OpenGov Adjustments - 2025

[wabkebab]

@bill_w3f

I’d even argue that it is a good thing that you have to start learning how OpenGov works a bit (including the offline parts) in order to participate, as a way of ensuring that people are really interested and not just spamming the chain.

I see the point and the logic behind this reasoning, but in the current state of the ecosystem - where we are seeing the same faces again and again - mediation is key to make it easy, understandable and welcoming approach to a community - instead of leaving newcomers on their own to highly complex and political system, networks of private contacts and their spheres of influence. A political system which we have been promoting as a key feature of Polkadot - for everyone.

Maybe there is no resources or energy for this mediation layer, but with the Polkadot Hub, we aim to attract a good number of solidity developers to our community. How are they going to integrate in Polkadot’'s political culture ?

This also resonates with this:

@anaelleltd

. This, to me, does not sound like an improvement, because we will end up with a new version of OpenGov that is even more inward-focused than the one we currently have.

I know that “Polkadot Culture” is another topic that deserves its own discussion, but impregnates the way we code, the way we think and the way we deal with the outside world.

And OpenGov it is not only a political device, it is also a cultural device.

[anaelleltd]

I agree that the lack of stewards/mentors is a problem, and in an ideal world we would have them. However, sadly, we do not live in an ideal world, and finding the resources for this does not seem feasible at this point.

I am a very pragmatic person and I do not currently see any real hurdle to having stewards/mentors on board, other than the pervasive expectation that these people would work for free forever ever after.

Tips have previously been used to encourage and compensate experts who did take the time to provide actionable feedback to proponents (See Refs 1380, 764, 753, 660, 628, 460, 441, 422). This approach could have been cemented into a complimentary add-on to OpenGov routines, but it wasn’t. The momentum was lost after a few well-networked individuals were funded.

DV DAOs are paid to review and vote on active referenda. Most bounty curators are paid to review and vote on childbounty proposals submitted to them. Nobody is being paid to steward/mentor prospective proponents who choose to come directly to OpenGov, and so nobody routinely does this.

An alternative would be to mandate that DV Guardians and/or Polkadot Agents program nominees undertake these stewardship/mentorship duties, but it is up to W3F to make a decision on this matter.

[Nukeme3]

I like Kian’s idea on opening the limits parameters based on calendar cycles. It could effectively allow high-throughput governance “sessions” or agile sprints in activity or funding rounds, followed by a slower governance recess to monitor progress and nurse the coffers. Either an annual it semi-annual session? Thoughts?

Otherwise, increasing the threshold for proposals to reduce spam and fatigue is a worthwhile activity. As mentioned, creating a more streamlined interface with the bounties will be necessary, as well.

[SAXEMBERG]

The issue goes beyond that unfortunately and it’s not just a UX problem or a simple spam issue.

These referenda linger for a long time and often remain in an speculative state where either they wait for a positive signaling for almost the entirety of the waiting period only to be placed the DD if and only if the signal is positive in what we internally call “speculative DD“. an increased submission deposit doesn’t make much a difference if the potential pot is thousands of dollars.

The “signaling” are other detrimental devices used on OpenGov through not depositing the DD have been used as marketing stunts at best and as a way to attack others at worse so removing these behaviors altogether seems the best.

Spam is a the final issue that this shortening of the timeout period will address which as many know also include those classic, “Please vote NAY“ which will include the increased submission deposit most likely because people will be convinced that the referendum will execute only to find out that there was some issue in the submission. It’s better to have those timeout quickly to be honest. To have a quick timeout for referenda that proposers removed the preimage can also help.

If the project’s plan is to request thousands or hundred of thousands the DD should be ready to be deployed even if it comes from a sponsor. Seeking sponsorship only when the referendum has gone live is unrealistic and it’s mostly used as an excuse for these detrimental behaviors. Root changes specially should also have the DD ready for deployment as they are significant changes.

This simple change can show conviction and seriousness of all proposers on a broader spectrum and not have us rely on all UX providers to sync on hiding some spam refs when they are still there onchain.

[ltfschoen]

I think these OpenGov adjustments could be further enhanced through multi-collective and multi-rank stakeholder endorsement using the Polkadot SDK’s Origin AND Gate (Issue #369 "And gate" for EnsureOrigin · Issue #369 · paritytech/polkadot-sdk · GitHub, PR #9048 [WIP]: "AND Gate" for EnsureOrigin by ltfschoen · Pull Request #9048 · paritytech/polkadot-sdk · GitHub).

