Civics Meeting Minutes July 17, 2025

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Jul 17, 2025 | Cardano Civics Committee

Attendees:

Name	Attendance	Role	Voting Seat (Y/N)
Larisa Mcfarlane	Yes	Secretary	N
Nicolas Cerny,	Yes	Chair	Y
Ken-Erik O	Yes	Member	Y
Nana Safo	Yes	Member	Y
Alex Seregin	Yes	Member	Y
Randy	Yes	Member	Y
Thomas Lindseth	Yes	Intersect	N
Tim Richmond	Yes	Intersect	N
Pedro Lucas	Partial	Observer	N
Taichi Yokoyama	No	Member	Y
Reshan Fernando	No	Member	Y
Daniela Alves	No	Member	Y
Takeshi Ohishi	No	Member	Y

Recording: CIVICS Committee (Intersect) Mtg - 2025/07/17 13:47 BST - Recording

Transcript: CIVICS Committee (Intersect) Mtg - 2025/07/17 13:47 BST - Transcript

Intros/COI

Nicolas: Civics Committee Chair

Larisa: Civics Committee Secretary

Agenda 17th June 2025

Item	Activity
1	Welcome - Chair
2	Intersect Steering Committee (ISC) Rule: Committee Member Standing
3	ISC Rule Summary Slide – Process
4	Ratify Civics Roadmap
5	Appoint Working Group Leads
6	CC Election Working Group – Update Planning
7	Socials Scheduler
8	AOB & Close

Decisions/Actions

Decisions:

• Approve H2 2025 Roadmap: The committee formally voted to approve the roadmap for the second half of 2025. The roadmap's two primary objectives are to foster governance health and deliver governance education.

• Establish New Working Groups: The committee approved the creation of two dedicated working groups to execute the roadmap: the "Governance Health Working Group" and the "Governance Education Working Group."

• Adopt Inactivity Policy: The committee formally adopted the new Intersect Steering Committee (ISC) approved policy for managing member inactivity, which outlines a clear 8-week process before a member can be dismissed.

Actions (either taken or committed to):

• Publish Explanation for Treasury Withdrawal Issue: Tim committed to publishing a blog post to clarify the technical issue with the Cardano Signer verification and to provide clear instructions for DReps on how to proceed with voting.

• Submit Roadmap to Intersect Board: Nico will draft an email to the Intersect Board, with the committee copied, to formally submit the approved roadmap for final approval.

• Staff New Working Groups (All Members): All committee members are tasked with considering which of the two new working groups they will join. A tentatively expressed interest in leading the Governance Education group.

• Inform Absent Members of Decisions: Nico will update committee members who could not attend the meeting about the approved roadmap and the new working groups to ensure they have a chance to get involved.

• Carry Over Agenda Items and Share Links: Larisa will carry over any undiscussed topics to the next meeting's agenda and will post relevant links in the committee's Discord channel.

Topic	Discussion	Notes
Opening & Welcome	The meeting was initiated with informal greetings.
Treasury Withdrawals & Verification Issue	Chair discussed a delay in the 39 treasury withdrawals due to an issue with Cardano Signer, which is used to verify the authorship of the governance actions via a public key. One action was submitted but showed an author verification issue in the GovTools UI. This was being addressed and fixed currently.	A technical issue with Cardano Signer is causing a delay in submitting 38 of the 39 treasury withdrawals. One withdrawal is live but has a verification error.
Impact on DReps and Committees	Nana questioned how DReps and the Constitutional Committee should handle the unverified treasury action. Nicolas clarified that the metadata is immutable (IPFS) but can be verified manually. He also stated it's not a constitutional issue as there's no rule about authorship verification.	The metadata cannot be updated. An announcement will be made on how to manually verify the single affected governance action. The issue does not make the action unconstitutional.
Communications Plan	Tim confirmed a release blog will be published to explain the situation to the wider community and DReps. The goal is to ensure all governance actions are given the same voting timeframe, even if they don't end simultaneously.	A blog post is prepared to explain the technical issue and the next steps for DRep voting.
Committee Member Inactivity Policy	Larisa presented the new, formalized ISC-approved policy for committee member inactivity. The process involves reminders and notifications over an 8-week period of non-participation before a vote of no confidence and dismissal.	A standardized, multi-stage process for handling inactive committee members has been implemented across all Intersect committees, effective July 14, 2025.
ISC Meeting Updates	Nicolas summarized key discussions from the Intersect Steering Committee (ISC), including the treasury withdrawals and the upcoming Intersect Board election.	The Intersect Board will expand from five to seven members, with four being community-elected.
Board Election Details	Nicolas explained that the Intersect Board will now have a community-elected majority (4 of 7 seats). The ISC is defining the application process, with applications expected to open in August and the election in September.	The community will gain two additional seats on the Intersect Board, leading to a community majority.
Civics Committee Roadmap Discussion	The committee reviewed the proposed roadmap. Nicolas highlighted the addition of a "Why" section and better formatting. The two main objectives are fostering governance health and creating a governance education framework.	The proposed roadmap focuses on two key objectives for H2 2025. The third objective from workshops (Constitution 2.0) was deprioritized due to bandwidth limitations.
DRep Productivity & Metrics	Alex raised a point about finding better, more holistic ways to measure DRep productivity beyond simple metrics like rationale submissions, suggesting a need to consider the effort involved and prevent "hacking" the system.	The discussion emphasized the need for meaningful metrics for the "DRep Health Dashboard" that go beyond simple numbers and consider factors like sentiment and potential burnout.
Roadmap & Working Group Approval	With five voting members present, the committee reached a quorum. Nicolas called a vote to approve the roadmap document for submission to the Intersect Board. The vote passed unanimously.	The committee formally approved the H2 2025 roadmap.
Creation of New Working Groups	Following the roadmap approval, Nicolas proposed the creation of two working groups: the Governance Health Working Group (for objective 1) and the Governance Education Working Group (for objective 2). The committee voted and unanimously approved the creation of both groups.	Two new working groups were established to execute the approved roadmap objectives.
Call for Working Group Leadership	In the final minutes, members were encouraged to consider leading or participating in the newly formed working groups. Alex expressed tentative interest in leading the Governance Education group.	The next step is to staff the working groups.