) conduct a thorough analysis to assess the potential impacts of this change on past and future proposals. This would ensure that any modifications to our governance parameters are effective and inclusive.
In conclusion, while we recognize the intent to safeguard the DAO, we advocate for a measured approach that considers all potential outcomes and maintains the integrity of our governance processes.
On behalf of the UADP, it's interesting this proposal is around due to automated bribe markets like LobbyFi having large impact these days. By not counting 'Abstain' votes towards quorum, the DAO can ensure that only active 'For' or 'Against' votes influence the decision-making process, potentially making it more challenging for contentious or malicious proposals to pass.
We don't think this is a particularly highest priority but, some considerations:
On behalf of the UADP, it's interesting this proposal is around due to automated bribe markets like LobbyFi having large impact these days. By not counting 'Abstain' votes towards quorum, the DAO can ensure that only active 'For' or 'Against' votes influence the decision-making process, potentially making it more challenging for contentious or malicious proposals to pass.
We don't think this is a particularly highest priority but, some considerations:
Overall, it's nice to see this pretty in depth discussion and debate of this nuanced topic.
If “Against” adds to quorum, and I want a proposal to fail, I should strategically wait to vote Against because it might fail just due to quorum.
If “Against” adds to quorum, and I want a proposal to fail, I should strategically wait to vote Against because it might fail just due to quorum.
This is exactly what happens in practice: many delegates who don’t want to support a proposal opt to simply abstain. By not voting at all, they prevent quorum from being met, thereby stopping the proposal from being approved.
Based on this, removing the “abstain” option from the quorum count wouldn’t provide a significant improvement. If a malicious proposal were to be posted, delegates still have the option to either abstain or vote against—both actions effectively prevent the proposal’s approval. Even if an attacker were to buy votes on LobbyFi, the proposal would fail as long as the majority of delegates act in the DAO’s best interests.
Instead, I’d propose considering a higher quorum threshold for proposals that aren’t explicitly malicious but could be controversial. For instance, the Gaming Catalyst funding approved last year serves as a good example where a higher quorum might have been more appropriate.
I don’t see a good reason to remove 'Abstain' votes from quorum. The sole purpose is to count participation without forcing a stance, as many in the thread have pointed out. Abstaining is like delegating to your peers and I think it is better to keep it as part of quorum. Quorum should reflect engagement.
The current design is such that if you don't want your vote to count towards quorum, you vote against, if you want it to vote towards quorum but don't want to support directly, you vote abstain. That's better.
I don’t see a good reason to remove 'Abstain' votes from quorum. The sole purpose is to count participation without forcing a stance, as many in the thread have pointed out. Abstaining is like delegating to your peers and I think it is better to keep it as part of quorum. Quorum should reflect engagement.
The current design is such that if you don't want your vote to count towards quorum, you vote against, if you want it to vote towards quorum but don't want to support directly, you vote abstain. That's better.
Also, changing cost is a thing.
if you want your vote to count towards quorum but don’t want to support you should vote against. That’s better.
A “no” vote will never turn into a passing vote because of quorum.
Sorry, but this is fundamentally wrong and I don't have time to explain to each person. Test it yourself if you don't believe me.
Sorry @cupojoseph, but you are misunderstanding quorum. Quorum is not the passing or failing mechanism for proposals. It is actually a second check designed to ensure that a significant portion of the group is aware of the proposal, preventing a small minority from making decisions on behalf of the entire DAO.
A "no" vote will never turn into a passing vote because of quorum.
Sorry @cupojoseph, but you are misunderstanding quorum. Quorum is not the passing or failing mechanism for proposals. It is actually a second check designed to ensure that a significant portion of the group is aware of the proposal, preventing a small minority from making decisions on behalf of the entire DAO.
A "no" vote will never turn into a passing vote because of quorum.
There are significant design issues we should be discussing around quorum, but this is not one of them.
if you want it to vote towards quorum but don’t want to support directly
if you want your vote to count towards quorum but don’t want to support you should vote against. That's better.
accurately counting the people who have participated in the vote but have chosen not to take a stance
Gauntlet does not believe that removing Abstain from quorum is an effective solution to the issue of outside attackers. In the case of LobbyFi, if an attacker was attacking the protocol, they would presumably buy votes, and if not, a good actor could likewise buy the votes against, and have LobbyFi not count toward quorum.
It's not clear this a problem that needs a solution, nor that removing abstain is a benefit to the governance model.
I don’t see a compelling reason for this initiative to move forward. The quorum is already fulfilling its purpose by accurately counting the people who have participated in the vote but have chosen not to take a stance, whether for or abstain. The primary goal of ensuring that enough voters are aware and engaged is being met.
By excluding abstentions from quorum calculations, we would essentially be forcing participants who are active in governance and well-informed about the proposals to take a definitive position on every issue, even when they might prefer to remain neutral. This could undermine the value of abstention as a valid form of participation and could pressure voters into making decisions that they may not fully support.
a proposal is failing, abstaining will not make it pass.
Factually inaccurate. If you don't understand how quorum works please do not waste everyone's time by commenting.
Based on this logic, it turns out that if we have 4 friends and 2 vote against, 1 for and 1 abstain, then the vote that abstain will be counted as a quorum against and the proposal will be rejected?
That's not how it works. When you vote against, you don’t contribute to the quorum. Only "yes" and "abstain" votes count toward the quorum.
Abstaining = I don’t have a strong opinion on this, but I will not block the decision the community makes.
That's not how it works. When you vote against, you don’t contribute to the quorum. Only "yes" and "abstain" votes count toward the quorum.
Abstaining = I don’t have a strong opinion on this, but I will not block the decision the community makes.
If a proposal is failing, abstaining will not make it pass. Abstaining does not add weight to "yes" votes.
If you don’t understand how quorum works please do not waste everyone’s time by commenting.
Those are easy words to say behind a screen ;) respect. We are here helping each other.
If you don’t understand how quorum works please do not waste everyone’s time by commenting.
Those are easy words to say behind a screen ;) respect. We are here helping each other.
A proposal with 1 million yes votes, and 500,000 no votes is failing because of lack of quorum.
Here is where you could had misunderstood my words. I wouldn’t call this proposal failing; I would call it winning but not passing.
That's a winning proposal without enough people looking into it. The moment other folks look into it and abstain, they are communicating that they don’t have the expertise/time to look into it in the detail it deserves and are trusting the people who are voting to decide. If the majority of voters vote no, that proposal will not pass.
And what you are proposing is to remove quorum from abstain votes, which honestly makes no sense. There are technical decisions where I personally do not want to participate, but I don’t want to block the decision from happening via quorum.
We appreciate the proactive approach to fortify our governance against potential threats. However, excluding 'Abstain' votes from quorum calculations may have unintended consequences as explained by @juanbug.
Delegates often use the ‘Abstain’ option when they have conflicts of interest or lack sufficient information on a proposal. Removing ‘Abstain’ from quorum calculations might discourage participation from those who prefer neutrality, potentially leading to lower overall engagement.
We appreciate the proactive approach to fortify our governance against potential threats. However, excluding 'Abstain' votes from quorum calculations may have unintended consequences as explained by @juanbug.
Delegates often use the ‘Abstain’ option when they have conflicts of interest or lack sufficient information on a proposal. Removing ‘Abstain’ from quorum calculations might discourage participation from those who prefer neutrality, potentially leading to lower overall engagement.
We agree with @Chris_Areta that changing threshold requirements on critical proposals seems a better alternative to increase resilience to outside attacks.
If we want to move forward with changing requirements, we recommend that the Arbitrum Research and Development Council (ARDC) conduct a thorough analysis to assess the potential impacts of this change on past and future proposals. This would ensure that any modifications to our governance parameters are effective and inclusive.
In conclusion, while we recognize the intent to safeguard the DAO, we advocate for a measured approach that considers all potential outcomes and maintains the integrity of our governance processes.
On behalf of the UADP, it's interesting this proposal is around due to automated bribe markets like LobbyFi having large impact these days. By not counting 'Abstain' votes towards quorum, the DAO can ensure that only active 'For' or 'Against' votes influence the decision-making process, potentially making it more challenging for contentious or malicious proposals to pass.
We don't think this is a particularly highest priority but, some considerations:
On behalf of the UADP, it's interesting this proposal is around due to automated bribe markets like LobbyFi having large impact these days. By not counting 'Abstain' votes towards quorum, the DAO can ensure that only active 'For' or 'Against' votes influence the decision-making process, potentially making it more challenging for contentious or malicious proposals to pass.
We don't think this is a particularly highest priority but, some considerations:
Overall, it's nice to see this pretty in depth discussion and debate of this nuanced topic.
If “Against” adds to quorum, and I want a proposal to fail, I should strategically wait to vote Against because it might fail just due to quorum.
If “Against” adds to quorum, and I want a proposal to fail, I should strategically wait to vote Against because it might fail just due to quorum.
This is exactly what happens in practice: many delegates who don’t want to support a proposal opt to simply abstain. By not voting at all, they prevent quorum from being met, thereby stopping the proposal from being approved.
Based on this, removing the “abstain” option from the quorum count wouldn’t provide a significant improvement. If a malicious proposal were to be posted, delegates still have the option to either abstain or vote against—both actions effectively prevent the proposal’s approval. Even if an attacker were to buy votes on LobbyFi, the proposal would fail as long as the majority of delegates act in the DAO’s best interests.
Instead, I’d propose considering a higher quorum threshold for proposals that aren’t explicitly malicious but could be controversial. For instance, the Gaming Catalyst funding approved last year serves as a good example where a higher quorum might have been more appropriate.
