If Parity doesn't plan to build OpenGov 2.0, I think it's best to just shut OpenGov down now

Governance
1

We have decentralized voting, but no decentralized governance

Today, Polkadot’s governance process looks like this:

  • Voting is on-chain

  • Auditing is off-chain

  • Decision-making is dominated by a handful of social figures

  • Execution accountability barely exists

  • Deliverables are not enforceably tied to funding

The result?

Funding decisions are made by the worst possible combination:

On-chain democracy + off-chain subjective filtering + zero cryptographic accountability

This is not trustless governance.
It is governance by reputation, familiarity, influence, and Discord screenshots.

OpenGov has become the largest DAO in history running the smallest level of mechanization.

That is the opposite of what blockchain was invented for.

And the costs are real

Polkadot has spent over $200M in treasury funding since launch.
What proportion of these funds can we:

  • Prove delivered on-chain?

  • Automatically claw back if goals weren’t met?

  • Attribute to a persistent identity?

  • Audit without human interpretation?

The honest answer:

Almost none.

We have created a “governance engine” with no instrumentation panel.

We are flying blind.

The current version of OpenGov is like a project done by college students.

**
If Parity doesn’t plan to do anything further, I think we can just shut down OpenGov now.**

Parity, you built the plane, collected the most fuel from the treasury, and you’re still the only one who can install the instruments.
Fix OpenGov, or the community will remember who chose to let $200M+ fly blind.

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2

I share the view that OpenGov needs a huge iteration.

The root issue, from my point of view, is that it is modeled as a democracy, and for a democracy to work a minimum participation is required. I don’t think any decision with less than 30% participation could be called democratic, technically speaking.

I have argued with many community members that others practices do exist that could suit us better. In particular a DAO, where we model a more traditional organization, and create mechanisms for community to contribute to execution on an open basis. Or a blend of both: Democracy for Huge annual decisions (Budgets, Inflation, etc) and Open Governance for open and inclusive execution.

I would also like to point out that the issues we dealt with, sometimes attributed to bad actors are in fact coming from the very core of our community: The way the referendum 1783 is been brought forward is a perfect illustration of the root cause of our governance issues.

Yes, the individuality initiative is backed both by Parity and Gavin, but that in no way should be presented to the community in a completely informal way (proposer? team? deliverables? budget? all upfront?), setting a really bad example. Only @SAXEMBERG DV seems to have raised issue, which is also very telling.

As actions send a more powerful message than words, we can see how our community slowly turns to tribalism, even DVs and core members apply unspoken rules: using the word “official” to refer to some initiatives, refer to some teams as first party and others third party, openly question why initiatives are put forward without support from “core” community members, etc.

Non of this should matter in a governance system that it is effectively Open.

Which leaves us to the last point: on chain reputation is required. If we need to tell people NO because of WHO they are, that should be based on their on-chain reputation. Many members have called for this many times, including @anaelleltd , who has been dealing with OpenGov from the front-lines.

In any case I don´t think OpenGov is getting a significant iteration anytime soon, I think there are deeper issues in our community that will prevent this from happening.

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3

I agree with Dandan, that openGov it is a missed opportunity. Instead of a cybernetic and more automated system, it went into a system similar to the ones it was meant to fight.

Paradoxically enough, the system design was massive and grandiloquent, but with a very little automation, which ended in a highly bureaucratic system, slow and inefficient, which also kept the community trapped in the gears of the machine. OpenGov captured the energy and imagination of the ecosystem for almost 2 years, driving the ecosystem discourse and public information you can follow in social media channels, into internal politics ( not even politics, openGov doesn’t discuss about XXI digital citizenship rights, but only funding projects). openGov drama became became the ecosystem entertainment for the community, but also - in the crude full transparency of the open web and open society, some of us we still believe in -, for the rest of the world, a sign of what Polkadot was interested in in: Internet drama, partisanship and money issues. The new world was very similar to the old one: an internet forum with money, with the worst of two worlds.

openGov also brought a terrible political culture and worst behaviorial culture. And maybe few realised that the show didn’t have any ticket price and the spectacle was open to everybody.

But we know all of this: we have fall into decadence and complacency. The system didn’t have the proper countermeasures: automatic and human. Funnily enough, 18 months ago we did an analysis of openGov in a context of a DF proposal which went nowhere, where we mentioned The tradegy of the commons, and of course, not even in our worse moments we invent anything new.

But no point to continuing to stir the smelling topics.

What we need is a clear reformist agenda, which should include:

  • First, to thin the state. Remove bounties, funding bodies and people that Polkadot doesn’t need or they are subpar.
  • Establish a set of participatory hygiene: Curator rotation, tenure establishment, clear separation of duties, standardized public report everyone with a ecosystem funded duty.
  • Clear compensation rules across projects and bounties. People cannot be paid more or less depending on who they know and who they are going to vote for them.
  • A flexible payment system ( to pay upfront what needs to be paid upfront, and milestone/escrow based payments to others). Not all projects and disciplines are equal.
  • A more agile and transparent way of dealing with openGov changes.

Some of these changes can be enforced from the system itself ( as code is law), other require human decision and intervention. Both, code and human, require resources and political will.

Last random thoughts:

  • The medium is the message.
  • Polkadot needs to be brave, not conservative at this moment - we have lost everything already: the reputation, the social perception, the funds, the time in a highly competitive environment and the social capital. Only the addicts to the régime, web3 idealists with Stockholm syndrome like myself and bagholders stay around.
  • The purpose of a system is what it does - by Stafford Beer
  • In public, is not only relevant what you do, also how it looks like
  • Kusama is there as laboratory, not only for governance code but also for systems, frameworks and persons.

Update: There are some edits to this post.

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