The “AND Gate” implementation creates a compound origin check requiring approval from multiple specialised collectives before proposals advance to ensure higher quality submissions through staged expert filtering, distributed evaluation workload across domain-specific collectives, and stronger alignment through multi-stakeholder consensus

The PR #9048 for “AND Gate” currently supports:

• Configurable approval thresholds (RequiredApprovalsCount)
• Async approvals from different origins
• Expiry mechanics for stale proposals
• Conditional approvals with remarks
• Storage identifiers for off-chain data (e.g. IPFS CIDs) to back up approval conditions

The current implementation does not yet support ZK-based threshold schemes or DD crowdfunding mechanisms, but its extensible architecture provides a foundation for future enhancements that could include:

• Private proposal content verification
• Anonymous collective membership proofs
• Privacy-preserving threshold approval schemes where cryptographic systems verify sufficient approvals (e.g. “5+ members approved” or “3+ Rank III members approved”) without revealing individual votes to protect members from pressure while maintaining verification

To incorporate DD (Decision Deposit) crowdfunding would require extending the pallet with:

1. Rank-based weighted contribution systems where contributions to DDs are weighted by rank (e.g. Rank III member contributing 10 DOT might count as 30 DOT toward meeting thresholds, while Rank I counts as just 10 DOT)
2. Contribution tracking mechanisms
3. ZK verification circuits for private contributions
4. Escrow mechanisms for contributed funds that securely hold contributed deposits until predefined conditions are met (proposal approval, execution, or rejection) and with automated refund logic for failed proposals and potential reward distribution for successful ones

This approach aligns with the Decentralized Governance Transition Risk Management Framework: A Parallel Storytelling Approach I just published Decentralized Governance Transition Risk Management Framework: A Parallel Storytelling Approach · GitHub. The “AND Gate” and its multi-collective approval requirement directly implements these principles by ensuring explicit consent from domain experts before proposals advance, while providing verification mechanisms that reduce reliance on subjective interpretations.

Example: Treasury proposals could require both Technical Fellowship + Ambassador Fellowship approval before reaching referendum, with different rank thresholds within each collective to complement the goal of reducing governance noise while elevating proposal quality.

In response to your question regarding collective decision deposits, while “AND Gate” handles approval flows, it would need extension to support DD crowdfunding where members contribute based on rank. DD crowdfunding would direct funds to individual or collective contributors based on their rank and alignment, creating a compound effect where proposals gain momentum through both expert endorsement and community backing. This would transform decision deposits from mere financial barriers into nuanced social consensus mechanisms that reward participants while measuring both depth and breadth of support. Combining both would create a powerful system where proposals require both distributed expertise approval + financial stake, addressing both quality and accountability concerns simultaneously.

[polka.dom]

As a few people have mentioned crowdfunding decision deposits I’ll note that this has been proposed as RFC 151. Here’s the rendered text.

[ultracoconut]

Another thing I’d like to change, and which is quite annoying, is that a proponent submits a funding proposal to the Treasury.

Days go by, and when they see they’re going to lose, they say, “Vote Nay” and submit another proposal.

In my opinion, this is malicious. We should execute a Referendum Killer if you have a proposal in progress and come back and submit the same thing.

What do you think?

[AlexPromoTeam]

Full support!

The amount of the Treasury can also be reduced. Only new ‘earnings’ from fees and inflation can exist, not old ‘savings’ - burn old treasury concept.

This would provide more discipline and stimulate DOT value growth.

[OliverTY]

I like this initiative. Having less higher-quality proposals will also create shelling points for the community to rally and gather around.

@kianenigma

I believe this needs to go hand in hand with more focus from the OG UIs on bounties, as they will become the primary source of funding. Atm, a new joiner might have a harder time finding bounties than the default OG process.

Yes there would be more focus on this. I know one team working on a new Bounties UI that will help with discoverability there

[ChrawnnaCorp]

This proposal in its current form will HALT OpenGov!

Support:

The mission to raise the barrier for OpenGov ref submissions is LONG overdue!

This is well achieved by the suggestions to:

Increase the Submission Deposit
Increase Decision Deposits
Decrease Max Deciding refs per Track
Lowering friction for Referendum Canceller
Increase the minimum Support Turn-out

Dissent:

Increase the minimum Support Turn-out

I suggest this parameter will have no impact on reducing ref submissions (why would it?) and may even DECREASE voter participation.

