First: I have been vocally against this kind of stipend in the past. That was over a year ago, and I have to admit the status quo isn’t great. Given that – I’m gonna support anyone with the energy to drive and a reasonable plan to try out, and I think this easily hits that bar.
Thoughts on the status quo
In the time since that post I linked, we’ve frankly struggled to get enough active volunteers.
The latest GMC membership selection had 11 nominees for 9 slots; it had one specifically asking not to be chosen, one that wasn’t sure about their time availability, and there was definitely some work that went into getting people interested. The latest IMC membership selection has 12 nominees for 9 spots; it had one specifically note they could be a reliable signer but were too time limited for discussion, and it had a member that’s stepped down.
Beyond that, “active” hasn’t been a freebie either. If you look at hard metrics for the GMC or IMC, you’ll note there’s dramatic differences in communication and signing work. There’s also differences in other work, even if it’s harder to record. Here, one of the things I liked about the status quo (as a volunteer, any work is positive) may actually be a liability (there’s nothing driving a “floor”).
On to this post proper!
- On the stipend, is “expected monthly hours” meant to be a floor, mean, median, or something else?
- Re coingecko pricing, I’m cool with that (or any other reasonable system), but would love for a replicable way to get an answer. Maybe this is a simple api query and then “average those numbers”? My first instinct was “use a huge Uni TWAP”, but liquidity vs USD doesn’t have particular support, so CG might do better.
- The streaming thing is a bit weird to me… so if a person getting $750/month serves for 1 year and doesn’t run for re-election, they’d get:
12*350 + 350*6 + 350*(5/6) + 350*(4/6) + 350*(3/6) + 350*(2/6) + 350*(1/6) = $7475? Whereas someone continuously running gets $9k per year? Seems a bit odd tbh… is it intended to reward stability? I’m onboard with cutting off stream (and upcoming period pay) for getting kicked, or even leaving partway.- If we removed the “failed to get re-elected” bit, an almost identical thing can be achieved by escrowing the first 2.5 months of pay to be paid out if someone leaves in good standing.
- Weighting
- This is hard
- I can almost guarantee there will be significant feelings here.
- We should consider the pros/cons of anonymous voting on weights. My vote is on anonymous here. As much as I like transparency, I worry about rifts (more to do with the judgement than the money, tbh). I think from a quick look at the coordinape docs that you cannot tell who did and didn’t allocate to you unless people write notes?