The voting members of the Synapse neuron are a diverse cross section of the IC community that includes end users, investors, developers, and DFINITY team members. We are committed to voting according to the policies outlined below.

1. We vote on all Governance proposals.

   1. • It's ok for individuals to miss voting on proposals occasionally, but not if the vote is needed in order for the Synapse neuron to cast a vote. It is a core principle that our neuron will always vote, which means it is critical that each voting member is willing to cast a vote.

      • Abstain is not a vote option for our neuron in the NNS. Hence, it is not acceptable for individuals to Abstain from a vote based on principle if our neuron needs the vote.

2. We vote manually and with our own convictions on each proposal.

   1. • We are interested in thought leadership and intellectual honesty of each individual voting member. We each do our own research on the proposal topics and participate in conversations about the proposal, but we cast our votes according to what we individually believe is best and we are willing to stand behind it.

      • There is no Synapse opinion on proposals. Our neuron votes according to the majority opinion of the individual voting members.

3. We publicly disclose the neuron ID of our individual voting neurons.

   1. • Our names and neuron IDs are disclosed on this website.

      • We may use publicly recognized pseudonyms instead of real world names.

      • As a best practice, we typically choose to use a neuron ID that ensures privacy between our public and private neurons.

      • We follow a verification process to prove that we actually control the neuron that we claim is our individual public voting neuron.

      • Publicly disclosing our voting neuron ID is not optional. We want to be transparent to the public about who we are and how we vote.

4. We have a presence in the IC community and we engage in governance deliberation.

   1. • We are free to fulfill this obligation in any format we choose, via any social media outlet we choose, and as often as we choose.

      • We present opinions as our own instead of the Synapse neuron since each of us are only 1 voting member out of (up to) 15 voting members.

5. We are free to begin deliberation or make any proposal

   1. • The merits of proposals made by individual voting members will be evaluated by all voting members of the Synapse neuron in the same way as all other proposals.

      • There is no such thing as a Synapse proposal. We do not present our individual proposals as a Synapse proposal or claim that it is endorsed by the Synapse neuron.

6. We have a private Telegram group that we use for neuron management.

   1. • Each voting member is expected to join this Telegram group.

      • This helps us avoid having to communicate to voting members via multiple DM channels.

Voting Members for the Synapse neuron are elected by existing voting members of the Synapse neuron.

The Neuron Owner configures the Synapse neuron according to instructions provided by the Voting Members.

The current neuron owner is Wenzel Bartlett because he was elected and approved by the Voting Members. While he is able to exercise full control over the neuron, his intentions are to exercise that control based on the decisions made by the Voting Members. This includes adding and removing Voting Members and all decisions on how to configure the neuron with Followees. It is anticipated that DFINITY Foundation will make it possible to Manage Neuron through the NNS dApp in the future. When that feature becomes available, full control over the management of the neuron will be handed over to the Voting Members. In the meantime, all Voting Members will be published in this policy document so anyone in the IC ecosystem will be able to validate that the neuron votes for every proposal according to the published Followees. A website that will provide this functionality is CrowdGov.org.