How to Coordinate Off-Chain Governance Discussions

Off-chain governance refers to all coordination and decision-making that occurs outside a blockchain's smart contracts. This includes discussions on forums, signaling votes, and drafting proposals. For major protocols like Uniswap, Compound, or MakerDAO, this phase is critical for refining ideas, gauging community sentiment, and building the social consensus required for a successful on-chain vote. Without effective off-chain coordination, on-chain proposals often fail due to lack of support or unforeseen technical flaws.

The primary platforms for these discussions are forum-based. Discourse is the most common, used by Aave, Uniswap, and Optimism. Commonwealth is another popular option tailored for DAOs, integrating wallet-based authentication and on-chain action triggers. These forums are where Request for Comments (RFC) and Temperature Check proposals are posted. Participants debate the merits, economic impact, and technical implementation, often for weeks, before any code is written or a formal vote is initiated.

A standard governance lifecycle progresses through several off-chain stages. It often begins with an Ideation thread for preliminary brainstorming. This evolves into a Temperature Check, a non-binding signal vote (often using SnapShot) to measure initial support. If successful, it becomes a Request for Comments (RFC) or Governance Proposal for detailed technical and economic review. Finally, after incorporating feedback, the proposal moves to an on-chain vote. Tools like Tally and Sybil help delegates and voters track these processes across different DAOs.

Effective coordination requires clear communication and process discipline. Proposal authors should structure posts with clear Problem Statements, Specifications, and Rationale. Using code blocks to outline potential smart contract changes is essential for technical review. For example, a proposal to change a protocolFee in a Solidity contract should include the exact variable and the proposed new value. Community members should focus on providing constructive feedback, referencing prior decisions, and considering long-term protocol health over short-term gains.

Challenges in off-chain governance include voter apathy, discussion fragmentation across Discord, Twitter, and forums, and plutocratic influence where large token holders dominate conversations. Mitigation strategies include dedicated community moderator roles, transparent delegation platforms, and mandatory discussion periods before any snapshot vote. The goal is to create an inclusive, informed, and efficient process that filters out low-quality proposals and strengthens high-potential ones before they consume on-chain resources.

Off-chain governance refers to all coordination, debate, and consensus-building that happens outside the blockchain's consensus mechanism. This includes discussions on forums, social platforms, and dedicated governance portals. The goal is to refine ideas, gauge community sentiment, and build support before submitting an on-chain proposal, which is costly and irreversible. Major protocols like Uniswap, Compound, and Aave rely heavily on platforms like the Uniswap Governance Forum to vet ideas. This process filters out low-quality proposals and aligns stakeholders, increasing the likelihood of successful on-chain execution.

The foundation of any off-chain discussion is a dedicated, persistent forum. Discourse is the industry standard, used by Ethereum, Optimism, and Arbitrum. It provides threaded discussions, categories for different proposal types (e.g., Temperature Checks, Consensus Checks), and integrated polling. For real-time conversation, Discord or Telegram serve as complementary hubs for quick questions and community building. All critical decisions and formal discussions, however, should be anchored in the forum to maintain a permanent, searchable record. This creates a single source of truth for the community's decision-making history.

Before posting, contributors must understand the governance lifecycle. A typical flow is: 1) Idea → Share a rough concept in an ideas category. 2) Temperature Check → Create a formal post with a snapshot poll to measure initial support. 3) Request for Comments (RFC) → Draft a detailed proposal incorporating feedback. 4) On-Chain Proposal → Submit the final version for a binding vote. Each stage has defined criteria, like minimum discussion duration or polling thresholds. For example, a MakerDAO governance signal request requires a 5-day discussion period before moving to an executive vote.

Successful coordination requires clear documentation. Maintain a Governance Process Guide that outlines rules, stages, and templates. Proposals should follow a standard template including: Abstract, Motivation, Specification, Rationale, and Technical Implementation. Using templates (like those on Compound's forum) ensures completeness and comparability. Additionally, a community should maintain a transparent delegate program, where token holders can delegate their voting power to informed representatives who actively participate in these off-chain discussions.

The standard off-chain governance workflow is a multi-stage process designed to build community consensus, refine ideas, and mitigate risk before a proposal is finalized and executed on-chain. This approach is critical for high-stakes decisions in protocols like Uniswap, Compound, and Arbitrum, where on-chain execution is costly and irreversible. The workflow typically follows a path from an initial idea to a fully specified, community-vetted proposal, ensuring that only well-understood and broadly supported changes reach the final voting stage.

The process begins with an Ideation & Discussion phase, often hosted on forums like the Ethereum Magicians forum, Commonwealth, or Discourse. Here, community members post Request for Comments (RFCs) or temperature checks to gauge initial sentiment. This is where fundamental questions are debated: Is there a problem? What are the potential solutions? What are the trade-offs? Successful discussions identify a clear problem statement and narrow down to one or two viable solution paths before moving forward.

Following productive discussion, a champion will draft a formal Governance Proposal. This document, shared on the forum, must include specific, actionable details: the exact smart contract addresses involved, the precise function calls and parameters, a comprehensive technical analysis, and a clear rationale. For example, a proposal to adjust the reserveFactor on Compound would specify the new percentage, the contract address of the Comptroller, and the expected impact on protocol revenue and supplier APY.

