Two proposals recently ended which “failed” according to the above criteria.
Both proposals had good support:
PTIP-46: Forming the Treasury Working Group 
snapshot 
forum post
Voters: 82
For: 46.42k
Against: 2.59k
PTIP-47: Prize Adjustments snapshot forum post
Voters: 68
Option A: 33.19k
Option B: 5.34k
Option C: 1.19k
No change: 0
These proposals each had about 40k or more votes. These proposals were strongly supported, although they did not reach quorum.
Given that the above framework was introduced halfway through PTIP-46 and 47, and the very low risk of them, I think we move forward with them as a community.
1% Quorum Doesn’t Suit All Proposals
A quorum of 1% is required for on-chain votes because proposals control the treasury. The risk for bad proposals is our entire treasury. 1% is applied to all proposals because codifying the ‘risk’ of a proposal, on-chain, is very complicated.
However off-chain we have the opportunity to optimize. We don’t need 1% quorum for all proposals. The above two proposals risked very little:
- PTIP-46 funded a treasury working group with 2250 POOL. A relatively small amount as far as grants go.
- PTIP-47 adjusted prize payouts by +$18k per week. Gov could always reverse the decision, so again the risk here is quite low. Assuming gov takes a week to react, risk would be two weeks worth of additional cost, or $36k.
Both of these are low risk being < $40k in cost.
A Quorum Framework for Low-Risk Proposals
I think that the financial risk level of a proposal should inform its quorum. Risk level = cost + funds at risk. It may not be monetary costs, but the
The higher the proposal risk, the higher the quorum that is required to pass it.
For example, imagine we stratified quorum into two tiers:
| Tier | Risk | Quorum |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | <$100k | No quorum |
| 2 | $100k+ | 100k POOL (1%) |
Proposals should include some basic risk analysis in terms of cost + funds at risk so that we can decide what degree of quorum, if at all, we need.
For future proposals, I think we should use a framework like the one above to evaluate the risk of a proposal. This will help the executive team, or whichever proxy of PT gov, evaluate whether they execute a proposal.
I would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this! Whether this structure is good, a different one, or none at all.
Ultimately, this is just social consensus so it needs everyone to be on-board.