---
# System prepended metadata

title: Off-Chain Governance

---

---
title: Off-Chain Governance
order: 3
hideLanguageSelector: true
keywords: "makerdao, maker, governance, on-chain, off-chain"
description: "A guide to off-chain governance in the Maker ecosystem."
---

# Off-Chain Governance

Off-chain governance supports on-chain governance by providing a process for gathering feedback prior to proposing on-chain votes and making decisions that don't require on-chain voting.

## Forum Signal Threads

Forum Signal Thread occur in the MakerDAO [forum](https://forum.makerdao.com/) to measure the sentiment of the public governance community.

Anyone can create a signal thread to get feedback on their ideas to take action on an issue or improve the MakerDAO community.

Forum Signal Threads are used to:

- Measure community sentiment about issues affecting the MakerDAO ecosystem.

- Determine consensus that something needs to be done in response to a perceived issue.

- Determine consensus for a concrete action to be taken in response to a perceived issue.

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We suggest starting with the [Semi-Formal Signal Guidelines](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/signaling-guidelines/223)

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Signal threads may contain one or more polls as determined by the original poster of the thread and issues may have one or more signal threads relating to them. Consider creating a summary thread if you happen to see this arise.

A basic example of a Forum Signal Thread can be found [here](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/signal-request-should-we-increase-the-scd-debt-ceiling/506)

### Forum Signal Threads vs Forum Polls

A Forum Signal Thread is created with the intention of gathering consensus around an issue and moving that issue to an on-chain Governance Poll.

Forum polls can be used to measure community sentiment about anything and their use is encouraged. There are no guidelines on the general use of forum polls other than courtesy and common sense.

### Active Forum Polls

Once a forum signal thread has been active for several weeks and voted on by a reasonable number of community members, the creator of the signal thread will decide whether to refine the signal thread and post a new one or request that the Governance Facilitator push it to an on-chain governance poll.

If the Governance Facilitator agrees that the issue outlined in the signal thread\(s\) is ready to go on-chain, then the Governance Facilitator will create an on-chain Governance Poll in the form specified by the community consensus created in the signal thread\(s\).
