@Colin4ward @ntindle @rubinovitz @Erik_Knobl we need a supporting Steward to elevate this proposal - are either of you happy to put your name to this as is?
Sam added as scholarship lead and note added that the people performing these roles will be the signers on the to be created Labs SAFE.
I do hear what both yourself and @rubinovitz are saying. I get both points.
When I initially read through Eden’s S1 proposal last year August, I left feedback that people’s participation on their calls (since it constituted R&D, amongst other things) should be budgeted for. Which ultimately prompted them to make that final amendment in their proposal to increase their $CODE allocation. It was rooted in my belief that people should always tangibly realize value that is proportionate to their contributions. This relies on people to act in good faith, in most existing frameworks; but web3 allows for far better guardrails when implementing this. In large part because rewards do not have to be linear.
Now I was working on a derivative of this idea between July 2022 ⇨ February of this year, as part of a second phase of dynamic badges which could ultimately help to track and reflect community engagement. As well as begin to pair (and layer) usefulness/utility to memberships. The greater the engagement from a member, the more of the DAO that their engagement unlocks. All the while still offering a baseline experience for all DAO members. But not limiting people’s ability to lean in and out of the DAO, as they see fit or as their own personal circumstances allow for. The plan was to begin experimenting with small IRL events whereby holding a certain badge (which would signify a certain level of engagement), will enable people to apply for certain budgets for small IRL events that they are staging. Small being less than 20 people in total. So think of Developer DAO merch, maybe venue hire, refreshments. And in some instances, these could be paired with a paying partner (sponsor).
• Attendance is small because the event is small — so budgets won’t need to be high
• Paying partners (sponsors) would not need to dig deep to allocate funds, so it will be less challenging to pitch it
• It pushes the Developer DAO brand out there more, because the more events that happen, the more that people see it
• Because the events are small, it allows for a handful to occur each year. And in different regions. A DAO that is not skewed towards a specific region or demographic is more attractive on a global scale
• Small events also have the benefit of quick and easy iterations. Use one event to stress test ⇨ Run a retrospective ⇨ Adjust ⇨ And then deploy what has been learned, at the next event. Rinse and repeat
• Small events = Small attendance = Increased perceived value. The perception around an event that everybody can attend vs An event that will always have limited availability, increases the value that people ascribe to such events
• As the vertical grows and matures, partners (sponsors) can be charged more. This effectively covers the budget. The DAO just facilitates
• The members who stage these small IRL events get to profit share in whatever remains after overheads for the event have been covered
• The DAO can bring on ‘preferred’ partners, who pay for the opportunity to be used as a choice vendor for these small IRL events — and will be listed on the event invite, as well as on social media etc
• Token rewards get latched onto the events etc
• Small events allow for better variety and hopefully increased quality of events. That was a huge takeaway of mine, after trying to manage Developer DAO’s participation in the event that was staged by Coinvise last year, during ETH India.
But it can only happen within a framework that has both token rewards and credentialing processes working in tandem. Meaning that:
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If a person has engaged in the DAO meaningfully (however that gets defined and measured), then they obtain a dynamic badge
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This badge then unlocks certain privileges within the DAO, such as the ability to stage such events (as described above) and apply for some funding. It goes through an application process with good standards
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Badges are dynamic, meaning that engagement has to be maintained for access to certain things to remain. This helps to ensure that certain levels of access are not saturated or dominated by people who were once engaged and somehow feel entitled to that access in perpetuity. The baseline DAO experience will never be revoked however. This is a constant that comes with every membership, for both active and inactive members.
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Badges effectively provide a record of engagement and can more easily be paired with token rewards for members
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Badges allow for clearer figures to be presented to paying partners, and offer far better and more meaningful context.
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This system also helps to ensure that DAO resources are being properly allocated to initiatives (and people) who are invested in bringing recurring value to the DAO. Financially and otherwise. It doesn’t mean the baseline DAO experience is shit however, as that has to always be on point.
