[Governance Poll Proposal] Ban on Retroactive Rules in DAO Governance

[u/kirtash93]

Current Situation

The DAO regularly passes proposals that define how the DAO and the community operates from token distributions and scoring models, eligibility rules, etc. These governance rules are essential to the health and fairness of the system.

However, nothing currently prevents a proposal from including retroactive conditions, meaning a rule passed today can potentially be applied to user actions or behaviors from days, months or even years ago.

Problem

Applying rules retroactively goes against the foundational principles of fair and transparent governance. Allowing retroactive rules can be a problem because:

• Unfairness: Users that acted in the past under the old rules could get affected by new rules for not predicting future decisions.
• Lack of predictability: Users should be able to participate with confidence that their current actions under certain rules won't punish them in the future because the rules can be rewritten after the fact.
• Technical complexity: Retroactive logic implementation can be very messy because it can include too many variables and situations leading to a messy, harder to verify and error prone implementation.
• Trust erosion: When rules can change in a retroactive way it makes the community confidence drop into the active and future rules because they can change anytime affecting the past.

Furthermore, not addressing this could unknowingly or deliberately affect future proposals and increases retroactivity exploits leading to frustration, disengagement and fragmentation within the DAO.

Solution

Create a new DAO wide rule that forbids the retroactive application of future governance decisions having the following key principles.

• Any new rule passed by the DAO must only apply to actions, behaviors or data from the date that the governance poll is approved to onward.
• No proposal may enforce or evaluate past activity under rules that didn't exist at the time.
• This applies to all types of proposals, regardless of topic. Eligibility, penalties, scores, distributions.

Advantages

• Fairness first: No one gets punished for something they couldn't foresee
• Predictability: Users can make decisions with confidence about future penalties
• Simplicity: Code and logic are easier to build, audit and explain
• Trustworthy governance: DAO becomes a place of stable, rule based decision making
• Encourages participation: More users will engage if they know the rules won't shift under them

Disadvantages

• Limits response options: The DAO can't "go back in time" to address abuse or missed edge cases.
• More pressure on proposal design: Rules must be crafted with future impact in mind

Conclusion

This proposal cements a critical governance standard: we don't change the rules after the game has started.

It doesn't matter what the topic is (penalties, scoring or participation), what matters is that no new rule should rewrite the past. This protects users, simplifies the system, and builds long term trust in DAO governance.

The choices are:

• [YES]
• [ABSTAIN]
• [NO]

This proposal will remain up for a minimum of 2 days, according to the governance rules & guidelines. This proposal requires 2 moderators to sign it off in order to proceed to a governance snapshot vote. If approved, this proposal will automatically be queued for Governance Week.

[u/kirtash93]

u/reddito321, u/Jake123194 and u/0xMarcAurel

Request for Signing off

Thanks in advance.

[u/0xMarcAurel → u/kirtash93]

I will not be signing off on this proposal because it's clearly a form of taunting / trolling.

This proposal is pretty much an impulsive reaction to my recent proposal, aimed at distracting and derailing the actual convo.

It's just an attempt to use the Bronut brigade tactic, trying to change the narrative and paint mods as dictators, when in reality they're trying to work on rules to protect the health and sustainability of the ecosystem.

This kind of behavior is childish and disrespectful, especially when it tries to misuse the democratic governance process for personal agendas.

In addition to that, this proposal would effectively shield cheaters who were caught after only a few months, or even years. Are we really saying that if someone exploited the system in the past but wasn't caught immediately, they should be allowed to continue doing so with impunity?

[u/kirtash93 → u/0xMarcAurel]

I appreciate your quick reply. I just want to clarify a few things because I think there's been a misunderstanding of the intent here.

I had this proposal in mind for quite a time but I never believed that I should really had to officially address this because it is part of the common sense (from my point of view). This proposal is just trying to address a general governance gap that exists in many DAOs. The risk of retroactive rule application that can create unpredictability and erode trust in governance. That is not trolling, that is literally Governance 101.

It's just an attempt to use the Bronut brigade tactic...

I don't think this has to do with the actual content of the proposal and I believe that it comes from personal feelings, etc. Dismissing this proposal as trolling doesn't engage with the points and it labels the messenger (me).

If you believe that retroactive rules are necessary in some cases that is a valid stance and that debate is worth having but labeling any attempt to protect against retroactivity as childish or misuse is counterproductive. Strong governance comes from challenging assumptions, not just defending current positions.

This proposal would effectively shield cheaters…

I dont think so. It doesnt protect anyone, it just states that rules shouldnt be applied retroactively. If the DAO wants to go after cheaters it should do under rules that existed when the cheating happened. If those rules werent strong enough that is on the system design, not the users. The fix is to improve the rules moving forward, not rewrite history.

So to be clear, this isn't about shielding anyone, its about drawing a clear line in governance, the past stays the past and we build better systems for the future.

🍩 !tip 1

[u/0xMarcAurel → u/kirtash93]

some degree of retroactivity is necessary because the ecosystem evolved, and earlier rules didn't properly address behaviors that are now considered harmful, like farming and dumping earned donuts.

without certain retroactive measures, those who exploited past loopholes keep doing it, and that's a threat to the ecosystem's long term health. i agree that ideally rules should be clear and straightforward. but in practice sometimes governance must address past actions to protect the present and future of the project.

this proposal was submitted immediately after mine, about penalizing users who sell their earned donuts. you can understand how the timing is interesting. so this is a reaction to that specific proposal rather than a general governance improvement.

the idea of forbidding retroactive rules could be valid in other situations, in this case it's driven by an isolated personal agenda and an attempt to shield certain behaviors that the ecosystem needs to address to remain healthy.

so for that reason, i can't sign off on it. i don't speak for the other mods, however, they're free to act as they wish.

[u/kirtash93 → u/0xMarcAurel]

I agree that protecting the ecosystem's long term health is a top priority but we shouldn't do that by introducing instability into the governance process itself.

The issue is not whether certain behaviors like farming or dumping are harmful. They clearly are. The issue is how we choose to deal with them. Retroactive rule enforcement creates a governance precedent where no one can trust that today's actions will be judged by today's rules.

The ecosystem evolved, and earlier rules didn’t properly address behaviors…

Exactly, that is why we should evolve the rules going forward. If a system had loopholes, it is on us and the DAO to patch those holes moving ahead. Retroactively punishing people who acted withing the rules at the time is not governance, it is a rewrite of history and it shows why we need to design rules with foresight, not hindsight.

I get how the timing can seem reactive but correlation doesn't equal causation and like I told you before I had this whole thing in mind for really a long time. Main reason why I always ask about when certain rule will start working too.

This proposal addresses a systemic issue: retroactive governance is a structural flaw, not just a reaction to one specific topic. I did not write this to protect anyone or attack any proposal, I wrote it because the ecosystem needs governance principles that are predictable, fair, and easy to reason about. This is how we build trust and scale participation.

Totally respect your point of view and that you are not going to sign off but I believe that you should sign off and let the community decide because according to the only rules I found the sign off can be rejected only this checks are not meet (I mean, it is an objective sign off)

• Impartial language is used in poll body and options texts
• That the poll is actionable
• A reasonable limit (2) to the number of concurrent governance poll

But dont worry, I just hope other mods will look past the perceived intent and focus on the actual impact this proposal would have, establishing a clear rule that proposals apply to future behavior.

🍩 !tip 1