Budget Proposal: Writers Guild, Season 1

[wolovim]

Authors: @wolovim @g01din.eth
Supporting Budget Steward(s): @kempsterrrr

Summary

The Writers Guild is a social home for content creators and the birthplace of initiatives like the DAO newsletter, blog, and scribe program. In S1 the guild’s budget will be used for guild’s ongoing operations and to develop two main initiatives - a scribes program, and content incentivization for specific initiatives across the DAO (primarily the School of Code project).

Motivation

The Writers Guild incubates, polishes, and supports the ongoing initiatives that serve to amplify and spread the voice of the DAO and its members - both externally and internally.

Mission, values and goals alignment

Externally, the Writers Guild supports public goods that provide readers with web3 educational material and DAO updates:

• The blog - distributes free educational material to onboard or deepen reader’s knowledge of web3 topics
• The newsletter - focuses on updates, opportunities, and calls to action to activate existing members and draw in new ones
• Custom content incentivization - motivate content creators to craft material for open education initiatives, e.g., the School of Code

Internally, the Guild strives to provide efficient information flow across the DAO:

• Scribes - publicly record events and decisions across the DAO while delivering the information internally to the relevant parties, allowing members to stay up to date in ways that scale.

Brand usage

At the time of writing:

• The official blog lives on a subdomain: blog.developerdao.com
• The Probably Nothing newsletter is published on Substack under the D_D banner
• Scribe notes are published on the public D_D Notion account
• Incentivized contributions to projects, like School of Code, are expected to be D_D-branded

Scope of work

Support for existing projects

In S0, the guild tackled two primary objectives: blog and newsletter viability. Both projects have since been elevated outside of the guild. However, the Writers Guild continues to support those efforts by recruiting and onboarding contributors (“talent coordination”) on an ongoing basis.

Talent Coordination

The Talent Coordinator role is new to the guild and will have its own set of deliverables:

• Welcome pack. Outlines the guild’s mission and values and sets out a simple set of steps to getting started e.g. introduce yourself #here, read examples of our work #here, attend our meeting #here, note down your ‘superpowers’ and goals to discuss with the Talent Coordinator in a 1:1 call.
• Contributor Profile/Database. Contains username/contact details, skills, goals and notes on progress/tasks. Useful for building rapport and connecting the dots to other people or projects.

Other responsibilities of the Talent Coordinator:

• Talent Spotting. Daily visits to active Discord channels. Connect with people and distribute the welcome pack liberally.
• 1:1 Call. Aim to schedule within 3 days of sharing welcome pack. Connect and discuss any questions from the welcome pack + get to know them; have a ‘hopes and dreams’ conversation, document the key points in a profile and start connecting the dots for them - I’ll introduce you to person X, I’ll show you what we’re doing on project Y etc.
• Follow Up. 5-7 days after 1:1 call. DM to connect and offer another call; check that expectations set in the welcome pack are being met. Enquire about progress through the onboarding steps and make further connections to people projects.
• Maintaining Connection. An organic process. Some people will already be self-sufficient, some may want to continue checking in weekly, over time it will feel comfortable to extend these intervals. Use the talent profile/database to keep track.

New initiatives

For S1, we’ll also shift to two new primary objectives:

• Incentivization of specific content creation - mainly supports the School of Code via content planning, creation, and curation
• Build a robust scribe program

Content incentivization

The Writers Guild wants to provide extra incentive for writers to work on the content that is strategic for the DAO - be it topics that we find important to cover to provide more holistic education or initiatives that are currently the main focus of the DAO.

In S1 the main focus lies in the School of Code initiative, but we don’t want to limit ourselves to that specific project in case it manages to take care of its own needs, or if incentivization for other content is needed.

We would like to have the ability to incentivize 2 pieces per week on average, leading us to the allocation of 6 hours/week.

Suggesting content incentivization

Pieces of content to incentivize can be offered both by guild leads and any member of the guild. Guild leads will post several pieces of content that are inline with the agenda (school of code for S1) as bounties, and on top of that members can add additional requests. A member’s proposal will be presented by opening a thread in a #content-incentivization channel and attaching a written request containing the following information:

1. What is the topic?
2. Why is it important to incentivize this topic?

Together with the request a #dao-poll will be opened for 72 hours where only Writers Guild members can vote on it. All necessary clarifications can be provided in the thread.

