OpenGov Accountability Checklists

(Cross-post from the Polkadot Forum)

OpenGov has been criticized for enforcing little accountability for proposers.

To counteract this trend, we have developed a set of "Accountability Checklists" that we suggest to be applied for all proposals of the spender tracks. That is, above 10k DOT (currently 70k USD).

You can find the checklists here: OpenGov.Watch - Accountability

YOU create accountability

The idea of these checklists is that anyone (yes, YOU!) can use them to check if OpenGov proposals "check out" on those criteria and if you, to follow up with proposers and make them fulfill the criteria.

OpenGov is only as good as you make it, and this is your handy guide to make it happen by asking proposers simple questions, e.g. "So where will you provide project updates and how often?"

The checklists

Currently, there are 4 checklists in the document:

• Basic Accountability Checklist - You can apply this checklist for any proposal
• Bounty Checklist - An additional checklist for bounties. Currently focused on curators
• Software Development checklist - Some basic questions to ensure we get good, reusable, cost-efficient software products
• Marketing Checklist - targeted to create transparency around content proposals

Moving forward

These checklists are only the beginning. From here on out, we can start to improve them and add additional checklists for other categories (e.g. for incentives/loans, BD, educational initiatives, etc). The checklists strive to be aligned with the Treasury Reporting Standards (Website, Forum Thread) and the Strategy (Website, Forum Thread).

These checklists are only as good as their usage. So we will work with stakeholders like Governance Forums (like AAG, Subsquare, and Polkassembly) to make them available and visible.

Any feedback in this thread is welcome and will be integrated.