S1 Budget Proposal: Community Guild 👫

🏦 Budgets/Grants
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#1

[Final] S1 Budget Proposal: Community Guild :couple:

Author(s): @luan (lu.an#9388), @myz1237.eth (Alex1237#2487)
Supporting Budget Steward(s): @kempsterrrr

Link to archived version.

For all past and ongoing discussions, please refer to the channels under the Community Guild category in Discord.

Summary

This is the Season 1 budget proposal for the Community Guild. It outlines the high-level goals, how we plan to get there, the team working to make this happen and the proposed budget we’re applying for.

Motivation

The Community Guild is in many ways, a focal point for the entire DAO. It is focused on the members that comprise the community, and includes things such as Onboarding, morale, DAO-wide meetings, member flow and the overall UX.

This proposal does not cover the following Community Guild Projects and Initiatives: Onboarding, the AxisOne Program and the Server Architecture Team – but rather, other essential work streams that enable the Guild to function.

Thus, the purpose of this proposal is on how we keep the Guild running successfully through the 16-week period that comprises Season 1.

Brand usage

Potentially on pubic tasks/Quests, and the Notion wiki.

Mission, Values & Goals Alignment

In keeping with the Season 1 motivation as laid out above, we are focusing on the following areas:

  1. Developer DAO Notion wiki
  2. Town Halls
  3. Communal space (formerly called ‘Vibes’)

Unlike some of the other Guilds, the Community Guild is multi-layered, and is the main reason why certain initiatives have their designated proposal. Therefore as the Season 1 Guild Lead, I’m being very strict about focusing on only a few core goals - in addition to starting small and scaling up gradually.

Developer DAO Notion

Maintaining a clean and well-designed Notion wiki can serve as an encyclopaedia for both new and existing members; it can facilitate brand awareness; and with reliable translation, it can enable the Developer DAO community to communicate its values to a wider audience.

Rationale

The Notion wiki is a core part of how the Community Guild functions, as it is not only a way to asynchronously know what is happening in the DAO; it also serves as a key resource when undergoing retrospectives; and it is ultimately an opportunity to maintain transparency.

We will focus on the following 2 areas: Maintenance, and Translations.

1. Notion Maintenance

Guild-layer: Community Guild introduction, meeting notes, projects (eg. Onboarding, AxisOne Program), contributors etc.

DAO-layer: How-To Guides (e.g. How to use Notion, How to use DeWork), content formatting.

2. Translations (Chinese Community)

Content translation including–but not limited to:

  • Snapshot and essential Forum discussions
  • How-To Guides
  • Newsletter (as proposed by the Newsletter budget proposal)
  • Guilds: Notion pages, Guild projects
  • Projects: e.g. School of Code
  • Discord announcements, key resources

Translations are handled on a case-by-case basis. Guild or Project champions can reach us to request a translation, and our Guild will create a DeWork task for potential translators. Translations will undergo a review, and if successful, will be rewarded.

Town Hall

As Town Halls will now officially fall under the purview of the Community Guild, over the course of Season 1, we will be experimenting with a Town Hall format that runs akin to a DAO-wide discussion – and will include some derivative of a Q&A. These will run on a monthly cadence (i.e. towards the end of each calendar month).

Overview

Town Halls will run for a duration of 55 mins – 45 mins to go through the agenda and the final 10 minutes will be spent competing in a DAO-wide quiz. The chosen platform for this is Slido.

Please refer to the #town-hall channel under the Community Guild category in Discord, for ongoing developments. We will put out an official announcement in due course.

Communal Space

The Daily Vibes Call was once a staple in the Developer DAO Discord server, but has not been running in recent weeks. This is in part due to some members needing to step away, member fatigue, and potentially also the bear market the crypto space is currently in.

What is now beginning to happen as a result, is that more and more members are breaking off into their various silos. Developing great social and working relationships is great, but there does need to be a central place that all members can feel safe to congregate. The Community Guild will spend time over the course of Season 1 to overhaul this initiative, and help it to become a space where all members feel comfortable to come relax and socialize.