I don’t see a good reason to remove 'Abstain' votes from quorum. The sole purpose is to count participation without forcing a stance, as many in the thread have pointed out. Abstaining is like delegating to your peers and I think it is better to keep it as part of quorum. Quorum should reflect engagement.
The current design is such that if you don't want your vote to count towards quorum, you vote against, if you want it to vote towards quorum but don't want to support directly, you vote abstain. That's better.
I don’t see a good reason to remove 'Abstain' votes from quorum. The sole purpose is to count participation without forcing a stance, as many in the thread have pointed out. Abstaining is like delegating to your peers and I think it is better to keep it as part of quorum. Quorum should reflect engagement.
The current design is such that if you don't want your vote to count towards quorum, you vote against, if you want it to vote towards quorum but don't want to support directly, you vote abstain. That's better.
Also, changing cost is a thing.
if you want your vote to count towards quorum but don’t want to support you should vote against. That’s better.
A “no” vote will never turn into a passing vote because of quorum.
Sorry, but this is fundamentally wrong and I don't have time to explain to each person. Test it yourself if you don't believe me.
Sorry @cupojoseph, but you are misunderstanding quorum. Quorum is not the passing or failing mechanism for proposals. It is actually a second check designed to ensure that a significant portion of the group is aware of the proposal, preventing a small minority from making decisions on behalf of the entire DAO.
A "no" vote will never turn into a passing vote because of quorum.
Sorry @cupojoseph, but you are misunderstanding quorum. Quorum is not the passing or failing mechanism for proposals. It is actually a second check designed to ensure that a significant portion of the group is aware of the proposal, preventing a small minority from making decisions on behalf of the entire DAO.
A "no" vote will never turn into a passing vote because of quorum.
There are significant design issues we should be discussing around quorum, but this is not one of them.
if you want it to vote towards quorum but don’t want to support directly
if you want your vote to count towards quorum but don’t want to support you should vote against. That's better.
accurately counting the people who have participated in the vote but have chosen not to take a stance
Gauntlet does not believe that removing Abstain from quorum is an effective solution to the issue of outside attackers. In the case of LobbyFi, if an attacker was attacking the protocol, they would presumably buy votes, and if not, a good actor could likewise buy the votes against, and have LobbyFi not count toward quorum.
It's not clear this a problem that needs a solution, nor that removing abstain is a benefit to the governance model.
I don’t see a compelling reason for this initiative to move forward. The quorum is already fulfilling its purpose by accurately counting the people who have participated in the vote but have chosen not to take a stance, whether for or abstain. The primary goal of ensuring that enough voters are aware and engaged is being met.
By excluding abstentions from quorum calculations, we would essentially be forcing participants who are active in governance and well-informed about the proposals to take a definitive position on every issue, even when they might prefer to remain neutral. This could undermine the value of abstention as a valid form of participation and could pressure voters into making decisions that they may not fully support.
a proposal is failing, abstaining will not make it pass.
Factually inaccurate. If you don't understand how quorum works please do not waste everyone's time by commenting.
Based on this logic, it turns out that if we have 4 friends and 2 vote against, 1 for and 1 abstain, then the vote that abstain will be counted as a quorum against and the proposal will be rejected?
That's not how it works. When you vote against, you don’t contribute to the quorum. Only "yes" and "abstain" votes count toward the quorum.
Abstaining = I don’t have a strong opinion on this, but I will not block the decision the community makes.
That's not how it works. When you vote against, you don’t contribute to the quorum. Only "yes" and "abstain" votes count toward the quorum.
Abstaining = I don’t have a strong opinion on this, but I will not block the decision the community makes.
If a proposal is failing, abstaining will not make it pass. Abstaining does not add weight to "yes" votes.
if you want your vote to count towards quorum but don’t want to support you should vote against. That’s better.
I 100% disagree! This was learned very clearly in the Early days of Aragon. Weird dynamics happen if Against counts towards quorum.
If a voter want to vote against, that voter doesn't want to support the proposal in passing in anyway.
So if a vote against adds to quorum, then voting against CAN support the proposal in passing in that way so it breeds weird strategic voting behavior if a voter is voting against the proposal!
If "Against" adds to quorum, and I want a proposal to fail, I should strategically wait to vote Against because it might fail just due to quorum.
Then, with real time voting... if I am holding back my Against vote, and so are others, then more people are voting "For" than really believe it... so it looks like EVERYONE believes in the proposal... so the people on the fence might actually vote "For".
This is not good, this was learned in early DAOs... It is not better.
Against can not count as quorum, so Abstain does instead. With a DAO that shows real time vote results, its the right way.
:face_blowing_a_kiss:
A “no” vote will never turn into a passing vote because of quorum.
Sorry, but this is fundamentally wrong and I don't have time to explain to each person. Test it yourself if you don't believe me.
A vote that is failing because it does not reach quorum, like in the above example, will pass if abstain votes bring it above quorum. This has already happened in the past and I anticipate it become more extreme over time. There is no check in the code to make sure there is any significant amount of YES votes, only that there are more YES than NO votes. A proposal with 1 YES vote and 121M abstain votes will pass. Should it? Obviously not.
accurately counting the people who have participated in the vote but have chosen not to take a stance
I fundamentally disagree with this assumption. If you've chosen to not take a stand, that choice should never be used to push a proposal from Failing into Passing.
^ We want to avoid this scenario BEFORE is happens.
I don’t see a compelling reason for this initiative to move forward. The quorum is already fulfilling its purpose by accurately counting the people who have participated in the vote but have chosen not to take a stance, whether for or abstain. The primary goal of ensuring that enough voters are aware and engaged is being met.
By excluding abstentions from quorum calculations, we would essentially be forcing participants who are active in governance and well-informed about the proposals to take a definitive position on every issue, even when they might prefer to remain neutral. This could undermine the value of abstention as a valid form of participation and could pressure voters into making decisions that they may not fully support.
I believe security is always a crucial topic, and we should continuously seek ways to enhance it, but in my opinion, removing abstentions from the quorum calculation is not the right approach.
Also I fully agree with these comments. How is everyone making comments without even reading the proposal first?
Factually inaccurate. If you don't understand how quorum works please do not waste everyone's time by commenting.
Here's another example, with unrealistic numbers to demonstrate the point:
These numbers are unlikely, but as participation goes down and the number of active delegates actually reading proposals continues to dwindle, the risk is increasing. We want to avoid these type of scenarios BEFORE they happen.
Based on this logic, it turns out that if we have 4 friends and 2 vote against, 1 for and 1 abstain, then the vote that abstain will be counted as a quorum against and the proposal will be rejected?
In that case, you would have 50% quorum, with 33% voting for and 66% voting against and the proposal would not pass. The role of abstaining is to signal that you want others to decide while still contributing to the quorum, ensuring it is not a blocker. If the majority votes against, the proposal won’t pass. Quorum is only relevant for yes votes.
adopting a voting differential model, similar to DAOs like Aave.
I agree that we should have a vote differential of 5% or even more. It doesn't make sense that huge changes to the Arbitrum network (like upgrades) can be decided by a contentious vote where For wins vs. Against by a 0.000000000000000001 ARB difference.
Hello! We believe that removing “Abstain” votes from the quorum calculation may not be the best approach. Delegates often use the “Abstain” option when they have a conflict of interest or simply cannot confidently vote “For” or “Against”, allowing their participation to still contribute to quorum without forcing them to pick a side.
If someone truly wants to avoid influencing quorum, they can just opt out of voting altogether. Excluding “Abstain” votes from quorum could also lead to more proposals failing when a significant amount of voting power has to abstain for legitimate reasons, such as conflicts of interest.
Hello! We believe that removing “Abstain” votes from the quorum calculation may not be the best approach. Delegates often use the “Abstain” option when they have a conflict of interest or simply cannot confidently vote “For” or “Against”, allowing their participation to still contribute to quorum without forcing them to pick a side.
If someone truly wants to avoid influencing quorum, they can just opt out of voting altogether. Excluding “Abstain” votes from quorum could also lead to more proposals failing when a significant amount of voting power has to abstain for legitimate reasons, such as conflicts of interest.
We understand the concern about bribe markets and automated voting systems, but removing “Abstain” from the quorum count might eliminate its entire purpose. It could be more effective to explore other protections, like raising quorum requirements for especially sensitive proposals or adopting a voting differential model, similar to DAOs like Aave.
A voting differential ensures that “For” votes must exceed “Against” by a certain margin for a proposal to pass, which can provide a more balanced security measure than excluding “Abstain” votes. For example, by introducing a 5% voting differential, a proposal can only pass if there are 5% more "For” votes than “Against” votes, even if “For” votes account for more than 50% of voting participation.
Thank you for paying attention!
Hi @cupojoseph and @paulofonseca ,
Follow-up: We sincerely apologise for our confusion. Some of our team members are new to this governance process and are very apologetic for misreading the proposal, not truly understanding governance functionality and spreading misinformation. Thank you for the call-out and for clarifying our misunderstanding. After carefully reviewing the details, we understand the intent and agree with what you are proposing that this problem needs to be addressed. We did use AI to help with our research on the topic, but our final comment was from our own analysis and understanding.
Hi @cupojoseph and @paulofonseca ,
Follow-up: We sincerely apologise for our confusion. Some of our team members are new to this governance process and are very apologetic for misreading the proposal, not truly understanding governance functionality and spreading misinformation. Thank you for the call-out and for clarifying our misunderstanding. After carefully reviewing the details, we understand the intent and agree with what you are proposing that this problem needs to be addressed. We did use AI to help with our research on the topic, but our final comment was from our own analysis and understanding.
