I read it yesterday and sat on it overnight.

I almost agreed with you, but I think you are mixing different layers.

It does not collapse to "stake weighted voting is wrong"

the argument basically just collapses to "stakeholder weighted voting" is wrong

No. If you want to collapse it to weighted voting, then it collapses to this: threshold based stake weighted treasury access creates two practical classes of users.

Everyone has stake weighted voting, not everyone can pass the DHF funding threshold. A small user can vote, comment, buy, post, and support the return proposal. A few large holders can lift proposals above that wall or drop them below that wall.

This is stake weighted control over liquid treasury payouts. Funding becomes a right reserved to either a small set of very large stakeholders or to a hardforking level of coordination among smaller stakeholders.

Whether the return proposal threshold should exist is another discussion because maybe the threshold has value and it exists for a reason. I am not trying to settle that here.

Why DHF is a special case

it's hard to see how the DHF is some special case outside that reasoning

Because DHF turns governance influence into recurring liquid payouts.

Stake weighted voting is one thing. Stake weighted voting that approves liquid treasury payments above a threshold is another. Stake weighted threshold setting is yet another.

During normal conditions maybe all that is acceptable. During HBD stress when hbd_print_rate is suppressed I think the treasury path should also obey the same stress signal.

"Campaign to voters" is technically true, but practically weak

campaign to voters to stop voting for more proposals

That is already what I am doing.

Without support from a few very large holders approving a proposal requires enormous coordination. Your own vote can make or break major proposals and change the threshold. For ordinary users to match that, they need hardforking levels of social coordination.

So yes, "campaign to voters" is technically true. But in practice, the threshold and passing it is controlled by concentrated stake.

The proposal vote is only a signal

Because this is a protocol level change the core is not DHF proposal votes. The real question is whether witnesses, stakeholders, and the community think this rule should be part of a hardfork.

The proposal is useful as a signal and is useful for consensus IF powerful parties are willing to concede. It helps gauge whether the community wants this code idea discussed seriously. It also helps show witnesses how much support or rejection there is.

But to gauge it honestly you must look beyond the weighted votes. How many people are supporting? Are they reputable and active users? Are they community leaders? Are they witnesses at any rank?

If you do not look at that you are hiding behind the mask of weighted voting.

I do not want dissidence. I do not want to split the chain. But protocol changes are ultimately about code and witness signaling, not DHF proposal votes. In theory, a hardfork does not require the DHF threshold. It requires enough witnesses and enough community consensus around the code.

I would much rather gauge consensus than escalate anything, that is precisely why the proposal. That is why I opened the PR publicly, made the proposal, and am arguing the idea in the open.

But that requires reasonability to look beyond the weighted voting system because the weighted voting distorts is the wrong metric for hardfork changes like this.

Think about it. For illustrative purposes using numbers taken out of my ass:

If one holder with 100M HP approves while all the community rejects this should it be a change? Of course not.

If everyone approves it, gets 60M HP and a single vote puts the return proposal at 100M HP, should this change be rejected? No.

Do you know why? Of course you do, that is how Hive was born. You do not need the majority of the stake to reach consensus.

So please, look at the proposal beyond the stake weighted votes. Please browser the community and hear what people are worried about. Please address the worries and please look at Hive users and communities without the shield of stake weighted votes.

Brass tacks

My proposal is not "stake weighted voting is wrong".

hbd_print_rate already exists and if it suppresses HBD elsewhere then treasury outflows should obey the same signal.

To be clear. No relation to stake weighted voting. No relation to the return proposal. Those are absolutely worthy and related discussions, but they are other subjects.

And because this is a hardfork level idea, the signal is not only the weighted proposal vote. The real signal is also who supports it, which witnesses comment, which communities care, and whether users think this is a legitimate and change that should be applied. Lots of people commented and posted supporting, very few commented and posted opposing it and I appreciate your opposition because if more people agree with your opposition they should voice it since the DHF does not have downvoting.

Even when the protocol suppresses HBD under stress, above threshold stake approved DHF payouts should continue normally. That is the inconsistency I am asking Hive to fix.