It is in the early stages at this juncture, but we will release more information over time.

Scope of work

Much of the Season 1 scope of work has been outlined above - therefore we will list the Core team and their responsibilities below.

Calculation = 𝒙 no. hours per-week X 16-week Season X 15 $CODE/hr

Core Team Duties

Role / Candidates Responsibilities Est. Weekly Hours
Guild Coordination (luan) Weekly sync meetings: setting agenda, hosting, soliciting updates from work streams 20 hours
Guild Treasurer (aakansha) Ensure budgets are distributed at a regular cadence, and that payments are tracked in the DAO financial spreadsheet. 5 hours
TH Quiz Lead (aakansha) Oversee the prep, moderation, and afterwork around the Town Hall Quizzes 4 hours
Guild Scribe (Alex1237) Documentation of meetings, agenda-setting with Coordinator, capturing action items, following up ahead of each call 5 hours
Translation Coordination (Alex1237) Coordinate with different members, projects and guilds. Quality control, and translation reviews. 10 hours

Contributor Tasks

Role Tasks to perform Est. No of Hours (S1)
Notion Content Notion page design, formatting, content creation 60 hours
Translation for Chinese Community Case by case. Translation for guilds, projects, and notion wiki 100 hours
Host Host (10 hrs per-week), research & development 600 hours
Moderator Moderate Town Hall (including prep and afterwork) 80 hours

Notion Team Plan Subscription

Item Number Benefits USD/Season
Notion Team Plan 3 users (Dev, Community, and Writers Guild) Longer page history, Admin teams $120 = 10/member/month * 3 * 4 months

Slido Subscription

Item Number Benefits USD/Season
Slido Engage Plan 2 users Up to 200 participants per event, unlimited polls, unlimited quizzes $347 (billed annually)

Financials

The requested budget is based on a projected idea of operations that are needed to fulfil the Season 1 scope of work, as laid out above. The nature of the work we’re doing, sometimes means that we are not working in strict 1hr time frames. It can be much longer, and it can also be shorter. Regardless, these efforts are impactful. And so I want to reframe how we quantify and ascribe value to that work.

Taking a cue from the legal profession — billable hours. Any work we do that is in service of the server architecture mission, is valuable; and thus should accrue remuneration in the form of $CODE.

Budget Calculation = 𝒙 no. hours per-week X 16-week Season X 15 $CODE/hr

Buffer (miscellaneous) = 6,840 $CODE

Total Requested Budget = 33,600 $CODE (8,400 $CODE per-month)

Contributor Est. Weekly Hours $CODE (Season 1)
aakansha 9 hours 2,160
Alex1237 15 hours 3,600
luan (Guild Lead) 35 hours 8,400
Contributor_Role 52.5 hours 12,600

Community Guild Lead

Accountable for the overall engagement of members across the DAO.

Season 1 Tasks
  • Establish minimum viable contribution framework
  • Deliver documented onboarding process & KPIs for measuring its success
  • Deliver plans to increase and encourage the diversity of the membership and leadership of the DAO in S2.
KPIs

  • A minimum of 80% of people who pass through Phase 1 of onboarding, should go on to pass through Phase 2:
    Phase 1 = Passing through the Onboarding process
    Phase 2 = Making 1 minimal viable contribution

  • All projects that fall under the Community Guild must have updated Notion pages

Remuneration [REMOVED—deferred]

$7,000 monthly dollars

Duration

One Season = 16 weeks (4 months)

Team

The following people will comprise the Season 1 Core Team.

  • @aakansha12 (aakansha#9163): Guild Treasurer, Town Hall Quiz Lead

  • @myz1237.eth (Alex1237#2487): Guild Scribe, Translation Coordinator

  • @luan (lu.an#9388): Guild Coordinator, Guild Lead

Success Metrics & KPIs

Town Hall

Stage our first Town Hall under the new format.

Communal Space

Conduct Research & Development into what was formerly called Vibes, and work alongside key stakeholders across the DAO to build out a new version (potentially under a different name).

