I hope everyone is having an enjoyable holiday season. As per RPIP-15, the Grants Management Committee (GMC) has finalized rubrics for the scoring of grant/bounty/retrospective award applications and is publicly posting the results. We’d like to thank the many people who weighed in, both in Discord and in several forum posts over the past few months. With the posting of these rubrics, we will be triggering RPIP-15’s calendar, meaning that the first application period will go live next week on January 1. On January 1, someone from the GMC (probably me) will post four new threads in the Grants/Bounties category: one for grant applications, one for bounty applications, one for retrospective award applications, and a final one for general public discussion of any submitted applications. We ask you to please only post applications in the application threads and keep any and all discussion of them in the discussion thread. Below are the GMC goals, rubrics, and application templates that we will be using. I am posting these a week early so that people can work on their applications now if they’d like. Please do not post any completed applications until January 1, when the appropriate forum posts will go live.
Final note and then I’ll get to the stuff you actually care about. Please understand this is a work in progress, and things may change after we go through a round of applications in January. Suggestions for improvement are definitely welcome, though any changes would be put in place for Round 2.
GMC Goals
Grants, bounties, and retrospective awards should make it easier and/or more attractive to do one or more of the following:
- become a node operator
- operate a node, mint rETH
- hold or use rETH
- improve the quality of life for the protocol and its community.
Rubrics
What follows are three rubrics for scoring grants, bounties, and retrospective awards, respectively. As per RPIP-15, any applications submitted will be scored by GMC members using this rubric, but the GMC maintains discretion to award grants, bounties, and retrospective awards guided by rubric scores but not automatically beholden to them. Scores are not meant to be directly comparable across categories (e.g. a grant application receiving a “14” is not automatically considered to be stronger than a bounty application scoring a “13’).
Grants Rubric
The Grants rubric involves scoring each of the three categories from 1 to 5:
- If the application is successful, to what extent does it further the GMC goals?
- To what extent can the application be feasibly carried out by the person(s) proposed to complete it?
- If the application is successful, how large is the benefit to the protocol relative to the size of the proposed costs
The maximum score is 15 and the minimum is 3.
Bounty Rubric
The Bounties rubric involves scoring each of the three categories from 1 to 5:
- If the bounty is completed successfully, to what extent does it further the GMC goals?
- To what extent is it likely that the bounty can be feasibly claimed/completed successfully?
- If the bounty is successfully completed, how large is the benefit to the protocol relative to the size of the proposed costs?
The maximum score is 15 and the minimum is 3.
Retrospective Award Rubric
The Retrospective Award rubric involves scoring the following question on a 1 to 5 scale:
- To what extent did the proposed and completed project further the GMC goals?
Note: if the project is ongoing, the retrospective award is given for work completed prior to the current award period, with any future awards for the same project expected to compete in the Grants category and as a separate application.
Application Process
On or before the first of each odd-numbered month (for the example used here, January 1, 2023), a member of the GMC shall create three separate threads in the “Grants/Bounties” category of the DAO Forum, titled:
- January 2023 GMC Call for Grant Applications
- January 2023 GMC Call for Bounty Applications
- January 2023 GMC Call for Retrospective Award Applications
- January 2023 GMC Community Discussion of Submitted Applications
The first post in each thread (except #4) will be made by the GMC member who created the thread. It shall include the following:
- The verbatim application template as posted below (after any further revisions by the GMC).
- A request that any completed applications be submitted in that specific DAO forum thread.
- A request that there be NO OTHER posts in the thread, other than completed applications. Questions should be directed to DMs to GMC members. Community discussion of submitted applications should be directed to thread #4 above, or to the #governance channel on Discord.
- A specific deadline by which any applications must be timestamped on the forum, in this example it would be 23:59 (or 11:59 PM) UTC of January 15, 2023. Reiterate the UTC-specific nature of the deadline.
Thread #4 will be an open space for community to discuss any submissions. GMC members should refrain from participating in that discussion unless it specifically involves an application they submitted.
As soon as is feasible after the deadline, a member of the GMC will post a “SUBMISSIONS CLOSED” message in each of the three threads. That same member will also create a post giving each application a code, e.g. GA012301 (for Grant application round January 2023, first submission in the thread), GA012302, BA012301 (Bounty), RA012301 (Retrospective), etc. These codes will be used for scoring and for shorthand in GMC discussions.
The GMC will pursue all standard methods of publicizing the call for awards, including Discord pings and Twitter.
Application Templates
Grants Application Template
=== Project ===
- What is the work being proposed?
- Is there any related work this builds off of?
- Will the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?
=== Benefits === - enter N/A where appropriate
- How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?
- How does this help rETH holders?
- How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?
- How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?
- How does this help the Rocket Pool community?
- How does this help RPL holders?
- What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?
- Will the resulting project be open source?
=== Team ===
- Who is doing the work?
- What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?
- What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?
- How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?
- How will the work be maintained after delivery?
=== Payment and Verification ===
- What is the acceptance criteria?
- What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?
- How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?
- What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?
=== Conflict of Interest ===
- Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).
- Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?
Bounties Application Template
=== Bounty ===
- What is the nature of the proposed bounty?
- Must the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?
=== Benefits === - enter N/A where appropriate
- If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?
- If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help rETH holders?
- If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?
- If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?
- If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help the Rocket Pool community?
- If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help RPL holders?
- What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from the bounty being successfully completed?
- Will the results of the completed bounty be open source?
=== Work and Verification ===
- What steps would be entailed in completing the bounty? Do successful examples of such work exist elsewhere?
- How long is the proposed bounty available for? Is it awarded to the first team to successfully claim it, or is it in some way divided among all such successful claims in the proposed availability period?
- Who will test any products submitted for claiming the bounty?
- What is the acceptance criteria for awarding of the bounty?
=== Payment ===
- How much RPL is the applicant requesting for successful completion of the bounty?
=== Conflict of Interest ===
- Does the person or persons proposing the bounty have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the successful completion of the bounty).
- Will the applicant, or any protocol or project in which the applicant has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the bounty is successfully completed?
Retrospective Awards Application Template
=== Retrospective Award ===
- Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?
- What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.
- Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?
=== Benefits === - enter N/A where appropriate
- How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?
- How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?
- How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?
- How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?
- How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?
- How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?
=== Payment ===
- How much RPL is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?
=== Conflict of Interest ===
- Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).