We’ve been involved in governance since day one (before even earning delegate rewards) and we do intend to contribute meaningfully and not farm airdrops and exploit governance rewards. This was an honest mistake and again, we will make sure to be more careful in our next comments.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
but you know, it's a good litmus test to see who actually reads proposals or not. =)
As the Arbitrum DAO continues to evolve, it makes sense to reassess our governance parameters to ensure they align with our current stage of decentralization and security needs.
But, what is the specific advantage of excluding ‘Abstain’ votes from quorum calculations compared to simply increasing the quorum requirement? While I understand the concern about potential exploitation via automated bribe mechanisms, I’d like to better understand how this change compares to alternative solutions.
As the Arbitrum DAO continues to evolve, it makes sense to reassess our governance parameters to ensure they align with our current stage of decentralization and security needs.
But, what is the specific advantage of excluding ‘Abstain’ votes from quorum calculations compared to simply increasing the quorum requirement? While I understand the concern about potential exploitation via automated bribe mechanisms, I’d like to better understand how this change compares to alternative solutions.
More broadly, I believe we should focus on increasing security for particularly sensitive proposals—such as those involving significant treasury allocations—while maintaining an efficient and seamless governance process for everything else. A potential path forward could be adjusting quorum requirements dynamically based on the type of proposal, ensuring stricter thresholds for high-stakes decisions without unnecessarily complicating routine governance.
yes! and they explicitly asked delegates (on twitter) to vote abstain, just to reach quorum, even if they didn't agree with the proposal completely.
This was a case where a proposal was rushed through the governance process, to be decided before the holiday break, where the proposer claimed it had to be done fast so that the builders of the hackathon wouldn't leave Arbitrum.
yes! and they explicitly asked delegates (on twitter) to vote abstain, just to reach quorum, even if they didn't agree with the proposal completely.
This was a case where a proposal was rushed through the governance process, to be decided before the holiday break, where the proposer claimed it had to be done fast so that the builders of the hackathon wouldn't leave Arbitrum.
Also, this proposal had the most Against votes ever for an onchain proposal in Arbitrum DAO (for a proposal that wasn't supposed to be a mistake, and therefore cancelled) and it eventually achieved quorum and passed 2 months ago, and we are still to see any results from it. https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/hackathon-continuation-program/27492/147?u=paulofonseca
Thanks @cupojoseph for this proposal!
I took some time and carefully read the proposal itself and all the comments underneath. I would like to point out some interesting ideas from the comments above (maybe may help with the problem) that are interesting to me, and also express my point of view.
Thanks @cupojoseph for this proposal!
I took some time and carefully read the proposal itself and all the comments underneath. I would like to point out some interesting ideas from the comments above (maybe may help with the problem) that are interesting to me, and also express my point of view.
The intent of this proposal seems to us to be focused on improving the governance process, but we worry that taking away the legitimate ABSTAIN option removes some ability for delegates and voters to express their stance on important governance topics.
It still remains and each delegate will have the opportunity to select this option. The only thing suggested in the topic is not to add them to the Quorum. So, you won't have to worry about this if the proposal is accepted. You can always choose the option ABSTAIN :slightly_smiling_face:
Think about it: if we’re 4 friends and quorum is 3, 2 vote for, 1 against, and 1 abstains - this is clearly a proposal that should pass. The person abstaining is signaling they don’t have a strong opinion and want to go with the majority.
Based on this logic, it turns out that if we have 4 friends and 2 vote against, 1 for and 1 abstain, then the vote that abstain will be counted as a quorum against and the proposal will be rejected? If this works both ways in our votes, then everything is fair and I don’t see the point in not counting these votes towards the quorum, since they help reach a decision when we have a constant lack of quorum. I thought that it works only in one way.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to remove the “abstain” option, as many delegates (myself included) sometimes lack sufficient knowledge on a topic and, while still wanting to participate in the voting process, choose to abstain from voting on certain proposals
So, those who vote are not always on topic and sometimes they do not have time to study the proposal. They are ready to vote the way the majority decides. And that's fair. Therefore, their votes must be taken into account in the Quorum. It's logical.
The proposal mentions LobbyFi as the motivation for excluding abstain votes, aiming to prevent them from leveraging neutral votes to meet quorum. However, we want to mention LobbyFi does not rely on abstentions alone it can just as easily be used to influence ‘For’ or ‘Against’ votes as well.
As @Euphoria said, the fact that we will not take into account the votes ABSTAIN in the quorum will not be able to influence
make it harder for automated bribe systems to pass contentious proposals, and also easier to defeat spammed malicious proposals which is now a larger threat than at any time the DAO’s existence
For this we need other methods. Maybe, in fact, gradually increase the quorum threshold over time, as one of the options that many delegates have already mentioned here. But not removing Abstain votes from the quorum.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
We appreciate the proposal’s intent in trying to prevent manipulation of the voting process and prevent exploits. What is being suggested could be good for a more deliberate decision making process rather than having voters defaulting to being neutral to proposals which could encourage deeper looks and assessments of proposals.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour. Forcing individuals to vote in such a binary method creates pressure to choose a side even if they do not have strong opinions. This pressure may lead to votes that do not accurately represent individuals’ true views, with some voters feeling compelled to cast a definite vote despite not fully understanding the proposal or having formed a well-considered opinion (additional point: this can result in lower-quality decision-making as voters may rely on impulse or incomplete information).
We appreciate the proposal’s intent in trying to prevent manipulation of the voting process and prevent exploits. What is being suggested could be good for a more deliberate decision making process rather than having voters defaulting to being neutral to proposals which could encourage deeper looks and assessments of proposals.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour. Forcing individuals to vote in such a binary method creates pressure to choose a side even if they do not have strong opinions. This pressure may lead to votes that do not accurately represent individuals’ true views, with some voters feeling compelled to cast a definite vote despite not fully understanding the proposal or having formed a well-considered opinion (additional point: this can result in lower-quality decision-making as voters may rely on impulse or incomplete information).
Moreover, removing the abstain option could limit participation as a whole. Those who are uncertain would opt out of voting entirely without being able to cast a vote for being neutral or need for further consideration. A proposal sometimes may just need further refinements or expansion on detail and abstaining, and abstaining offers a way for voters to indicate that they are engaged but require more information before making a definitive choice.
Absolutely, we don’t deny that excluding abstain votes can influence proposal outcomes.
Regarding the Hackathon Continuation Program by @danielo and the team, I remember that during the tally voting, they put in efforts to ensure the proposal reached the quorum by reaching out to delegates individually and encouraging them to vote.
that excluding abstain votes hasn’t significantly altered past proposal outcomes
this is not correct. for example, this Hackathon Continuation Proposal would not have passed if Abstain would not have counted towards quorum.
Hi @Vertex_Protocol, thank you so much for catching that mistake in our sheet! We accidentally shared the wrong version, but we’ve now updated it with the correct one. We really appreciate it!
The proposal presents several areas that require clarification... especially with regard to the definition of the quorum. It is not specified whether it is a fixed number or a percentage of the total ARB supply, which is critical when considering excluding “Abstain” votes. This ambiguity makes me wonder whether the same numerical threshold will be maintained or whether a proportional adjustment will be made, otherwise “legitimate” proposals could be unfairly penalized by a low turnout.
In addition, the 6-8 week timeline is overly optimistic, as it does not account for possible delays resulting from audits or community disputes. Nor does it address whether Abstain votes should continue to be considered a valid form of expression (which I fervently believe are useful and necessary), as they could reflect a neutral or disgruntled stance without necessarily blocking proposals. I think that the proposal needs to include a deeper analysis of quorum, technical and economic risks, and establish clear consultation channels to ensure the participation of all stakeholders in the process.
We are aligned with @cupojoseph's work to improve the DAO governance process and have been eagerly following the number of proposals he has put forward. While we don't agree with all of them, it is encouraging to have a number of delegate voices who are clearly focused on making Arbitrum great again.
The intent of this proposal seems to us to be focused on improving the governance process, but we worry that taking away the legitimate ABSTAIN option removes some ability for delegates and voters to express their stance on important governance topics.
I have a suggestion, make half of the forfeit count and the other half not count, this is a very good approach
Then we should consider raising the quorum. There is no point in making "abstain" a useless button.
when you don’t count it toward quorum, you're essentially making proposals harder to pass
Yes, this is explicitly the goal. Make proposals harder to pass. They are good and popular it won't matter too much, and if they are very contentious or possibly part of a governance attack they will be harder to get through.
Nice topic to discuss
Removing ABSTAIN from quorum count is a bad idea and goes against voting principles. Abstain is there for a reason - when you don't count it toward quorum, you're essentially making proposals harder to pass.
Nice topic to discuss
Removing ABSTAIN from quorum count is a bad idea and goes against voting principles. Abstain is there for a reason - when you don't count it toward quorum, you're essentially making proposals harder to pass.
Think about it: if we're 4 friends and quorum is 3, 2 vote for, 1 against, and 1 abstains - this is clearly a proposal that should pass. The person abstaining is signaling they don't have a strong opinion and want to go with the majority.
LobbyFi having power isn't some attack - it's coz ARB holders decided to delegate this way. At the end of the day, our job is to make ARB holders' wealth grow.
If we're concerned about governance security, we could consider raising quorum instead - at least that's an honest approach that doesn't mess with the intended meaning of ABSTAIN votes.
