New Category: Governance

[Crypto2099]

Currently all CIPs and CPSs must be assigned by their author to one of the following Categories

• Meta | For meta-CIPs which typically serves another category or group of categories.
• Wallets | For standardisation across wallets (hardware, full-node or light).
• Tokens | About tokens (fungible or non-fungible) and minting policies in general.
• Metadata | For proposals around metadata (on-chain or off-chain).
• Tools | A broad category for ecosystem tools not falling into any other category.
• Plutus | Changes or additions to Plutus
• Ledger | For proposals regarding the Cardano ledger (including Reward Sharing Schemes)
• Catalyst | For proposals affecting Project Catalyst / the Jörmungandr project

Now that Cardano has officially entered the "Voltaire Era" with the Conway ledger and Chang Hard Fork introducing on-chain governance, there is a surge in interest and attention on the CIP/CPS process to facilitate governance discussions for both dry (technical, on-chain) governance as well as wet (social, off-chain) governance.

We already have 4 merged CIPs (CIP-100, 108, 119, 1694), 1 merged CPS (0007) in addition to 4 proposed CIPs (CIP-120, 129, 136, #936) and 1 proposed CPS (#935) that all specifically address facets of both on- and off-chain governance. We have arrived at this point approximately 2 months after on-chain governance going into effect.

I would argue that this raises enough attention to warrant the inclusion of a new category for CIPs and CPS specifically for those related to Governance.

[adamrusch]

Yes, please! We have had discussions in the Cardano Civics Committee about how we can use CIPs to specify governance rules and procedures that cannot or should not be part of the Constitution document. Having a "Governance" category will provide a way to address these issues.

[intertreeJK]

Seems reasonable to me.

[Hornan7]

I fully support the introduction of a dedicated "Governance" category for CIPs and CPSs. As Cardano's governance continues to evolve in the Voltaire Era, it is important to establish a clear framework for proposals that address governance-related topics, without necessarily enforcing them through a constitution. This new category will be particularly valuable for organizing CIPs related to governance standards, such as codes of conduct for DReps or the Constitutional Committee, as well as other practices or metadata standards.

[gitmachtl]

Seems reasonable to me.

johnny, how far are you with your ideas to restruct the CIP tree in general? as we talked about it in the CLI/API wg?

[rphair]

An important question that I think must be very clearly answered before proceeding with the use of the CIP process to document governance standards:

• To what extent would Governance CIPs allow proposal authors to bypass the mandated governance process requiring voting consensus to create & modify its own rules... given that CIPs, though they can be challenged by the community, are ultimately reviewed & approved by a much smaller number of agents?

How can it be proven that this is not a risk? If this is a risk, what would mitigate it? ... strict "Path to Active" criteria requiring that such CIPs (and maybe some CPSs) follow the generally recognised governance vote to become Active?

Since there already seems to have been some agreement about this proposition in advance (@Ryun1 @perturbing at this time we still haven't heard from you on this issue), as in #935 (comment) I need to present as the "Devil's Advocate" to try to pre-empt criticism from the community... however uninformed or unjustified it might be... that Governance CIPs will be a way for influential proposers to bypass the usual Governance process in passing their preferred propositions.

Unless someone can disqualify this risk conclusively, I think we need to place strict definitions on:

• how Governance CIPs and CPSs stand in relation to the Governance process (p.s. I think @Hornan7's definition as a "framework" ... "without necessarily enforcing them" ... could serve well here);
• how these CIPs are declared Active;
• how these CPSs should be interpreted (since e.g. CPS-???? | Social Governance #935 looks to me like a Governance rule-book);
• who is expected to be involved in Governance CIP/CPS PR review and acceptance.

[rphair]

restruct the CIP tree in general

@gitmachtl please will you document exactly what's being referred to in #937 (comment)?

[Crypto2099]

@rphair I think you bring up a ton of very good and valid points of consideration in #937 (comment).

Regardless of the rule setting that we determine here, I do still firmly believe that a governance category for CIPs/CPS in general makes sense given the number of proposals at this point that specifically address it as a topic.

However, particularly w.r.t. #935 where we very much are addressing a hybrid between on-chain and off-chain expectations, perhaps it would be best that the CPS formally define that every proposal aiming to address Social Governance must include criteria for an on-chain Info voting action in order to garner enough on-chain approval signal to justify it being merged or at least toggling it into Active status. It would probably make sense that the CIP would need to be merged as Proposed prior to being submitted for on-chain voting as this would give us a canonical version of the text that could be referenced in the vote.

