Structural · Custom
2 participant mentions · Addresses 3 governance problems
AI-synthesized from participant responses. Data points are faithful to source material; narrative descriptions may contain elaborations beyond what participants stated. See Methodology. Original responses available on request.
Small groups dedicated to reviewing and improving proposals before they reach a community-wide vote, including education standards to ensure reviewers understand the domain. Proposal Review Groups add a quality filter to governance without centralized gatekeeping, acknowledging that not every community member has the context needed to evaluate every proposal.
How It Works
Proposal Review Groups sit between proposal creation and community voting. When a proposal is submitted, it goes to a review group composed of participants with relevant domain expertise. The group’s job is not to approve or reject proposals — that remains the community’s prerogative — but to improve them. Reviews might identify technical flaws, highlight unaddressed risks, suggest parameter adjustments, or request clarifications.
The review process serves multiple functions. First, it catches errors and oversights before they reach the voting stage, reducing the chance of passing a proposal that has unintended consequences. Second, it provides proposal authors with expert feedback that helps them strengthen their proposals. Third, it creates a more informed voting population — review group assessments are published alongside proposals, giving voters structured analysis to inform their decisions.
Education standards are a key component. Review group members are expected to meet minimum competency thresholds in their domain. A treasury management proposal would be reviewed by people with financial expertise; a protocol upgrade proposal would be reviewed by people with technical expertise. This ensures that the review adds genuine value rather than being just another bureaucratic hurdle.
Critically, the design avoids centralized gatekeeping. Review groups cannot block proposals — they can only comment, suggest improvements, and publish their assessment. The final decision always rests with the broader community. This preserves the democratic character of governance while adding an expertise layer that improves decision quality.
Problems Addressed
- Governance Theater — Ensures that proposals reaching a vote have been vetted for quality and feasibility, making votes more meaningful by improving what’s being voted on
- Voting Fatigue — Reduces the cognitive burden on individual voters by providing expert analysis alongside each proposal, enabling more informed decisions with less individual research
- Informal Power — Formalizes the expert review function that happens informally in most DAOs (where a few knowledgeable people influence votes through forum comments), creating transparent and accountable review processes
Key Actors
- Feems (concept) — Proposed the Proposal Review Groups model with education standards, drawing on academic peer review and legislative committee processes as analogies for DAO governance quality assurance
- Karam / Polkadot technical fellows — Advocating for mandatory technical review before funding decisions (“no technical review = no funding”), citing Polkadot’s technical fellowship model as a working example of structured proposal quality assurance
Maturity Assessment
At Custom stage (ex 2.5), Proposal Review Groups exist primarily as a well-developed concept. Some DAOs implement informal versions — where proposals are reviewed by core team members or domain experts before voting — but few have formalized the process with explicit education standards and structured review outputs. The main adoption barrier is organizational: creating and maintaining review groups requires sustained effort, clear reviewer selection processes, and incentive structures for reviewers, all of which add governance overhead.
Participant Mentions
Referenced in 2 out of 52 interviews. The single mention likely reflects that many DAOs address the underlying need (improving proposal quality before voting) through informal means rather than structured review groups. However, as governance systems mature and the stakes of decisions increase, the need for formal quality assurance processes may drive broader adoption of this approach.
See also: All Solutions · Phase 1 Results