Hi, thanks for the proposal!
After reviewing it and considering input from other delegates, we’d like to share our thoughts. We appreciate the focus on strengthening our governance and protecting against potential attacks. However, we have some concerns about completely excluding abstain votes from quorum calculations. Abstain votes allow members to express neutrality or indecision; if we exclude them, voters might be forced to take a side even when they're not fully convinced if they want to contribute toward the quorum. Additionally, as @paulofonseca pointed out with the OpCo example, the data doesn’t clearly show that abstain votes are the main issue—especially given the overall favorable vote ratio.
if you want your vote to count towards quorum but don’t want to support you should vote against. That’s better.
I 100% disagree! This was learned very clearly in the Early days of Aragon. Weird dynamics happen if Against counts towards quorum.
If a voter want to vote against, that voter doesn't want to support the proposal in passing in anyway.
So if a vote against adds to quorum, then voting against CAN support the proposal in passing in that way so it breeds weird strategic voting behavior if a voter is voting against the proposal!
If "Against" adds to quorum, and I want a proposal to fail, I should strategically wait to vote Against because it might fail just due to quorum.
Then, with real time voting... if I am holding back my Against vote, and so are others, then more people are voting "For" than really believe it... so it looks like EVERYONE believes in the proposal... so the people on the fence might actually vote "For".
This is not good, this was learned in early DAOs... It is not better.
Against can not count as quorum, so Abstain does instead. With a DAO that shows real time vote results, its the right way.
:face_blowing_a_kiss:
A “no” vote will never turn into a passing vote because of quorum.
Sorry, but this is fundamentally wrong and I don't have time to explain to each person. Test it yourself if you don't believe me.
A vote that is failing because it does not reach quorum, like in the above example, will pass if abstain votes bring it above quorum. This has already happened in the past and I anticipate it become more extreme over time. There is no check in the code to make sure there is any significant amount of YES votes, only that there are more YES than NO votes. A proposal with 1 YES vote and 121M abstain votes will pass. Should it? Obviously not.
accurately counting the people who have participated in the vote but have chosen not to take a stance
I fundamentally disagree with this assumption. If you've chosen to not take a stand, that choice should never be used to push a proposal from Failing into Passing.
^ We want to avoid this scenario BEFORE is happens.
I don’t see a compelling reason for this initiative to move forward. The quorum is already fulfilling its purpose by accurately counting the people who have participated in the vote but have chosen not to take a stance, whether for or abstain. The primary goal of ensuring that enough voters are aware and engaged is being met.
By excluding abstentions from quorum calculations, we would essentially be forcing participants who are active in governance and well-informed about the proposals to take a definitive position on every issue, even when they might prefer to remain neutral. This could undermine the value of abstention as a valid form of participation and could pressure voters into making decisions that they may not fully support.
I believe security is always a crucial topic, and we should continuously seek ways to enhance it, but in my opinion, removing abstentions from the quorum calculation is not the right approach.
Also I fully agree with these comments. How is everyone making comments without even reading the proposal first?
Factually inaccurate. If you don't understand how quorum works please do not waste everyone's time by commenting.
Here's another example, with unrealistic numbers to demonstrate the point:
These numbers are unlikely, but as participation goes down and the number of active delegates actually reading proposals continues to dwindle, the risk is increasing. We want to avoid these type of scenarios BEFORE they happen.
Based on this logic, it turns out that if we have 4 friends and 2 vote against, 1 for and 1 abstain, then the vote that abstain will be counted as a quorum against and the proposal will be rejected?
In that case, you would have 50% quorum, with 33% voting for and 66% voting against and the proposal would not pass. The role of abstaining is to signal that you want others to decide while still contributing to the quorum, ensuring it is not a blocker. If the majority votes against, the proposal won’t pass. Quorum is only relevant for yes votes.
adopting a voting differential model, similar to DAOs like Aave.
I agree that we should have a vote differential of 5% or even more. It doesn't make sense that huge changes to the Arbitrum network (like upgrades) can be decided by a contentious vote where For wins vs. Against by a 0.000000000000000001 ARB difference.
Hello! We believe that removing “Abstain” votes from the quorum calculation may not be the best approach. Delegates often use the “Abstain” option when they have a conflict of interest or simply cannot confidently vote “For” or “Against”, allowing their participation to still contribute to quorum without forcing them to pick a side.
If someone truly wants to avoid influencing quorum, they can just opt out of voting altogether. Excluding “Abstain” votes from quorum could also lead to more proposals failing when a significant amount of voting power has to abstain for legitimate reasons, such as conflicts of interest.
Hello! We believe that removing “Abstain” votes from the quorum calculation may not be the best approach. Delegates often use the “Abstain” option when they have a conflict of interest or simply cannot confidently vote “For” or “Against”, allowing their participation to still contribute to quorum without forcing them to pick a side.
If someone truly wants to avoid influencing quorum, they can just opt out of voting altogether. Excluding “Abstain” votes from quorum could also lead to more proposals failing when a significant amount of voting power has to abstain for legitimate reasons, such as conflicts of interest.
We understand the concern about bribe markets and automated voting systems, but removing “Abstain” from the quorum count might eliminate its entire purpose. It could be more effective to explore other protections, like raising quorum requirements for especially sensitive proposals or adopting a voting differential model, similar to DAOs like Aave.
A voting differential ensures that “For” votes must exceed “Against” by a certain margin for a proposal to pass, which can provide a more balanced security measure than excluding “Abstain” votes. For example, by introducing a 5% voting differential, a proposal can only pass if there are 5% more "For” votes than “Against” votes, even if “For” votes account for more than 50% of voting participation.
Thank you for paying attention!
Hi @cupojoseph and @paulofonseca ,
Follow-up: We sincerely apologise for our confusion. Some of our team members are new to this governance process and are very apologetic for misreading the proposal, not truly understanding governance functionality and spreading misinformation. Thank you for the call-out and for clarifying our misunderstanding. After carefully reviewing the details, we understand the intent and agree with what you are proposing that this problem needs to be addressed. We did use AI to help with our research on the topic, but our final comment was from our own analysis and understanding.
Hi @cupojoseph and @paulofonseca ,
Follow-up: We sincerely apologise for our confusion. Some of our team members are new to this governance process and are very apologetic for misreading the proposal, not truly understanding governance functionality and spreading misinformation. Thank you for the call-out and for clarifying our misunderstanding. After carefully reviewing the details, we understand the intent and agree with what you are proposing that this problem needs to be addressed. We did use AI to help with our research on the topic, but our final comment was from our own analysis and understanding.
We’ve been involved in governance since day one (before even earning delegate rewards) and we do intend to contribute meaningfully and not farm airdrops and exploit governance rewards. This was an honest mistake and again, we will make sure to be more careful in our next comments.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
but you know, it's a good litmus test to see who actually reads proposals or not. =)
As the Arbitrum DAO continues to evolve, it makes sense to reassess our governance parameters to ensure they align with our current stage of decentralization and security needs.
But, what is the specific advantage of excluding ‘Abstain’ votes from quorum calculations compared to simply increasing the quorum requirement? While I understand the concern about potential exploitation via automated bribe mechanisms, I’d like to better understand how this change compares to alternative solutions.
As the Arbitrum DAO continues to evolve, it makes sense to reassess our governance parameters to ensure they align with our current stage of decentralization and security needs.
But, what is the specific advantage of excluding ‘Abstain’ votes from quorum calculations compared to simply increasing the quorum requirement? While I understand the concern about potential exploitation via automated bribe mechanisms, I’d like to better understand how this change compares to alternative solutions.
More broadly, I believe we should focus on increasing security for particularly sensitive proposals—such as those involving significant treasury allocations—while maintaining an efficient and seamless governance process for everything else. A potential path forward could be adjusting quorum requirements dynamically based on the type of proposal, ensuring stricter thresholds for high-stakes decisions without unnecessarily complicating routine governance.
yes! and they explicitly asked delegates (on twitter) to vote abstain, just to reach quorum, even if they didn't agree with the proposal completely.
This was a case where a proposal was rushed through the governance process, to be decided before the holiday break, where the proposer claimed it had to be done fast so that the builders of the hackathon wouldn't leave Arbitrum.
yes! and they explicitly asked delegates (on twitter) to vote abstain, just to reach quorum, even if they didn't agree with the proposal completely.
This was a case where a proposal was rushed through the governance process, to be decided before the holiday break, where the proposer claimed it had to be done fast so that the builders of the hackathon wouldn't leave Arbitrum.
Also, this proposal had the most Against votes ever for an onchain proposal in Arbitrum DAO (for a proposal that wasn't supposed to be a mistake, and therefore cancelled) and it eventually achieved quorum and passed 2 months ago, and we are still to see any results from it. https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/hackathon-continuation-program/27492/147?u=paulofonseca
Thanks @cupojoseph for this proposal!
I took some time and carefully read the proposal itself and all the comments underneath. I would like to point out some interesting ideas from the comments above (maybe may help with the problem) that are interesting to me, and also express my point of view.
Thanks @cupojoseph for this proposal!
I took some time and carefully read the proposal itself and all the comments underneath. I would like to point out some interesting ideas from the comments above (maybe may help with the problem) that are interesting to me, and also express my point of view.
The intent of this proposal seems to us to be focused on improving the governance process, but we worry that taking away the legitimate ABSTAIN option removes some ability for delegates and voters to express their stance on important governance topics.
