In May of this year, Moonbeam launched a survey on feedback on voting delegation in community on-chain governance. 187 community members participated in the survey, which found that respondents were interested in governance and that increasing participation would only require a few adjustments, namely a more streamlined voting process.
Governance and decentralization are at the core of Web3, and as the Moonbeam network grows, user participation is also important. OpenGov has brought multi-role delegation functionality to Moonriver, and Moonbeam will soon follow suit, allowing token holders to delegate their tokens for voting based on Track. Today, delegated voting is live, but the complex user interface prevents many users from participating. When launching new delegation features that improve user experience, the Moonbeam team wanted to understand what the community is looking for when participating in governance.
The concept of voting delegation
Delegated voting is a mechanism that allows Token holders to delegate their voting rights to a trusted individual or group, enabling them to vote on their behalf . This mechanism is implemented to increase the efficiency of decision-making and ensure that governance matters are handled by personnel with the necessary expertise.
TLDR
- The vast majority of community members did not actively vote in governance referendums, but there are significant disparities in education, user experience, and communication that prevent greater participation.
- Token holders are hindered from voting due to the technical nature of the knowledge required to understand certain topics and the complexity of the user experience.
- An overwhelming majority (82%) of respondents are interested in delegating voting rights to other community members at least some of the time and under the right conditions.
- In order to have confidence in delegated voting rights, users need to understand the professional level and identity of the delegates and require them to actively participate in community activities
- In general, the majority of respondents preferred to entrust all referendums to one representative and to revisit their decisions every 6 months.
Participate in democracy
Voter engagement
More than half (54.5%) of those surveyed have not voted on any of Moonbeam’s governance in the past six months. 14.4% voted once, 19.8% voted 2–5 times, and only 10.3% voted more than 6–10 times.
Factors affecting voting participation
Findings indicate that one factor hindering governance engagement is user experience complexity and difficult-to-understand information.
- 33.2% chose not to know where to vote
- 32.6% chose not to know what the referendum was about.
- 25.7% said educational information about the referendum was boring
Interestingly, some respondents stated that they needed to obtain information on governance, citing that they were new token holders or to learn more about the cryptocurrency space.
The survey found that respondents needed to be more motivated to vote due to the complexity of the governance process than the content and frequency of referendums.
- 17% said they didn’t know why they needed to vote
- 20% chose too many referendums
- 10% said they did not care about the content of the recent referendum
- 11% chose other reasons, such as lack of incentives to vote, language and technology barriers, and declining market conditions as reasons for their lack of participation.
Positive attitude towards voting delegation
When respondents were asked for more specific information about the factors that influence their decision to participate in delegation and the parameters they would consider, respondents expressed an interest in getting more involved in voting and a positive attitude towards delegation selection .
Interest in commissioning
Most respondents are interested in delegating voting rights. Notably, more than 82% of respondents are sometimes interested in delegating some of their voting rights.
- 31% of respondents said they would always vote by proxy
- 51.3% of respondents said they would sometimes
- 18% of respondents said they would never
Concerns about entrustment
Respondents also expressed concerns about voting delegation, including the options listed on the survey and additional reasons for adding it.
Respondents stated that they had several necessary questions on how to implement delegation on Moonbeam and Moonriver . Their biggest concern is the centralization of voting power: nearly half of respondents (45.5%) are concerned about how delegation will affect centralization.
40.1% of respondents were concerned about cybersecurity and potential downtime, and 33.7% said the need for elected representatives to be kept informed about the referendum would be an issue when making commissioning decisions.
49% of respondents said they wanted to retain voting rights, 9.6% had no concerns, and 2.1% had other concerns, including feeling safe with representatives’ technical expertise, concerns about protocols gaining voting rights, and concerns about representatives (Regarding the fiscal treasury proposal) Agree with the opinions and whether it is transparent.
Choose a representative
community representative
Respondents were asked about factors that would influence their choice of representative (to whom they delegate their voting rights). The question used a multiple-choice format to ask respondents what information they would like to see before choosing to vote on their behalf, and the results were fairly evenly distributed across several criteria.
- 67.4% want to know more about a representative’s authority or expertise on a specific topic
- 62% chose Moonbeam for overall community engagement
- 58.8% need to know the representative’s information
- 56.7% need to know a representative’s voting history – how they voted and how often they voted
- 43.9% want to know representatives’ positions on important issues
Overall, when asked to choose only the most important factors, the survey results showed that authority and identity were the top two concerns:
- 32.6% of respondents chose authority/professionalism on a specific topic or field
- 27.3% of respondents chose identity
- 17.6% of respondents chose Moonbeam for overall community participation
- 12.8% of respondents chose platform/position on important issues
- 9.6% of respondents chose voting history/participation
Interestingly, when breaking down this data by how often each respondent voted, one can see that almost everyone cares about authoritativeness/expertise on a particular topic, but those who vote less frequently (within the past 6 months 0–1 times) are disproportionately concerned about a representative’s identity (36%), while those who vote occasionally and frequently (voted 2–5 times and 6+ times in the past 6 months) are more concerned about community involvement and the role of a representative in positions on key issues.
The top issue influencing representative selection is their active and ongoing community contributions (68%), followed by visibility and community support (64%). In contrast, respondents considered the identity of the collector to be less important (26%).
Number of delegates
Overwhelmingly, 42% of respondents wanted to delegate voting rights to a single person. 26% and 23% of respondents want to select one representative per track or spread the vote among multiple representatives.
Commissioned project
When asked how often they would be willing to delegate voting rights for each type of referendum, the majority of respondents selected “sometimes” for “Technical Updates”, “Governance Management” and “Collector Program”, with the exception of the remaining topics. , the majority of respondents wanted delegated voting rights “always” .
Once voting rights have been delegated, 64% of respondents would like to be notified if their delegation fails five consecutive referendums, 56% would like to receive a report if a delegate gained too much power, and 57% Visitors want to see voting records on all important issues.
Commission duration
When asked how long they wanted the commission to last, the majority (33%) said 6 months or less, or define their own term (33%). Few wanted unlimited duration (3%) and two years (7.5%), but a significant number were satisfied with a one-year commission period (23.5%).
Become a representative and why
65% of respondents have no interest in becoming community representatives. But some have expressed possible interest in the future.
Respondents gave reasons for why they felt they wanted to become a representative, with the majority (49%) saying they wanted to play a prominent role in the network in the future. 35% thought it was reputation, 33% said it was possible to increase the amount of pledges for their collectors, and 24% said it was not.
Some interviewees added that community members want to develop networks and communities by becoming representatives.
Other ways to participate in governance
Respondents also answered about other ways they would like to participate in the governance of the Moonbeam network. In the multiple choice answer:
- 51.9% want to participate in proposals in Polkassembly
- 50.8% of votes choosing on-chain decisions
- 35.8% chose to participate in forum discussions on Moonbeam Community Forum
- 29.9% want to see a review of voting history or a summary of the latest activities
- 27.8% want to participate in Snapshot’s off-chain public opinion voting
- 11.8% said they did not want to participate in any way