Notion 1

Ensure that all relevant projects and initiatives that fall under the Community Guild, have updated pages in Notion by the end of Season 1 (Onboarding, Town Hall, AxisOne etc)

Notion 2

Work with key stakeholders where applicable, to create How-To Guides that the Onboarding Team and existing DAO members can benefit utilize. Some examples below:

  • Navigating Discord
  • Claiming a task in DeWork
  • Navigating a Community Guild Notion page

Next Steps

The immediate next steps are focusing on finalizing a format for the Season 1 Town Halls, and also finding ways to maintain our weekly cadence around how the Community Guild functions. This will allow members to find their rhythm (coming off of a busy period of working through budget proposals), and prepare them for the upcoming season.

VOTE

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

0 voters

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[DRAFT] - Talent Coordination Bot Proposal - Soil 🌱 - Unlock Community Powered Opportunity - S1 Budget Application
[ARCHIVED] - Community Guild S1 Budget Application
#2

Top effort getting this together mate. You’re clocking in like 60 hours of contributions across proposals, are you sure that is sustainable?

There is also a lot of cross-over between the Coordination Operator role and this proposal. i.e. creating how-to guides and the server architecture teams’ work/general tooling that we need to be aware of conscious moving into S1. It was my intention to spend a lot of my time between now and the start of Season 1 creating how-to guides related to finance + coordination (DeWork etc.) for example, as this stuff needs to be in place quickly so keen to make sure they’re complimenting each other :slight_smile:

#3

yeah I’ll be fine. how my brain processes and experiences time and data is quite different from some others. I’ll manage okay, so long as I enforce my boundaries. the overall scope of work is not really different from what I’m currently doing in the DAO; both in terms of workload, and time consumption. having these proposals just makes things a little more official, and affords me greater clarity on focus areas for Season 1. one reason I needed to re-write this proposal was because there were some things that needed to be removed, as it spreads the team too thin.

Yup, I’m cognisant of the crossover with the server architecture effort, and Onboarding as well. those were always inevitable. I created the server architecture team because I was already focusing on it under the Onboarding effort, but also had @aakansha12 and @michellebakels focusing on it under the Community Guild. workflow had been pretty ad-hoc, but working on and thinking through these proposals is largely what led to the creation of the team. gotta start ushering better structures around working, as we can track our progress etc. I have context across all 3 proposals, so it’s fine for me.

as for the How-To Guides, I’m happy to omit this from the proposal, and just support you on that front. do let me know

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#4

I think the most important thing is that we just collaborate closely and we lean towards action as much as possible. there is so much overlap between all of this that we’re going to need to figure out during Season 1 re how our structures should evolve anyway that re-thinking these overlaps and thus proposals at this stage feels like a non-starter to me.

think we all work well enough together to figure it out just need to be sure to keep it front of mind.

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#5

gm, @luan about the Guild Lead salary. $7k a month. Are you using the same rate as the rest of the Operators? How many hours is that worth of?

#6

Hey Erik. From what I understood in the now archived DAO Operators draft proposal, each Guild was to define their Lead. Unless I misunderstood, I took that to mean define the role itself and scope of work, as well as the salary.

Is that incorrect?

Because in the initial proposal, it was listed as $5,000. But I’ve looked at the scope of responsibility that falls under Community Guild (and subsequently the Lead) and determined that $5k doesn’t accurately reflect the scope of work involved (neither does $7K, but I’m mindful of our existing financial limitations). The Community Guild is multilayed in way that is quite different from the other Guilds; and that is one of the main reasons Onboarding, AxisOne, and the Server Architecture effort were spun out under their own proposals.

Would definitely like to get more clarity here, if I’ve misunderstood something however. Can you elaborate more on the rate and the Operators? I’m cognisant of the DAO’s financial position and I can lower the salary now, if it allows treasury funds to last longer.

In terms of hours, I put a conservative amount of 20 in the proposal. It will likely be more than that, as it’s been more than that for several months on my end - but it’s difficult to pinpoint a precise number at this juncture. Once the season kicks off, then I can track that more accurately, relative to the work being done.

