Info Action (15f82a36#0)
3 of 7 committee members voted
- Cardano Atlantic Council07e0eb70…5bdeYesResigned · term ends epoch 580Rationale
The interim constitution does not place restrictions, procedures, or requirements on the naming of hard forks. The interim constitution does specify that: 'utilizes wherever possible and beneficial blockchain technology in the governance process'. Ergo, proposing the naming of a hard fork via an Info Action is constitutional.
The interim constitution does not place restrictions, procedures, or
requirements on the naming of hard forks. The interim constitution does
specify that: 'utilizes wherever possible and beneficial blockchain technology
in the governance process'. Ergo, proposing the naming of a hard fork via an
Info Action is constitutional. [Preamble, Paragraph 3] - Intersect Constitutional Council85c47dd4…bf64YesExpired · term ends epoch 580Rationale
The info action for calling Chang hf+1 HOSKY hard fork is constitutional.
Understanding of facts. The format of the proposal is valid.
The Intersect Council notes that the proposal is not currently fully viewable in govtools due to an unsupported formatting of metadata. This is due to a limitation with the current GovTool software. Intersect Council believes the proposal is still constitutional in terms of a valid format for the proposal. It is an info action per technical standards of CIP-1694 and article 3 section 5 of the Interim Constitution. IPFS is a standardized and legible format.The document has an url and a hash for the off chain content. It is currently not a constitutional requirement to follow a specific standard such as CIP-100 or CIP-108, and the requirements of verifying an unedited document can still be achieved with the document hash. There are currently no established routines for what supporting material is needed (if any) for the naming of a hard fork and thus the question is only if it meets the standards for a sufficient rationale as per article 3 section 6.
The type of info action is a poll for sentiment
The Intersect Council notes that the text is worded as a proposal, thus the phrase, 'I propose.' This use of natural language indicates to the reader that the text is putting a suggestion forward for others to consider. The Intersect Council understands this info action to be a poll for community sentiment. The info action is not binding on-chain as CIP-1694. Article 3 section 5 of the Cardano Interim Constitution identifies the info action as a special type of governance action that allows community sentiment to be gauged without committing to any on-chain change. As for any subsequent governance actions and any effect of the info action on them, the Intersect Council notes there is no specific mentioning of requirements for naming of hard forks in the Interim Constitution. It is up to the community to establish such processes or define them in a future Constitution.
The role of the Constitutional Committee is not to express its sentiment towards info action but their constitutionality
Another question raised about the facts is if the info action is a poll for sentiment, does that sentiment polling also extend to the Constitutional Committee itself? Article 6 section 1 expresses that 'The Constitutional Committee shall be limited to voting on the constitutionality of governance actions.' It is therefore the understanding of the Intersect Council that if an info action is a poll for sentiment it is not asking members of the CC to offer their personal opinions on the merits of the question but whether the proposed action would be constitutional or not.
Rationale to participate in the governance action
Any governance action submitted to ada holders for approval requires the standards set in article 3 section 6 to be upheld and would be unconstitutional if not. The Intersect Council believes they should judge the info action on the constitutionality of this article. One reason for this is to ensure that info actions are used as the intended method of gauging community sentiment as per article 3 section 5. For example one could risk not upholding the standards in article 3 section 6 of governance if the council abstained from voting on the constitutionality of info actions that were purely commercial advertisements without any rationale, and especially so if there were multiple such info actions making it harder for the community to read and digest community sentiment gauging info actions.
Rationale to vote Yes on the governance action
The issue for the Intersect Council is to determine sufficient rationale for an info action sentiment poll on naming a hard fork for it to be constitutional.
A minimal standard of sufficient for all governance actions related to the Cardano Blockchain in article 3 section 6.
A natural language interpretation of “Sufficient rationale shall be provided to justify the requested change to the Cardano Blockchain.” in article 3 section 6 means this standard relates to actual on-chain changes to the Cardano Blockchain itself.
However a wider interpretation has a more pragmatic merit in that all actions related to the Cardano Blockchain that has any effect on the blockchain, should have sufficient standards related to the governance action type. For example if the naming of a hard fork is seen as damaging the legitimacy of the info action for example “torture person X”, or seen as damaging the intended function of the info action as a method of gauging sentiment it might violate such a wider interpretation. Because of this even when no technical or process standards are established there are still minimal constitutional standards a governance action should be tested against.
