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Referendum Alert: Real-Time OpenGov Vote Notifications on Telegram

inSmall Spender
29 days ago
Rejected

This proposal requests funding to support the development of Referendum Alert, an open-source Telegram bot that delivers instant notifications when new votes are cast on Kusama and Polkadot referenda.

🌐️ https://www.referendum-alert.com/
🐦 https://x.com/ReferendumAlert
🤖 https://github.com/Grahovacc/ReferendumAlert

The bot addresses a core gap in OpenGov: governance participants currently need to refresh explorers or Polkassembly to track sentiment changes. Since most discussions and coordination happen directly in Telegram groups, a native alert system inside chats is essential. Referendum Alert brings vote events into Telegram in real time, making governance more transparent and easier to follow.

Current Capabilities

Referendum Alert is already live and in use:

-          Tracks any referendum by ID using /watch <id> [dot|ksm]

-          Works in private and group chats

-          Polls every minute with de-duplication

-          Shows:

•         Vote direction (aye/nay/abstain)

•         Voting power (calculated from amount × conviction)

•         Address of the voter

•         Timestamp in UTC

-          Fully open source

Important: Identity is not enabled yet. Alerts currently show only the account address of the voter. Identity resolution will be added in the next phase of development funded by this proposal.

TaskTimeCost
Retroactive development (infrastructure, commands, database, vote fetching)30h2400
Identity implementation10h800
Referendum Alert frontend (Retroactive)8h640
Design-300
Total cost:46h4140


Planned Features & Next Steps

Identity Integration

  • Resolve on-chain identities
  • Display names with judgement status in alerts
  • Fallback to address when no identity exists

Daily Governance Digest

  • Automatically generate a summary each day instead of only sending individual alerts
  • Per-referendum stats:
    • Number of Aye / Nay / Abstain votes that day
    • Top voters by power
    • Current sentiment (e.g., “56% Aye”)
  • Delivered as a single message at a set time (e.g., end of day)

Future Dashboard Module

  • “Top voter summary” mode for group chats
  • Simple summaries of referendum trends
  • Potential integration with Polkassembly metadata

This proposal ensures Referendum Alert becomes a reliable governance utility across Kusama and Polkadot.

⚠️ UPDATE:

Identity support is now live!

Votes now display the name tied to the account if the user has an on-chain identity. If not, it defaults to the address. The next step is improving how alerts are grouped so chats don’t get flooded with separate messages.

Comments (9)

28 days ago

Honestly a very good idea needed for quite some time. Make sure to verify your identity and this might be worth considering.
Some rough idea of the costs of the next steps should be beneficial as well. Since this is Kusama, a clear cut budget for such project shouldn't be that necesesary but certainly it would be a plus. Also consider moving operations to Polkadot as Kusama currently lacks a real role within the ecosystem.

28 days ago

Hi @SAXEMBERG 

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

I’ll make sure to verify my identity and include a breakdown of the next development costs. The bot already works for both Polkadot and Kusama, and I agree that Polkadot adoption will be important going forward. Kusama is great for testing and fast iteration, so I’m starting here and then plan is to expand further on Polkadot.

27 days ago

Dear Proposer,

Thank you for your proposal. Our first vote on this proposal is ABSTAIN. Below is the evaluation of our voting policy v0.3 on this referendum:

SMALL SPENDER
-------------
8 available members
🟢 0 • 🔴 1 • ⚪️ 2
✓ ≥37.5% required participation met
▶ Majority of all votes is abstain
⚪ ABSTAIN

Below is a summary of our members' comments:

The comments expressed skepticism about the tool’s utility and approach. Some questioned the purpose of sending notifications without identity integration, suggesting that the current implementation merely added noise rather than providing clarity. Concerns were raised about the excessive number of messages and the potential for confusion within group chats, with proposals that a single, updating message might work better. Others doubted the value of the tool as it stood, noting that it might foster chaos rather than simplify governance tracking. In general, members felt that the project required significant refinements and additional features before it could justify support.

The full discussion can be found in our internal voting.

Please feel free to contact us through the links below for further discussion.

Kind regards,
Permanence DAO
Decentralized Voices Cohort V Delegate

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🗳️ Delegate

26 days ago

Thanks for the constructive critique.

I completely agree that identity support is crucial, and that’s already on my roadmap. I take the points about identity and noise seriously. I plan to optimize message grouping so the tool enhances clarity instead of adding confusion.

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Requested

DOT
27.90K DOT

Proposal Failed

Summary

0%

Aye

AyeNay

0%

Nay

Aye (13)0.0 DOT

Support0.0 DOT

Nay (14)0.0 DOT