What Happens After a Decision Passes

Decision lifecycle

1. Draft. Someone's writing it up; not yet visible to the Group for voting.
2. Under review. Posted, but voting hasn't opened. Not every Group uses this step; where it is on, the Decision sits for a stated number of days first.
3. Active. Voting is open; members cast votes.
4. Passed, Did not pass, or Not enough votes. Three outcomes, not two. Reaching the pass share with enough turnout passes. Falling short of the pass share is “Did not pass” — the Group considered it and said no. Running out of time without enough people voting is “Not enough votes”, which is a different thing: nothing was decided, and it can be raised again.
5. Carried out. What happens next depends on what the Decision asked for. See below.

A Group can also require a cooling-off period, up to 30 days, between a Decision passing and it becoming carried out. When it's on, a passed Decision shows the date it unlocks, and nothing can act on it until then.

What “carried out” means, by kind

Spend

A passed Spend unlocks the treasury approval flow. Approvers still sign before money actually moves. See Who Can Spend, and Who Has to Approve.

Rule change

Applies completely or not at all. If any part of it can't be applied (a permission the platform doesn't manage, a member who has since left), nothing changes and the Decision says why.

Action

Most Actions are the outcome: the record of agreement is the whole thing. “Move our meeting to Thursdays” happens because people agreed to it, not because software did anything. A short list of group-lifecycle Actions is the exception (pausing the Group, resuming it, or beginning to wind it down), where passing the Decision changes the Group's own state.

Related guides

• Ways Your Group Can Vote: the named processes you choose from.
• How Many Have to Vote, and How Many Have to Agree: quorum, pass share, and per-decision overrides.