How LXDAO Addresses DAO Voter Apathy
Introduction and Background
After more than two years of governance practice, we have observed a pervasive problem of governance apathy across the blockchain world.
In this regard, modern society seems to have regressed compared to ancient Greece, where governance was seen as a necessity by the masses. Today, governance is considered critical only by a select few.
Most people are indifferent to public political life, especially in the modern East, where systemic stability has been achieved through the exploitation of governance power by state machinery. This has led to increasing apathy among citizens.
For DAOs, this issue is even more detrimental. A DAO relies on collective consensus, requiring input and ideas from a broad range of participants. Governance apathy among voters leads to increased centralization and control by a minority, driving DAOs back to a societal model dominated by a select few.
Most DAOs address this issue by using governance tokens or delegated voting rights (often tied to staking rewards) to boost voter participation. However, this is a passive approach that risks fostering elitist governance.
We remain committed to exploring governance mechanisms that encourage broader discussions and enhance the sense of participation among community members—an essential component of organizational belonging.
LXDAO Governance Experience
LXDAO employs a one-person-one-vote model. Community members who reach a certain contribution level are granted governance rights. Initially, this greatly increased participation in governance. However, as the community grew, governance apathy among early members began to surface, exposing several challenges.
DAO participation rates are often reflected in voter turnout. In LXDAO, voter turnout dropped from an initial 50%-60% to just 15%-20% over time, severely affecting governance efficiency and costs. According to LIP0, ordinary proposals require 20% voter turnout to pass, while consensus-level proposals require 70% approval votes.
Part of the reason is governance apathy, but another significant factor is the influx of new participants who need guidance to understand how to engage in governance within the DAO. Whether it’s long-time members gradually disengaging or newcomers unfamiliar with the DAO, it is crucial to proactively and actively raise their awareness of governance participation.
LXDAO’s Solutions
• Phase 1: Establish Governance Incentives
Inspired by ancient Greece, we implemented governance incentives for participants who vote, and added 1v1 invitations to facilitate real-time updates on community public affairs.
Problem Summary: Insufficient incentives lead to lack of engagement, while excessive incentives result in high governance costs. Designing incentives consumes significant time and resources, and 1v1 invitations reduce governance efficiency.
• Phase 2: Adjust Voting Thresholds
As communities grow, lower proposal voting rates become a common challenge.
Through LIP47, LXDAO introduced a new algorithm. This algorithm reduces the number of members required to pass a proposal while increasing the weight of dissenting votes and counting abstentions as a form of dissent.
In this phase, actively casting a dissenting vote is counted as two dissenting votes. This acknowledges that most individuals tend to align with group decisions, and expressing dissent requires greater courage and rationality. By lowering the approval threshold while amplifying the weight of dissent, this approach encourages community members to voice their opinions more boldly.
This not only improves governance efficiency but also ensures dissenting opinions are adequately considered.
Problem Summary: Lowering voting thresholds increases the risk of governance attacks. Additionally, as the community grows, voting thresholds require constant adjustment.
• Phase 3: Secondary Confirmation of Governance Rights
Once community members reach a contribution level qualifying them for a Builder Card, the Governance Officer will conduct a subjective inquiry to confirm their interest in participating in governance. This prevents disinterested individuals from diluting the dynamic voting threshold.
This confirmation process also helps members better understand governance systems. Some members, after gaining governance rights, are often unclear about their responsibilities or unfamiliar with ongoing LXDAO discussions due to prolonged inactivity. Secondary confirmation serves as an active invitation to engage with governance.
Problem Summary: Commitment aversion—most people find it difficult to reject governance rights, as humans generally prefer retaining more power even if they do not intend to exercise it.
• Phase 4: Quarterly Application and Revocation of Governance Rights (Current)
The application process is seamless—Builder Card members can easily acquire governance rights for each quarter, ensuring all voters remain active. A game theory-based bonus pool concept is also introduced, dynamically amplifying each individual’s potential governance incentives.