The formal proposal then enters a Review & Feedback window, often lasting 5-7 days. During this period, delegates, core developers, and security researchers scrutinize the proposal's technical soundness and economic implications. Key review points include: smart contract security (auditing the target code), economic safety (modeling the impact on system incentives), and implementation correctness (ensuring the calldata is error-free). Feedback from this stage is incorporated into a final proposal specification.

Finally, the proposal proceeds to an Off-Chain Snapshot Vote. Using tools like Snapshot, token holders signal their approval or disapproval without incurring gas fees. This serves as the definitive community consensus check. A successful Snapshot vote, which often requires a quorum and a majority or supermajority, provides the social mandate to proceed. The final step is for a designated party to execute the approved transaction on-chain, typically via a Timelock contract to allow for a final safety review period.

Off-chain governance discussions on platforms like Discord, Commonwealth, and Discourse generate critical community sentiment data. Automating the collection and analysis of this data is essential for creating informed on-chain proposals. This process typically involves using a Discord bot or a web scraper to monitor designated channels or forums for specific keywords, proposal numbers, or reaction emojis. The raw data is then parsed and structured into a format suitable for analysis, such as JSON, which can be used to gauge support levels, identify key arguments, and surface community concerns before a formal vote.

A common pattern is to track reactions (:thumbsup:, :thumbsdown:) on a forum post or a dedicated Discord message that summarizes a proposal. The following Python snippet using the discord.py library demonstrates a simple bot that listens for reactions on a specific proposal message and logs the sentiment. This provides a quantitative measure of community alignment.

pythonCopy
import discord
from discord.ext import commands

intents = discord.Intents.default()
intents.reactions = True
intents.message_content = True

bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix='!', intents=intents)
PROPOSAL_MESSAGE_ID = 123456789012345678  # Target message ID

@bot.event
async def on_raw_reaction_add(payload):
    if payload.message_id == PROPOSAL_MESSAGE_ID:
        user = await bot.fetch_user(payload.user_id)
        emoji = payload.emoji.name
        print(f"{user.name} reacted with {emoji} to proposal {PROPOSAL_MESSAGE_ID}")
        # Logic to store vote in a database or API

bot.run('YOUR_DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN')

For more nuanced analysis, you can implement sentiment analysis on forum post comments using natural language processing (NLP) libraries. This moves beyond simple reaction counting to understand the tone and substance of arguments. The example below uses the TextBlob library to score the sentiment of discussion text, categorizing comments as positive, negative, or neutral. This data can reveal if support is enthusiastic or tepid, and highlight contentious points that may need addressing in the proposal's final form.

pythonCopy
from textblob import TextBlob

forum_comments = [
    "This proposal is fantastic and will greatly improve protocol security.",
    "I'm concerned about the implementation cost being too high.",
    "Needs more detail on the treasury allocation before I can support."
]

for comment in forum_comments:
    analysis = TextBlob(comment)
    # polarity ranges from -1 (negative) to 1 (positive)
    sentiment = "positive" if analysis.sentiment.polarity > 0.1 else "negative" if analysis.sentiment.polarity < -0.1 else "neutral"
    print(f"Comment: {comment[:50]}... | Sentiment: {sentiment} ({analysis.sentiment.polarity:.2f})")

The final step is aggregating this off-chain data into a structured report or directly triggering an on-chain action. A common automation is to use an oracle or a keeper to check if a sentiment threshold has been met (e.g., 70% positive reactions from a minimum number of unique participants). If the threshold is satisfied, the automation can draft a summary or even initiate the creation of an on-chain proposal via the protocol's governance smart contract. This creates a seamless pipeline from community discussion to executable governance, reducing manual overhead and ensuring proposals have demonstrable community backing before consuming on-chain gas and attention.

Effective off-chain governance is not a one-time setup but an evolving process. The tools and frameworks discussed—such as Discourse forums, Snapshot signaling, and Tally for proposal lifecycle management—provide the infrastructure. However, their success depends on consistent community engagement and clear communication of the governance lifecycle, from temperature checks to final on-chain execution. Regularly review participation metrics and sentiment to identify bottlenecks.

To deepen your understanding, explore the documentation of leading governance platforms. Study successful implementations like Compound's Governance Portal or Uniswap's governance process to see how they structure discussions and delegate voting power. For technical teams, integrating with these platforms via their APIs (e.g., Snapshot's GraphQL API or Tally's SDK) can automate reporting and create custom interfaces for your community.

The next practical step is to draft and socialize a Governance Framework Document. This living document should codify the rules established off-chain: proposal thresholds, discussion periods, voting strategies, and the path to on-chain execution. Publish this on your forum and use it as a reference to ensure consistency and transparency, reducing ambiguity for new contributors.

Finally, consider the role of facilitators or stewards. These are trusted community members who help moderate discussions, summarize debates, and guide proposals through the process. Their work in synthesizing complex discussions into actionable insights is crucial for maintaining momentum and making governance accessible to all token holders, not just the most technically adept.