Consenz: A Virtual Parliament App

Problem Statement - Extension:

Governance and decision making are made mainly by two methods: discussion and voting. This is why the institute where nation-states representatives gather and decisions are getting made is called - "parliament": The place to "parle" - to speak, to talk, to discuss. Discussions allow the participants to express different opinions and perspectives and to take into consideration the pros and cons, the benefits and the risks before decisions are made.

But discussions are not scalable. Discussions create noise, and when there is too much noise it is hard to identify the signal, i.e. the data that is relevant and contributes to the process. This is why only a small group of a few hundred people, at most, can take an active part in parliaments, and the other millions of people can only delegate their voice by voting.

In the Catalyst project, the governance is being made by voting on proposals on-chain. Problems/needs are often identified by community-wide discussion. Solutions often are not. The focus on proposals leaves outside wider policy challenges that are relevant to the community, such as process guidelines, community code of conduct, monetary policy etc. Discussions on issues regarding the future of Cardano and Catalyst are disconnected from the voting process and spread around on different platforms: ideascale, google-docs, telegram, discord, reddit and others.

This situation makes the decision-making process ineffective and creates a risk of getting decisions that are not in the best interest of the community and its members. Also, it may discourage many members from taking an active part in the process.

Our Solution:

Consenz is a platform that was created to address those problems and offer a proven solution.

The discussion in Consenz is different from other platforms in a few aspects:

• Instead of an endless and chaotic thread of comments, there is a focus and a product to the process: A document that can be discussed and edited by the participants and reflect their agreements.
• There is a clear structure to the content: comments are attributed to a specific section and function as arguments for or against it; sections are attributed to a specific topic; topics are attributed to the document.
• There is a voting system that allows the users to express their opinion without adding more noise to the discussion.
• The voting system also creates a method to deal with conflicts and determine which opinion has the majority of participants' agreements.
• Those agreements are separated from the noise by a simple algorithm that determines which section received enough support and can be added to the document automatically.

See the demo: https://app.consenz.co.il/document/catalyst-demo/welcome

This is how the discussion in Consenz works (see also the diagram attached):

1. The discussion can begin with an existing draft or on a blank page.   

1. Users can publish new section suggestions to the document topics. 

1. For every section or section suggestion, users can suggest improvements by editing the section text.  

1. Every new section suggestion or improvement suggestion stands for discussion and for a vote:
   4.1 Users can comment on the section, or comment on other users' comments.
   4.2 Users can vote "for" or "against" the section suggestion.   

1. When the sum of "for" votes minus the "against" votes reaches a predetermined threshold, the suggestion changes status from "in a vote" to "approved".
   5.1 New approved section suggestions are added to the document automatically.
   5.2 Newly approved Improvement suggestion replaces the existing section.    

1. Every time that the document is changed (i.e. a new section or an improvement suggestion is approved) The approving threshold for new and existing suggestions is updated according to those parameters:
   6.1 The number of participants in the process at the time of the change.
   6.2 The consensus that the current draft has reached so far, i.e. the for/against votes ratio of the approved sections.
   6.3 This calculation is made by the "consensus meter" algorithm.  

 The Project Status

Since 2018 we have been building a prototype of Consenz (until lately it was available only in Hebrew) and in 2020-2021 we have completed a proof-of-concept phase. The app prototype has been used by diverse groups for different purposes in Israel, among them:

• Schools' teams used Consenz to create teaching guidelines during the covid19 restrictions.
• Protest movements used Consenz to create demands lists.
• Environmental organizations used it to collaborate with government and municipality workers to create plans for dealing with the climate crisis.

Now we wish to configure the platform to the Catalyst and Cardano community needs and processes, and ultimately expand to serve all sorts of DAO's in the crypto ecosystem.

In order to do that, we plan to:

• Implement a new UX/UI design based on the lessons and experience that we have collected during the proof-of-concept phase
• Add a gamification layer on top of the existing user interface
• Add a delegation layer on top of the existing user interface, that can be used for reputation representation as well
• Create infrastructure for future integration of the platform voting mechanism to the Cardano blockchain smart contracts for high security, immutability and transparency.
• Open the code by adding proper documentation and improving accessibility for new developers, and invite the developers' community to take part in building and improving the platform.
• Reaching out to other initiatives that are working to improve decision making processes in the Catalyst community for potential collaboration.

ROADMAP

Q1 2021: Build Functional prototype: Completed

Q2 2021: At least 5 iterations with real users for proof of concept: Completed

Q3 2021: Design new UX/UI: In progress

>> Q4 2021 Build MVP web app

Q1 2022: Gamification and Delegation layers

Q2 2022: Integration with Cardano smart contracts

Costs Breakdown

App Frontend:

• Group channel page: 5,000 USD  

• Draft page: 2,000 USD  

• Discussion Page: 6,000 USD  

• User profile management page: 2,500 USD  

• Admin panel: 7,500 USD

 Onboarding users:

• Landing Page: 1,500 USD 

• Explanatory video: 500 USD  

Total: 25,000 USD

Key Metrics to measure

Quality success metrics will be measured by the use of the products that will be created by the Consenz platform, i.e. the documents that will be discussed and created by the community. We wish to see during the first 3 months after a launch of the MVP at least 5 documents that will be used as guidelines, policy shapers and other purposes that answer the Catalyst community needs.

Quantity success metrics will be compared to the overall community participation in the current governance process of project Catalyst, i.e., the number of wallet addresses that cast votes using the official voting app. The metrics will consider exposure (unique user traffic according to google analytics) and onboarding registered users on Consenz.

For Fund8:

• Exposure to 15% of voters
• Onboarding 5% of voters 

For Fund9:

• Exposure to 25% of voters
• Onboarding 7% of voters

etc.

The Team:

Consenz founder and Project Manager: Aharon Porath, a techno-social entrepreneur. 

Since 2011, Aharon has been involved in a few tech and non-tech ventures to develop consensus-based decision-making methods and platforms for distributed public participation goals.

Aharon has 6 years of experience as a project manager of web platforms and apps, among them - "Open Committee", a web app that enables environmental activists, NGOs and citizens to participate in the decision-making process of Israel's planning department. "Open Committee" is funded by the Israeli government innovation authority.

Design and Development: Sofi, a software cooperative that provides solutions for municipalities, universities, startups, well-established companies, entrepreneurs and NGOs. The coop model relies on decentralized, consensus-based decision making, as well as total influence and wage equality for all present and future members.

https://www.soficoop.com/

Product Manager: Roy Golan. Sofi Coop co-founder. Civic participation & collaboration tools enthusiast since 2012.

Community Manager & Business Development: Ofry Erlich. Sofi's business development director. Political activist with expertise in political parties campaigns & internal processes.

UX/UI Designer: Tzur Sherzer. After managing a big design department, Tzur has joined the team as a lead designer, and is dedicated to the challenge of making the advanced deliberative democratic discussion interface accessible for people from all communities and backgrounds.

Fullstack Developers: Aviran Katz & Nadav Moreno. With vast experience from 150+ projects, Aviran and Nadav will be leading the development team, with the backup of the entire Sofi development department, as well as external developers.