Why?

Because these thresholds proposed are FAR OUTSIDE Support Turn-out today!

Under the proposed changes, the majority of refs (even those with 100% AYE) will fail - Grinding OpenGov to a halt.

Problems with grinding OpenGov to a Halt:

1. Voter apathy - why vote if nothing gets passed?
2. Proposer apathy - why propose (even with support) if failure is certain?
3. Maintenance Neglect - Operational spends suspended
4. Centralization - Refs will only get passed with Mega holder support or expedited bounty structures installed by the same.

The Reality of High Support Turn-out

Here’s how the past 20 Approved refs on each track would have faired under the proposed support thresholds:

Treasurer Track - Proposed 1.5% turnout
Sheet

We can see that while 85% of refs achieved >75% support only 20% would pass.

Big Spender Track - Proposed 1% turnout
Sheet

We can see that while 80% of refs achieved >75% support only 15% would pass.

Medium Spender Track - Proposed 1% turnout
Sheet

We can see that while 40% of refs achieved >75% support 0% would pass.

Small Spender Track - Proposed 0.5% turnout
Sheet

We can see that while 70% of refs achieved >75% support only 55% would pass.

How Support Turn-out Thresholds COULD help:

We can see the problem of low-quality proposals slipping through truly lies on the Medium Spender track!

We observe that a whopping 60% of refs that passed had <75% AYE!

Interestingly 75% of refs below 75% AYE have <0.5% Support Turn-out!

This suggests refs without a clear support of AYE or NAY may have many non-voters, allowing narrow passes with low Support Turn-out.

A Different Solution with Better Outcomes:

We see that for each of the tracks we have the following Support Turn-out for the last 20 refs:

Treasurer - 0.98%
Big Spender - 0.66%
Med Spender - 0.45%
Small Spender - 0.55%

So we could attempt to stimulate activity with:

Treasurer - 1%
Big Spender - 0.75%
Med Spender - 0.6%
Small Spender - 0.6%

We should then continue to raise Support Turn-out thresholds as participation increases.

In this way we solve the low-quality slip-throughs on Medium Spender without grinding the whole thing to a halt!

Credit to @anaelleltd for flagging some of these thoughts in her comment above.

[lolmcshizz]

In response to the above concerns wrt it leading to a complete shutdown of OpenGov, I’m proposing a more stepped approach to the different spending tiers:

• Treasurer - 1% threshold
• Big Spender - 0.75% threshold
• Medium Spender - 0.5% threshold
• Smaller Spender - 0.5% threshold

The other measures in the original text should help to significantly reduce proposal spam, and the above thresholds will force the general quality of proposals that pass to be higher - without the same “shut down” that @ChrawnnaCorp fears.

I also really like @SAXEMBERG proposal to slash the timeout period for when proposals don’t place a DD - cutting this to something like 5 days should still allow sufficient time for DDs without the endless wait that exists currently.

[Max]

Great Initiative! These changes will also have another interesting (and very welcome) effect: Push more proposers to Bounties.

For example, if Medium Spender Max Deciding is down to 5, Marketing related proposals will be directed to the Marketing Bounty. We will likely also need a new Investment-focused bounty, to which we can direct commercial projects that are coming to the treasury for funding growth. This is something we are currently exploring.

[Birdo]

Thanks Ben, based on further discussion and alignment the values have been updated.

Dear all, please see the proposal now on-chain as a WFC.

[WFC] OpenGov Adjustments - 2025

[Vikk]

Totally agree. Same thoughts went through my mind as well. Thank you for raising these!

[rvalle]

I partially agree to these thoughts and proposed solutions.

They respond to what we have seeing in the last 24 months.

But at the same time, these last 24 months could actually turn out to be a rather peculiar months. We have seen our treasury reduce to a third, and the community struggles to gain economic momentum among the top ecosystems, while the potential to break out seems to be there.

The first question that bothers me is: what if we are just about to leave those 24 months behind and start a phase of exponential growth? I guess we would still need an OpenGov reform, but perhaps a different one.

Another line of thought is about Polkadot ecosystem strength and weaknesses. Polkadot is a Research and Development powerhouse, but I see going to market as a weakness.

Innovation is the discipline that turns our assets into successful products people are willing to pay for.

