Thank you for your feedback @Chris_Areta
This is something on our roadmap and that we even already prototyped a few months ago. =)
Regarding the cost of the proposal, we changed the proposal to be quite cheaper than before, from $206K USD to $60K USD as detailed here.
Thank you for your feedback @karpatkey
We just reduced the cost quite significantly, from $206K USD to $60K USD as detailed here.
Thank you for you vote @danielo !
You might have a point here, but let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Or at least not at the expense of decentralization, transparency, and delegate engagement and participation. As I pointed out previously here.
We are building proposals.app so that it is easier for delegates to get more involved and participate even more, not less. We believe this is crucial to bring more experimentation into DAO governance, and ultimately, for decentralized governance and DAOs to succeed.
We’re supporting this proposal because the updated version presents a more reasonable cost structure, making the value it offers clearer and better aligned with the scope of work. The proposed features may not be essential, but they can improve accessibility, transparency, and engagement for delegates and tokenholders using the forum. While we still have some concerns about the voting power tags, we appreciate @paulofonseca openness to feedback and his willingness to consider alternative ways of providing context. With a clearer plan and more thoughtful pricing, this revised proposal feels like a worthwhile and low-risk step toward enhancing Arbitrum’s governance tooling.
We appreciate the effort that the proposals.app team has put into this proposal and their commitment to improving Arbitrum’s governance tools. The features they’re suggesting—live vote displays, voting power tags, and email notifications—could definitely make the forum more user-friendly. That said, we have some concerns about the approach and why we’re leaning toward not supporting it in its current form.
First, we recently voted to establish an operational company (opco) to manage service provider relationships. We believe it would be more practical to leverage that structure for this project. A service agreement through the opco could offer greater flexibility and ensure ongoing support, rather than relying on a one-time development with a limited maintenance period.
Second, we question whether custom development is the most efficient path forward. A license-based model, where the provider builds a product usable by multiple DAOs, could reduce our costs and support the provider’s long-term viability. Under the current plan, we’d pay $60,000 for a custom solution that’s then open-sourced, allowing other DAOs to benefit without sharing the expense. This feels like an uneven burden on Arbitrum.
Finally, while we’re all for open-source tools, immediately open-sourcing the code might weaken the provider’s motivation to maintain or enhance it after the one-year period. A balanced approach—like licensing the core product and open-sourcing certain components—could better align community benefits with the provider’s incentives.
For these reasons, we’re not in favor of the proposal as it stands. We’d prefer exploring a service agreement via the opco or a license-based model that ensures sustainable support and fair cost distribution. Thanks again to the team for their work—we’re happy to discuss ways to refine this idea for everyone’s benefit.
After rereading past comments from Paulo, we guess that going through the OpCo won’t be considered, and that’s understandable. We maintain the 2nd and 3th points though.
Camelot has voted “against” this proposal. We are builders first and foremost, so we want to be mindful of the efforts of Andrej and Paulo. We do appreciate experiments in Arbitrum and we do appreciate the effort of moving from an early stage to a full-fledged product. That said, we don’t currently see enough value in the deliverables proposed nor in the price tag associated. All the updates are “nice to have” updates, that can surely improve the life of delegates, but are not meaningful enough to justify an initiative financed by the DAO. At the same time, we do believe that even the new cost, $60k for one year compared to the previous $100k a year for a total of $200k over two years, is still excessive, despite the 40% reduction. Finally, we think the DAO currently should be focused not on governance matters or governance tooling, but on approaching a competitive landscape that is slowly eating away the advantage Arbitrum has built over time. The focus of the DAO should be on increasing activity on the chain, volume, and daily active users.
I have been quite close through the year to the app made by Paulo and Andrei.
I was one of the judges at govhack 2024 that awarded proposals.app with the first price, then during Questbook season 2 I approved a grant to continue the development.
Useless to say, I think that the application is well done and serves a value and a purpose. I was also quite impressed by the milestone’s videos that Paulo released over time, very detailed.
That said, I am voting “abstain” from this proposal. The reason is simple: to me, the cost proposed even after the reduction is wrong because the proposed model is wrong.
Governance is not something we only have in Arbitrum but in several DAOs, which would all benefit from this integration. This would be, in my opinion, the right way to scale down costs: a $20k integration fee per year on five different daos would bring the team to the price tag initially proposed, and would be potentially easier to obtain. Understanding that, before upselling, you want to have a functioning product, it could have made sense to start here, in Arbitrum (likely at a loss initially) and then expand over time.