#7

Totally correct for a Guild to propose an Operator. Just wanted to align different rates.
Coordination Operator, for example, is set to be paid 8,000 monthly, with an expected 40 weekly hours, give or take.

#8

okay gotcha, that makes sense.

when I counted it about a month and a half ago, I counted that I average between 30-35hrs per week. some weeks it’s more and some weeks it’s down to around 25hrs or so. it depends on the workload that week, and how I utilize my time. sometimes I can clear a week’s worth of work in a day or even in a matter of hours, if I’m hyperfocusing. an odd benefit to my own ADHD brain.

I’m going to amend the no. of hours I’ve listed under Guild Lead

#9

I’ve gone ahead and updated the proposal. I’ve also added an additional row for the Contributors, so it’s easier for people to understand what the total requested budget is indicative of (see below):

#10

Month #3 Rundown

Milestone Summary

A lot work has gone into redefining how the Guild meetings are structured, and is one of main reasons why I created ‘The State of Developer DAO’ thread. I kickstarted discussions around member pathways, drawing distinctions, and figuring out how to better cater to them. We’ve also been trying to engage more people who don’t usually attend the meetings, to solicit their feedback, and to support them if they wish to participate in some way. What has become a priority for me, is finding a format (in the interim) that can feel relevant to both contributors and non-contributors.

We discuss and debate ideas, experiment, and then run a retrospective no longer than 2 weeks later. Quick feedback loops are important for us. We also continue to refine the format of Town Halls, and have been a pioneering force for the existence of social layers within the DAO.

I also successfully worked with @dabit3 to consolidate the Scholarships initiative under the AxisOne Program, and worked with @aakansha12 to refine the application questions and overall format.

Allocation Revisions (Optional)

N/A

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#11

gm, steward duty :rotating_light:

i have seen and appreciate the work this core team has put into D_D so far. in particular, i’m a big fan of the latest town hall iterations. :heart:

feedback: if current budget milestones no longer really represent current priorities, i’d love to see a more current iteration. for example, original budget includes big focus on notion (maintenance and translations) and communal spaces (e.g., Vibes). still relevant? are there any deliverables associated in remainder of S1?

glad to hear this. looks like OG version is still up via the typeform link in here. what are next steps here?

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#12

Communal Spaces

With communal spaces, we trialled something with @meowy which ran for a few weeks but found that there wasn’t a lot of buy-in. The premise felt sound, but there are a lot less people in the server right now (outside of core operators). So it’s 1 part down to the ‘flow’ of people in the server, 1 part down to the common activities happening in the server, and then 1 part indicative of the need to accommodate different time zones. Something that we concluded earlier in the year, from the Onboarding side of things.

We see these things as primarily down to the nature of the market right now, the structure of the DAO, but also the limitations of Discord. not everybody wants to use this, and recent discussions have reiterated some of the critiques I levied back in January. we work with what we have, however.

Right now, I’m continue to focus on D_D Women as one of those ‘communal spaces’ in the DAO. It’s undergone a few iterations, based on experiments either @meowy has done or we’ve collectively agreed upon. Community Guild has always invested in the various efforts coming out of D_D Women and so much of the discussions around social layers/communal spaces revolves around that.

Mental health/wellness spaces correlated to these things, and @aakansha12 and I met with the founders of Gravity DAO to get more information.

Some of this work has been exploratory (researched-based) and some experimental.

Notion + Translations

The creation of the LANGUAGE HAUS category of forums was one step towards providing a more multi-lingual experience. So far, the most talkative forums have been Chinese and Spanish. @myz1237.eth has been continuing to engage with the Chinese community and there are a few members who have taken on translation tasks, which Alex is keeping a record of. I appreciate his patience with me, as I know it was a big ask to migrate from their previous channel to the new Forum.

Translation demands were set to being handled on a ‘case-by-case’ basis, as we could not guarantee that everyone would continue. Nor that all Chinese members would remain engaged. Currently, Discord announcements and newsletters have been the biggest beneficiaries.

