This proposal suggests shortening and standardizing the voting cycle for Ape Improvement Proposals (AIPs) in the ApeCoin ecosystem. The proposed changes include reducing the voting period from 13 days back to 6 days and establishing a voting schedule that starts every Thursday at 1pm UTC (6am PST/9am EST/9pm HKT) and ends every Wednesday at 1pm UTC (6am PST/9am EST/9pm HKT). The assignment of AIP ID numbers would take place after proposals have been approved to move on to the Live voting stage, aiming to increase the value of each AIP ID # for accepted authors. Additionally, this proposal suggests making the mandatory 7-day AIP Idea phase optional for all authors, removing any period of time where proposals may be closed for community discussion, clarifying that critical community discussion and material updates to proposals are still expected to occur during all phases of the AIP process.
BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM:
The aim is to reduce friction in the AIP process and better accommodate the global nature of the DAO.
Streamlining the AIP Process would help to expedite community decision-making processes, enabling the community to react more quickly to changes in the ecosystem and decide on accepting new proposals.
Establishing a fixed voting schedule rooted in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) would enhance predictability and consistency, making it easier for community members to engage in the governance process.
Preventing AIP Ideas from closing after the initial 7-day feedback window would allow the community to engage openly with the AIP author throughout the entire AIP process.
Making the AIP Idea phase optional would provide flexibility for the ApeCoin DAO, while ensuring that critical community discussion can still take place during the Draft stage.
Improving efficiency in the assignment of AIP ID numbers would help to preserve community resources, reduce risks to the ApeCoin brand, and increase the perceived value of AIP ID numbers.
STEPS TO IMPLEMENT:
Overview:
Update relevant AIP Process documentation to reflect the proposed changes.
The assignment of AIP ID numbers will take place after proposals have been finally approved to move on to the Live voting stage, this will help avoid wasting community resources and help avoid miscommunications in any instances where proposals are withdrawn by the Authors or Returned for Reconstruction.
Modify Snapshot settings to accommodate the new schedule.
Communicate the changes to the ApeCoin community through official channels.
APE Foundation will still reserve the right to modify voting periods at its discretion (e.g. emergencies, risks to the DAO, etc.) with reasonable notice to the community and for non-AIPs (e.g. elections).
Proposed Changes:
Amend the current AIP voting schedule to begin every Thursday at 1pm UTC (6am PST/9am EST/9pm HKT) and end every Wednesday at 1pm UTC (6am PST/9am EST/9pm HKT).
The assignment of AIP ID numbers would take place on the forum after proposals have been approved to move on to the Live voting stage.
The 7-day AIP Idea phase will become optional for all AIP authors.
The 7-day community feedback process for AIP Idea’s will no longer close, the AIP Draft stage will proceed as normal.
AIP Authors will still submit their proposal as an AIP Idea. Upon approval of the AIP Idea the Facilitator team will reach out to confirm if the author would like to forgo the 7-day discussion period, or if their AIP Draft is complete and ready to move forward to the next steps of the AIP process.
If the Author decides to move directly into the AIP Draft phase upon submission, their proposal will remain open for community discussion until the end of the voting phase.
If the proposal is accepted by the community during the live voting phase, a new topic will be opened by the Facilitators under the AIP Execution and Transparency - AIP Implementation Updates section, the community will be able to continue discussing the proposal and any updates under this new topic.
REPORTING EXPECTATIONS:
Although the expectation is that this proposal would be implemented by the DAO’s administrative team, the community should also regularly review the impact of process proposals. If accepted, the community should review the impact of the updates after the 3-month period for conflict ends.
OVERALL COST:
Total amount requested from the ApeCoin Ecosystem Fund = 0
Instead, the proposal requests that the Ape Foundation would implement the proposed updates to the voting cycle as soon as possible.
Echoing @VonFrontin concerns, there is certainly not enough time for delegations. Most do not even get the AIPs up to their communities within 24 hours of posting. Also, quite a few have councils that set times to meet and discuss AIPs based on their availabilities; this would make it increasingly difficult. Furthermore, 4 days is not enough time for the community get educated because we know most people don’t read AIPs until they are on snapshot.
Case in point, AIP-419 right now has had the most engagement on the X timeline in recent memory. The time for discourse has enabled voters to re-visit their votes, and change their mind. Now the vote has flipped to Against in large part due to early voters such as Yat changing their initial votes. If the proposed timeline was implemented, there would not have been enough time for community discourse to flip this vote. https://snapshot.org/#/apecoin.eth/proposal/0x91a46e81cc31d442f1fced9fef57c0c7b64154f11aac4822d5c16cbecb3ac39c
IMO such a short window only benefits the subsection of members glued to their screens at the DAO; most members are not. If people aren’t paying attention/busy, then it provides potential to allow people to “sneak” AIPs through when if given more time, the broader community would not have voted it through. The weekends are also notoriously quiet for DAO voters. 3 business days is simply not enough time.
