RFC: Retroactive Grants for Organic Community Contributions

šŸ°Hop Ecosystem
1

RFC: Retroactive Grants for Organic Community Contributions.

Authors: @Kene_StableLab, @Bobbay_StableLab and @max-andrew

Simple Summary

This proposal is geared toward compensating Hop DAO community members who take the initiative and contribute to the DAO Independently.

Motivation

Members of the Hop DAO community should have adequate incentives to add value to the Hop DAO; regardless of whether it is a long term or short term contribution. This proposal is aimed at creating an organic path to contributing to Hop DAO and getting rewarded.

As the Hop DAO scales its operations, it is important to build a contributor culture here that effectively rewards contributors for their efforts.

Specification

Eligibility

Any member of the community is eligible for compensation under this proposal.

Claiming Compensation

Every month, a forum thread for nominations will be opened on the forum. Community members who have contributed to Hop DAO can be self-nominated or nominated by others to receive a retroactive grant. A claim for compensation must contain the following information.

  • Proof of work: A summary of work done, along with relevant links and screenshots.
  • Proposed Compensation: Amount to be rewarded to the contributor(s)

This forum thread will be open in the first week in following month and will close after 7 days.

Simultaneously, a temp check poll will be conducted on each nomination to gauge a rough consensus on each retroactive grant. We recommend that polls show each voterā€™s identity rather than their identity being hidden to prevent gaming.

Budget

We intend on running this program for 6 months to test out how the community reacts to it, for this initial test period we are requesting $30,000 worth of Hop tokens is sent to the community multi-sig.

In the pilot program, there will be a maximum claim of $2,000 per contributor. In future programs, this can be adjusted.

Distribution

Once the DAO vote has concluded via snapshot, funds will be distributed via the community multi-sig

Rationale

By leveraging financial incentives to build a healthy and organic contributor culture, we are excited to see the value that the Hop DAO Community can create organically. Community involvement has become increasingly important as the DAO scales.

Considerations

What if there is a disagreement on the size of the retroactive grant?

Next Steps

If this proposal is passed, contributors will be able to make claims from the Bounty Pool by the end of April.

Disclosure

Any of StableLabā€™s proposals, comments or electronic communications can not be used to create any legally binding contract or enforceable obligation in the absence of a fully signed written contract between StableLab and any third party.

This message may contain forward-looking statements about Hop DAO, its protocol, business plan, and strategy. These statements are based on current beliefs, assumptions, and information and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. These statements reflect StableLabā€™s current views, but due to uncertainties in the future, persons are cautioned not to place undue reliance on statements made by StableLab.

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I like the spirit of this proposal but caution against a nebulous approach. What is the rubric for grading contribution? Who weighs the rubric and weighs the compensation? How is that decided? A simple temp check to gauge contributions seems dangerous because it doesnā€™t come with any justification or procedure and is subject to gaming and arbitrary, single-voter decisions; for instance, a single delegate with a huge stake can essentially decide yay or nay to compensate on a whim.

Something like this requires much more forethought and development, in my opinion, and I think a committee should be created to discuss implementation before taking any steps toward actualization. As such, I would vote note against this without much, much more.

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This is fair criticism and gets to a point I made about being open to giving this to the existing grants committee, but that would need an update as well as a couple members on it are no longer active in the DAO. I felt this made sense as a pilot due to the small grant amounts but definitely open to othersā€™ thoughts as well.

4

I see reason with your thoughts @dybsy

@max-andrew had similar thoughts; the idea was not to make the process difficult; a system similar to this has been implemented at Paladin.

I will find a solution to the concerns you have highlighted.

5

I think I agree with @dybsyā€™s concerns here. In addition to delegate incentives, grants, proposal payments, etc. there is a seemingly growing number of initiatives to pay people without being able to fully scope out the value created by those people. As a general statement, the DAO should not be granting incentives to anybody or any thing where the value being created is not equal to or greater than the incentivization. Obviously thatā€™s a broad statement and becomes a mostly subjective judgement call, but without getting a little bit closer to identifying value creation, I think this needs more work.

To @max-andrewā€™s point, maybe we can fold this into the scope of the current Grants Committee and rework that a little bit.

2 Likes
6

While Paladin has been successful in growing their product usage, it would caution about using an exact replica for bootstrapping community engagement.

If weā€™re going to pay contributors $30,000 to engage, it is important to ensure they hit KPIs that are important to growing HOP within the wider ecosystem.

I am cautious about continuing to fund programs like these without a clear line toward profit.

This concern is expressed well by @fourpoops who suggests it falls under the grants program.

Iā€™d lean towards this approach as it seems more natural.

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7

The nebulous approach here also doesnā€™t sit right with me. We have both a community grants program and a delegate incentivization program. If there are members that have consistently added value to the DAO, they should be able to slot into one of these existing programs.

@max-andrew makes a fair point about some members of the grants program being less active. If there are members that are not responsive or active enough, the current multisig signers should be able to remove them with a simple majority vote

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I see reason with your perspective on this, this feedback has been noted and will be implemented.

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Thank you for the feedback; the sentiment I am picking up is that for this program to create value as intended, it would require more scope, and its organic nature would be difficult to keep accountable.

Is my analysis accurate?

10

I see your perspective @0xjack

However, not every valuable member of the community can become a delegate or a Hop DAO Ambassador, the spirit of this proposal is to encourage organic contribution from the community, I believe the intention behind this proposal is not misplaced, however, we could improve how we approach rewarding these organic contributions.

11

To be honest, while I appreciate the intention (as mentioned earlier), this just feels like a cash grab for people with no defined or measured contribution. I believe @0xjack is correct that there are already slots in which people may fit to be compensated for effort, and there are more ways that just delegates and grants; there is also multisig elections and the soon-to-be ambassador program. Where value exists, it has been recognized. There is no need for an abstract program like this. To that end, any specific contribution vectors for which compensation models have not yet been built can be recognized with defined proposals.

12

I really strongly disagree with this. I think we can follow successful models like Optimismā€™s where delegates are trusted to do research and make good decisions for the betterment of the DAO. Giving everything to a committee should be a last resort in special cases as it is clearly a centralizing move and Optimism has shown it isnā€™t necessary. (I say this as a beneficiary and full supporter of our existing grants program.)

I recognize I am seemingly in the extreme minority here, but I also disagree that the multi-sig, ambassador program, or existing grants program covers what this program is aiming to accomplish. These are ways people can get involved, but the advantage of this is that we enable and empower community members who have better insights into what is missing from Hop from a userā€™s perspective to proactively take steps to improve it. @Kene_StableLab made a similar point.

The nature of the program also prevents grants being awarded haphazardly because it is definitionally backward looking. The DAO will have the benefit of hindsight in determining the impact and value of contributions when the applicant is making their case.

The specifics may not be entirely fleshed out yet, but I think we can get there relatively quickly by following Optimismā€™s lead. I strongly encourage the delegates in this thread to reconsider their stances on the potential of this proposal.

2 Likes
13

Post the last community call I have come around on this idea. @cwhinfrey made a very good point - if we implement this for say a 6 month trial period it will cost very little to the DAO in the grand scheme of things and we can stop it if we feel people are taking advantage. It would seem that it is low risk with the potential of reasonable value add. Worth the experiment I think.

2 Likes