It still remains and each delegate will have the opportunity to select this option. The only thing suggested in the topic is not to add them to the Quorum. So, you won't have to worry about this if the proposal is accepted. You can always choose the option ABSTAIN :slightly_smiling_face:
Think about it: if we’re 4 friends and quorum is 3, 2 vote for, 1 against, and 1 abstains - this is clearly a proposal that should pass. The person abstaining is signaling they don’t have a strong opinion and want to go with the majority.
Based on this logic, it turns out that if we have 4 friends and 2 vote against, 1 for and 1 abstain, then the vote that abstain will be counted as a quorum against and the proposal will be rejected? If this works both ways in our votes, then everything is fair and I don’t see the point in not counting these votes towards the quorum, since they help reach a decision when we have a constant lack of quorum. I thought that it works only in one way.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to remove the “abstain” option, as many delegates (myself included) sometimes lack sufficient knowledge on a topic and, while still wanting to participate in the voting process, choose to abstain from voting on certain proposals
So, those who vote are not always on topic and sometimes they do not have time to study the proposal. They are ready to vote the way the majority decides. And that's fair. Therefore, their votes must be taken into account in the Quorum. It's logical.
The proposal mentions LobbyFi as the motivation for excluding abstain votes, aiming to prevent them from leveraging neutral votes to meet quorum. However, we want to mention LobbyFi does not rely on abstentions alone it can just as easily be used to influence ‘For’ or ‘Against’ votes as well.
As @Euphoria said, the fact that we will not take into account the votes ABSTAIN in the quorum will not be able to influence
make it harder for automated bribe systems to pass contentious proposals, and also easier to defeat spammed malicious proposals which is now a larger threat than at any time the DAO’s existence
For this we need other methods. Maybe, in fact, gradually increase the quorum threshold over time, as one of the options that many delegates have already mentioned here. But not removing Abstain votes from the quorum.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour.
not sure why everyone is having the same misunderstanding. it looks like all these replies are AI generated slop trying to farm future airdrop or delegate rewards by having participation? I dont get it.
We appreciate the proposal’s intent in trying to prevent manipulation of the voting process and prevent exploits. What is being suggested could be good for a more deliberate decision making process rather than having voters defaulting to being neutral to proposals which could encourage deeper looks and assessments of proposals.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour. Forcing individuals to vote in such a binary method creates pressure to choose a side even if they do not have strong opinions. This pressure may lead to votes that do not accurately represent individuals’ true views, with some voters feeling compelled to cast a definite vote despite not fully understanding the proposal or having formed a well-considered opinion (additional point: this can result in lower-quality decision-making as voters may rely on impulse or incomplete information).
We appreciate the proposal’s intent in trying to prevent manipulation of the voting process and prevent exploits. What is being suggested could be good for a more deliberate decision making process rather than having voters defaulting to being neutral to proposals which could encourage deeper looks and assessments of proposals.
However, removing the abstain option would definitely impact voter behaviour. Forcing individuals to vote in such a binary method creates pressure to choose a side even if they do not have strong opinions. This pressure may lead to votes that do not accurately represent individuals’ true views, with some voters feeling compelled to cast a definite vote despite not fully understanding the proposal or having formed a well-considered opinion (additional point: this can result in lower-quality decision-making as voters may rely on impulse or incomplete information).
Moreover, removing the abstain option could limit participation as a whole. Those who are uncertain would opt out of voting entirely without being able to cast a vote for being neutral or need for further consideration. A proposal sometimes may just need further refinements or expansion on detail and abstaining, and abstaining offers a way for voters to indicate that they are engaged but require more information before making a definitive choice.
Absolutely, we don’t deny that excluding abstain votes can influence proposal outcomes.
Regarding the Hackathon Continuation Program by @danielo and the team, I remember that during the tally voting, they put in efforts to ensure the proposal reached the quorum by reaching out to delegates individually and encouraging them to vote.
that excluding abstain votes hasn’t significantly altered past proposal outcomes
this is not correct. for example, this Hackathon Continuation Proposal would not have passed if Abstain would not have counted towards quorum.
Hi @Vertex_Protocol, thank you so much for catching that mistake in our sheet! We accidentally shared the wrong version, but we’ve now updated it with the correct one. We really appreciate it!
The proposal presents several areas that require clarification... especially with regard to the definition of the quorum. It is not specified whether it is a fixed number or a percentage of the total ARB supply, which is critical when considering excluding “Abstain” votes. This ambiguity makes me wonder whether the same numerical threshold will be maintained or whether a proportional adjustment will be made, otherwise “legitimate” proposals could be unfairly penalized by a low turnout.
In addition, the 6-8 week timeline is overly optimistic, as it does not account for possible delays resulting from audits or community disputes. Nor does it address whether Abstain votes should continue to be considered a valid form of expression (which I fervently believe are useful and necessary), as they could reflect a neutral or disgruntled stance without necessarily blocking proposals. I think that the proposal needs to include a deeper analysis of quorum, technical and economic risks, and establish clear consultation channels to ensure the participation of all stakeholders in the process.
We are aligned with @cupojoseph's work to improve the DAO governance process and have been eagerly following the number of proposals he has put forward. While we don't agree with all of them, it is encouraging to have a number of delegate voices who are clearly focused on making Arbitrum great again.
The intent of this proposal seems to us to be focused on improving the governance process, but we worry that taking away the legitimate ABSTAIN option removes some ability for delegates and voters to express their stance on important governance topics.
I have a suggestion, make half of the forfeit count and the other half not count, this is a very good approach
Then we should consider raising the quorum. There is no point in making "abstain" a useless button.
when you don’t count it toward quorum, you're essentially making proposals harder to pass
Yes, this is explicitly the goal. Make proposals harder to pass. They are good and popular it won't matter too much, and if they are very contentious or possibly part of a governance attack they will be harder to get through.
Nice topic to discuss
Removing ABSTAIN from quorum count is a bad idea and goes against voting principles. Abstain is there for a reason - when you don't count it toward quorum, you're essentially making proposals harder to pass.
Nice topic to discuss
Removing ABSTAIN from quorum count is a bad idea and goes against voting principles. Abstain is there for a reason - when you don't count it toward quorum, you're essentially making proposals harder to pass.
Think about it: if we're 4 friends and quorum is 3, 2 vote for, 1 against, and 1 abstains - this is clearly a proposal that should pass. The person abstaining is signaling they don't have a strong opinion and want to go with the majority.
LobbyFi having power isn't some attack - it's coz ARB holders decided to delegate this way. At the end of the day, our job is to make ARB holders' wealth grow.
If we're concerned about governance security, we could consider raising quorum instead - at least that's an honest approach that doesn't mess with the intended meaning of ABSTAIN votes.
Hi, thanks for the proposal!
After reviewing it and considering input from other delegates, we’d like to share our thoughts. We appreciate the focus on strengthening our governance and protecting against potential attacks. However, we have some concerns about completely excluding abstain votes from quorum calculations. Abstain votes allow members to express neutrality or indecision; if we exclude them, voters might be forced to take a side even when they're not fully convinced if they want to contribute toward the quorum. Additionally, as @paulofonseca pointed out with the OpCo example, the data doesn’t clearly show that abstain votes are the main issue—especially given the overall favorable vote ratio.
Absolutely, we don’t deny that excluding abstain votes can influence proposal outcomes.
Regarding the Hackathon Continuation Program by @danielo and the team, I remember that during the tally voting, they put in efforts to ensure the proposal reached the quorum by reaching out to delegates individually and encouraging them to vote.
This is why ARDC’s research should analyze whether removing abstain votes strengthens governance security without reducing participation or making it harder for legitimate proposals to reach the quorum.
that excluding abstain votes hasn’t significantly altered past proposal outcomes
this is not correct. for example, this Hackathon Continuation Proposal would not have passed if Abstain would not have counted towards quorum.
It only had 121.9M ARB voting on For and the quorum threshold was 122.6M ARB so this proposal would have been 700K ARB short of achieving quorum.
We are aligned with @cupojoseph's work to improve the DAO governance process and have been eagerly following the number of proposals he has put forward. While we don't agree with all of them, it is encouraging to have a number of delegate voices who are clearly focused on making Arbitrum great again.
The intent of this proposal seems to us to be focused on improving the governance process, but we worry that taking away the legitimate ABSTAIN option removes some ability for delegates and voters to express their stance on important governance topics.
That said, the DAO needs more stringent controls on large spending initatives like the Op-Co proposal (which we were against because of the obscene budget).
We agree with @Chris_Areta's suggestion that higher quorum thresholds should be implemented for proposals that require budget approvals. We would even add that budget approvals over a certain dollar amount should require very high voting numbers both in total votes and in the percent of yes votes needed to pass. For example, proposals that spend more than $1 million should require over 70% yes votes and high participation. One approach could be to review the votes for the past year and require participation some percent above the one year average participation. Over time, participation should increase, making it harder to pass proposals with large budgets.
We think the direction of this kind of work is necessary, because it is clear that the DAO currently spends far too much money for far too little benefit. While this proposal could use some refinement, we are happy to continue working and providing feedback on proposals that will ultimately limit the excessive spending of the DAO.
Hi, thanks for the proposal!
After reviewing it and considering input from other delegates, we’d like to share our thoughts. We appreciate the focus on strengthening our governance and protecting against potential attacks. However, we have some concerns about completely excluding abstain votes from quorum calculations. Abstain votes allow members to express neutrality or indecision; if we exclude them, voters might be forced to take a side even when they're not fully convinced if they want to contribute toward the quorum. Additionally, as @paulofonseca pointed out with the OpCo example, the data doesn’t clearly show that abstain votes are the main issue—especially given the overall favorable vote ratio.
