The Proposals category is reserved for DAO proposals. Each proposal is posted as a separate topic to allow free discussion. No other topics than new proposals should be posted in this category.
Categories of proposals
The Constitution knows three types of proposals:
1. Social proposal
A non-enforceable proposal that lets the DAO vote on a wide range of questions, ideas, or issues. Examples of valid social proposals:
- request for a new feature that doesn’t require additional budget,
- change in the proposal process,
- vote on one of the electable roles [TBD]
2. Request for action
A proposal requesting an action from either the Keyholders or the Tezos Domains Foundation (TDF). Examples of valid requests for action:
- a smart contract upgrade
- funding from the on-chain treasury
- a legal agreement to be signed by the TDF
- adjust rewards dispensed by the governance pool
3. Constitution amendment
A proposal amending the text of the DAO constitution. This type of proposal has stricter acceptance criteria to pass, as defined by the current constitution text.
One proposal can be in multiple categories. For example, a proposal might ask for a new feature (social proposal) and at the same time request an upgrade to the smart contracts required to implement it (request for action).
How to submit a new proposal
- Start by creating a new topic in the Proposals category.
- The title of the topic should be:
DRAFT Proposal: <Title of your proposal>. Try to find a short and descriptive title for your proposal. - The topic content will already contain a simple template. After filling it out, remember to remove unused sections.
- Submit the proposal draft so it can start gathering feedback.
Proposal stages
To make sure that the community has a good understanding of each proposal when the time to vote comes, there are several stages that a proposal has to go through:
- DRAFT: Proposals start in the draft stage in which they are open to feedback from the community. The proposal author may be asked by the Steward of Governance to refine and clarify the proposal before it can be moved to the ACTIVE stage.
- ACTIVE: A proposal in the active stage can be voted on.
- ACCEPTED/REJECTED: Proposals that have ended their voting period are marked as accepted or rejected by the Steward of Governance. Accepted proposals can then be acted on, as defined by the Constitution.
- CANCELED: A proposal author may decide to cancel a proposal still in the DRAFT stage. The Steward of Governance has the authority to cancel a proposal in the DRAFT stage in case of the lack of cooperation (or inactivity) from the author of the proposal, but not earlier than 7 days from submission.
The current stage of each proposal is reflected in the title of its topic.
Moving a proposal from DRAFT to ACTIVE
For a proposal to be ready to move from the DRAFT to the ACTIVE stage, it must meet the following criteria:
- The proposal has a clear title.
- The proposal lists all its categories (one at minimum).
- The proposal specifies a valid voting period in days (7-30 days for regular proposals; 14-30 days for constitution amendments).
- The proposal has an abstract that describes the proposal clearly and in plain speech. A good abstract is short and to the point, but without missing key information.
- The text contains a rationale for the proposal.
- Requests for Action must have a precisely defined specification defining the proposed actions.
- Example of a well-defined action: TLDRegistrar configuration is updated to increase the yearly registration fee of 5+ letter domains from 1 tez to 2 tez.
- Example of a poorly defined action: Tezos Domains smart contracts should start giving TED rewards for holding a domain (clearly missing important information about amounts and reward structure; action item like this needs more refinement).
- Constitution amendments must contain the proposed new text of the Constitution in full.
- A well-formed proposal should be free of unnecessary clutter. Remember that concise format and precise language are key for motivating voters to participate and vote on your proposal.
Once the proposal meets the listed criteria, the Steward of Governance is free to notify the author and mark the proposal as ACTIVE. The Steward of Governance can exercise their own discretion when deciding if a proposal needs more refinement before moving to the ACTIVE stage.
Voting on an ACTIVE proposal
After moving a proposal to the ACTIVE stage, the Steward of Governance will create a corresponding proposal in Homebase and thus start the voting period.
The Homebase proposal will include:
- The full abstract.
- Link to the corresponding topic in the governance forum.
- Three voting options:
- “Yes” representing a vote in favor,
- “No”, representing a vote against, and
- “Abstain”, a vote that represents neither and (in case of regular proposals) doesn’t count towards the total tally, but it does count towards the quorum.
The Steward of Governance will then update the proposal text to include a link back to Homebase so the proposal can be voted on by DAO members.
IMPORTANT: All Homebase proposals that are not properly linked from an active proposal will be disregarded by the DAO.
Moving a proposal from ACTIVE to ACCEPTED/REJECTED
After the voting period is over, the Steward of Governance officially moves the proposal to one of the two final stages:
- ACCEPTED if the proposal meets the acceptance criteria, or
- REJECTED if it doesn’t.
Accepted proposals are then acted on, as specified by the constitution.