Potential/Suggested Language for #935:

Path to Active for Social Governance CIPs

Any proposed CIP that addresses social governance and does not have a clear and direct
on-chain implementation MUST include, as part of its Path to Active section, a clearly
detailed procedure for submitting the CIP for on-chain approval via an Info action.

The criteria for ratification of any social governance CIP SHOULD meet or exceed the
thresholds currently defined in the Constitution and on-chain Protocol Parameters for
ratification of similar protocol parameters or Constitutional modifications.

Proposals SHOULD only be submitted for on-chain voting after they have been formally
merged under Proposed status so that a canonical reference to the language of the CIP as
proposed may be referenced in the Info voting action.

Social governance CIPs MUST NOT be marked as Active by the CIP Editor body until
evidence of an on-chain vote meeting the above criteria has been submitted as a final and
sole modification to the CIP document content.

[adamrusch]

@rphair @Crypto2099 You are talking about a component that I believe is vital for "Social Governance" CIPs - and which I think would be wise to include in the Governance Category definition. Expanding CIPs out in this way is a logical step as every CIP defines behavior that must be taken off-chain to impact on-chain behavior in some way, shape, or form.

Every legal system relies upon multiple sets of laws and the on-chain governance of Cardano is no different. Constitutional Laws are supreme and trump all other consideration. Common Law is important for helping judges render consistent rulings but because we do not (yet) have an arbitration system in Cardano it will have to be a future workstream. CIPs are basically a form of Administrative Law where the community has entrusted our CIP editors to help define how various procedures will work.

What we have now with on-chain governance is the opportunity to also use CIPs to record Statutory Law, or procedures that are ratified through the legislative process of Cardano. If we have a specific procedure put into place of how the DReps and/or other governance actors of Cardano can vote to ratify and activate Social Governance CIPs we make them legitimate rules of governance. This is why you will see that the Social Governance proposals that came from Mr. Dean (Social Governance - Budget Guardrails) and myself (Social Governance - Voluntary DRep Code of Conduct) include explicit vote mechanisms.

We've discussed extensively in the Cardano Civics Committee the fact that while we want the Constitution to be a living document that responds to the needs of the community, we also want to make sure it doesn't become so large and so complicated that is inaccessible. If we didn't already have the CIP process we would need something very similar to it for "Statutory Law" that the governance actors of Cardano can use for setting and updating rules or best practices as necessary.

The final point that I will mention is the nature of voluntary engagement that are central to blockchain ecosystems such as Cardano. Most CIPs are written from a Best Practices standpoint to encourage participants to bring their activities in line with community standards so that they will be legible on the network. I expect that we will find the same to be true for many of our "Statutes" in Cardano, such as the Voluntary DRep Code of Conduct, which we cannot strictly enforce on a permissionless system but which we hope the community will uphold by rewarding those who exemplify the standard.

[rphair]

This hour we have yet another submission... and they have been coming in daily, even over the weekend... of a CIP categorised as Governance without any agreement yet that proposals like this are even within the scope of the CIP process.

Somehow the authors of these proposals have been encouraged to charge ahead with the CIPs that are suddenly being submitted. These proposals — which, as they are currently written, appear not to require the due (voting) governance process to merge them — would have huge impact on human affairs in the Cardano space, with organisational specifications that are completely non-technical and therefore patently incompatible with CIP-0001 which has long required that CIPs are technical documents.

Maybe the 2 remaining active editors @Ryun1 and @perturbing have not contributed to any of these discussions yet because (2 separate possibilities): somehow they have been separately & privately briefed on this behind-the-scenes "change" or they're as surprised as I am about this being sprung on the editors with no explanation, no notice, and no precedent.

Until someone can at least point what conclave decision made it seem inevitable that CIPs should bear this bureaucratic burden — over points of politics and business, i.e. issues that the CIP process for 4 solid years running has never gone near — I am removing the Triage tag for these submitted "Governance" proposals.

This doesn't disqualify them but effectively removes them from tomorrow's & future meeting agendas until this GitHub issue has been addressed, with some editor quorum & community consensus: both in tomorrow's CIP meeting (https://hackmd.io/@cip-editors/100) and in the comments here.

