Governance Voting Ratchet Proposal

Development
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Governance Voting Ratchet Proposal

The goal is to keep the first governance vote strict, but avoid permanent failure when Pillar turnout is low.

Today, PR #47 effectively requires an absolute number of Yes votes from all active Pillars. For example, if there are 100 active Pillars and an action requires >50%, then it needs 51 Yes votes. A vote of 30 Yes / 2 No still fails, even though participating Pillars strongly support it.

The ratchet changes this into a round-based system with two thresholds:

  1. Active-Pillar threshold
    How many Pillars must cast a directional vote, meaning Yes + No, relative to all active Pillars.

  2. Directional threshold
    How strong the winning side must be among directional votes.

Abstentions remain visible in vote totals, but they do not count as Yes or No.

Round Schedule

Type Round Active-Pillar threshold Directional threshold
Type 1 Spork 0 >66% >50%
Type 1 Spork 1 >55% >55%
Type 1 Spork 2 >45% >60%
Type 1 Spork 3 >40% >66%
Type 2 Admin 0 >50% >50%
Type 2 Admin 1 >40% >55%
Type 2 Admin 2 >33% >60%
Type 2 Admin 3 >25% >66%

Decision Logic

directionalVotes := yes + no

turnoutPasses :=
    directionalVotes * 100 > activePillars * activePillarThreshold

approve :=
    turnoutPasses &&
    yes * 100 > directionalVotes * directionalThreshold

reject :=
    turnoutPasses &&
    no * 100 > directionalVotes * directionalThreshold

If approval passes, execute the action.

If rejection passes, mark the action rejected.

If neither side passes before the round expires, move to the next round. The next round lowers the required active-Pillar participation, but raises the required Yes-or-No conviction.

Each round should use a fresh CurrentVoteId, so votes from round 0 do not automatically become decisive in round 1 or 2. Old votes stay queryable for audit history.

After the final round, if neither side satisfies both thresholds, the action becomes NoDecision and cannot execute.

Why This Helps

This avoids making governance easier initially. The first vote still has the high 66% or 50% hurdle.

But if turnout is low, inactive Pillars cannot block governance forever. At the same time, late-round decisions require stronger agreement among voters, so a thin 11 Yes / 10 No result cannot pass just because the active-Pillar threshold dropped.