Please describe your proposed solution.
The Problem:
The main focus of decentralized organization governance is voting on proposals and treasury management, as these are processes that can be done on-chain and by that support the "autonomous" character in DAOs. However, many conversations, discussions and communications are needed for establishing open and decentralized governance.
For this communication DAOs communities use social media channels such as Telegram, Twitter, etc., or platforms such as Discord and Discourse. However, these communication tools and platforms lack the ability to provide structured and productive processes. To provide clarity to the DAOs operation documentation is needed, such as:
- Constitution
- Code of conduct
- Roles and rules
- Processes outline
- Guidelines
- Etc.
DAOs governance documentation creation is been done today on several platforms, none of them was built or designed for this purpose:
- Google Docs: Great tool for collaboration on document editing, but is not capable of supporting large-scale participation. More than 20-30 participants on one google doc will create too much noise that can not be handled properly and tracked efficiently. Also, google-doc has no way to include inputs in a democratic manner - it is controlled by its owner or open for editing by everyone that have permission which may create a chaotic output.
- Github: Amazing tool for open-source code creation. Is been used more and more by DAOs for purposes such as collaboration on document creation. However, github is not accessible to non-coders. DAOs members that are not used to working with github find it very difficult to use. Also, github repositories are controlled by their owners, and they have the right to decide which pull request to approve and which one to deny. This can create a central point of control.
- Discourse: One of the best platforms for discussion about proposed documents, but lacks options for collaborative document editing.
Our Solution:
The Consenz platform was built to allow large-scale participation in governance documentation creation and to provide the best user experience for the DAO member that wish to take part in these processes.
The platform does so by integrating discussion features with voting mechanisms and editing tools.
The following discussion features make Consenz unique, compared to other platforms:
- Instead of an endless and chaotic thread of comments, there is a focus and a product to the process: A document that can be discussed and edited by the participants and reflect their agreements.
- There is a clear structure to the content: comments are attributed to a specific section version and function as arguments for or against it; sections are attributed to a specific topic; topics are attributed to the document.
- There is a voting system that allows the users to express their opinion without adding noise to the discussion.
- The voting system also creates a method to deal with conflicts and determine which opinion has the majority of participants’ agreement.
- Those agreements are separated from the noise by a simple algorithm that determines which section received enough support and can be added to the document automatically.
The platform's core logic is based on allowing the users to suggest improvements to an agreement document by publishing edit suggestions to the sections of the document. Then other participants can discuss these suggestions, and express their approval or disapproval of the suggestion by voting on them. Improvement suggestions that will stand in an approval threshold will be added to the draft automatically. The approval threshold is dynamic, and adjusted to the number of participants and to the consensus level that was reached so far, as shown in this diagram:
The process on Consenz creates a “micro-democracy” system – an option to discuss the details of a proposal by all members of the DAOs community without limiting it to a small group of representatives. Consenz combines elements of – and is inspired by – liquid democracy, direct democracy, deliberative democracy and sociocracy.
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The Project Status
This proposal is a continuation of our Fund 7 proposal - "Agreements Building Platform".
The funding for our previews proposal was used for building an MVP version of the Consenz platform, that you can see and use here - app.consenz.io.
You can read the F7 proposal completion report here and watch its close-out video here.
This proposal funding, if approved, will be used for further development of the Consenz platform, adding needed features and improvements, based on users' feedback and lessons learned from the use of the current version.
We also have a few funded proposals in fund 8, still in progress.
How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?
The challenge description specifies these needs for DAOs on Cardano:
> Tools for prospective organizations to use in evaluating the features available in Cardano DAO's
- DAO community collaboration
- DAO creation
- DAO operation
- DAO governance.
Consenz can support 3 of these needs -
- Using the Consenz platform will allow better and more efficient collaboration between DAO community members
- It will improve and streamline DAO operations by making them more inclusive and bringing more members to participate in the DAO operation design and implementation.
- It will bring structure, productivity, and efficiency to governance processes without compromising on decentralization and inclusiveness.
DAOs on Cardano that will choose to include Consenz in their toolbox will benefit a more engaged community, wide trust and better ways to deal with potential conflicts.
As for integration with the Cardano blockchain, deploying on the Cardano blockchain is an important part of the project roadmap.
We are planning to do so in the future by:
- Allowing authentication using wallet connect at first and DIDs/SSI later
- Ratifying agreements documents that were drafted on Consenz by voting on-chain
- Reaching out for partnerships with other projects that are building voting tools on Cardano, such as Clarity, ADAO, Summon and others (with some we are already in touch) for leveraging the potential of collaboration of our technologies
How do you intend to measure the success of your project?
Main KPIs:
- Number of DAOs and communities that will implement the Consenz platform in their governance process.
- Number of processes that DAO improve by using the Consenz platform (for example - one DAO can use Consenz only for constitution creation, another will use it for several guidelines documents, code of conduct, election outline and reputation system proposal).
- Number of DAOs members registered on the Consenz platform.
- Different use and engagement metrics - conversion rate, daily use, number of votes, number of new comments, number of new agreements, etc.
Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?
We will update the Project Catalyst and Cardano Community on the progress and outcomes of the Consenz project in all available channels:
- After Town Hall breakout room: We find these opportunities to be the best way to engage face to face the members f Catalyst, show our work products and get feedback. We have already hosted a few sessions and workshops on ATH breakout rooms (#1, #2, #3, #4), and we plan to initiate and host more in the future.
- Consenz GitHub account: This is a great way to track the progress of our developer's teamwork - <https://github.com/consenz-io/>
- Twitter account: This will be used to engage with the wide Cardano/ADA holders community - https://twitter.com/consenz_io
- Other channels:
- The project youtube channel - were will upload team meeting recordings and other updates.
- The Consenz website
- Medium (to be activated soon)
- Existing project catalyst community channels, as Telegram groups, discord channels, forums etc.