I do understand both the attachment and the desire from Paulo to stay exclusive here and I can also appreciate that; but unfortunately this feeling is in my opinion not compatible with the product.
As a side note, I don’t think we are currently in a point of the life cycle of the DAO in which we want to necessarily focus on further governance tooling, but this point is currently secondary compared to the evaluation above.
I will be voting FOR on Snapshot. Despite sharing the same initial concerns from the likes of @Oni or @Curia regarding its overblown cost structure, I find Paulo’s revised proposal and reduced budget to be much more palatable, at least relative to what it offers.
While I understand these are mostly minor UI changes and many claim they use other tools for these purposes (as do I), or simply would not get much out of it, the forum’s current form is mostly unwelcoming to new participants and people even somewhat foreign to Arbitrum.
Given that during yesterday’s call he confirmed the team would to forgo development costs and this is still an open source project, the final cost seems relatively modest for us to test it out and potentially keep it even if it’s under a different model than the proposed yearly subscription.
Lastly, I think @maxlomu’s suggestion to add a Reddit-like spin on the forum could be immensely useful, and arguably could encourage more people to support this proposal.
Thank you guys for the proposal. Every proposal, whether it passes or not, contributes to strengthening our team!
Αfter carefully reading through the proposal and the related discussion, I find that my perspective aligns closely with @Camelot’s position.
More specifically, as I’ve previously mentioned, it’s important to consider the actual impact a proposal will have on the DAO. This is a good idea in concept, but it consumes funds rather than generating any. At the same time, although it is a helpful proposal, it is not likely to increase member participation in the DAO or strengthen their commitment to it.
I’m making this point not to diminish the value of the idea, but simply to clarify that it doesn’t align with the reasoning that has guided my voting decisions from the very beginning.
Therefore, I am voting Against.
(I believe that if this had been offered freely, without operational cost, it would have been seen as a helpful contribution. However, I can understand that it might not be possible to offer this for free, and I don’t expect that to be the case.)
gm, as I mentioned before, while I respect the initiative, I personally haven’t found much utility in the tool, so hard to justify the current price tag.
I fully agree with Camelot’s perspective on what our focus should be as a DAO.
Voting AGAINST
Thanks for the detailed explanation, @paulofonseca — really appreciate how engaged you are and how you’re taking the time to clarify things for everyone. Given the significant cost reduction and the general sentiment, I’ve decided to change my mind and support the idea. It has potential to genuinely improve governance, and that’s something I want to get behind.
Especially relieved to see this isn’t based on a subscription model, and I got the impression that you’re doing this for the greater good — which I truly value.
Thanks.
Level K is voting against this proposal on Snapshot.
Having only been a delegate for ~9 months, we quite appreciate the arbitrum.proposals.app. However, as mentioned by other delegates, we don’t see these features as adding significant value overall. Even flow-wise, we still need to cast our vote on Snapshot and Tally, and all the information being provided in the scope of work can easily be found on these sites.
Additionally, our favorite feature of arbitrum.proposals.app was the drop-down that allows you to easily track revisions, which was not included in the scope of work.
Ultimately, we do not see
as a result of this proposal.
Thank you for this proposal and arbitrum.proposals.app!
We vote against this proposal.
We acknowledge the efforts made to adjust the proposal from a $200k two-year commitment down to $60k for one year, which indeed appears more reasonable. However, our fundamental concern remains unchanged regarding whether the proposed features (voting power tags, live votes, email notifications) genuinely deliver sufficient value relative to the cost. To reiterate clearly, we don’t dispute the appropriateness of the proposed costs in terms of hosting and technical execution per se, but we are unconvinced about the overall benefit to governance participation.
Furthermore, echoing the @Arbitrum 's critical observation, it seems essential to approach these enhancements from a broader, strategic perspective of desired governance UX and functionality, rather than as isolated improvements. Without a clear, long-term vision and alignment on the ideal user experience for governance, we risk investing in incremental solutions that might not substantially contribute to that vision. If these features indeed form a foundational part of a strategic, long-term UX plan, the investment could be justified. However, if these improvements merely represent piecemeal enhancements, alternative, cost-effective approaches might be preferable.
The following reflects the views of GMX’s Governance Committee, and is based on the combined research, evaluation, consensus, and ideation of various committee members.
Our only request was to reduce the ask for the application, which has been acknowledged by the team. The Proposals app is a great tool, and all three features mentioned would be valuable additions to our governance.
We have voted in favour of the proposal.
I’m abstaining from this proposal.