Info actions that could have effect on further governance actions
There is an example in the Interim Constitution for treasury withdrawals where in the appendix I section 3 treasury-04 where a threshold of 50% for active stake of DReps voting yes is required for a budget for treasury withdrawals to be able to be ratified. This threshold could be reached by a previous info action on a budget and is an example of an info action having an effect for a subsequent governance action as it could be used for the requirement in the treasury-04 guardrail. In terms of this being a requirement for the naming of a hard fork there is no regulation on the process in the Interim Constitution, and thus there is no higher threshold or standard other than any minimum standards such as discussed above.
The rationale given is sufficient
In the proposal the rationale given is 'Saying Chang-1, Chang-2, Chang+1 is confusing for users and media. Call the next hard fork HOSKY Hard Fork for the sake of clarity.'
This meets minimum standards for an info action as the name proposed is not seen as damaging the legitimacy of the info action or violating the intended function of the info action. There are no technical standards this naming proposal needs to fulfill. There are currently no established routines for any thresholds of info actions binding future governance actions related to naming hard forks in the Interim Constitution. There is also no established process giving requirements for type of arguments or rationale for such an info action of a hard fork name.
Based on this it is concluded that the rationale given is sufficient.The rationale given meets the minimum standards of the Interim Constitution for a rationale for an info action. The Intersect Council believes that the info action is constitutional.
- Eastern Cardano Council2ea7a78e…10ecAbstainExpired · term ends epoch 580Rationale
We have determined that this Info Action does not meet the criteria deemed necessary for the Constitutional Committee to assess its constitutionality.
Consideration 1
Article VI Section 1 of the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Interim Constitution states "The Constitutional Committee shall comprise a set of Ada holders that is collectively responsible for ensuring that on-chain governance actions prior to enactment on-chain, are constitutional."
Given that "Info" actions cannot be enacted on-chain, a strict interpretation could be that the Constitutional Committee does not have to assess the constitutionality of "Info" governance actions.
Consideration 2
Article III Section 5 of the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Interim Constitution states "A special form of governance action exists to allow community sentiment to be gauged without committing to any on-chain change. "Info" actions have no on-chain effect other than recording the votes on the action."
It may therefore be reasonable to assume that for any “Info” governance actions that are meant to gauge the sentiment towards another type of governance action which CAN be enacted on-chain, an assessment of the constitutionality of that future governance action would be beneficial to the purpose of the "Info" governance action being used to assess it.
Constitutional Committee Assessment Criteria
Given the above considerations, we are able to perform a simple test to determine whether the Constitutional Committee is empowered to assess the constitutionality of a governance action. The test can be performed by determining the answers to the following two questions:
- Is the governance action an "Info" action?
- Does the "Info" action gauge the sentiment for a future governance action that can be enacted on-chain?
To meet the criteria for the Constitutional Committee to be eligible to assess a governance action's constitutionality, either the answer to Question 1 must be "No" OR if the answer to Question 1 is "Yes", then the answer to Question 2 must also be "Yes".
For the governance action with ID "15f82a365bdee4...c916#0" and Title "Name the next hard fork HOSKY Hard Fork", the answer to Question 1 is "Yes", however the answer to Question 2 is "No". This governance action therefore does not meet the constitutionality assessment criteria, so we must Abstain.
Other Comments
In addition to the above test based on the Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Interim Constitution, there has been some opinion within the Eastern Cardano Council that attempting to assess the constitutionality of activities that are entirely off-chain and therefore not enforceable by any means relevant to the Cardano governance process, is a slippery slope toward imposing conditions on how community members can "use, participate in and benefit from the Cardano Blockchain" (Article II, Section 1).
We abstain from assessing the constitutionality of this governance action as it is not enforceable.
- Cardano Foundation6796d87d…c280Not votedExpired · term ends epoch 580No rationale
- Cardano Japan Council (ICC)4012cab5…0755Not votedExpired · term ends epoch 580No rationale
- Emurgodc2b0706…89b8Not votedExpired · term ends epoch 580No rationale
- Input | Output3c9ebce6…1e4cNot votedExpired · term ends epoch 580No rationale