Claiming content incentivization

All content incentivization will be posted as bounties (e.g., via Dework) for writers to claim. After the content is finished, it will go through the existing content QA flow. The approver of the content (an existing writer who read the piece) will also approve the bounty, leading to an on-chain payment event.

Scribe program

A person will signup to be a scribe for a certain guild or project for the current week. Their work will be split into 2 parts:

1. Information gathering
2. Information distribution

Information gathering

• Collect - write notes for their meeting in a detailed manner that will be understandable by others
• Merge - the scribes will meet weekly to sync on all the collected information

Information distribution

• Guild-specific digest - read all the notes from the past week and write a digest that summarizes the relevant information for the guild they are scribing for.
  • If any clarifications are needed they can reach out to the other scribes (and must be available to answer questions as well).
• DAO digest - a summary of what goes in each guild that will be relevant to all DAO members and external. This won’t be a focus in S1.

Example

• Alice scribes for the Writers Guild, and Bob scribes for the MBD Guild.
• During the last MBD sync, it was noted that a sponsor wants us to add an article about the LatestGreatest rollup.
• By chance, in the last writers guild meeting, Mallory mentioned that she wants to write a piece for the blog about LatestGreatest rollup, as this is a new and interesting topic that D_D blog readers would love to read about.
• When going over the notes, Alice and Bob will identify the opportunity here, and write about this potential connection in the digests that will be delivered to their guilds.

What does this translate to work-wise?

• Scribes: 48 hours/week
  • Currently, we have 16 recurring meetings
  • Scribing for 1 guild is going to take 3 hours:
    • Writing notes for the sync meeting: 1.5 hours (1-hour meeting + 0.5 hours syncing with host and cleaning notes)
    • Reading all the notes: 1 hour
    • Writing a digest: 0.5 hour
  • Such a model will encourage people to scribe for more than 1 meeting, as the overhead of reading all the notes will be reduced - thus increasing their hourly salary
• Scribe coordinator: 5 hours/week
  • Attending sync meetings - initiative leads & writers guild: 2 hours
  • Onboarding: 1 hour
  • Verifying work is being done + QA: 1 hour
  • Working on improving the scribing process, gathering feedback, writing docs: 1 hour
• Overall: 53 hours/week

Financial implications

Role / initiative		hours/week	$CODE
Guild leader/operator	A strategist role focused on continual alignment with Season and DAO goals, facilitating meetings, removing blockers, and liaising with other leaders and the broader community (e.g., initiative lead syncs, town halls)	5	80 * CODE_PER_HOUR
Talent Coordinator(s)	Welcome new members to the guild, create and optimize onboarding flows, documentation and resources, and recruit for guild-supported initiatives	5	80 * CODE_PER_HOUR
Content incentivization fund	A pool to reward irregular content creation and curation contributions as needed; special focus this season on supporting the School of Code	6	96 * CODE_PER_HOUR
Scribe Program	Funds to operate the scribes program, which wants to provide the DAO with a scalable service that gives contributors an overview of what happens across the DAO, and gets relevant information between different guilds and projects	53	848 * CODE_PER_HOUR
Total		69	1104 * CODE_PER_HOUR

Team

• Guild Operator - wolovim
• Talent Coordinator(s) - adamdawson.eth
• Scribe Coordinator(s) - TBD

Success Metrics & KPIs

• General
  • How many people were onboarded and contributed content to the writers guild
  • How much people have read our content (blog, newsletter)
• Content incentivization
  • Content creation for the School of Code is sufficient for their goals for S1
  • Incentivized content is at least as good as the regular content that is created by the DAO contributors
• Scribe program
  1. On average 60% of the guilds have a scribe
  2. Guild contributors and leaders attest to an increase in their understanding of what goes in the DAO

VOTE

• Yes, I support this budget application
• No, I do not support this budget application

[kempsterrrr]

Nice to see this started @wolovim - @Erik_Knobl and co’s design guild budget might be useful to look through as to how they’re thinking about bounty pools. Can find it linked here - Airtable - Grid view

[kempsterrrr]

Added myself as the supporting Budget Steward @wolovim

[wolovim]

Amendments made on 7/20/22:

• Add adamdawson.eth to the Talent Coordinator role and include role description and deliverables.
• Remove Boris from Scribe Coordinator role, as he needs to step away for now. wolovim will attempt to fill in the (large) gap until a replacement candidate(s) is found.

