Proposal for Assigning the Cancel Role to the Obol Association

Obol-Association · June 19, 2025, 9:31pm

Proposal Title: Proposal for Assigning the Cancel Role to the Obol Association

Status: [Final]

Proposal Type: Protocol Upgrades

Abstract

This proposal informs the community that the Obol Association will assign the cancel function in the Governor contract to a small governance committee. This committee will have a narrow and procedural mandate: to act when a proposal has been posted onchain without following the established governance process.

The committee will be composed of three members: one from the Obol Association, one from Obol Labs, and one trusted delegate. It will operate via a 2-of-3 multisig, and any action taken will be accompanied by a public rationale posted on the forum.

While this is a small, procedural committee, it is also intended to lay the foundation for further decentralising this instance. Over time, as the scope of work expands, this body will evolve into a broader and more decentralized council with additional responsibilities and delegate-elected seats. Additional responsibilities will be voted on by the delegates. For now, however, the limited scope of this role does not justify the overhead of running formal delegate elections, and the focus remains on enabling efficient procedural enforcement.

Motivation

Governance participation in the Obol Collective relies on legitimacy and clarity. However, we have seen an instance where a proposal that did not follow the proper process was still posted to the voting portal and ultimately reached the onchain record despite a lack of community support. This creates three major issues:

It pollutes the public governance history with misleading or unserious proposals;
It confuses newcomers who may interpret rejected or low-quality proposals as representative of the DAO’s direction;
It weakens quorum dynamics by introducing noise that drains delegate attention.

To prevent these outcomes, the DAO needs a mechanism that allows for procedural enforcement of its own governance rules. Assigning the cancel role to a small committee provides this enforcement capacity in a controlled and transparent way.

This is not a mechanism for censorship. It exists solely to uphold process integrity. All uses of the cancel function will be accompanied by a clear and timely rationale published on the forum.

While this initial committee is appointed directly by the Association, it is not meant to remain static. Over time, and as its responsibilities expand, this committee is expected to evolve into a larger instance, with:

A broader mission,
More members,
And delegate-elected seats.

At that stage, elections and more formal processes will be introduced. For now, however, the limited scope does not warrant the coordination overhead of running a full election process.

Specifications

Cancel Role Assignment

The cancel function in the Governor contract will be assigned to a 2-of-3 multisig controlled by a small governance committee.
Initial members:
- One representative from the Obol Association,
- One from Obol Labs ,
- One trusted delegate, appointed by the Association.
The committee is only empowered to act when a proposal does not follow the required governance process, as defined in the governance documentation.
Any use of the cancel function will be:
- Strictly limited to procedural violations,
- Accompanied by a public forum post explaining the rationale for cancellation.

Resubmission Cooling Period

If a proposal fails two onchain votes in a row (even after rework), it will be ineligible for resubmission for 5 governance cycles, or approximately 3.5 months (based on the current 3-week cycle length).
This is intended to reduce spam and delegate fatigue while still allowing proposers to rework ideas.
However, the topic itself is not permanently blocked. The committee will have discretion to assess whether a revised submission is substantially different from prior versions. If the changes are meaningful, earlier resubmission may be allowed.
This policy will be documented in the governance guidelines.

Execution

The cancel role will be assigned to a 2-of-3 multisig governed by the designated committee. This will be implemented by granting the existing CANCEL_ROLE on the Timelock contract to the multisig.
No contract upgrade is required, as the role already exists and can be assigned via a standard governance proposal.
For now, the current design is sufficient to uphold procedural safeguards, and represents a meaningful first step. The Obol Association will support the committee operationally, and improvements can be proposed over time as governance matures.

cp0x · June 20, 2025, 11:48pm

We find it great that a proposal is being introduced to combat spam, but we believe the method being proposed is debatable, and here’s our alternative suggestion

1. The Cancel Role

The only serious argument worth discussing is the potential for scam proposals that could mislead or harm the community.

For that, the Cancel role might be justified - but handing it over to the Obol team is, in my view, the wrong move. Centralizing this power opens the door to proposal censorship.

Instead, this role should be community-governed through elections.

I suggest forming a council composed of elected delegates and representatives from the Obol Association and Obol Labs - with the delegates forming the majority.

