Name next HF Hosky

Governance info action “Name the next hard fork HOSKY Hard Fork” 15f82a365bdee483a4b03873a40d3829cc88c048ff3703e11bd01dd9e035c916#0

Summary

The info action poll for calling Chang hf+1 HOSKY hard fork is constitutional.

Understanding of facts

The format of the proposal is valid.

The Intersect Constitutional Council (CC) notes that the proposal is not currently fully viewable in govtools with data missing. This is due to a limitation with the current GovTool. Intersect CC believes the proposal is still constitutional in terms of a valid format for the proposal. It is an info action per technical standards of CIP-1694 and Article 3 Section 5 of the interim Constitution. IPFS is a standardized and legible format. The document has a url and a hash for the off-chain content. It is currently not a constitutional requirement to follow a specific standard, say CIP-100 or CIP-108, and the requirements of verifying an unedited document can still be achieved with the document hash. There are currently no established routines for what supporting material is needed for the naming of a hard fork and thus the question is only whether it meets the standards for sufficient rationale.

The type of info action is a poll for sentiment

The Intersect CC notes that the text is worded as a proposal, hence the phrase "I propose." This use of natural language indicates to the reader that the text is putting a suggestion forward for others to consider. The Intersect CC understands this info action to be a poll for community sentiment. The info action is not binding on-chain as CIP-1694. Article 3 Section 5 of the Cardano interim Constitution identifies the info action as a special type of governance action that allows community sentiment to be gauged without committing to any on-chain change. As for any subsequent governance actions and the binding effect of the info action on them, the Intersect CC notes that there is no specific mention of requirements for naming of hard forks in the interim Constitution. It is up to the community to establish such processes or define them in a final Constitution.

The role of the Constitutional Committee is not to express its sentiment on an info action, but to vote on its constitutionality

Another question raised about the facts is: if the info action is a poll for sentiment, does that sentiment polling also extend to the Constitutional Committee itself? Article 6 Section 1 expresses that "The Constitutional Committee shall be limited to voting on the constitutionality of governance actions". It is therefore the understanding of the Intersect CC that if an info action is a poll for sentiment it is not a poll for sentiment from the Intersect CC, but a vote on whether the info action is constitutional or not.

Rationale

The question for the Intersect CC is what is sufficient rationale for an info action sentiment poll on naming a hard fork for it to be constitutional?

A minimal standard of sufficient for all governance actions related to the Cardano Blockchain in article 3 section 6.

A natural language interpretation of "Sufficient rationale shall be provided to justify the requested change to the Cardano Blockchain". in Article 3 Section 6 means this standard relates to actual on-chain changes to the Cardano blockchain itself.

However, a wider interpretation has a more pragmatic merit in that all actions related to the Cardano blockchain that has any effect on the blockchain should have sufficient standards - for example, if the naming of a hard fork is universally and objectively offensive eg, "torture person X", therefore damaging the legitimacy of Cardano, or seen as damaging the intended function of the info action as a polling method it might violate a wider interpretation. Because of this, even when no technical or process standards are established, there are still minimal constitutional standards a governance action should be tested against.

Info actions that could have a binding effect on further governance actions

There is an example in the interim Constitution for treasury withdrawals - in Appendix I Section 3 treasury-04 where a threshold of 50% for active stake of DReps voting yes is required for a budget for treasury withdrawals to be able to be ratified.

This threshold could be reached by a previous info action on a budget and is an example of an info action having a binding effect for a subsequent governance action, as it could be used for the requirement in the treasury-04 guardrail. In terms of this being a requirement for the naming of a hard fork there is currently no regulation on the process in the interim Constitution and thus there is no higher threshold or standard other than any minimum standards such as discussed above.

The rationale given is sufficient

In the proposal the rationale given is "Saying Chang-1, Chang-2, Chang+1 is confusing for users and media. Call the next hard fork HOSKY Hard Fork for the sake of clarity."

This meets the minimum standard as the name proposed is not objectively offensive and does not violate the Cardano interim Constitution. There are no technical standards this naming proposal needs to fulfill. There are currently no established routines for any thresholds of info actions binding future governance actions related to naming hard forks in the interim Constitution. There is also no established process giving requirements for type of arguments or rationale for such an info action of a hard fork name.

Based on this it is concluded that the rationale given is sufficient.

Precedent discussion

Hard forks, development phases and ledger eras on Cardano have had names. During the Alanzo ledger era Cardano had an inter-era hard fork with no name during the Goguen phase (See CIP 0059 for a table of the hardforks). Two recent hard forks have been named after a community member in memory of Vasil Stoyanov Dabov or Cardano researchers in memory of Phil Chang. The process for naming hard forks during participatory governance has not yet been established.

Conclusion

The rationale given meets the minimum standards of the Interim Constitution for a rationale for an info action poll. The info action is constitutional.