[Non-Constitutional] DePolis, collective sensemaking for Arbitrum DAO

Proposals
22

Thanks for you feedback!

If I understood you correctly, the idea of delayed publication is to hide author-statement connections initially but reveal them later (for example, after 10 days).

I was thinking about a different scenario where privacy matters. Imagine we have a DePolis conversation where only DAO delegates could participate (as you can see in my replies above, we’re talking mostly about DePolis as a tool for ordinary Arbitrum users in its first iteration, but DePolis as a tool for conversations between delegates is also a possible option). Then, imagine that some participant wants to express a pretty unpopular opinion but doesn’t want others to know it was he who made the unpopular statement. In this case, we’d need complete privacy where author-statement connections aren’t revealed at all.

It feels like this goal is achievable (e.g., check MACI), but it’s pretty complicated and definitely should not be a top priority.

Regarding a “system for evaluating the quality of comments, allowing the most valuable and genuine contributions to stand out,” I’d say that we don’t need such a system because DePolis conversation participants (voters) essentially play that role. The original Polis logic of comment routing helps by showing comments to participants in an order that increases the chance of quality and relevant statements being seen and voted on.

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23

@DePolis This is such an interesting discussion! I’m curious—how do we balance the need for full privacy in sensitive delegate conversations with the DAO’s push for transparency? Something like MACI sounds great for anonymity, but it also seems pretty complicated. Wouldn’t that complexity risk making it harder for people to participate, especially those who aren’t super technical?

Also, on the topic of evaluating comment quality, I get that DePolis already uses comment routing to surface the best ones, but do you think there’s room to add something extra? Like maybe a simple way to highlight recurring themes or where most people agree? It could help participants see the bigger picture without adding too much complexity. What do you think?

24

As I’ve already mentioned above, neither the problem of privacy nor that of comment evaluation is currently relevant for DePolis and this proposal :slight_smile:

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25

Hello, thanks for your proposal!

Regarding the following statement, why do you think a solution like this would have a better traction than gamification platforms like galxe or zealy?

I’m asking this because one of the issues identified is the lack of “user participation”. Why creating a new interface would make them participate?

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26

Thank you for your patience and for proposing such an excellent plan. After reviewing it, I have a few suggestions:

  1. The proposal mentions that DePolis is better suited for large-scale discussions compared to forum voting and Snapshot. However, these tools are not mutually exclusive. Specifically, how do the results generated by DePolis complement forum debates or Snapshot voting? For example, might the community perceive this as a redundant process?

  2. The DePolis proposal emphasizes participant screening based on on-chain criteria, such as requiring accounts to hold a certain amount of ARB or perform specific actions. However, if a malicious user controls multiple accounts that meet these criteria, how can manipulation be prevented? Have additional security verification mechanisms been considered, such as integrating off-chain identity verification?

  3. The proposal mentions rewarding participants who receive the most upvotes or identify points of divergence. How is the reward amount determined? If the reward is too low, might it discourage user participation? Conversely, if the reward is too high, could it result in an influx of low-quality “spam comments”?

  4. The proposal’s development budget is $60,000, with no additional maintenance costs mentioned. However, if DePolis becomes an essential part of the DAO’s decision-making process, wouldn’t future upgrades and user support create additional long-term expenses? Who will bear these costs? Why not request more funding to sustain long-term development?

• For the reward mechanism, consider dynamically adjusting the reward pool based on the scale and importance of the discussion. For example, discussions on highly controversial or impactful topics could offer higher rewards to attract more high-quality participants.

• Even after the initial development is complete, it is recommended to set aside a portion of the budget for future upgrades and maintenance. For instance, allocate a fixed annual fund managed by the DAO or a third-party team to ensure the tool’s iteration and support.

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27

Snapshot built a tool like DePolis in a hackathon fabian did (I don’t have the link at hand but I can ask them). No one is using it as far as I know.

29

I guess no one is using it cause no one knows it exists? Anyway, would appreciate if you send the link!

30

Thanks for your questions!

As I understand, Galxe and Zealy are mostly used to drive traffic to a website/protocol/X/whatever. The traffic, in turn, is “delivered” by users who are hoping to get an airdrop or other rewards. The idea of DePolis is quite different. The goal isn’t to get traffic for its own sake but to gather meaningful statements on specific topics that will reflect the community’s sentiment and can be taken into account by governance participants.

Why would anyone want to participate in this system? It could be the chance to shape Arbitrum DAO decisions and actually be heard (right now, there’s no real place for regular users to share their thoughts on Arbitrum-related topics - forums don’t really work for the average user). Or it could just be the desire to earn some incentives.

31

Thnaks for your reply!

Both Galxe and Zealy have a pool/quiz feature that is used to collect sentiment from the users that interact with it, and it is used similarly of what you guys are proposing (interacting with “regular users”.

That’s why I followed up with the question if a new interface would attract this type of users, or if it just a matter of activate tools that already are in place.