I really want to support you guys and I like that you said on a call that you will get feedback to build more, but $60k proposals should not take the entire DAO’s attention for a vote. I see the value of having someone adding love to the forum, that’s why I’m abstaining instead of voting against. But I believe the proposal should be made directly to the Arbitrum Foundation (who I believe manages the forum) or some other Grant Program, and not to the DAO.
Thank you for your vote @Griff
We’ve been in talks with the @Arbitrum Foundation since the beginning of April, and to no avail. That’s why we moved this proposal to a DAO vote.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst, @Sinkas, and @Manugotsuka, and it’s based on their combined research, fact-checking, and ideation.
We are voting AGAINST the proposal.
First, we would like to express our deep respect for Paulo and Andrei as builders within the Arbitrum ecosystem. We greatly value their commitment to supporting builders through hackathons, meetups, workshops, and other initiatives. We hope to keep them building on Arbitrum and supporting other builders in the space, as well as participating in governance. We hope they will find support from Arbitrum in these activities. Unfortunately, however, we don’t believe this proposal is an appropriate venue for that support.
We appreciate the effort put into proposals.app, and we understand the challenge of building governance tooling. It is worth noting that Arbitrum has already demonstrated significant support for the creation of this application through the GovHack contest and a Questbook grant.
That said, we view the entire app as a quality-of-life improvement at best. It’s not critical infrastructure or tooling for the DAO, nor does it replace any of the existing tools that we are already using (Discourse, Snapshot, Tally). We agree with the @Arbitrum Foundation’s opinion that any changes to our governance stack should be considered holistically, taking into account governance experience as a whole, rather than through separate DAO-approved initiatives. We are already facing issues with that approach. For example, the initiative led by Tally to change governance contracts was approved by the DAO, but it did not receive enough attention from other stakeholders. Therefore, it is still not finished due to management issues.
Lastly, and most importantly, we do not see a path to sustainability for the app that doesn’t lead back to the DAO funding it again down the line (together with inevitable change requests whenever we change the mechanics of the DAO). We recognise that this constitutes a bigger problem which most open-source projects face, especially when it comes to public goods, and even more so for a niche market such as governance tooling and infrastructure. That said, we cannot justify funding a non-critical app without a solid plan to sustain itself in the future, unless we make a strategic decision as a DAO to treat this app as a strategic investment.
On a brighter note, perhaps Proposals.app can secure funding without a direct DAO vote. After all, this is a tool designed to improve delegates’ governance experience. Perhaps those delegates who find this app useful could consider dedicating part of their DIP rewards to cover the maintenance fee. That way, we wouldn’t need to allocate additional money, the funding would come from the exact place where it is supposed to create impact, and if proven successful, it could be considered as a part of the Arbitrum Governance stack in the future.
Voting “Against”
This would be a really great quality of life feature, but I don’t see it being worth the spend. Voting power by delegate + a live update at the top would be really nice to have, but I don’t see how paying $60,000 a year for this is worth it. I also have to point out the email feature is arguably pointless, as there is already an email alert feature provided by the website.
I’ve shared this before, but I recommend the proposers reach out to the Arbitrum Foundation. (It is aknoweldged and appreciated that there you’ve already reached out to other funding iniatives). The DAO has already given the Arbitrum Foundation 250m additional ARB token (Tally | Arbitrum | [Non-Constitutional] Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget) and while I understand this is a strick DAO enhancedment, the AF did include in this proposal that part of their mission is “All agreements are designed to support projects that can grow the Arbitrum ecosystem and provide value to the ArbitrumDAO.”
If a solution can be reached that allows for the ARB voting power + live feed at the top to be significantly cheaper, or a one time cost, I’d be for this.
While recognizing the commitment, transparency, and prior contributions of Paulo and Andrei to the Arbitrum ecosystem, including governance participation, I have chosen to abstain on this proposal. The primary concern is budget justification: although the integrations offer meaningful UI enhancements, they overlap with existing tools (tally, snapshot - both which already have email notifications, although they do not work great) and imo do not currently deliver the kind of critical infrastructure impact that would clearly warrant a 60,000 $/y spend. Offtopic, but I think 1K per month in server costs is too big according to my benchmark and services I use, happy to chat, Paulo, to suggest alternatives if it helps. I believe there is potential value here, but for it to be proportional to the cost, the tool needs to either gain broader adoption, deliver clear delegate added value in comparison with existing solutions, or adjust the pricing accordingly. Several other delegates expressed concerns around sustainability, which I found to be valid.
That said, I appreciate the transparent budgeting, and the team’s very noticeable work within the DAO, in general. Paulo’s addition on the ARB DAO has been extremely net positive imo.