Innovation practice, which I believe our community really needs to succeed, are sometimes opposite to the solutions that we are discussing. “Fail fast, fail cheap”, try many potential products. Innovation is essentially a search process, the faster and cheaper, the better.

In a well implemented innovation process, 10% projects are actually released, with 1% or less becoming flagship products.

Flagship projects like Mythical Games prove the tremendous upside of putting the developed assets to work.

I believe the Polkadot ecosystem needs an structured approach to Innovation, and OpenGov many not be ideal for it, a “more aligned opengov”, may be even more distant to what the ecosystem needs.

I see the need to reform OpenGov, but I also see the need for an structured approach to innovation.

[anaelleltd]

@rvalle

I believe the Polkadot ecosystem needs an structured approach to Innovation, and OpenGov many not be ideal for it, a “more aligned opengov”, may be even more distant to what the ecosystem needs.

I think the above is a perfect way to sum up these interrelated issues around Treasury funding and ecosystem growth, @rvalle .

Seeking alignment at all cost by building/doing things that are more likely to get perma-funding through OpenGov would be very short-sighted. The initial focus could be on onboarding, encouraging, and supporting people/teams to work on solving actual problems in whichever way they think is suitable.

The Polkadot ecosystem has a wealth of BD agencies and team members across the globe working from the ground up on bringing startups and bridging entreprises to Polkadot network.

The methodologies they use in their day-to-day operations to deliver on these goals are still being explored, but a more direct involvement in Polkadot Direction and OpenGov could go a long way in achieving tangible results.

[rvalle]

Leaving out non-aligned initiatives all-together, may end up having a high loss of opportunity cost.

Instead we could redirect those to an special “agency” that deals with innovation: disruption, from scratch ideas, new teams, etc.

@anaelleltd

The initial focus could be on onboarding, encouraging, and supporting people/teams to work on solving actual problems in whichever way they think is suitable.

Yes @anaelleltd , and also adopting fail-fast, fail-cheap, iterative methodologies:

I.e: Produce a 24h mockup, to discuss funding for a 7day viability test, then discuss implementation of a prototype… bring early customers to take it to full product…. kind of thing.

Specialized innovation agents typically assist with other things such as incubation (pre-venture infrastructure), match-making for team completion, mentorship, etc.

While R&D is the supreme task of expanding human knowledge, innovation is the “search” of viable products based on the developed knowledge, a must for the Polkadot ecosystem.

[milus]

Highly against the allocation of majority funds to bounties (as of now).

As of now there are:

• no standards for bounty reporting
• partly no reporting at all
• obscure child bounties and large payouts to some bounty curators
• no curator profiles for some curators
• no prove bounties are actually more effective
• no third-party evaluation of bounties

Bounties should implement a highly transparent operating and reporting standard first. Only after that, there should be a discussion on allocating majority of funds to them.

This does not mean there are not indeed some efficient bounties. However, when allocating majority funds and entrusting the future of the ecosystem to multiple entities, there should be way more due diligence and fact-based decision making.

Best regards,
Less trust, more truth.

[rvalle]

Bounties is like going back to Council (gov) V1.
But the issues reported by the community with OpenGov are actually there.

Eventually we should have one big DAO for macro (annual budgets, inflation, etc), and sub DAOs for subject matters. R&D, BD, Innovation, Operations, etc.

All DAOs could work the same way, with members gravitating their areas of expertise, and the macro DAO for big decissions.

[bill_w3f]

You are incorrect or missing some information in some of these statements:

• no standards for bounty reporting - This is false. Ref 1254 sets standards for bounty reporting, specifically Section 5.

• partly no reporting at all - Then these Bounties are violating Ref 1254 and should be reported.

• obscure child bounties and large payouts to some bounty curators - Hard to say anything about this without details.

• no curator profiles for some curators - All curators have been selected, at least indirectly, by DOT holders (or KSM holders on Kusama). So this may be a problem - although I don’t recall seeing any anonymous curators recently - but the exact same problem would certainly be there for generic Treasury proposals.

• no prove bounties are actually more effective - Is there proof that they are less effective, though?

• no third-party evaluation of bounties - The ecosystem has evaluated many bounties, including causing the changing-out curators or just pressuring curators to leave. This is perhaps not formal but does occur. Evaluation of bounties is available to anyone who can look at the chain (i.e. anyone).

Bounty Compliance Standards 1.0