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Keeping at least part of the rewards structure tethered to a credentialing system (as I’ve outlined above) helps to ensure that while members can be properly incentivized, it never comes at a risk to or at the expense of the ecosystem’s integrity. It limits attack vectors, the likelihood of token farming etc. The premise is similar to that of a video game, whereby you unlock new privileges the further you engage/explore.
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Badges remove tokens as a primary reward source — or rather, the sole reward source. And thus, it re-contextualizes them within a framework that is about engagement and participation and creating authentic value. This creates a culture and an ecosystem that can hopefully limit token farming efforts, since engagement is tracked automatically. And additional layers to the DAO subsequently open up automatically, based on that engagement.
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My aim was to experiment with these small IRL events for a sufficient period of time first; define additional DAO ‘layers’ — and then gradually extrapolate from that framework, and roll it out across those other DAO layers. Making necessary adjustments as deemed fit.
And so I say all that to say this — while I don’t have a lot of context for current DAO circumstances, I can say that 3 of the bigger considerations around this topic are:
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How to gauge participation in order to calculate rewards?
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How to ensure that participation and the spaces within the DAO are not only authentic, but that they also do not devolve into token farming efforts?
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Maintaining a balance whereby distribution via this pathway is not rigid or restrictive, but it also does not lead to the cheapening of its value. It’s somewhat counterintuitive
I personally think granularity will be important, but up to a certain point. Granular on the points above, definitely. But not necessarily in regards to stipulations which might say: ‘DAO members should be in the town hall for at least 15mins in order to be eligible’ etc. Nothing exists in absolutes, and so fluidity is an asset. Especially since a person can be in a TH for 5mins, speak and offer more value to that space, than some others who sat in for the entire duration and did not speak. Ultimately, engagement is not a monolith. So I agree, a certain level of granularity will have a negative effect. But the parameters should be set as best as possible from the outset.
That makes sense.
Which channel? Can you ping me, and I’m calm to look it over.
Okay sounds good. Seems like folk are already considering some of what I’ve shared above. I’m aligned with the regenerative structures.
I think that’s a good shout. I’d personally tweak it however, and implement structures whereby Hackathon organizers list Developer DAO as a partner — so that it’s official and on record that part of the rewards are coming from this DAO. It ensures that the DAO’s name is out there and is made known. It also starts to provide a funnel.
Jumping into grant ecosystems as an official partner, such as Gitcoin and Optimism (and I believe Arbitrum just announced their grants system earlier today), this gets the DAO out there in meaningful contexts. Brand recognition, distribution etc. Some thinking would need to be done re: the L2’s, but Gitcoin as a bare minimum is something that can definitely happen with the DAO’s existing parameters.
Okay sounds good. I think I may have seen @sammmceja around in some of the earlier DDW calls that @meowy was hosting.
Okay noted.
Okay noted. I’ll take a look.
I have added these two OKRs per conversation with @wolovim here.
@luan struggling for time to day to engage with your reply properly but will make time to do so in the next couple days 
@Erik_Knobl messaged me to signal support as a steward so as soon as he drops that on this proposal we’ll elevate this to a snapshot vote, however would love to see the conversations here continue
Yes, I support this proposal.
I would encourage more detailed ways to have accountability from the actions of Leads.
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@luan has convinced me that as long as participation CODE is a much lesser reward than other types of CODE that add more value to the DAO it makes sense. (I’m not sure dynamic badges are needed for this vs just having a clear reward distribution. The one proposed in the draft makes a lot of sense to me)
We may want to make the dev n tell pool bigger with part of the pool going to devs the presenter thinks provided helpful feedback.
Generally I think dev n tell is a place where DD members could add a lot of value helping each other.
Follow-up question on my end:
How do these proposed changes impact people like myself and @Erik_Knobl, specifically as it pertains to our back-payments from Season 1?
I’m on board with the proposal to revise the DAO’s expenses, in order to offer better remuneration to operational teams; but going back to my previous enquiries about increasing mine and Erik’s payments (so to clear the outstanding amounts sooner) — this should also extend to both of us.
Not solely because of the time at which these costs were initially incurred (roughly ~1 year ago), but also because it’s the principle.
cc: @kempsterrrr