Decision
Voting on OLN governance proposals uses a Locked-Power + Return mechanism: when a contributor votes, a portion of their Power locks for the duration of the proposal cycle (and longer if they choose stronger conviction). The locked Power is unavailable for other votes during that period. After the cycle, Power returns to the contributor's available pool regardless of outcome.
Contributors who feel strongly about a vote may commit more Power for longer — and the system weights their vote proportionally. Conviction multipliers translate passion into influence without permanently spending it.
Reasoning
Forces strategic prioritization without herd-following. Free voting incentivizes voting on everything. Spent-Power-with-burn shrinks the system. Spent-Power-with-winner-refund creates futarchy/herd-following dynamics. Locked-Power-with-return achieves prioritization (you can't vote on everything because Power gets locked up) without punishing minority-but-correct positions.
Good prior art exists. The mechanism has solid foundations:
- Polkadot OpenGov runs essentially this exact system in production since 2023 (1×–6× conviction multipliers, lock duration scaling with multiplier, tokens return regardless of outcome). Generally considered one of the better-designed governance systems in the DAO space.
- Curve Finance ve-tokenomics spawned an entire pattern (veCRV, veBAL, veFXS) of "longer commitment buys more voice."
- MakerDAO uses a simpler per-vote lock variant.
- 1Hive Conviction Voting is the academic/experimental version (continuous conviction accumulation rather than discrete lock periods).
OLN's application is novel in its combination. Locked-Power voting layered on top of contribution-earned Power (rather than purchased/staked tokens), inside a dilution-not-decay growth model, with a Foundation board mission lock as constitutional backstop, applied to a fan/UGC platform rather than a financial DAO. The mechanism is well-tested; the application is fresh.
Sidesteps the wealth-concentration problem from the prior art. Conviction multipliers in financial DAOs concentrate influence among whales who can afford long locks. OLN sidesteps this elegantly because Power isn't bought — it's earned through contribution — so the multiplier rewards commitment intensity to specific decisions rather than capital wealth.
Why not the alternatives
- Free voting + dilution: Casual democracy. People vote on whatever, influence rebalances through growth. Workable but doesn't capture the strategic-engagement benefit.
- Spent-Power + burn: Scarce democracy. Power supply shrinks over time, recreating decay by another name.
- Spent-Power + winner-refund (futarchy): People vote on what they think will win, which may or may not be what's right. Herd-following dynamics.
- Locked-Power + return: Considered democracy. Strategic engagement without herd-following or supply-shrinking. ✓
Open questions (G-034)
- Specific lock durations for standard votes
- Conviction multiplier values (should match Polkadot's 1×–6× or different?)
- Whether to include any asymmetric return-timing for backing winning proposals (small bias toward engagement signal without full futarchy dynamics)
- Whether different proposal classes have different lock mechanics (constitutional vs operational)