The Idea phase is the only fair opportunity for anyone in the community to have their voice heard. One may not have the votes to make the world of a difference in a snapshot vote, but everyone is on the same playing field for 7-days in the Idea phase on discourse. Voting power doesn’t matter when giving feedback during the Idea phase. Pushing community comment to Draft phase allows any author to effectively bypass obtaining community feedback because they can clear this phase immediately/on the same day if they wanted to.
a) referencing again the short window, I don’t believe makes it easier for community members to engage (see AIP-419 where the additional time has been incredibly helpful), and b) the currently established fixed voting schedule has arguably produced the most meaningful results in both passed AIPs and reasonable time for discourse. Do you feel the results have actually been negative that such a drastic change to the current schedule is necessary?
Love the passion for getting these ideas out to the community and striving for change — but delegations need time. The DAO needs time. The voters need time.
I recognize that from the perspective of one of ApeCoin’s most knowledgeable, passionate community members who doubles as our stud Lead Facilitator, going beyond what 99% of people would think to do, speeding up this process for our community members and AIP authors might make sense from a high level.
But on top of all the fundamental points already made, our click-through rates going from Snapshot to the ApeCoin forum are critically low. When comparing that to metrics like the number of users who log in daily and page views, we can see how few of our voters are actually reading these proposals.
Therefore, platforms like ApeComms and all the extra hard work you’re putting into educating the community through it play an essential role in combating that trend, which again… needs time to get the messaging out.
Final thoughts: heart is in the right place, but the pathway may be off on this one.
If we are to measure the success of the DAO in decades, reducing the voting period from 14 days to 4 does not reduce ‘friction’ by any meaningful amount.
It does however make it more difficult for the community to gather and vote against toxic proposals like AIP-419.
The community feedback period for your proposal would be ending in roughly 24 hours.
If you’re content with the feedback received, your next steps are to finalize your proposal using the AIP Draft Template.
A moderator will reach out to the author to finalize the AIP Draft. Upon receipt of the final Draft, we will review and provide instructions on the next steps.
Are you ready to proceed to the next phase or do you wish to extend community discussion for another 7 days?
Thank you for your ideas [and the ApeCoin DAO community for the insightful discussions].
A moderator will reach out to the author to finalize the AIP Draft using the appropriate template.
Once the AIP Draft is confirmed by the author and meets all DAO-approved guidelines, it will receive an AIP ID number and move forward for Draft Analysis Review.
@Lost please see your messages for the next steps.
Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments. In accordance with DAO-approved guidelines, if the author does not respond within 30 days, the proposal will be automatically transferred to the Withdrawn category, and the author can re-submit the idea.
Having recently submitted an AIP, which took place from Feb to June, I know which process takes longest, and which steps we have to greatly improve/shorten as a DAO to have an effective submission process. Hence the reason I am strongly for this proposal.
@Lost has responded to our questions and has provided consent to share them in this forum for the community.
Click here to expand Q&A with @Lost
1. Your AIP proposes “a voting schedule that starts every Wednesday at 6am PST (2pm HKT) and ends every Sunday at 6am PST (2pm HKT).” 6am PST (currently PDT) would be 9pm HKT. Please clarify your proposed schedule.
“voting schedule that starts every Wednesday at 1pm UTC (6am PST/9am EST/9pm HKT) and ends every Sunday at 1pm UTC (6am PST/9am EST/9pm HKT) .”
2. Would the Snapshot voting period follow PST throughout the year and observe daylight savings, or would it continue to be synchronized with HKT?
Clarified UTC to account for daylight savings.
3. Your Steps to Implement includes the “The assignment of AIP ID numbers will take place after proposals have been finally approved to move on to the Live voting stage.” DAO-accepted AIP-401 states “An RFP Recommendation entering Draft phase shall be awarded an RFP Recommendation # consistent with the rules governing how AIP #s are awarded.” Do you intend for this proposal ID assignment tenet to apply to the RFP process as well?
Yes, based on how 401 is written, it seems the intention of that author would also be for the ID assignment to mirror whatever the approved process is for AIP ID # assignment.
4. “The assignment of AIP ID numbers will take place after proposals have been finally approved to move on to the Live voting stage.” Please add this to your Proposal Description.
“This proposal suggests shortening and standardizing the voting cycle for Ape Improvement Proposals (AIPs) in the ApeCoin ecosystem. The proposed changes include reducing the voting period from 14 days to 4 days and establishing a voting schedule that starts every Wednesday at 1pm UTC (6am PST/9am EST/9pm HKT) and ends every Sunday at 1pm UTC (6am PST/9am EST/9pm HKT). The assignment of AIP ID numbers would take place after proposals have been approved to move on to the Live voting stage, aiming to increase the value of each AIP ID # for accepted authors. Additionally, this proposal suggests making the mandatory 7-day AIP Idea phase optional for all authors, clarifying that critical community discussion and material updates to proposals are still expected to occur during the Draft stage.”
5. Your proposal states “APE Foundation will still reserve the right to modify voting periods at its discretion (e.g. emergencies, risks to the DAO, etc.) with reasonable notice to the community and for non-AIPs (e.g. elections).”, is your suggestion that this new voting period also be applied to elections?
