[BIP-XXX] General guidelines on second voting

Ok good,

what do you propose instead?

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i believe i was alluding to the fact that the current system doesn’t seem broken to me. we could potentially move the GC voting system on to discourse via a poll (which existed at one point in time), but that seems gameable by a bunch of new accounts joining to vote. another strategy, but ridiculous, is to have a snapshot (or similar system) to proceed with a actual snapshot vote or not, but have the first capture votes by pure number of voters and not weighted

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We can also get rid of the GC and set simple rules on what is allowed to be considered for a re-vote and call it a day.

A minimum of 60 or 90 days before a revote happen to avoid spam proposals!

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Changes to the proposal have been made following Community feedback.

I kindly ask for this proposal to go to a vote.

Hey, Andrea! Thanks for this proposal and discussing these ideas.

I think we should always have caution when favoring rules that undermine the governance power that veBAL holders have over the protocol. Having a lock period doesn’t look good to me either. Ultimately, veBAL should be able to override pretty much everything, so having mechanisms where manual blocks are in place wouldn’t benefit the “DAO” aspects of the protocol.

I’m even more against it being a “general guideline”, as it would leave more room for free interpretation. Also (if we are lawyering it up), one can build the case of personal liabilities, conflicts of interests, anons/pseudoanimosity etc.

Just too many complication layers and unknown unknowns.

So I’ll second @zekraken as I don’t see the current framework needs this change, as it currently considers revoting motivation and justification already, on open-forum discussion, while favoring the will of veBAL holders.

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Hi @Danko8383,

I slimmed it up. Just a few requirements now. Let me know what you think

Hey, I was going to edit my post, since you removed the Gov Council revamp, but no need then. Thanks.

Still, general guidelines are good and all, I think there wasn’t an opportunity where there wasn’t a clear reason on why revoting wasn’t in place.

However, 90 days in crypto is a life-time. I don’t see a reason for a cool-down period, as any other manual blocks for veBAL voting for that matter. It takes away from the governance legitimacy and undermines its power. Plus, doesn’t look good for the DAO and takes away its ability to maneuver and adjust in a hasty manner.

A cooldown period is super important. It gives enough time to the creator of the proposal to reassess the proposal and make all the necessary changes. Maybe 90 days is a lot, but something between 30-45 days should be acceptable. At the end of the day, its up to veBAL holders to decide the cooldown period. We can have 15 days, 30 days, 45 days, 90 days and no cooldown as the options for the Snapshot.

I don’t understand what this proposal accomplishes. Our governance framework doesn’t have the notion of a hierarchy of decisions, like constitution and laws IRL, does it? Any proposal can revoke a previously approved one, and it would be absurd to remove this power from veBAL holders. If a majority group wants to run a second vote all they have to do is revoke these guidelines first.

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you don’t see a problem with SAME proposal being requested for vote lets say every week, after being denied last week?

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I don’t. Even if a proposal is exactly the same, people change their minds, veBAL distribution changes.

But more importantly, if there is a problem this proposal doesn’t fix it, for the reasons I stated above.

If you’d like to start a discussion about overhauling the governance system, I’d be happy to participate.

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Balancer has the concept of “voting rounds”, right? Once a week?

How about just skipping a week in the case of a revote? Or skipping two weeks?

This prevents voters from getting frustrated with the governance process, if they are being asked to vote on the same proposals week after week. This is the main risk IMO - it can quickly lead to mayhem when anyone who doesn’t get their desired outcome can just copy+paste and make everyone vote again.

This is my main concern, otherwise I still agree with this point from @markus:

Any proposal can revoke a previously approved one, and it would be absurd to remove this power from veBAL holders

I would also love to participate. As you indicate here, I think it’s a bigger conversation that will take quite a bit of working TOGETHER to come up with something to bring forward to all token holders for a vote.

Please let me know if there are serious conversations about how to improve balancer governance going on.

Having a 90 day cooldown for revote on a proposal for a decentralized finance protocol is farcical. It is not outside of the realm of possibilities in DeFi to have a situation in which voting on something that didn’t make sense for the protocol when initially proposed 7 days/30 days/60 days ago would need to be voted on again to preserve the best interests of the protocol.

There seems to be a concern that voting on a proposal again is some kind of major inconvenience. If a proposer desires to put their proposal up again during the next cycle and it has already been determined that it can be implemented, so what? If voters still feel the same in a week, they can simply click another button (~2 seconds of time) to express that their opinion has not changed. This would be an indication to the proposer that their proposal does not align with the best interests of the protocol and will likely lead to further discussion and improvements.

This proposal feels dangerously close to being an indirect means to suppress the opinions of veBAL holders. If new information comes to light that would change a voter’s opinion or a proposal is slightly altered/improved based on community feedback and sent back for a vote, I cannot think of a good reason to prevent voters from expressing their opinion during the next voting round, let alone 90 days later.

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90 days is a very long time and the strict requirements for a re-vote appear to unnecessarily hamstring governance. The current system is working exactly as it should with the option of voting on proposals as they occur. This proposal appears to be tactical in nature but has strategic consequences. I would think that delaying this going to snapshot until at least the current round of other votes has been implemented would be wise at the very least. There is absolutely no rush!

These requirements do not allow for many of the key elements of voting that have been relied upon by members of the Balancer community. As an example, BIP 103- Karpatkey Balancer Treasury CU Proposal Update was initially rejected on 28 Oct and then following discussions was revoted on 4 Nov and passed.

This kind of flexibility is not a weakness of the process, instead it is a strength. The ability to revote and reconsider is especially important in an environment where there are large voting blocks who vote at the end of the voting window and thus ‘surprise’ the DAO on issues that may have been considered largely not contentious.

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@BHoping ,

It is tactical. And the reason is because it is now even clearer that rules can be bent and applied as some members see fit (Gov Council “has power” or “has no power” all within a few days).
You are bringing the perfect case regarding BIP-103. And that should serve as the general example to follow to better understand point number 3.

I have also noticed some opposition towards the cooldown period. I admit arguments are valid and I could remove it based on feedback.

About all of this, I really don’t know what to say. I have personally never seen a “surprised” DAO. I apologize, but this statement does not constitute a valid argument in my view.

I respectfully disagree with these points, ser. But the larger issue at hand is this: when are you and Humpy going to stop writing ridiculous proposals and abusing the Balancer governance system. This is clearly bad faith. No one individual should be placed into the position where they have the ability to 51% attack the BAL protocol, and just shove through every proposal that they want.

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So with no need for the cool down period and with you agreement that BIP 103 was a reasonable example of something being voted on again, can we simply put this discussion to bed? There does not seem to be sufficient worthwhile changes being proposed in this BIP to warrant it going to a vote.

I would like to propose that this discussion be closed

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until I see more disputes against the current system coming from a number of established community members (i.e. not a bunch of first time posters) I would tend to agree to move on. that is my opinion, but at the same time people are free to do what they want under the current system.

I also feel that this barrage of proposals against the current system (rather than one well defined proposal with a comprehensive plan to reshape governance) could turn prospective/current users away from Balancer, but maybe that is the goal.

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