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 voted AGAINST the proposal.
First off, we believe there’s no ‘right’ answer to whether or not ‘Abstain’ should count towards quorum. We can understand both takes, and we believe both are subjective and heavily rely on the given context. That said, we are more aligned with the opinion that ‘Abstain’ should count towards quorum.
We understand @Griff’s points and we largely agree with them. Apart from the dynamic where voters who are against a proposal are disincentivized from voting ‘No’, thus skewing the appearance of a vote’s actual opposition, removing ‘Abstain’ also takes a valuable option away from delegates.
Right now, ‘Abstain’ is a way to help the governance process without necessarily having a strong opinion about the direction of a particular proposal. By removing ‘Abstain’ from counting towards quorum, we push those people to either not vote at all, and thus not help the governance process, or to take a position, even if they’re not comfortable doing so.