[wolovim]

Season 1 mid-point(ish) status update:

Short version: there are a few loyal weekly active members, but it’s a bit of a ghost town. We can ramp down some of the requested budget.

Re: budgeted items,

• Scribe program: when the previous initiative lead needed to step away, I attempted to fill the coordinator role. The Scribe Guide and Walkthrough got some love, including a video tutorial in the Walkthrough. Attempts to lure new scribes were ineffective, though. Ultimately I agree with a suggestion that the most pragmatic way to accomplish having scribes at each meeting is for the meeting operator to create a quick dework bounty and put it up for grabs amongst the meeting attendees. There’s obvious friction here, especially before most of the DAO is comfortable creating and accepting tasks, but it seems worth a try. Documentation of this process can be made a priority.

  • Suggested action: slash the scribe program funding pool from the Writers Guild in favor of having each guild/project internalize that in their own budget.
  • Note: at least a couple projects/guilds already account for scribes in their own budgets. To date, none have requested rewards from the Writers Guild bounty pool, though.

• Talent Coordination: Adam got off to a great start in month 1, seeking out and welcoming content creators in and sketching out a welcome guide, but then received a great promotion and had to step away. Related activities are done on an ad hoc basis by active members.

  • Suggested action: this budget could be slashed or left open in case another interested member wants to fill the shoes and proposes a strategy for it.

• Content Incentivization: TL;DR - Made a few suggestions, but this never got running either. This may be better left in the hands of the blog team/editor?

  • Suggested action: could be a) slashed, b) left open and granted usage for K. over on the blog team to try and make use of (e.g., we discussed using it to reward members for telling their personal D_D experience story), or c) can go to supporting Academy content contributions. I wouldn’t mind trying to put it to use with b & c before end of season.

• Guild lead/operator: Between facilitating the weekly syncs, the scribe coordination efforts, representing the guild’s interests at the weekly coordination calls and monthly town halls, occasionally supporting the newsletter and blog in small ways, writing content for the dao, helping define Academy content processes, and generally being available for content-related requests/discussion, I’m clocking in way over 5 hours a week. Not all of that is strictly within defined bounds of the role, but plenty of it is.

  • Suggested action: no changes for now, but I think the DAO should have some frank discussions about the future of the Writers Guild. Frankly, now that the blog and newsletter have spun out, the guild is not that compelling in its current form, and my limited time can go to more strategic use than holding a weekly call with small attendance. In the immediate term, I’ve suggested pivoting the meeting to an “Academy Content Hour” or something in that vein, with intention of creating or reviewing Academy content in public, fielding questions and feedback in real time.

Context for anyone not in attendance or caught up on the recording of the first stewards meeting: I volunteered the Writers Guild budget for the chopping block to use as an exercise. Much of this post was verbally relayed and the stewards in attendance suggested returning with a revised budget proposal prior to next meeting, which I agreed to. When I get a chance this week, I’ll draft and publish that here.

[wolovim]

Since this update was given, budget stewards have introduced a simple initiative update format:

• TL;DR
• Milestone Summary
• Allocation Revisions (Optional)

TL;DR and Milestones were covered in the previous message. Allocation Revisions were ambiguously suggested. Here’s a concrete suggestion:

• Guild Operator: no changes (5 hrs/wk)
• Talent Coordinator: nix it (0 hrs/wk)
• Content Incentivization Fund: no changes (6 hrs/wk)
  • I’d like to see that put to use on content creation for Academy and for WAGMI Wednesday, etc. on the blog.
• Scribe Program: mostly slash it (3 hrs/wk)
  • It seems the guild is not rewarding scribes across the DAO; that’s being handled by respective meeting owners. I’d like to maintain a small hourly budget for our own weekly meeting and any further documentation updates made this season.

In general, the guild is still due for a good self-examination, which I’ll prompt in Discord asap.