No, this is clarifying that the existing authority of the Foundation would be unchanged.
6. Please revise your Team Members section, as specified by the AIP Draft Template and AIP-121, it will be compulsory to provide a description of team members (a brief “CV”, previous experiences in Web2 &/or Web3).
[Updated]
7. Please revise your Overall Cost section, as specified by the AIP Draft Template.
[Updated]
9. Do you provide consent to apply updates to the relevant areas of your proposal based on your responses to the questions above?
Yes.
10. Do you provide consent to share these questions and answers with the community in this forum?
Yes.
Edits have been made to this Topic, by the author, by the author’s request, or with the author’s consent. You can click the Pencil icon at the top of the post to see these edits.
A DAR package is being worked on and upon completion this AIP will move into Administrative Review. Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.
This proposal is essential for our governance process, as the 2-week voting cycle has proven to be ineffective. I also like the last updates you made, particularly about the AIP ID which set before an AIP goes live.
Hi @Lost I had written up a companion proposal which had some of your implementation but in a different form and description.
I did see/read this AIP, but as it didn’t contain some of what I proposed, I felt that seeing as mine would go after yours, that it would simply augment that, while retaining duplication of what was already in yours.
As you’re probably aware by now, it was rejected under AIP-1.
“DAO members must search past proposals to ensure any idea they intend to write a proposal for has not already been submitted.”
And so, ahead of me putting up an updated proposal that removes the aforementioned duplication, I wanted to first see whether or not you would consider these modifications to your AIP. If this isn’t possible, no worries, I will write up a different proposal with just these items in it.
Proposals that are ready to go to vote, will be posted on Snapshot within 3 days of the vote going live. Such proposals will have a “Pending” status. To wit, with voting every Tuesday, the proposals must be up on Snapshot the Fri prior.
Regardless of the number of proposals in the queue, the GwG will focus on the 5 most recent proposals which have since passed admin review, and as such, are ready to go up on Snapshot. This means that at no time should there be more than 5 proposals up for vote. And in the event that there are less than 5 ready for vote, then all such proposals are deemed eligible.
The GwG will create a Discourse forum thread entitled “Proposals Status Schedule” with a link to an AirTable (similar to this) which outlines the current status of all proposals, and sorted in a manner that shows the DAO which proposals are ready to be in the voting queue. The following data is required in the table:
.
| AIP Number | Admin Review Date | Snapshot Date | Status (Pending/Active/Closed) |
.
e.g.
| AIP-1 | 01/01/2025 | 01/10/2025 | Pending |
Thanks for reaching out to coordinate. I submitted the original version of this proposal after one of the ApeComms stages where @nataliecrue offered her experience around common voter behavior across DAO’s. The original submission aimed to introduce a 4-day voting cycle, a hard pivot away from the 13-day voting cycle. I don’t believe the update has had a positive impact on any part of the community, by any measure. Based on the feedback in this thread and across other community discussion platforms I updated the core suggestion to simply revert the voting cycle back to the old 6-day cadence, with a minor update to the language and the exact time for proposals to go live.
The voting cycle being rooted in UTC accounts for communication challenges which come up globally around daylight savings time.
The update to AIP ID assignment is meant to increase the value of those AIP ID #'s for the community.
Aiming to prevent proposals which are withdrawn for some reason, before vote, from also destroying what should be regarded as valuable community assets - AIP ID #'s,
without fundamentally changing the expectation to have received an AIP ID while going up to vote. I believe that the author proceeding through the process to the extent that they make it up for community vote indicates some willingness to return value back to the community, and the AIP ID # helps with marketing while the author is up to vote.
The suggestion to make optional the 7-day AIP Idea phase aims to resolve several challenges.
In part to remedy what I believe is a misnomer whereby the community may be led to believe that they can only provide feedback for 7 days, when the reality is that updates can and are made to proposals at any point up until they go live.
Ironically, the “Idea phase” introduces the only guideline for a topic to close, which has resulted in some proposals being shut off from any community discussion for weeks until the author signals willingness to progress to the next steps of the process.
For anyone looking in, you can view the series of edits which have been made by clicking the pencil in the top right of the topic post.
I did have some discussion with others in the community already about adding some of the same elements that you’re suggesting here, and I am happy to help get a chat together for us to problem solve on a follow up proposal.
There are several logistical challenges with the suggestion to post proposals as pending 3 days prior, especially given a 6 day voting cycle. e.g. APE Foundation ability and/or willingness to commit to those logistics, posting proposals during the voting cycle would burry live proposals, and that sort of update would almost certainly add more friction than it removes for authors who are hoping to move quickly through the AIP process.
This suggestion may be rooted in a bit of a misunderstanding.
Once a proposal moves over to Administrative Review, the APE Foundation would give the final signal to the DAO’s administrative team, indicating which proposals are ready to go live for vote.
This would need to be directed at the APE Foundation.
Similar to the response for #2 above, this would need to be pointed at the APE Foundation.
Let’s plan to connect more directly about this sooner than later.
