SIP-283: Remove the nominations period as a distinct part of the election process

Simple Summary)

This SIP seeks to deactivate a distinct nominations period within the V3GM Election Module. The motivation behind this is that nominations are now possible while voting is ongoing, removing the necessity for a separate period. The change is also intended to increase the efficiency of the election process.

Abstract

The recent passing of SIP-278: Enable nominations during voting period has made a distinct nominations period within the council election process unnecessary. To quote SIP-278, “while nomination and voting periods were initially created as separate periods due to a concern the electioning[sic] could be negatively impacted by spamming through creation of additional nominees, this no longer presents as a major concern given such impediments as the gas fee paid for nominating.” In light of the change, the continued presence of a nominations period adds to the time it takes to stage an election with little in the way of return. As the variables within the V3GM allow for its deactivation with little-to-no developer overhead and the scheduling of the non-codified aspects of elections (community announcements, nominee round tables, etc.) can be adjusted to compensate for a reduced election length, with this SIP an election process with a disproportionate time cost can be rendered more efficient.

Specification

The necessity of staging a distinct nominations period can be deactivated within the V3GM by altering the minNominationPeriodDuration variable from “2 days” to “0 days.” This will then allow nominationPeriodStartDate and votingPeriodStartDate to be set to the same point prior to the epochEndDate without the need to make any additional changes to the code.

Rationale

At present, the council election process takes in excess of three weeks to carry out when including preparatory work. At almost one quarter of the entire epoch length, this creates a excessively large drain on the attention of incumbent councillors, Core Contributors and the Synthetix community at large. Removal of the nominations period will allow an election cycle to be comfortably carried out within a period of two weeks, granting all parties the ability to more effectively concentrate their efforts on either developing the protocol when an election is not being held or campaigning for council seats when one is.

Test Cases

When an election is called, the nomination and voting periods will be synchronised to start at the same time. Accounts will then be able to nominate themselves while voting is conducted, with the epoch’s end date set for two weeks later.

Copyright

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