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Decision-making (Onchain/offchain)

Abstract

This section is about processes of decision-making and votes off-chain and on-chain and the communication of the decisions made.

Motivation

It is of high relevance to define the systems of decision-making and establish processes that do not disadvantage others and are therefore fair and transparent to all members of the consortium and above.

For different decisions it might be necessary to use different ways to generate consensus off-chain or on-chain and to define the quorum when a majority is reached, e.g. a qualified majority (when more than half of the votes are sufficient for a decision) or an absolute majority (when a higher majority is required).

Rules and regulation for off-chain and on-chain voting, fallback solutions, dispute resolution, announcements of votes and their consequences need to be in place.

Elaboration

What kind of decisions might require off-chain or on-chain votes:

  • Protocol updates
  • Changes of permissions

Consortial decisions

  • Onboarding or offboarding of members
  • Changes of consortial roles

Off-chain voting

The decision-making process off-chain needs to be described.

On-chain voting

The decision-making process on-chain needs to be described.

Weightings

It can be decided that votes are weighted.

Fallback solution and dispute resolution

What happens if the vote is not cast, and how long does this process actually take?

Announcements

Dates and deadlines

Information about an upcoming vote must also be communicated in time and the decision-making process needs to be carried out due to all formal process of timely announcements, commenting phases etc.

Only if all formalities have been clarified, the decision process can be carried out.

Results

The announcement of the decision taken needs to be communicated to all members and above in a timely manner.

Consequences

Furthermore, consequences of decisions and votes need to be respected. These decisions are usually executed by the third parties. In some cases, legal documents or contracts of the consortium need to be adapted.

Internal references and dependencies

(Lists of internal references and dependencies)

References to best practice, examples

(List of references to best practice, examples)

Bibliography of selected references

(List of references and literature)

RFC-0631
Contributing authors: Sebastian Posth, David Maas
Status of this document: work in progress
Last day modified: 2021-05-05