circle
Circle Module
The Governance Challenge
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and decentralized ecosystems, such as Cardano, face a critical challenge that centralized entities do not: scaling community consensus.
While centralized governance delegates decision-making to a small, professional group, decentralized governance relies on large, disparate communities to:
- Coordinate and Identify Problems: Finding consensus on which issues are the most pressing to solve.
- Facilitate Informed Debate: Providing a structured and accountable environment for discussions and solution design.
- Bridge Off-Chain and On-Chain Action: Ensuring that the final, expensive, and critical on-chain vote is truly reflective of deep, community-vetted discussions, rather than simply being a snapshot of plutocratic power or apathy.
The Circle Module is GovCircle’s solution to this challenge, providing a two-phase structured environment to manage engagement from initial signal to final vote rationale.
I. Informal Circle Phase: Community Vetting and Solution Design
This phase focuses on pre-on-chain action—the vital work of identifying problems, participating in solution design, and fostering robust communication among all governance actors before a costly governance action is ever submitted.
1. Governance Body Communication Channels
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Governance Bodies Directory | A dedicated menu that lists all registered governance actors (D-Reps, SPOs, and CC members), each with a dedicated personal profile for self-introduction and accountability. |
| Direct Channel | A feature within each actor’s profile to facilitate one-way or two-way communication with their constituents and Delegators. This channel is critical for representatives to share viewpoints and gather feedback, essentially serving as a curated feed for governance issues. |
2. Signal of Problem Component
This mechanism is designed to quickly surface and prioritize the most important community issues.
- Signal Submission: All governance actors can submit a Signal of Problem—a maximum 200-character text field—to distill complex issues or synthesize channel discussions into a clear community concern.
- Signal Prioritization: The List of Signals component utilizes a social-media-style UX where community members can rapidly Like/Dislike and Prioritize signals.
- Efficiency: The UX is specifically designed to allow users to assess and vote on a minimum of 5 signals in approximately 60 seconds.
- Algorithmic Promotion: GovCircle guarantees that fair and transparent algorithms are used to mathematically promote and highlight (or bold) the problems that have garnered the highest, most organic level of community feedback.
3. Event and Solution Management
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Event Management | Allows the community to organize dedicated Events tied to specific Signals. Crucially, GovCircle manages the logistics and logs of the event, while the actual discussion is facilitated on external social layer platforms (e.g., X, Discord). This logs the critical off-chain debate within the governance management layer. |
| Solution Component | Once a Signal is highly prioritized and debated, this component allows the community to present, share, and collectively refine proposed solutions. It includes robust interactive mechanisms and integrated Gamification to drive maximum participation and engagement with solution design. |
Transition to On-Chain Proposal
The Informal Circle Phase culminates when the community determines a solution is mature enough for an on-chain vote. At this point, the entire history—all discussions, solution summaries, and conclusions—is automatically included as Related Links in the on-chain proposal metadata. This ensures that the final voting decision is grounded in a deep, verifiable history of community engagement and debate.
II. Formal Circle Phase: On-Chain Rationale and Accountability
This phase activates once an action is officially registered on-chain and focuses on enhancing transparency and interaction during the live voting period through the use of Rationale.
1. Follow Rationale Capability
- Rationale Alignment: A voter can choose to follow the Rationale of another voter if their official voting explanations and philosophical positions are aligned.
- Rationale Template System: GovCircle uses this feature to automatically generate a Rationale for the follower. This template incorporates the followed voter’s key data, a direct link back to the source Rationale, and provides a language translation if needed.
- Benefit: This significantly simplifies the creation of a strong Rationale, promotes alignment, and fosters communication, while simultaneously gathering the essential data points needed to construct the Rationale Graph.
2. Comment on Rationale Capability
- Voters can comment directly on another voter’s published Rationale during the voting period.
- This feature allows participants to provide feedback, challenge assumptions, or pose clarifying questions.
- Outcome: This active dialogue leads to more precise and well-reasoned Rationale, driving higher-quality engagement and accountability among voters.
3. Rationale Graph
- Visual Network Mapping: Based on the relationships established through following and commenting, a visual graph is automatically generated.
- The Rationale Graph provides a clear, pictorial representation of the voter viewpoints, illustrating clusters of consensus, major dissenting opinions, and the overall network of voter influence and intellectual connection.
- Value Proposition: This tool transforms the Rationale from simple on-chain metadata into a meaningful, analytical dataset that enables the community to draw conclusions, learn from past decisions, and assess the true health of the governance debate.