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DSI
Worksheet

Proposer Question & Response Tracker

An auditable log of the clarification questions you asked a proposer, where you asked them, and what came back.

Type
Worksheet
Difficulty
foundational
Time
25 min
Version
v1.0.0
Updated
8/9/2026
evidenceprocesscommunication

What this helps you do

Questions asked in public forums, calls and chat threads disappear. Weeks later nobody can say whether a proposer answered, deflected, or was never asked at all.

This tracker keeps the record: the question, why it mattered, the channel, the date, the response, the evidence supplied, and whether it resolved. It is the fairest artefact you can publish about a proposer, because it shows your questions as well as their answers.

When to use this

  • You are asking a proposer for clarification and expect to publish what happened.
  • Several people are reviewing the same proposal and need one shared question log.
  • You want to show that an unanswered question was actually asked, in public, with time to reply.

When NOT to use this

  • You have no questions and are recording activity for its own sake.
  • The exchange is confidential and you cannot honour a public record.
  • You are logging your own analysis; use the claim-evidence map.

What you'll need

  • The unresolved questions from your intake brief or claim-evidence map
  • Links to the forums, calls or channels where you asked
  • Your voting deadline, so you can set a response cut-off

Estimated completion time

25 minutes

Working time for one governance action, assuming the inputs listed here are already to hand.

How to use it

  1. 1Write each question so it can be answered with evidence rather than with reassurance.
  2. 2Record why you are asking. A question without a reason usually gets a vague answer.
  3. 3Ask in a public channel where possible and paste the permanent link.
  4. 4Set a response cut-off that leaves you time to read the answer before the deadline.
  5. 5Record the response verbatim or link to it; do not summarise into your own framing.
  6. 6Note whether evidence was supplied, not merely whether a reply arrived.
  7. 7Mark follow-up required where an answer raises a new question.
  8. 8Close each row as resolved, partially resolved, unanswered, or declined.

The tool

Full worksheet - v1.0.0

Tracker fields

  • Question, as asked
  • Reason for asking, linked to a claim or unknown
  • Date asked
  • Channel and permanent link
  • Response received
  • Date received
  • Evidence supplied with the response
  • Follow-up required
  • Resolved status: resolved, partial, unanswered, declined

Question quality rules

  • One question per row
  • Ask for an artefact, not an opinion
  • Avoid loaded framing; a hostile question invites a defensive answer
  • Do not bundle five questions into one paragraph
  • State the deadline you are working to

Publication block

  • Total questions asked
  • Answered with evidence
  • Answered without evidence
  • Unanswered at cut-off
  • Link to the full log
Fictional Example

Invented for illustration. It does not describe a real governance action, proposal, or organisation.

Fictional tracker row

  • Question: can you publish the cohort records behind the 1,200 developers trained figure?
  • Reason: high-materiality claim with self-reported evidence only
  • Date asked: 2026-08-06
  • Channel: public proposal thread, permanent link recorded
  • Response: partial. Proposer described the counting method in prose.
  • Date received: 2026-08-08
  • Evidence supplied: none
  • Follow-up required: yes, asked for the anonymised records
  • Status: partial

How to interpret the result

  • Distinguish answered from resolved. A prompt reply with no evidence leaves the underlying claim exactly where it was.
  • A high unanswered rate on high-materiality questions is a fact about the exchange, and belongs in a rationale as such.
  • If your own questions were vague, the log will show that too. Read it critically in both directions.

Limitations

  • It records public exchanges well and private ones poorly.
  • A proposer may answer elsewhere and you may miss it; state your monitoring scope.
  • The tracker cannot assess whether an answer is truthful, only whether evidence accompanied it.

Sources and methodology

Learn this method

This tool records the work. The Training Lab teaches how to do it.

  • treasury-and-budget · Reading a Treasury Withdrawal Like an Operator

    Reading a Treasury Withdrawal Like an Operator

    Teaches how to write questions that can be answered with evidence.

    Open lesson
  • Lab lesson planned

    A dedicated lesson on running a proposer question round is planned.

Downloads

  • Markdown export: the complete tool, including metadata, instructions, the template, limitations, sources and version history.

No other file formats are published for this resource. We list a format only when the file exists.

Version and governance

Current version
v1.0.0
Published
8/9/2026
Last updated
8/9/2026
Next scheduled review
2/9/2027
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Editorial status
Not yet externally reviewed

No named reviewer is shown because no external review has been completed. Attribution appears only once a verified reviewer has signed off.

Changelog

  • v1.0.0 (2026-08-09) - First published edition.
Next in the workflow

Use these alongside it

The tools that usually come before or after this one.

WorksheetIntermediate60 min

Claim-Evidence Map & Citation Log

A row-per-claim map that separates what a proposal asserts from the evidence actually supplied for it, with a citation log you can publish.

Workflow
Verify Claims & Evidence
Formats
Markdown
Use ToolView Details
Use This Tool