We also analyzed historical data by comparing two scenarios: one where we counted only “For” votes, and another where we counted both “For” and “Abstain” votes. The quorum outcomes for past majority proposals remained unchanged, except for two cases highlighted in the sheet. In one case, a proposal(Arbitrum Hackathon Builder Continuation Program) had more “For” than “Against” votes, but the quorum wasn’t reached, causing the proposal to fail. In another, a proposal (ArbitrumDAO strategic “Off-site” (online) updated proposal) had more “Against” than “For” votes, so regardless of reaching quorum, it still failed. This suggests that excluding abstain votes wouldn’t significantly affect outcomes, but it could make it harder for a good proposal to reach quorum if some top delegates choose to abstain.
Here is the historical data of Only FOR vs FOR + Abstain
We also think exploring dynamic quorum adjustments could offer a more flexible approach. Future governance upgrades might look into dynamic quorum models that adjust based on proposal type or delegate participation rates. such as those requesting significant treasury allocations—could require higher quorum thresholds, while minor treasury allocations might operate with lower thresholds. This added flexibility would build on Arbitrum DAO’s existing governance-security framework.
Thanks again for sparking this important discussion.
As I mentioned before, perhaps reducing the value of the “abstain” vote would be better than not counting it.
This would not remove abstain as an option.
Interesting. In favor of having the ARDC research this to gather information on the relationship between abstaining and quorum, and its effects on governance and capture. We're not aware if any other ecosystems have taken out "abstain" from quorum. Even if we don't modify the contract, taking a closer look at the potential effects makes sense to us. It may also be interesting to see its relationship with participation and quorum increases.
The reasoning here seems a bit off.
The reasoning here seems a bit off.
The proposal would pass with only the Yes, votes. The quorum was not secured by the "abstain" votes.
We must remember, as others mentioned, that:
You could argue that we should have the abstain option in the off-chain (snapshot) vote and in the onchain vote only the For/Against option, like Aave does, but both DAOs are different (their supply is not increasing, for example).
If we want to go through that route, COI policies would need to be forfeit/changed in the on-chain vote. This is "kind of" a paradigm change (I say "kind of" because usually ppl with COI vote "Abstain", so they also help to achieve quorum).
IMO, that would be a more helpful suggestion instead of only asking for "Abstain" to be removed from quorum, which only hurts our chances to achieve quorum on ANY type of vote (as the VP participating in the votes are not increasing at the same rate as the quorum requirements).
The following reflects the views of the Lampros DAO governance team, composed of Chain_L (@Blueweb), @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
Thank you for bringing up this proposal @cupojoseph. We appreciate your concern about preventing governance attacks, as this is something we have also been researching for a while, particularly the impact of voting power on governance decisions. Strengthening governance security is essential, and we fully support making it a priority for the long-term resilience of the DAO.
The following reflects the views of the Lampros DAO governance team, composed of Chain_L (@Blueweb), @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
Thank you for bringing up this proposal @cupojoseph. We appreciate your concern about preventing governance attacks, as this is something we have also been researching for a while, particularly the impact of voting power on governance decisions. Strengthening governance security is essential, and we fully support making it a priority for the long-term resilience of the DAO.
For the first time, an automated bribe market (lobbyfi) has enough delegation to create proposals. This is a major change from only the top handful of delegates, all of which are generally trusted and currently being paid by the DAO, having enough delegation to create proposals.
The proposal mentions LobbyFi as the motivation for excluding abstain votes, aiming to prevent them from leveraging neutral votes to meet quorum. However, we want to mention LobbyFi does not rely on abstentions alone it can just as easily be used to influence ‘For’ or ‘Against’ votes as well.
As @Curia pointed out, historical data analysis suggests that excluding abstain votes hasn’t significantly altered past proposal outcomes. This raises the question of whether removing abstentions from a quorum will meaningfully enhance security or if it may create new governance risks. ARDC’s research should analyze the actual impact of abstentions on past voting results and evaluate whether dynamic quorum adjustments as suggested by other delegates as well based on proposal significance would be a better alternative.
If abstain votes are not counted in the quorum, delegates may feel their voices are not acknowledged unless they vote ‘For’ or ‘Against’. This could create a perception that neutral participation holds less value, potentially impacting engagement over time. While it’s uncertain if this would reduce participation, ensuring all voting choices remain meaningful is crucial for long-term governance health.
Another issue we think is of quorum recalibration. Increasing the quorum too much could make it harder for proposals to pass, potentially slowing governance decisions. On the other hand, reducing quorum while removing abstentions could allow a small number of large delegates to pass or reject proposals more easily. A balanced approach is needed to prevent governance attacks without unintentionally distorting voting power dynamics.
We appreciate the proposal’s approach of prioritizing research before implementation, as governance changes should be based on historical analysis, technical validation, and empirical data. Instead of treating this as a single quorum adjustment, ARDC’s findings should help shape a broader governance security framework that ensures Arbitrum remains both secure and inclusive without discouraging participation. As of now we support this proposal moving forward as a research initiative and look forward to ARDC’s insights on the best approach to enhancing governance security.
Hi @cupojoseph, I don’t think it’s a good idea to remove the “abstain” option, as many delegates (myself included) sometimes lack sufficient knowledge on a topic and, while still wanting to participate in the voting process, choose to abstain from voting on certain proposals. This option should remain to allow us to stay neutral and avoid being perceived as negative toward other users' ideas. Perhaps the solution is to assign a different value to the abstain vote, such as a minimal percentage that still benefits the listed proposal.
Throughout my time as a delegate, I haven’t encountered controversial or questionable proposals. In that regard, I believe those of us who are active and attentive on TG and Calls ensure the security and integrity of the process, making sure that projects ultimately benefit Arbitrum.
Yes, both Arbitrum DAO governors count the Abstain vote choice towards quorum.
And for example, in the OpCo onchain vote, if Abstain wouldn't count towards quorum the proposal would have just very very barely passed, with 122.4M ARB voting For and the 3% Quorum threshold being 121.8M ARB.
there is a misunderstanding, maybe i was not able to properly explain myself.
What I meant is that, currently, the against votes are not counted toward the quorum while the abstain are.
there is a misunderstanding, maybe i was not able to properly explain myself.
What I meant is that, currently, the against votes are not counted toward the quorum while the abstain are.
If you want to exclude the abstain from the quorum (there is a logic in this) you would also likely need to reconsider the against toward being counted; in that case, what I was pointing out is that the proposal you highlighted, opco, would have passed with an even higher quorum.
We should do some retroactive analysis on both, and they both currently count Abstain votes toward quorum if I understand the code correctly.
I never suggested counted No votes towards quorum. Not sure where that came from
The 140M votes counting towards quorum counts 18.5M Abstain votes. The Yes votes only passed quorum on that example by 620k votes. This small amount would cost only a few thousand dollars to borrow for a week from aave. That's 29X times as many Abstain votes counting towards quorum as the margin that the Yes votes had over the quorum. I dont think thats as optimized as it could be and is definitely a good justification to spending some energy looking into updating params.
you can still vote abstain to signal. But now we could remove the possibility that an abstain vote makes a vote pass, which is currently how it works.
The OpCo proposal you linked was indeed contentious but we cannot explicitly say it was generally disfavored as the ratio of for to against vote stood at ~3:1 as we can see here
the number of voters is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is number of votes
As was said, "indeed contentious." Still valid.
I don't honestly see how removing the abstain preserves from gov attacks. Matter of the fact, it allows us to reach quorum in an easier way will still keep participating (and for what it matters if I recall step 1 proposal would have not passed for example without the abstains).
Also, right now, the against are not counted in the quorum. In your example of opco that had a 140M votes vs a 120M quorum, if you would have instead counted the against, you would have had instead a 196M valid votes.
@cupojoseph do you mean to propose to change this just on the Arbitrum Treasury governor (the one for non-constitutional level proposals, that has 3% quorum) or on the Arbitrum Core governor (the one for constitutional level proposals, that has 5% quorum)? or to change it in both governors?
In your proposal, you are linking the constitutional, 5% quorum governor, in here:
What's the point in having abstain then if you basically remove it as a valid voting option? There are reasonable times where abstain is signaling that one is not 100% for nor 100% against the proposal. So it might need modification if the majority is choosing to abstain from it.
Removing this doesn't help "fighting" against these bribe markets.
Absolutely, we don’t deny that excluding abstain votes can influence proposal outcomes.
Regarding the Hackathon Continuation Program by @danielo and the team, I remember that during the tally voting, they put in efforts to ensure the proposal reached the quorum by reaching out to delegates individually and encouraging them to vote.
This is why ARDC’s research should analyze whether removing abstain votes strengthens governance security without reducing participation or making it harder for legitimate proposals to reach the quorum.
that excluding abstain votes hasn’t significantly altered past proposal outcomes
this is not correct. for example, this Hackathon Continuation Proposal would not have passed if Abstain would not have counted towards quorum.
It only had 121.9M ARB voting on For and the quorum threshold was 122.6M ARB so this proposal would have been 700K ARB short of achieving quorum.
We are aligned with @cupojoseph's work to improve the DAO governance process and have been eagerly following the number of proposals he has put forward. While we don't agree with all of them, it is encouraging to have a number of delegate voices who are clearly focused on making Arbitrum great again.
The intent of this proposal seems to us to be focused on improving the governance process, but we worry that taking away the legitimate ABSTAIN option removes some ability for delegates and voters to express their stance on important governance topics.
That said, the DAO needs more stringent controls on large spending initatives like the Op-Co proposal (which we were against because of the obscene budget).
