Comparison between xGovs and referendums (with the typical quorums therein) has little to no merit because the mechanisms are different as well as serve different purposes. Firstly, in a referendum, the whole electorate votes, while xGovs represent a (self-elected) subgroup of Algorand. Secondly, referendums are nowadays commonly used to decide on important societal issues and not distribution of (a relative small amount of) funds, i.e. budgeting. Thirdly, if an xGov does not vote, one forfeits one’s right to vote, i.e. falls out of the electorate permanently for that xGov term.
Moreover, it is contradictory to claim that a quorum is needed and that the decisions were:
where 235 people tuned in (who might not all even be xGovs) out of the +4k registered to be an xGov, the space was announced less than a day in advance, and voting was done as a show of emojis (which is not even recorded) instead of an on-chain vote by the actual xGovs. Regarding the response that an on-chain vote is unfeasible, it is the exact reason why xGov needs (and should have started with) a constitution, as already suggested.
To comment on the stance that the quorum raises the probability of reaching a higher percentage of participation:
Could you please elaborate on the justifications for this assumption?
Modeling this behavior is challenging, to say the least.
Once the program matures, it would be realistic to assume that the participation in each session by each term pool follows an identical distribution and that participation in two subsequent sessions are independent (as per the program’s design). Due to the cyclic nature of the term pools, the probability of reaching a certain percentage of participation would be identical for each session (assuming that the number of total xGov votes of new term pools remains constant), and thus also the probability of reaching the quorum.
To reiterate the main issue of introducing a global quorum as currently suggested: it opens the possibility for the to-be-ineligible majority of voters to block making decision of active xGovs, which is detrimental to the program that needs active xGovs.
Alternative to the global quorum
Lastly, to also offer an alternative solution to the main argument for the introduction of a quorum, i.e. that without it a small number of participants could decide on a large amount of funds.
Instead of introducing a relative quorum of the votes that need to be eligible at the end of a session for it to be considered valid, rather define what amount of total xGov funds of a session are the xGovs allowed to distribute depending on the amount of ALGO that remains eligible in that xGov session.
In other words, define what amount of ALGO is required to vote in order to allow spending of 1 ALGO; i.e. what number of votes is it consider representative to either approve or reject the spending of 1 ALGO.
For example, for xGovs to be allowed to distribute 2M ALGO, at least 100M ALGO need to vote in the xGov session.
If only 50M ALGO vote, the xGovs are allowed to distribute at most 1M ALGO. If only 10M ALGO turn to vote, the total spending is capped at 0.2M ALGO, etc.
The requirements for the funding of projects to be approved remains unchanged. It is just calculated at the end of the session according to the number of funds the xGovs are allowed to spend based on their participation.
The exact ratio could be defined each quarter in regular Governance when the top-up of xGov is decided (e.g. Would you approve topping of of xGov to 2M ALGO that can be distributed in full only if at least 100M ALGO vote in xGov? Otherwise, the topping up is limited proportionally to the number of ALGO that vote in xGov). This would allow to deal with increased number of votes entering the xGov program during its ramp-up as well as to reduce the requirement later on when Governance rewards start to diminish.
P.S.
It would be highly appreciated if you were to actually lead a discussion by addressing the points raised here, commenting on them and refuting them, instead of just explaining your views. That would be much more fruitful and the claim that the decisions were made together with the community would have more legitimacy.
Please also refrain from making citations out of context - as in the case of the space at 30:55 were you omitted the explanation for the view why a global quorum is not needed.