This notification process promotes community engagement. Additionally, governance rewards are planned to recognize active participants at the end of each quarter.
Referencing Optimism Governance’s solution to voter apathy, we believe that proactively triggering governance motivation coupled with appropriate incentives can comprehensively stimulate governance enthusiasm within the community.
Potential Issues: Members may forget to claim their governance rights for the quarter, leading to expired rights. During this interim period, insufficient eligible voters could result in governance attacks.
However, if governance attacks occur due to a lack of participants, it highlights a severe community sustainability issue. In such cases, governance rights themselves become a secondary concern.
Measuring Governance Participation
Voter turnout is not the sole metric for governance effectiveness.
• A DAO with low engagement but high voter turnout does not equate to high governance effectiveness.
• A DAO with high engagement but lower voter turnout cannot be deemed ineffective.
We aim for every proposal in LXDAO to be thoroughly discussed by the community. Regardless of its implementation method, decision-makers will receive feedback, creating a correction mechanism that allows decisions to progress further.
Learnings from RetroPGF
Optimism’s RetroPGF adopts a one-person-one-vote model. Unlike LXDAO, as RetroPGF scales up, the burden on Citizens’ House increases significantly. Additionally, members face challenges like time constraints or differing knowledge levels, resulting in inconsistent project evaluations and fairness issues.
Proposed Improvements
- Specialized Expert Groups:
• Establish expert groups to categorize RetroPGF projects.
• Expert groups would provide initial scores and domain-specific insights, improving the overall efficiency of proposal evaluations.
- Scoring Tools:
• Expert groups can develop auxiliary tools to generate baseline scores quickly, enhancing consistency.
LXDAO has also implemented an “expert review system,” where relevant experts are invited to offer advice and explanations before proposals are submitted, allowing community members to understand proposals more efficiently.
Addressing Emotional Factors in Voting
In RetroPGF proposals, voting can be influenced by emotions, leading to conflicts of interest in fund allocation. Here are some potential solutions:
• Require voters to disclose potential conflicts of interest.
• Establish clear rules for conflict resolution, such as mandatory recusal for voters affiliated with project teams or investors.
• Introduce objective metrics, such as active user counts, while addressing risks like inflated metrics.
• Design multi-dimensional voting criteria, including impact, feasibility, and long-term benefits.
• Set up an audit team to review and eliminate conflicts of interest during public evaluations.
Managing Narrowing Funding Scope
As RetroPGF evolves, the funding scope has increasingly narrowed. To address this:
- Independent Evaluation for Unique Proposals:
• Allocate dedicated resources to proposals with specific, high-value contributions.
- Phased Allocation Mechanism:
• Reserve a portion of funds for diversified and emerging projects.
• Divide funding into broad preliminary evaluations and focused final-stage decisions.
Exploring a Review Committee Mechanism
• Select members from Citizens’ House to form a dedicated review committee for deep evaluation of all nominated projects.
• Ensure a fixed rotation of committee members to maintain fairness and transparency.
• Prohibit conflicts of interest within the committee.
• Assign a significant weight to the committee’s scores.
• Develop systems to sustain committee members’ willingness to participate despite the concentrated workload.
Conclusion
Governance apathy is not unique to the blockchain space but reflects a broader global challenge in collective action. Both LXDAO’s governance practices and Optimism’s RetroPGF model aim to tackle the same fundamental issue: how to engage more participants in public affairs and ensure governance outcomes align with collective interests.
LXDAO’s initiatives, such as governance incentives, dynamic thresholds, and quarterly rights management, offer actionable pathways for addressing governance challenges. These experiences demonstrate that a flexible, transparent, and dynamic governance system is better suited to diverse community needs.
By learning from the governance practices of Citizens’ House and RetroPGF, LXDAO continues to refine its model, striving to create a more inclusive, efficient, and transparent framework for decentralized organizations, providing valuable insights and inspiration for the future of DAO governance.