We agree with @Chris_Areta's suggestion that higher quorum thresholds should be implemented for proposals that require budget approvals. We would even add that budget approvals over a certain dollar amount should require very high voting numbers both in total votes and in the percent of yes votes needed to pass. For example, proposals that spend more than $1 million should require over 70% yes votes and high participation. One approach could be to review the votes for the past year and require participation some percent above the one year average participation. Over time, participation should increase, making it harder to pass proposals with large budgets.
We think the direction of this kind of work is necessary, because it is clear that the DAO currently spends far too much money for far too little benefit. While this proposal could use some refinement, we are happy to continue working and providing feedback on proposals that will ultimately limit the excessive spending of the DAO.
Hi, thanks for the proposal!
After reviewing it and considering input from other delegates, we’d like to share our thoughts. We appreciate the focus on strengthening our governance and protecting against potential attacks. However, we have some concerns about completely excluding abstain votes from quorum calculations. Abstain votes allow members to express neutrality or indecision; if we exclude them, voters might be forced to take a side even when they're not fully convinced if they want to contribute toward the quorum. Additionally, as @paulofonseca pointed out with the OpCo example, the data doesn’t clearly show that abstain votes are the main issue—especially given the overall favorable vote ratio.
We also analyzed historical data by comparing two scenarios: one where we counted only “For” votes, and another where we counted both “For” and “Abstain” votes. The quorum outcomes for past majority proposals remained unchanged, except for two cases highlighted in the sheet. In one case, a proposal(Arbitrum Hackathon Builder Continuation Program) had more “For” than “Against” votes, but the quorum wasn’t reached, causing the proposal to fail. In another, a proposal (ArbitrumDAO strategic “Off-site” (online) updated proposal) had more “Against” than “For” votes, so regardless of reaching quorum, it still failed. This suggests that excluding abstain votes wouldn’t significantly affect outcomes, but it could make it harder for a good proposal to reach quorum if some top delegates choose to abstain.
Here is the historical data of Only FOR vs FOR + Abstain
We also think exploring dynamic quorum adjustments could offer a more flexible approach. Future governance upgrades might look into dynamic quorum models that adjust based on proposal type or delegate participation rates. such as those requesting significant treasury allocations—could require higher quorum thresholds, while minor treasury allocations might operate with lower thresholds. This added flexibility would build on Arbitrum DAO’s existing governance-security framework.
Thanks again for sparking this important discussion.
As I mentioned before, perhaps reducing the value of the “abstain” vote would be better than not counting it.
This would not remove abstain as an option.
Interesting. In favor of having the ARDC research this to gather information on the relationship between abstaining and quorum, and its effects on governance and capture. We're not aware if any other ecosystems have taken out "abstain" from quorum. Even if we don't modify the contract, taking a closer look at the potential effects makes sense to us. It may also be interesting to see its relationship with participation and quorum increases.
The reasoning here seems a bit off.
The reasoning here seems a bit off.
The proposal would pass with only the Yes, votes. The quorum was not secured by the "abstain" votes.
We must remember, as others mentioned, that:
You could argue that we should have the abstain option in the off-chain (snapshot) vote and in the onchain vote only the For/Against option, like Aave does, but both DAOs are different (their supply is not increasing, for example).
If we want to go through that route, COI policies would need to be forfeit/changed in the on-chain vote. This is "kind of" a paradigm change (I say "kind of" because usually ppl with COI vote "Abstain", so they also help to achieve quorum).
IMO, that would be a more helpful suggestion instead of only asking for "Abstain" to be removed from quorum, which only hurts our chances to achieve quorum on ANY type of vote (as the VP participating in the votes are not increasing at the same rate as the quorum requirements).
The following reflects the views of the Lampros DAO governance team, composed of Chain_L (@Blueweb), @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
Thank you for bringing up this proposal @cupojoseph. We appreciate your concern about preventing governance attacks, as this is something we have also been researching for a while, particularly the impact of voting power on governance decisions. Strengthening governance security is essential, and we fully support making it a priority for the long-term resilience of the DAO.
The following reflects the views of the Lampros DAO governance team, composed of Chain_L (@Blueweb), @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
Thank you for bringing up this proposal @cupojoseph. We appreciate your concern about preventing governance attacks, as this is something we have also been researching for a while, particularly the impact of voting power on governance decisions. Strengthening governance security is essential, and we fully support making it a priority for the long-term resilience of the DAO.
For the first time, an automated bribe market (lobbyfi) has enough delegation to create proposals. This is a major change from only the top handful of delegates, all of which are generally trusted and currently being paid by the DAO, having enough delegation to create proposals.
The proposal mentions LobbyFi as the motivation for excluding abstain votes, aiming to prevent them from leveraging neutral votes to meet quorum. However, we want to mention LobbyFi does not rely on abstentions alone it can just as easily be used to influence ‘For’ or ‘Against’ votes as well.
As @Curia pointed out, historical data analysis suggests that excluding abstain votes hasn’t significantly altered past proposal outcomes. This raises the question of whether removing abstentions from a quorum will meaningfully enhance security or if it may create new governance risks. ARDC’s research should analyze the actual impact of abstentions on past voting results and evaluate whether dynamic quorum adjustments as suggested by other delegates as well based on proposal significance would be a better alternative.
If abstain votes are not counted in the quorum, delegates may feel their voices are not acknowledged unless they vote ‘For’ or ‘Against’. This could create a perception that neutral participation holds less value, potentially impacting engagement over time. While it’s uncertain if this would reduce participation, ensuring all voting choices remain meaningful is crucial for long-term governance health.
Another issue we think is of quorum recalibration. Increasing the quorum too much could make it harder for proposals to pass, potentially slowing governance decisions. On the other hand, reducing quorum while removing abstentions could allow a small number of large delegates to pass or reject proposals more easily. A balanced approach is needed to prevent governance attacks without unintentionally distorting voting power dynamics.
We appreciate the proposal’s approach of prioritizing research before implementation, as governance changes should be based on historical analysis, technical validation, and empirical data. Instead of treating this as a single quorum adjustment, ARDC’s findings should help shape a broader governance security framework that ensures Arbitrum remains both secure and inclusive without discouraging participation. As of now we support this proposal moving forward as a research initiative and look forward to ARDC’s insights on the best approach to enhancing governance security.
Hi @cupojoseph, I don’t think it’s a good idea to remove the “abstain” option, as many delegates (myself included) sometimes lack sufficient knowledge on a topic and, while still wanting to participate in the voting process, choose to abstain from voting on certain proposals. This option should remain to allow us to stay neutral and avoid being perceived as negative toward other users' ideas. Perhaps the solution is to assign a different value to the abstain vote, such as a minimal percentage that still benefits the listed proposal.
Throughout my time as a delegate, I haven’t encountered controversial or questionable proposals. In that regard, I believe those of us who are active and attentive on TG and Calls ensure the security and integrity of the process, making sure that projects ultimately benefit Arbitrum.
Yes, both Arbitrum DAO governors count the Abstain vote choice towards quorum.
And for example, in the OpCo onchain vote, if Abstain wouldn't count towards quorum the proposal would have just very very barely passed, with 122.4M ARB voting For and the 3% Quorum threshold being 121.8M ARB.
there is a misunderstanding, maybe i was not able to properly explain myself.
What I meant is that, currently, the against votes are not counted toward the quorum while the abstain are.
there is a misunderstanding, maybe i was not able to properly explain myself.
What I meant is that, currently, the against votes are not counted toward the quorum while the abstain are.
If you want to exclude the abstain from the quorum (there is a logic in this) you would also likely need to reconsider the against toward being counted; in that case, what I was pointing out is that the proposal you highlighted, opco, would have passed with an even higher quorum.
We should do some retroactive analysis on both, and they both currently count Abstain votes toward quorum if I understand the code correctly.
I never suggested counted No votes towards quorum. Not sure where that came from
The 140M votes counting towards quorum counts 18.5M Abstain votes. The Yes votes only passed quorum on that example by 620k votes. This small amount would cost only a few thousand dollars to borrow for a week from aave. That's 29X times as many Abstain votes counting towards quorum as the margin that the Yes votes had over the quorum. I dont think thats as optimized as it could be and is definitely a good justification to spending some energy looking into updating params.
you can still vote abstain to signal. But now we could remove the possibility that an abstain vote makes a vote pass, which is currently how it works.
The OpCo proposal you linked was indeed contentious but we cannot explicitly say it was generally disfavored as the ratio of for to against vote stood at ~3:1 as we can see here
the number of voters is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is number of votes
As was said, "indeed contentious." Still valid.
I don't honestly see how removing the abstain preserves from gov attacks. Matter of the fact, it allows us to reach quorum in an easier way will still keep participating (and for what it matters if I recall step 1 proposal would have not passed for example without the abstains).
Also, right now, the against are not counted in the quorum. In your example of opco that had a 140M votes vs a 120M quorum, if you would have instead counted the against, you would have had instead a 196M valid votes.
@cupojoseph do you mean to propose to change this just on the Arbitrum Treasury governor (the one for non-constitutional level proposals, that has 3% quorum) or on the Arbitrum Core governor (the one for constitutional level proposals, that has 5% quorum)? or to change it in both governors?
In your proposal, you are linking the constitutional, 5% quorum governor, in here:
What's the point in having abstain then if you basically remove it as a valid voting option? There are reasonable times where abstain is signaling that one is not 100% for nor 100% against the proposal. So it might need modification if the majority is choosing to abstain from it.