The time freed up at tomorrow's CIP meeting will help us focus on this issue specifically. @Crypto2099 I will leave it to you to invite the authors of these several new CIPs to the meeting. Please plan first to brief all the other editors on the privately arranged decision to use the CIP process — long agreed to maintain technical standards — to maintain bureaucratic and financial structures such as budget policies, human committees, and all the other features in this onslaught of new CIPs:

• CPS-???? | Social Governance #935
• CIP-???? | Social Governance - Budget Guardrails #936
• CIP-???? | Social Governance - Voluntary DRep Code of Conduct #939
• CIP-???? | Trust-Minimized Cardano Budget Process #940

[rphair]

Some more points to consider at the meeting tomorrow & any time in the discussion here:

1 - The 4 potential Governance proposals submitted so far have been written & submitted as if the CIP process and repository were already cleared for them to be reviewed and posted here. Again, I think any such decision would have been reached in conclave — with most CIP editors not being included in the discussion — because otherwise the first question coming up would have been, "Why the CIP repository?"

Before proceeding, editors & advocates of the CIP process therefore also need to consider the logical alternative of a completely separate repository to debate & document these governance propositions. Effectively we would have that anyway, since here's how the CIP archive would look if the suggested Governance category were included on top of the CIP process that exists today:

• the Governance category = addressing human factors like bureaucratic composition, budgetary constraints, etc., rather than technical propositions.
• every single other category = addressing exclusively technical propositions & generally avoiding human factors.

2 - It was straightforward to call all prior categories "Cardano Improvement Proposals" because it was obvious that Cardano (the blockchain) was the thing being improved. However, we would have to make an exception here as well for Governance proposals: since the proposed improvements are all around bureaucratic and economic factors: certainly important, but not directly to the blockchain, network, or tooling.

3 - The only agreed-upon use case of the CIP to document the basis for governance propositions, in my recollection, has been as the basis for hard forks which must in turn be confirmed by a governance vote. This has the advantage of supporting this use case without requiring a small army of CIP editors: since there is a natural limit to the rate at which such technical propositions can be developed.

However, we would need that small army soon enough once Governance CIPs became a requirement for budget & bureaucracy standards... since the ways people would want to influence others about assignments of power & money would be practically infinite.

[Crypto2099]

Source: https://roadmap.cardano.org/en/voltaire/

It has been the intent of both the CIP and Governance processes to work together both in the roadmap and public forums for years. Arguing that we never addressed social governance in the time and era before we had on-chain governance to lend it credibility is not a valid justification to continue with "business as usual".

I would also argue that many of our other existing CIPs deal with human factors like bureaucratic composition. CIP-25 and 68 just describe steps that you must take in order to make a "standards compliant" NFT token that can be recognized by various explorers and marketplaces as valid. In the same way, #936 describes technical requirements that must be included in a proposed Budget Info Action in order for it to be considered as valid.

CIP-0052 literally describes purely bureaucratic composition of how dApps must submit information to auditors to be audited. A 100% off-chain process.

[adamrusch]

@rphair Apologies if this is coming off as sudden. I've been talking with others about the idea of the DRep Code of Conduct as a CIP for a while now but had not taken the steps to formalize it until I approached Mr. Dean @Crypto2099 and asked him for help with ensuring that I met the right standards. He explained that we would need to make sure to write a CPS for this to match and it that it would fit well with the Budget Process Guardrails CIP that he had been discussing with Mr. Solomon, so we worked together to bring these to the table for discussion.

I'm happy to join any CIP meeting to explain what I'm trying to do for my part, if it would be helpful and it fits within my schedule. I just want to assure the CIP editors that this was never meant to be a disruption to the system but rather a way to best facilitate the vision of Voltaire governance as I thought we were on the path to formalize it.

[rphair]

@Crypto2099 #937 (comment): It has been the intent of both the CIP and Governance processes to work together both in the roadmap and public forums for years. Arguing that we never addressed social governance in the time and era before we had on-chain governance to lend it credibility is not a valid justification to continue with "business as usual".

We have recently attempted to validate the premise that CIPs would be used for Social ("human factors") Governance before, with no evidence of any such requirement in the community. Here is the last time I publicly asked (2 months ago) for an inventory of how "CIPs [would be] used as official references for governance proposals":

• Participate in Governance: Add CIP Wiki as reference developer-portal#1317 (comment)

and here is a complete list what came up (as answered by @Ryun1 & @Hornan7, and reviewed by a few people who work with/for the CF):

• governance metadata CIPs (i.e. Governance Metadata Standards)
• governance actions for Hard Fork initiation
• protocol parameter changes

This is consistent with the highlighted phrase in the Voltaire promotional page above (written in the year 2020):

To that end, the Voltaire era will add the ability for network participants to present Cardano improvement proposals that can be voted on by stakeholders, leveraging the already existing staking and delegation process.