Much of the Notion work is no longer applicable for this season. Too much has changed that it rendered some of the prior ambitions redundant.

My main focus this season, as it pertains to Notion, has been to ensure that we have good notes across the teams I work on (where applicable), and that we recordings available for future reference. I like to have a point of reference that I can easily find, and I want to keep to that standard. Definite areas that can be improved, no doubt.

My sole deliverable on Notion, would be to clean up the pages of the teams that I’m on, by end of S1.

The budget that was allocated for translations is difficult to guage in advance. For example, I didn’t have any plans this season, towards creating a more language-diverse space in the DAO, but it felt right based on some observations. Getting that set up was an effort in itself, and the Language Moderators who helped to make that happen, were compensated in $CODE tokens and will continue to. @7i7o is a good example of this, as he’s helped to steward the Spanish channel. Having that wiggle room to go off-path has been good.

Part of the Community Budget is going towards supporting D_D Women giveaways, and the upcoming ETH India event with Coinvise. See below:

Tweet

Coinvise x D_D ETH India event

I’d mentioned in my Month 3 Rundown under the OKRs proposal, but @vorcigernix and I had identified a flaw in the existing OKRs setup and we’ve been gradually attempting to test initial assumptions and observations within our respective contexts. For me, that means using the teams I’m on as a testing ground. The flaw we identified is that the current system can be quite rigid and make it challenging for people to deviate because of the KPIs. We’ve agreed that having overarching goals are fine, but there can be a lot l more room and a willingness to course correct or deviate to a different path, so far as it’s still in service of the overarching goal.

For me, I define that as actually having a community beyond just the core operators (ref. The State of Developer DAO thread). But also feeding into that community across different verticals, like our efforts to support D_D Women in tangible ways.

I saw your comment in Discord about the benefit to having more time for a discussion around the summaries and I’m happy to push this out until after your Thanksgiving break.

#13

I spoke with Nader yesterday, and there’s a slight delay on his end with updating the Typeform. @aakansha12 and I restructured some of the questions and I sent them over to him on the 4th November, but need him to make the amendments because it’s his account.

The logistical headache however, is done :white_check_mark: This was the biggest hurdle for us, this season (as it pertains to Scholarships). Nader provided us with access to the submissions, and gave us the power to vet and make decisions on who is awarded a scholarship. He will still need to be the one to send out the NFTs - but that was always a given. We primarily wanted to be able to be involved in the decision-making process. Between the aakansha and I, we can alleviate Nader of that responsibility, since he’s got a tonne of work commitments on his end.

Format

• We want to give out 5 scholarships a week

• And also give out an Arc browser invite to each person

It’s very basic for now, but we have things we’re working on to enhance it. The next iteration will be split 50/50 between those who earn the scholarship and those who are awarded the scholarship based on meeting certain conditions (hence why we restructured the questions).

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#14

Hi @wolovim - excuse the delay, here. I needed to clarify some things with @myz1237.eth regarding translations. Below is a rundown of things we’ve already worked on in Month 3, and things we wish to accomplish. Some of which, will continue into the off-season (given the nature of responsibilities):

Notion

Onboarding page

AxisOne page

Community page

Server Architecture page

Transcribing meeting notes

Translation

DDIP proposal (Chinese)

Snapshot (Chinese)

Town Hall

Preparation (month 3 + 4)

Quiz (month 3 + 4)

Retro (month 3)

Assessment (month 4)

TH hosting and moderation (month 3)

Communal Space

2 week trial (2hrs)

Retro

Guild Syncs

Set agenda

Sync

Solicit updates

Community + Morale

Mediation

Incident reports

Code of Conduct

Enquiries

Events

ETH Lisbon prep

ETH India prep

Retro

Asynchronous discussion

AxisOne

Restructuring of application

Vetting of submissions

Selection + distribution of awards

Community Engagement

Byfander Town experiments

Overhauling governance practices and pathways

__

Let me know if there’s additional information you’d like for me to provide.

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#15

thanks for the list in one place; much easier to reason about. :handshake: