Decentralized Voices Program - SAXEMBERG

About Us:

We are Saxemberg. Currently operating validators and collators in the Polkadot ecosystem since 2020. Moreover, we have been involved in Gov1 as well as OpenGov since the proposal #0. We are publicly making a declaration of intent of joining W3F’s Decentralized Voices program.

Our main governance addresses on Polkadot and Kusama are the following:

Polkadot: 153YD8ZHD9dRh82U419bSCB5SzWhbdAFzjj4NtA5pMazR2yC

Kusama: J19LYGghRCe4Ct3VW4Vz1amMoUgogS1sh2FQvPWroKcDdb1

We have been involved in on-chain governance outside of Polkadot since the early days of DAO designs. Currently on Polkadot, we are independently tracking the OpenGov proposals that have been funded so far on our website on our project “OpenGov Watchdog” at: OpenGov Watchdog: Polkadot Opengov's Public Funding Tracker - Saxemberg

Additionally we spearheaded the explanations for each vote, something we consider crucial for all delegation addresses in order to show vote planning and research of each proposal. Ours are currently published on X: @saxemberg

We are also active participants in the OpenGov discussions on the governance forums like Polkassembly and Subsquare mostly for Polkadot, Kusama and Zeitgeist as well as on X (Twitter).

Political Philosophy

Pragmatism. Unlike traditional politics where voting is not (as) liquid, delegation removal can take years and politicians make long careers out of decision-making, we believe that on-chain governance is an emerging field and radically different in the sense that on-chain representation allows for faster evolution and dynamism when compared to the regular world of politics. We consider on-chain governance an emergent field where there is still an ample field that has not been researched yet, therefore, a pragmatical and flexible approach to governance is our main philosophy. In the future, when ideas like Futarchy have been already tested out completely, we might change the political philosophy to something more delimited.

For that reason we have developed concrete guidelines that guide our voting as well as serving as a first line of explanation for our decision-making. They are currently available at: Treasury Guidelines - Saxemberg

These guidelines were created from lessons and past experience on on-chain governance on Polkadot and on-chain governance other blockchains and DAOs.

These guidelines are not final and unmovable. The likeliest scenario is that more guidelines will be added and the current ones will be kept more or less the same unless a significant event or lesson triggers a change.

Why should the W3F delegate their voting power to us?

Saxemberg has been involved in Polkadot governance since the early days and for that reason we have shared our expertise and experience for our current delegators, proposers and other governance participants alike. Just like with our delegated DOT on our validators and collators, we always keep in mind our delegators concerns and questions and we try to answer as promptly as possible. Like it was previously mentioned, it is great to have a highly dynamic delegation system as it allows for quick replies and quick decision making.

With this in mind, we would like to have the decentralized voices’ support so that our approach to decision making gets amplified as much as possible and we can make fast iterations and improvements upon this model for the greater good of the Polkadot ecosystem.

The future is decentralized.

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I look up to Saxemberg as an exceptional model of an educated, transparent and communicative voter in OpenGov, by clearly explaining their voting philosophy, sharing a rationale for each vote made, and maintaining follow-up post-vote. And they have been consistent in this since the start of OpenGov.

  • William

p.s. also love their nomination pool name!

2 Likes

Thanks for your kind words. We will continue iterating on this ideas and also striving to keep this transparency to the maximum extent possible.

I fully agree that Saxemberg is a model of good governing here. I frequently stop to read his vote justifications which he meticulously provides on X for every decision he makes - including followups when his mind is changed.

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very supportive. Saxemburg has been active and fair and has a commendable track record

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