... since this refers to network, rather than human, behaviour.

[fallen-icarus]

As a Cardano developer, I'd seriously rather another repo be used for governance proposals. This repo should be dedicated to changes/standards for on-chain/off-chain code. Non-constitutional governance proposals are neither.

If history is anything to go by, politics is very noisy... Different interest groups can frequently create competing governance proposals which can easily overwhelm the CIP process, obfuscating any meaningful proposals to the on-chain/off-chain code. I think a separation of concerns approach is better. Having both in the same repo could also easily dissuade potential CIP editors who would rather not deal with politics; so, you would end up with politically motivated editors in charge of both on-chain/off-chain code and governance proposals. I think this would be very, very bad...

For on-chain constitution changes, it could first go through the governance proposal process in the dedicated governance repo, and then only be proposed as a CIP if it survives the politics in that repo.

EDIT: I think it is also worth mentioning that Github is likely a terrible place for governance discussions. Only coders typically have github accounts which means most of the community is unable to participate in the discussion. Unless you expect everyone to sign-up for Github...

[adamrusch]

@fallen-icarus I don't think it's a bad thing to expect people to sign up for GitHub. I've been on it about 3 years now. I'm not a developer but I'm able to get around the site pretty reasonably and I've been building my skills back up working on my CIP proposal.

Governance should not be easy - it should require people to put work and thought into proposals. I understand what you are saying about this being overwhelming to the CIP editors, so maybe there could be a way to separate them out somehow... Maybe a different section/category altogether like CGP (Cardano Governance Policy). But I guess I would ask - how do the CIP editors expect any CPS or CIPs to be considered authoritative if they go against the Cardano governance framework? If the Cardano Community votes to recognize different NFT standards, you will update your CIPs, right?

Whether we like it or not, "Technical" and "Social" are intertwined in a blockchain ecosystem like Cardano. If we don't utilize the CIP system for these Social Governance "Laws" then we will need something like it and the CIP repository will become subservient to it.

[Crypto2099]

@rphair @fallen-icarus does it make sense, in light of this "technical" vs. "non-technical" discussion to further differentiate/tag proposals? i.e. there is Governance - Technical which might cover things like on-chain metadata standards or new ledger rules or governance actions and Governance - Social which covers things that are more best-practice guidelines.

CIP Editors should never really be determining whether or not a CIP is "good" but rather whether or not it meets the editorial (i.e. spelling, format, structure) for inclusion within the repository so I don't view adding a few more pull requests as being overly burdensome to the editor body.

People who do not have interest in reviewing or implementing Social Governance standards can easily ignore those that are tagged as Governance - Social.

[fallen-icarus]

I think that is a better approach, but this discussion has made me realize I am generally biased against any kind of social governance CIP. Human nature will do what it wants regardless of what some CIP says. The only enforceable CIPs are those pertaining to code which is why I see that as the dividing line. I don't think lawyers are going to care what some CIP says about code-of-conduct. Social governance CIPs are just bloat to me, and I am concerned they will ruin a perfectly good CIP process. That is why I think they should be kept separate. (IMO CIP-0052 shouldn't have been accepted as a CIP; it reads more like a CF blog post on how to get your DApp audited...)

The above enforcement issue does not apply to code standards, like metadata standards. If I want my wallet to support NFTs, the only way to do that at scale is for NFT creators to use a standard and for me to support that standard. If I don't support the standard, I immediately lose support for those NFTs, and therefore users; likewise, if the NFT creator doesn't follow the standard, they immediately lose access to all users of my wallet. In other words, code standards are naturally self-enforced. The same cannot be said for a code-of-conduct CIP. There is no CIP for stake pool operator code-of-conduct, so why should there be one for DReps?

[Crypto2099]

There is no CIP for SPO code of conduct YET* :)

What if the Code of Conduct CIP was re-written in a way that it described fields that could be optionally included in a CIP-119 DRep registration metadata but otherwise the content was identical? This was, in my reading and opinion of the Code of Conduct CIP the logical next step that we (the technical folks) could help guide that process w/ the proposal authors rather than tell them their efforts are wasted here and go find somewhere else to discuss these things.

What is actually interesting is that these new Social Governance CIPs are actually the first to propose formal, on-chain ratification methods to be considered as accepted whereas historically the system was much more open to manipulation by, for example, me getting my CIP implemented by a variety of wallets and services even before it's merged thereby "forcing" acceptance amongst the community even if there were reservations (CIP-25 is an excellent example of do it first, get the standard adopted as the standard later).