32

This proposal is innovative, along the lines of using DePolis to gather community input to help DAOs better understand what users and representatives are thinking, what I don’t quite understand is how DePolis output can be combined with forum debates and Snapshot voting. Can it be used as a pre-decision research tool to supplement background information? If the reward is too low, no one may want to participate; if the reward is too high, it may be abused by ‘water comments’. Is it possible to dynamically adjust the rewards according to the importance of the topic? Since the tool is likely to be used for a long time, why not set aside some funds for future upgrades and maintenance?

33

I’ve read thru the post and the responses, and I’m not sure I see much value to this in relation to the possible issues.

I see a few positive things… namely the reports and ability to restrict commentors by certain metrics. As I do see value in the restricted accounts posting, or at least some way to identify them. I think that has been one (minor) problem area with the current communication channels outside known delegates and commentators theres no (easy) way to tell whose coming in good faith or just a bunch of alt accounts.

Payments - in practice I’m not sure that will be used much, or if it is it will just create more noise. I don’t want to outright dismiss it as I’m not a member of every forum whose ever tried this, but the few times I’ve come across this it fails miserably.

I understand the value in polling, but this forum has the ability to issue quick polls that anyone with an account can vote on already. Combined with some restrictions on who can vote would be nice, but that is essentially what Snapshot is for at the end of the day.

All decent ideas and I can see the value if we were starting ‘fresh’, but I don’t think at this stage this idea outweighs the one big negative — this will create even more of a fractionalization effect. We already have some of that with Twitter / Telegram / Discord, introducing another site into the mix I think just exacerbates that problem.

34

I’ve never heard of anyone using this feature in Zealy! Anyway, I wouldn’t say that comparing DePolis and Zealy is appropriate here because:

  • the only similarity is the ability to launch a poll with the option to submit a custom answer;
  • as far as I can see, Zealy doesn’t analyze the responses but simply collects them in a database, which means it cannot provide deep insights, unlike DePolis (again, I suggest taking a look at the Polis report from the conversation in Gitcoin DAO);
  • users can only vote for options formulated by the question author;
  • both Galxe and Zealy are mostly used during a project’s bootstrapping phase and primarily for traffic generation - hardly any major DAO has active “tasks” on these platforms, and there’s a reason for that;
  • the very fact of needing to interact with these platforms might deter many potential participants in a DePolis conversation.
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35

I’d say that DePolis, forum, and Snapshot operate on different levels:

  • DePolis: gathering the opinions of the broader community, finding points of consensus and disagreement;
  • forum: in-depth discussions among skilled participants;
  • Snapshot: voting on options formulated during the forum discussions.

Therefore, there’s no reason to perceive a DePolis conversation as a redundant process, since for its participants (ordinary Arbitrum users), it will be the only process they’re involved in. If you’re interested in the role of the original Polis in decision-making processes, you can explore Polis case studies here and the decision-making framework in vTaiwan here.

Compliance with the participation criteria in the conversation will be verified as of a specific date or block (but not at the time of participation in the dialogue). Additionally, the wording of the criteria can include safeguards against manipulation (e.g., holding >100 ARB over the past month). Off-chain identity verification is definitely not an option.

The reward amount will be determined by the conversation organizer. If a user considers the reward too low and the potential reward is their only motive to participate, they are unlikely to join such a poorly incentivized conversation. The problem of spam comments is partially addressed by the built-in comment routing logic in DePolis and partially through moderation.

The short answer is: “let’s first build a functional system and make sure it works as intended, then we will think about long-term plans”. For a more detailed answer, kindly check this reply.

36

Thanks for such in-depth questions! You can find answers to them in my previous reply!

As far as I know, Arbitrum has an ongoing DIP (Delegate Incentive Program). I wonder, does the Arbitrum forum and its delegates face issues with abuse by ‘water comments’? Perhaps also overuse of AI assistants to generate activity on the forum?

37

Thanks for your feedback!

Totally understand your concerns, but can’t agree with the comparisons DePolis-forum and DePolis-polls you’ve made.

Regarding payments (or incentives for the “best” answers)
DePolis logic and UX are not similar to a forum. Noise in a forum is generally adverse, but even noisy incentive-driven messages can add some value (as you might notice from this thread). DePolis, however, is different in this sense - it organically overcomes this issue with its built-in comment routing logic and participants’ votes.

Regarding polling in the forum and Snapshot
There’s a significant difference between standard polling methods and DePolis. The output of the former is statistical information about users’ preferences based on the choices they had. In contrast, the output of DePolis is a collection of statements provided by participants in their own words, automatically analyzed by ML algorithms. I recommend checking the report from the Gitcoin DAO conversation. It includes 46 high-quality statements and 1,917 votes from 138 people (a relatively low number for a Polis conversation)! Can you imagine a forum or Snapshot poll generating 46 ideas and analyzing community sentiment about them?

Regarding the fractionalization effect
I see DePolis more as an ad-hoc tool for contentious discussions. In other words, users won’t be choosing between Forum/Twitter/Telegram/Discord - instead, they will occasionally be asked through these platforms to express their opinion in DePolis when it’s truly needed. Thus, no fractionalization will occur.

