Thread to discuss updates to the Aragon Network Vote (ANV) schedule and Aragon Network fiscal year

📔 Archive AGPs
#1

In AGP-1 it states:

Aragon Network vote cycles take place quarterly on the following days, starting at 00:00 UTC time and lasting for 48 hours:

  • Fourth Thursday of January
  • Fourth Thursday of April
  • Fourth Thursday of July
  • Fourth Thursday of October

[…]

The Association board review session begins two weeks before the next Aragon vote cycle is scheduled to begin and ends one week before the next vote cycle is scheduled to begin.

[UPDATE: AGP-16 recently changed the dates to 4th Thursday instead of 3rd… made edits to reflect that]

To make this easier to explain, let’s call the vote that just happened ANV-1 and the last one this year ANV-4. Some cons of the current schedule:

  • Based on the current cycle, this means that ANV-5’s proposal due date will end up being the second week of January. A lot of people are gone for the holidays from late December until early January, so this can be difficult for people writing AGPs in that cycle, as far as receiving feedback.
  • Based on the current cycle, this means that the Aragon Network fiscal year may be construed to begin on February, which can be odd. For example, Aragon One and Aragon Association just got approved for 2019 budgets, what dates in 2019 is that? Does that also cover the first month of 2020? Or does it cover “back pay” for January 2019 – e.g. will the costs incurred in Jan 2019 be reduced from the amount approved in the vote?

I think we should create an AGP to submit in ANV-2 that will adjust this schedule so AGP finance proposals are awarded in a more traditional quarterly fashion and it’s more clear that a yearly budget is indeed for that year

One way to accommodate for this change is to adjust the current schedule. The easiest and least disruptive way that I think this can be accomplished is by delaying ANV-4 by 6 weeks. I propose that instead of the fourth Thursday of October, that the vote ends up occurring on the second Thursday of December.

Additionally, I propose changing the Association review beginning ~four weeks before the vote – e.g. people would have to submit their AGPs by the second Thursday of November for this specific example.

This will then:

  • Provide the community more time to review the proposals officially approved by the AA, and more time for proposers to rally up / campaign up to the vote [spending time/energy on a campaign before you know if AA has approved or not can be embarrassing if proposal is rejected by AA]
  • Allow the Aragon Network to be on a more traditional quarterly system, so it is clear what a 2019 or 2020 budget is.
  • Remedy the case where one of the current ANV submission periods is during a time where a lot of people take time off work

So then the new schedule of vote start days, beginning ANV-4 would be as follows:

  • ANV-4: Second Thursday of December [Finance track funding awarded for Q1+]
  • ANV-5: Second Thursday of March […funding for Q2+]
  • ANV-6: Second Thursday of June […funding for Q3+]
  • ANV-7: Second Thursday of September [… funding for Q4+]

Association review period begins ~four weeks [2nd Thursday minus one month] before the vote start date, meaning the AGPs must become Stage IV “Final Proposal” by the following dates:

  • ANV-4: Second Thursday of November
  • ANV-5: Second Thursday of February
  • ANV-6: Second Thursday of May
  • ANV-7: Second Thursday of August

Aragon Network calendar:

  • Q1 = Jan, Feb, March
  • Q2 = April, May, June
  • Q3 = July, August, Sept
  • Q4 = Oct, Nov, Dec

Aragon Networks fiscal year begins January.

Let me know what people’s thoughts are!

AGP discussion: Modify Aragon Network Fiscal Year
#2

AGP-1 was modified with AGP-14 to make the votes on the 4th week of the month: https://github.com/aragon/AGPs/pull/13/files#diff-618aa76b7b989ee736b05e779fd24b83R124

Still doesn’t solve the problem you are describing, but just pointing out this has changed.

#3

Oh I totally missed that detail! Was there a reason that 4th week is preferred?

I’ll update my post now to accurately reflect the correct current dates

#4

This is how the thinking went regarding the previous and current voting dates:

  • “Aragon will be live on mainnet at the end of October and the governance process is currently pretty vague, so we should fix that and have ANT holders use the new mainnet app to ratify whatever we come up with soon after it launches.” *writes AGP-1*

  • “AGP-1 is scheduled for a vote in November, and if it’s approved then teams will need to request funding through the process soon after so let’s schedule the next vote in January. Before AraCon, but after the holidays. Two months should be enough time for people to write and submit AGPs for the first vote. We’ll then have a vote every quarter after that.”

  • “Oh wow, Ethereum might split at the same time our vote is scheduled. Let’s use the Association’s power to call an emergency vote and re-schedule to one week later. Still before AraCon, and as a bonus people get an extra week to write their AGPs.”

  • “Hey it worked out pretty well that everyone had an extra week to write and submit AGPs after the holidays. We should make this a thing!” *writes AGP-14*

So there was a thought process there but in hindsight, and based on your comments, it’s clear we can improve!

Regarding your questions/ comments:

Based on the current cycle, this means that the Aragon Network fiscal year may be construed to begin on February, which can be odd. For example, Aragon One and Aragon Association just got approved for 2019 budgets, what dates in 2019 is that? Does that also cover the first month of 2020? Or does it cover “back pay” for January 2019 – e.g. will the costs incurred in Jan 2019 be reduced from the amount approved in the vote?

I would think of it as “Aragon One and Aragon Association just got approved for one year of funding”, and that year starts when they receive the funding.

I think we should create an AGP to submit in ANV-2 that will adjust this schedule so AGP finance proposals are awarded in a more traditional quarterly fashion and it’s more clear that a yearly budget is indeed for that year

Finance proposals are awarded quarterly, as long as there are Finance proposals approved in the vote each quarter. Flock budgets should be annual budgets (see the scope section of the Flock repo).

So then the new schedule of vote start days, beginning ANV-4 would be as follows…

I don’t see a problem with your proposed new dates. The main criteria when selecting the current dates was that they did not directly conflict with major (admittedly Western) holidays. Your proposed dates don’t appear to either, so if others are in agreement I think it would be fine to submit another “improve voting logistics” Meta AGP to make these adjustments.

Related, I’ve been considering moving the voting logistics out of AGP-1 altogether and granting the Association (or AGP Editors via the Association) the power to make these scheduling decisions. The only requirement per AGP-1 would then be that the Association is obligated to schedule the review and the vote quarterly, with restrictions on delaying or cancelling votes (similar to the restrictions imposed by AGP-14). This will allow us to be a bit more flexible in making adjustments to the logistics without having to do a Meta AGP each time we want to change them, while preserving the spirit of the document that proposals are regularly approved by ANT holders.