Removing this doesn't help "fighting" against these bribe markets.
The OpCo proposal you linked was indeed contentious but we cannot explicitly say it was generally disfavored as the ratio of for to against vote stood at ~3:1 as we can see here
the number of voters is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is number of votes. I would cost me about $20 in gas to create 5,000 voters with 0.001 ARB each. We go by total number of ARB voting, which was much closer.
the number of voters is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is number of votes
As was said, "indeed contentious." Still valid.
Yes, this is explicitly the goal. Make proposals harder to pass.
The question should be, "Are proposals not already finding it hard enough to pass?"
Why make it harder to pass when there are no actual downsides to point to as it is currently?
Rather than push stuff to ARDC, it might be more helpful if you do some digging and then present some analysis we can review here.
I don't honestly see how removing the abstain preserves from gov attacks. Matter of the fact, it allows us to reach quorum in an easier way will still keep participating (and for what it matters if I recall step 1 proposal would have not passed for example without the abstains).
Also, right now, the against are not counted in the quorum. In your example of opco that had a 140M votes vs a 120M quorum, if you would have instead counted the against, you would have had instead a 196M valid votes.
So, really, I am not understanding the logic here.
@cupojoseph do you mean to propose to change this just on the Arbitrum Treasury governor (the one for non-constitutional level proposals, that has 3% quorum) or on the Arbitrum Core governor (the one for constitutional level proposals, that has 5% quorum)? or to change it in both governors?
In your proposal, you are linking the constitutional, 5% quorum governor, in here:
but then you are using the example of the OpCo proposal that used the non-constitutional, 3% quorum governor, in here:
Thanks for bringing this proposal, @cupojoseph, on this very pressing topic in the DAO.
Although I understand the intention here, I think removing the "Abstain" voting option disenfranchises legitimate, well-meaning voters who are genuinely undecided, are neither for nor against, or simply want to remain neutral on a proposal. So, not sure if it's the best approach.
Thanks for bringing this proposal, @cupojoseph, on this very pressing topic in the DAO.
Although I understand the intention here, I think removing the "Abstain" voting option disenfranchises legitimate, well-meaning voters who are genuinely undecided, are neither for nor against, or simply want to remain neutral on a proposal. So, not sure if it's the best approach.
But it's definitely true that we need to rethink the topic of quorum as a DAO, as it is looking more likely that the DAO may be susceptible to future governance attacks. To this point, we may want to consider:
Perhaps the ARDC could also consider some of these options and their impact on DAO defense when conducting their analysis of this proposal and making recommendations.
Either way, we believe the topic of DAO defense mechanisms is worth spending time and resources on for Arbitrum DAO. There is a very large treasury at stake here, and as one of the largest DAOs, we need to be more proactive in safeguarding against governance attacks.
Just to give a little more context on this: LobbyFi is not able to propose anything to the governor by design and will not be able to do this in the future
awesome feature, this gives me a lot of long term confidence in Lobbyfi as a viable protocol that can work WITH the dao.
Thanks for putting this up, cupojoseph!
This is a very good point.
Although I understand the intention here, I think removing the “Abstain” voting option disenfranchises legitimate, well-meaning voters who are genuinely undecided, are neither for nor against, or simply want to remain neutral on a proposal.
Thanks for putting this up, cupojoseph!
This is a very good point.
Although I understand the intention here, I think removing the “Abstain” voting option disenfranchises legitimate, well-meaning voters who are genuinely undecided, are neither for nor against, or simply want to remain neutral on a proposal.
Aside this, what happens to voters who abstain because they benefit directly from a proposal? Should they now be forced to vote in favor or against proposals?
On this,
or for contentious proposals which are generally disfavored to pass only because someone abstained at the last minute.
The OpCo proposal you linked was indeed contentious but we cannot explicitly say it was generally disfavored as the ratio of for to against vote stood at ~3:1 as we can see here
Finally, building up on Jojo's comment, "Abstain" does indeed help us reach quorum. Take that out and we might need to reduce quorum generally which is not a good signal for the DAO.
Its not to remove abstain, its to remove its counting abstain towards quorum. Thanks, agree its definitely worth asking ARDC to re-analyze quorum levels - maybe every 2 years or something
For the first time, an automated bribe market (lobbyfi) has enough delegation to create proposals.
For the first time, an automated bribe market (lobbyfi) has enough delegation to create proposals.
Just to give a little more context on this: LobbyFi is not able to propose anything to the governor by design and will not be able to do this in the future. You are welcome to take a glance at the DelegationsHoster smart contract.
Just as a matter of coincidence, LobbyFi voted against on the proposal you chose as an example.
Our comment on the proposal overall, in short points:
And the last point: LobbyFi is not a bribe market and we insist on not calling it so. Just like in a tweet from a project that we suspect you are working on, we define what we do differently than bribing - and you perfectly know it from numerous conversations.
The OpCo proposal you linked was indeed contentious but we cannot explicitly say it was generally disfavored as the ratio of for to against vote stood at ~3:1 as we can see here
the number of voters is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is number of votes. I would cost me about $20 in gas to create 5,000 voters with 0.001 ARB each. We go by total number of ARB voting, which was much closer.
the number of voters is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is number of votes
As was said, "indeed contentious." Still valid.
Yes, this is explicitly the goal. Make proposals harder to pass.
The question should be, "Are proposals not already finding it hard enough to pass?"
Why make it harder to pass when there are no actual downsides to point to as it is currently?
Rather than push stuff to ARDC, it might be more helpful if you do some digging and then present some analysis we can review here.
I don't honestly see how removing the abstain preserves from gov attacks. Matter of the fact, it allows us to reach quorum in an easier way will still keep participating (and for what it matters if I recall step 1 proposal would have not passed for example without the abstains).
Also, right now, the against are not counted in the quorum. In your example of opco that had a 140M votes vs a 120M quorum, if you would have instead counted the against, you would have had instead a 196M valid votes.
So, really, I am not understanding the logic here.
@cupojoseph do you mean to propose to change this just on the Arbitrum Treasury governor (the one for non-constitutional level proposals, that has 3% quorum) or on the Arbitrum Core governor (the one for constitutional level proposals, that has 5% quorum)? or to change it in both governors?
In your proposal, you are linking the constitutional, 5% quorum governor, in here:
but then you are using the example of the OpCo proposal that used the non-constitutional, 3% quorum governor, in here:
Thanks for bringing this proposal, @cupojoseph, on this very pressing topic in the DAO.
Although I understand the intention here, I think removing the "Abstain" voting option disenfranchises legitimate, well-meaning voters who are genuinely undecided, are neither for nor against, or simply want to remain neutral on a proposal. So, not sure if it's the best approach.
Thanks for bringing this proposal, @cupojoseph, on this very pressing topic in the DAO.
Although I understand the intention here, I think removing the "Abstain" voting option disenfranchises legitimate, well-meaning voters who are genuinely undecided, are neither for nor against, or simply want to remain neutral on a proposal. So, not sure if it's the best approach.
But it's definitely true that we need to rethink the topic of quorum as a DAO, as it is looking more likely that the DAO may be susceptible to future governance attacks. To this point, we may want to consider:
Perhaps the ARDC could also consider some of these options and their impact on DAO defense when conducting their analysis of this proposal and making recommendations.
Either way, we believe the topic of DAO defense mechanisms is worth spending time and resources on for Arbitrum DAO. There is a very large treasury at stake here, and as one of the largest DAOs, we need to be more proactive in safeguarding against governance attacks.
Just to give a little more context on this: LobbyFi is not able to propose anything to the governor by design and will not be able to do this in the future
awesome feature, this gives me a lot of long term confidence in Lobbyfi as a viable protocol that can work WITH the dao.
Thanks for putting this up, cupojoseph!
This is a very good point.
Although I understand the intention here, I think removing the “Abstain” voting option disenfranchises legitimate, well-meaning voters who are genuinely undecided, are neither for nor against, or simply want to remain neutral on a proposal.
Thanks for putting this up, cupojoseph!
This is a very good point.
Although I understand the intention here, I think removing the “Abstain” voting option disenfranchises legitimate, well-meaning voters who are genuinely undecided, are neither for nor against, or simply want to remain neutral on a proposal.
Aside this, what happens to voters who abstain because they benefit directly from a proposal? Should they now be forced to vote in favor or against proposals?
On this,
or for contentious proposals which are generally disfavored to pass only because someone abstained at the last minute.
The OpCo proposal you linked was indeed contentious but we cannot explicitly say it was generally disfavored as the ratio of for to against vote stood at ~3:1 as we can see here
Finally, building up on Jojo's comment, "Abstain" does indeed help us reach quorum. Take that out and we might need to reduce quorum generally which is not a good signal for the DAO.
Its not to remove abstain, its to remove its counting abstain towards quorum. Thanks, agree its definitely worth asking ARDC to re-analyze quorum levels - maybe every 2 years or something
For the first time, an automated bribe market (lobbyfi) has enough delegation to create proposals.
For the first time, an automated bribe market (lobbyfi) has enough delegation to create proposals.
Just to give a little more context on this: LobbyFi is not able to propose anything to the governor by design and will not be able to do this in the future. You are welcome to take a glance at the DelegationsHoster smart contract.
Just as a matter of coincidence, LobbyFi voted against on the proposal you chose as an example.
Our comment on the proposal overall, in short points:
And the last point: LobbyFi is not a bribe market and we insist on not calling it so. Just like in a tweet from a project that we suspect you are working on, we define what we do differently than bribing - and you perfectly know it from numerous conversations.