So, I think we're solidifying towards a few key points here:

1. A CIP should propose some technical solution or standard for interacting with the blockchain
2. A CIP, particularly those involving the governance processes of the blockchain should include a ratification process that includes on-chain voting.

Please correct me if I'm wrong

[fallen-icarus]

What if the Code of Conduct CIP was re-written in a way that it described fields that could be optionally included in a CIP-119 DRep registration metadata but otherwise the content was identical?

👍 That would check my box.

What is actually interesting is that these new Social Governance CIPs are actually the first to propose formal, on-chain ratification methods ... (CIP-25 is an excellent example of do it first, get the standard adopted as the standard later).

I'd hesitate on using votes for most CIPs. I think the CIP-25 example is actually a problem with the "acceptance criteria". Wallet adoption should not be considered valid criteria; user adoption is what matters. If a wallet supports a CIP feature, but no one uses the feature, why should the CIP be considered accepted? The transparency of the blockchain makes it trivial to check how many users are actually using the new feature.

A vote is just as problematic as "wallet adoption". Consider a CIP that the community thinks it needs and votes in favor of it; but after the CIP gets implemented, some previously unknown trade-offs are discovered and most users avoid it. I would argue this CIP should be deprecated despite the community voting in favor of it. Are we going to have another vote just to deprecate it? User behavior is what ultimately matters and it adjusts faster than votes. Unnecessarily voting on CIPs would handicap Cardano's development. IMO voting on technical CIPs should only be used for contentious CIPs.

1. A CIP should propose some technical solution or standard for interacting with the blockchain.
   -- emphasis mine

Yes. People interact with each other through the blockchain, and CIPs should only streamline/secure this interaction (eg, by making information easily queryable with standardized metadata).

2. A CIP, particularly those involving the governance processes of the blockchain should include a ratification process that includes on-chain voting.

As I explained above, IMO most CIPs should not involve a vote. Users implicitly vote by choosing whether or not to use the new feature. Voting is a tool that should only be used when absolutely necessary. Otherwise, you run the risk of desensitizing the community to votes since most votes would be meaningless. Does the community really need to vote to add the new metadata fields to CIP-119? Or to merge CIP-129?

[TerminadaPool]

I am concerned that including governance discussions in with technical CIPs/CPSs is going to significantly increase the load and make things overwhelming.

Currently, I see the CIPs/CPSs as highly technical and mostly the discussions are around finding the best technical solution amongst the technical trade-offs.

On the other hand, I worry that, by their nature, social governance discussions will likely involve value trade-offs and thus require more community input because different people value things differently. Consequently, I would assume that social governance discussions would require more input from DReps and other community interested people to debate about what values should be elevated over other values. I also assume that such social governance issues will be more likely to require voting to ascertain community support.

For these reasons, I think it would be better to separate the social governance discussions to a different platform, even if just a separate GitHub account, because the people involved in the discussions will likely be different to the ones involved in CIP/CPS discussions. Though, obviously there will be overlap with some people wanting to be involved in both types of discussions.

[johnshearing]

The community has been using the Governance section of the Cardano Forum for many years with good success. Why not continue the governance discussion there leaving the CIPs and CPSs for code related issues?

[Crypto2099]

@johnshearing because there is no concept of permanence on a forum, nor the ability to "canonize" and ratify the difference between an "accepted" or "adopted" standard and one that is simply proposed. The CIP process already gives us:

• The document structure and layout
• The granular document history to identify changes to the document over time
• The editorial body to aid in formatting and steering the conversation
• The "path to active" as well as automated inclusion in standards websites such as https://developers.cardano.org/docs/governance/cardano-improvement-proposals/CIP-0001

[johnshearing]

Thanks @Crypto2099

@Crypto2099 writes:

because there is no concept of permanence on a forum...

My first post on the Cardano forum goes back to Jan of 2018.
That seems pretty permanent.
Why is anything on github is more permanent?
Yes, you can back it up but, it's still hosted by a centralized entity.
So it's permanent until the host decides it's not, just the same as the forum.

Perhaps we should have a repository for governance proposals which is truly decentralized, immutable and built to manage governance proposals and debate - not something built to manage coding issues.
This section of Beemocracy discuses one possible implementation of which there must be many.

@Crypto2099 writes:

...nor the ability to "canonize" and ratify the difference between an "accepted" or "adopted" standard and one that is simply proposed.

Github is not built for governance. It was built to manage code and to discuss code changes. If GitHub was built for governance then we would not have needed CIP 1694 and the Chang Hardfork. Rather we would just canonize and ratify everything here.

I can use my computer for a hammer, but I will not drive nails efficiently, and worse, I will break my computer.
We have the same issue here. Yes, you can use the CIP process on GitHub as a forum for governance, but you will not govern efficiently and you will break the CIP process for managing coding issues.

There is a substantial amount of ADA in the treasury - more than enough to build a truly decentralized and immutable platform for governance proposals and debate which will dovetail into our actual voting mechanism. If we solve this problem for ourselves, then our community can market the solution to the rest of the world.

We are the Cardano Community.
Immutable, and decentralized solutions is what we do.

[rphair]

@Crypto2099 #937 (comment): The CIP process already gives us: ...

It is true the CIP process gives us {structure, change-tracking, editors, syndication} but these are simply the non-unique result of:

1. using GitHub, which even admittedly nontechnical newcomer to the CIP process @adamrusch agrees in New Category: Governance #937 (comment) is a reasonable entry requirement, and so could be expected of others only interested in social governance;
2. focus, attention to detail, and experience applied through 4+ years toward the refinement of a process of collaborative document authorship and peer review: which have produced a template that can now be used for similar standardisation and review efforts.

So it would be a mistake to assume that the CIP repository is the only place the above set of 4 things can exist. It would be possible and sensible to "jump start" a Social Governance conventions & propositions repository (perhaps following @adamrusch's name suggestion in #937 (comment) of CGP vs. CIP) with:

• document templates easily adapted & specialised from those used in the CIP process;
• a revised flow diagram (see https://github.com/cardano-foundation/CIPs/wiki/301.-State-tagging#state-flow-diagram) appropriate to these "CGPs", which governance advocates can observe would have a life cycle substantially different from CIPs and CPSs;
• a process document like we already have with CIP-0001 (written for technical standards), adapted & extended according to additional requirements for:
  • documentation of human factors, economic interests, and a far broader consensus for acceptance; and
  • responsibilities for "adjudication" — which we would never have for technical standards, since there is no notion here of "law" or "consequence" as erroneously suggested by @adamrusch in this comment about law and this comment about authority;
• adapted conventions for maintaining a body of reviewers / editors / adjudicators for these Social Governance propositions: a population which, anyone can see from the discussion above, would be substantially different from those who have expressed interest, skill, and transparency in maintaining our technical standards.

This matter is being collectively reviewed by seasoned CIP authors, reviewers and implementors as introduced here in the CIP Discord (invite link), where I've attempted to summarise the motivation in this response:

Opening the door to CIPs stipulating rules over money and influence... especially since merging them will not require governance vote over desirability or constitutionality... is likely to attract a deluge of such proposals and would therefore require additional CIP editors to handle the workload just from "social governance" and create two factions of editors: the ones who have maintained & will still maintain the technical standards, and the ones who arrive for the governance component.

It makes more sense therefore, from the beginning (since we would have that separation anyway), to keep the social governance propositions on a separate "forum" (in your words) or repository, where those moderators or maintainers can focus on unique governance matters of acceptance & adjudication of those rules... likely not only to be a substantial workload, but also specialised toward those interests & therefore a need best met by specialised moderators & editors with relevant skills, interests, and accountability.

I can personally confirm that the launch of such a repository would have generous support from experienced CIP editors. I also would support the participation of @Crypto2099 as a key representative of both bodies, and therefore would anticipate a rapid adaptation of the currently suggested Social Governance proposals among those linked here (#937 (comment)) according to the presumed needs of the Cardano community.

---

The remaining need for a Governance category would likely still need some robust qualification, and so it should both:

1. ideally have a separate CIP written for it — with @Ryun1's contribution I would think, plus my own & other editors' help as necessary — regarding common elements of technical / metadata / linguistic standards for Governance, and how these are distinct from Social Governance (which would likely be impossible to create a "standards" document for);
2. be extended to cover loosely categorised proposals referred to in the original comment above: particularly "audit" type proposals like CIP-0052 which characterise human responsibilities in technical processes (as opposed to Social Governance = human responsibilities in human processes).

[rphair]

Discussion of this issue at the CIP meeting today recalled our plan made at the previous meeting (2 weeks ago) to create ASAP a Governance category CIP according to the guidelines at the end of the previous comment (though these guidelines should still be considered subject to review). The link to that draft has been shared in the editors' channel and our goal will be to cooperatively draft & post a PR with this content by the end of the month.