For example:

3 DAO-elected delegates,
1 from the Obol Association
1 from Obol Labs.

This structure ensures that all stakeholders are fairly represented:

If a proposal is truly malicious, all DAO members will oppose it, and the vote will be canceled.
Obol Labs can offer technical and security expertise.
Most importantly, this prevents the Cancel tool from being misused against the community and fosters true decentralization.

2. Cooldown Period

Reduce the cooldown period for re-submitting proposals from 9 months to 1.5 months.

In crypto, 9 months is a lifetime — most proposals become outdated or irrelevant long before that.
The long 9-month cooldown actually creates an incentive to bypass the system: if someone strongly believes in a proposal, they’ll simply reword and resubmit it under a different name to avoid the delay. But with a shorter 1.5-month cooldown, people are more likely to revise and improve their original proposal transparently, instead of trying to sneak it in as something new. This approach reduces duplication, encourages iteration, and keeps the process honest
We already have the Cancel role to prevent spam and abuse, which makes an extended delay redundant.
Since votes are held only once every 3 weeks, allowing resubmissions after 1.5 months — essentially two cycles — won’t overload the community. It strikes a better balance between preventing noise and enabling progress

jengajojo_daoplomats · June 25, 2025, 1:43pm

I’m in favor of this approach, since it is a good way to align incentives while progressing towards decentralisation.

Infact this is standard practice. Is there any specific reason why the foundation opted to not go with the council approach?

zwanzger.eth · June 25, 2025, 3:56pm

I see the role as beneficial to have, but agree to structure it as a council/multi-sig.
Not sure about the details, as to be effective, cancellations should happen relatively quickly, so maybe something like a 3-of-5.
Then the suggested weights might not always work, but the role is mainly for optics/clarity, so not too critical.
With regards to phrasing, I’d be changing the “specifically” to “at the moment” since the government process might change over time.

Regarding the cool-down, I’d suggest a shorter period of ~2-5 cycles.

Stakesaurus · June 26, 2025, 3:33pm

I think that these narrow joint criteria are sufficient to allow the Association to cancel proposals that do not follow the required governance process. To prevent censorship, we can additionally allow delegates to veto over a 1.5-week time period.

My rationale is that spam filtration should incur minimal overheads from all parties.

stefa2k · June 27, 2025, 5:35am

This is necessary to prevent a single entity blocking proposals. I’d extend on this and suggest that proposals to make changes to the council (add/remove members) are not being able to be blocked by the council itself.

In this case a proposal without meeting the formal requirements but enough votes would still pass. It also runs down the purpose of such a council. It would then only become a more visible opinion.

I also agree with the others to lower the cooling period. I’m leaning towards 2 to 5 governance cycles, as @zwanzger.eth already lined out, that’s a great call.

Speaking of implementation: I’d love to see a SAFE for this. I didn’t see any implementation efforts (Tally?) to cover other expenses of this OIP, I would suggest (even if there are no efforts) to make this clear in the proposal and how members of the council are expected to vote and execute (e.g. SAFE).

Leo-ObolAssoc · June 27, 2025, 9:34am

Heads up — we’ve just updated the proposal following the feedback received.

Two key changes:

The cancel role will now be assigned to a 2-of-3 committee composed of one Association member, one Labs member, and one delegate. This committee will operate through a multisig to ensure procedural safeguards are enforced transparently.
We’ve reduced the resubmission cooling period to 5 governance cycles (from 10), based on community input that the previous timeframe was too long.

We want to emphasize that this committee is not yet a full Security Council — it’s a first, minimal step to give the Association the means to uphold its governance steward role when needed. The scope is narrow, purely procedural, and designed for fast action if necessary.

Over time, as the responsibilities grow, this committee is expected to evolve into a formal, decentralized Security Council, with more delegate seats and elections. But for now, the overhead of formal elections is disproportionate to the committee’s very limited mandate. This proposal strikes a balance: it enforces process, builds in co-signing and accountability, and includes delegate representation from the start.

zwanzger.eth · June 27, 2025, 3:46pm

Delegate feedback has mostly been incorporated and context and future thinking makes sense, so I plan to vote in favor and:
I am an Obol Delegate Tally profile with sufficient voting power, and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

stefa2k · June 27, 2025, 4:03pm