Voting system

Chive uses a weighted voting system where expertise in the relevant domain increases vote influence. Specialists have greater say in their fields while community participation is maintained.

Voter tiers

Tier	Weight	Description
Community member	1.0x	Any authenticated user
Trusted editor	2.0x	Elevated role for consistent quality contributions
Graph editor	3.0x	Can modify knowledge graph nodes and edges
Domain expert	3.0x	Recognized expertise in the proposal's field
Administrator	5.0x	Platform administrators with veto power

How weight is determined

Voting weight is based on the user's assigned role. The highest applicable role weight is used:

const ROLE_VOTE_WEIGHTS: Record<GovernanceRole, number> = {
  'community-member': 1.0,
  'trusted-editor': 2.0,
  'graph-editor': 3.0,
  'domain-expert': 3.0,
  administrator: 5.0,
};

Weights do not stack. The user's role determines their voting weight.

Approval threshold

All proposals require 67% weighted approval with a minimum of 3 votes to pass.

Threshold calculation

Approval percentage = (Weighted approve votes) / (Weighted total votes) x 100

Example:

Votes:
- 3 community members approve (3 x 1.0 = 3.0)
- 2 domain experts approve (2 x 3.0 = 6.0)
- 1 trusted editor rejects (1 x 2.0 = 2.0)

Weighted approve: 3.0 + 6.0 = 9.0
Weighted total: 3.0 + 6.0 + 2.0 = 11.0
Approval: 9.0 / 11.0 = 81.8%

Result (67% threshold, 6 voters >= 3 minimum): APPROVED

Planned

Per-proposal-type thresholds and quorum rules are a design goal. The current implementation uses a single configurable threshold for all proposal types.

Voting periods

Phase	Duration
Discussion	7 days
Voting	5 days

Timeline example

Day 1:   Proposal submitted
Day 1-7: Discussion period (comments, revisions)
Day 8:   Voting opens
Day 12:  Voting closes

Abstention and recusal

Action	When to use	Effect
Abstain	Insufficient knowledge to vote	Not counted in percentage
Recuse	Conflict of interest	Cannot vote; documented

Abstentions do not count toward the minimum vote total but do count toward the minimum voter count.

Vote changes

Voters can change their vote during the voting period:

• Only the final vote counts
• Vote history is recorded for transparency
• Changes after voting closes are not accepted

Transparency

All voting data is public:

{
  "proposalId": "proposal-123",
  "votes": [
    {
      "voter": "did:plc:voter1...",
      "vote": "approve",
      "weight": 3.0,
      "tier": "domain_expert",
      "timestamp": "2025-01-15T10:30:00Z"
    }
  ],
  "summary": {
    "approve": 8,
    "reject": 2,
    "abstain": 1,
    "weightedApprove": 18.5,
    "weightedReject": 4.0,
    "approvalPercentage": 82.2
  }
}

Next steps

• Proposals: How to create and submit proposals
• Authority control: Special rules for authority records
• Governance overview: The big picture