39

I guess I’m confused then, here is an example post - pol.is/8cwambrbmj & pol.is/5jbzpjw2t8

Both have Agree/Disagree, which is possible in this forum

40

There’s a dedicated section where you can ‘Share your perspective’ (though it’s not very visible, as the original Polis UX isn’t great). Why is this important? Because most of the statements people vote on are provided not by the poll’s organizer but by the participants themselves! This approach results in a matrix of opinions where the community generates the content - both in essence and wording - rather than relying on the poll organizers.

To understand the difference between the outputs of standard polls and DePolis, I invite you to explore the Polis results from a conversation in Gitcoin DAO: report and opinion matrix.

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42

Well here’s my take:

If this proposal passes, will Arbitrum be the first protocol to implement DePolis? I think it’s a bit risky, especially since there’s no proven success of DePolis with other Web3 protocols yet.

While DePolis might offer clearer discussions, most DAO members are already used to the current way of doing things. It could be time-consuming to get used to and manage two platforms.

As a solo full-time researcher and delegate for 5 other protocols, I think the current setup works well. I can still stay updated here, and it’s working just fine for me! :slight_smile:

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43

Thanks for the feedback and questions!

Given the number of replies with concerns about moving discussions to a new platform, it seems this point wasn’t explained clearly enough in the proposal. I want to emphasize again: we’re not talking about moving discussions to a new platform or creating any kind of “competition” between DePolis and the existing forum. DAO members (like delegates, service providers, etc.) aren’t expected to be the main users (conversations’ participants) of DePolis!

The first iteration of DePolis we’re proposing is designed as a tool for discussions (in the form of a wikisurvey) aimed at regular Arbitrum users. The output of these discussions would be a report (similar to this report from Gitcoin DAO) that reflects the sentiment among Arbitrum users and, hopefully, helps improve decision-making in the Arbitrum DAO.

As for the risks:

  • yes, Arbitrum will be the first protocol to implement DePolis (a similar tool has been implemented in Filecoin Fil Poll, but it seems to still be in a testing phase);
  • the current setup works well when it comes to delegates, but when it comes to accounting for the opinions of regular users, it often involves a lot of guessing - relying on delegates to understand the sentiment and needs of those delegating to them;
  • DePolis isn’t intended to be a tool that requires constant maintenance (like a forum) but rather something ad-hoc and not time-consuming;
  • there’s definitely a risk that it could go unused or be unnecessary, but original Polis has already proven its usefulness in real life (you can check out case studies here) and is being promoted by some leaders in the web3 space as a necessary tool for large-scale discussions in DAOs - I’d say, odds of being useful are pretty high!

Let me know if you have any other questions - I’d be happy to answer!

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44

Hi @DePolis @0xDonPepe @danielo Here is a SimScore report from the beginning of discussions until today jan 17, 2025.

Priority 1
“I think the value of DePolis could be shown (or disproved) before we make a decision on this proposal. I suggest that the authors of DePolis use the content of this forum to show how it would look like on DePolis and what insights would it bring to DAO members.”

Priority 2
“The proposal mentions that DePolis is better suited for large-scale discussions compared to forum voting and Snapshot. However, these tools are not mutually exclusive. Specifically, how do the results generated by DePolis complement forum debates or Snapshot voting? For example, might the community perceive this as a redundant process?”

Priority 3
“This proposal is innovative, along the lines of using DePolis to gather community input to help DAOs better understand what users and representatives are thinking, what I don’t quite understand is how DePolis output can be combined with forum debates and Snapshot voting. Can it be used as a pre-decision research tool to supplement background information? If the reward is too low, no one may want to participate; if the reward is too high, it may be abused by ‘water comments’. Is it possible to dynamically adjust the rewards according to the importance of the topic? Since the tool is likely to be used for a long time, why not set aside some funds for future upgrades and maintenance?”

Priority 4
“Currently DAO user participation is limited, many people are just spectators, DePolis should consider lowering the threshold of participation, such as with a simple voting + praise mechanism, with clear rules of reward, so that users feel that participation is valuable, rather than a waste of time. But if it involves rewards here there will be a big unclear mechanism,3 the incentive mechanism needs to be clear and simple, and the amount of incentive should be dynamically distributed and adjusted according to the influence and importance of the discussion. How to realize this I feel is difficult. How do you think about it. 4, on the long term question, how do you aid in integrating DePolis with existing governance forums and voting systems, such as mandatory DePolis reports attached to each proposal, formal voting, etc. How about all the links articulated?”

Priority 5
“However, I have some reservations about moving the discussion to a new platform. Introducing a separate space for conversations would fragment our community interactions. Instead, I recommend focusing on extracting and analyzing the discussions already happening in our existing forums. Similar to what @Maets23 is already doing with SimScore, using our current infra could make things run more smoothly. Perhaps there’s even potential to merge both projects, combining the strengths of DePolis and SimScore to create a better tool.”

The above priorities indicate the collective will of all respondents.

Paul

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