So I recently realised that the processes for these weren’t really written down anywhere, despite me having a fairly good idea of what they look like at this point. This can serve as the guide for the time being.

Domain Teams

The domain teams have the authority to put up emergency polls or executives related to their domain if, in their evaluation, there are risks to the protocol if they do not do so. This should be accompanied by a forum post explaining the rationale behind the action.

@Risk-Core-Unit : Able to trigger polls or executives if there is a risk to the protocol related to the risk domain.

@Smart-Contracts: Able to trigger polls or executives if there is a risk to the protocol related to the smart contracts domain.

@Oracles: Able to trigger polls or executives if there is a risk to the protocol related to the oracles domain.

Governance Facilitators and the Community

The Governance Facilitators have the authority to trigger polls or executives proposed by the community, if in their evaluation:

• There is a good reason to make the change more swiftly than following previous governance processes.
• There is sufficient community backing behind the change.

In practice this is more open to interpretation than the other domains and requires the facilitators to make a call on community sentiment. This is far from ideal, and should be avoided whenever possible.

In my mind the best way to handle potential controversy arising from these decisions is to set strict requirements ahead of time. Currently, these requirements are as follows:

In order for the community to make an emergency change to a system parameter a signal request must reach a 50% majority and have a reasonable quorum of voters given recent participation. Currently, the required quorum is 40 voters.

In order for the community to make a change outside of the existing system parameters, a signal request must reach a 66% majority and have a reasonable quorum of voters given recent participation. Currently, the required quorum is 40 voters.

Any emergency signals must adhere to the practical guide 4 as closely as possible given the circumstances for the change.

Ultimately, the governance facilitators will make the call as to whether the community or external actors have attempted to abuse or game these requirements when determining whether a poll or executive is warranted.

Maker Foundation

The Foundation will probably act to defend the protocol if anything catastrophic happens, this may include disregarding the above restrictions and putting up executives or polls to make time-sensitive changes. This has happened in the past, and may happen in the future.

I would advise that the community and domain teams do everything they can to prevent this being necessary, though. If it does happen, it represents a failure of the DAO to resolve critical issues in a timely manner without needing to lean on a centralized entity.