In order to keep the application threads clear of discussions (to make it easier for committee members to read and score them), please use this thread for any and all questions and discussions of round 11 period of grant, bounty, and retrospective award applications.
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Iām gonna do a quick round of my initial reaction (go/no-go, star rating) on all the applications:
- Rocket Pool Summit - yes, 4 stars
- Node Operator Succession Planning Research - yes, 3.5 stars
- Sakundi - no, 1.5 stars
- Tidbits - no, 2.5 stars
- Patches - yes, 3 stars
- dEEtoooo reddit - yes, 4 stars
- support - yes, 3 stars
- treasury work - yes, 3.5 stars
- RPIP Feedback - yes, 4 stars
- Release Process RPIPs - yes, 4.5 stars
- DAO Engagement Docs - yes, 5 stars
- RW Support Template integration - yes, 3 stars
- design architect - yes, 3.5 stars
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Grants
Rocket Pool Summit Grant
Fund it. Iām not a fan of funding small things like this. $50 is nothing compared to the $30k you need to launch a minipool. Not a fan of the photo requirement although itās perfectly understandable why itās needed. But even if itās a small gesture it motivates people to get together more.
Research on Node Operator Succession Planning Solutions
200 RPL or $6000 to do some thinking for one week. He also wants to get paid as soon as the grant is approved, not based on the quality of his work. He has no track record in the community. Donāt fund it.
Enhancing Rocket Pool Node Security using Sakundi Technology
Looks like snake oil but itās very cheap. Lots of corporate/marketing/bullshit-speak so itās hard to understand what it will actually do. This looks like some 3rd party UI that no one will ever look at. If they do detect some attack, what will a NO do then - go offline? Donāt fund it.
Tidbits, Simulations, and Videos
$19k for yet more education content. I checked out their Uniswap one and it was dog slow to load. First thing I noticed was typos. Their Rocket Pool sample site was at first broken and itās so basic I donāt see how itās useful. They donāt seem to have an audience so this is just making content. Though their format does look visually nicer than the Bankless crap and Rocket Pool University. I think we have enough educational content, no need for more generic stuff. More stuff for node operators would be welcome. Content with soul is welcome. This is just more soulless content farming. I think all educational content should be funded retroactively because most of it will not be good. Donāt fund this one.
RP Team Partnership (Patches)
Fund it. Full time salary would be $100/h * 40h/w * 52w/y = $208k/y which seems fair. 24h/w and occasional 40h+/w sprints also seem like a good way to work long term. Dream job or what, except it looks like heāll be told what to do.
Retros
Reddit Contributions (Support) - dEEtoooo
Pay him. Double it.
2023 ā 2024 Support Hours - Leighm
Pay him.
Treasury Work
Pay him. Double it. I think he even caught some miscalculations in the past so heās been doing good work.
Bounties
RPIP Feedback Contribution
Fund it. Rewards should be RPL not USD e.g 1 RPL, 2.5 RPL, 5, RPL, 10 RPL. The budget could be per RPIP.
Rocket Pool Release Process RPIPs
Seems like a lot of work to get buy in from everyone and it will take many months. This starts to smell like adding more and more bureaucracy. $100k would be the highest award ever. Fund it at $20k.
DAO Engagement Documentation
Fund it. manual.makerdao.com seems like a useful starting point if I cared to start participating in Marker.
RocketWatch Support Template FAQ Integration
Fund it. It doesnāt hurt to have this content outside Discord and be linkable. However, the bot support templates came about organically and thereās little friction to update them. I fear a website/repo would get outdated/neglected.
Rocket Pool Design Architect
It sounds great in theory but how will it actually work in practice? This architect writes the specs and everything and then what? You have no team to do the work. I think what Valdorff does works fine - do the work and apply for a retro award if the work was impactful.
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Iām generally happy to trade freedoms for impact.
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Bounty
- RPIP feedback - Yes with concern. Fund it as an interesting experiment but concerned about spam. Be ready to adjust overtime. Pay in RPL for alignment.
- PRIP Release Process - No, recommend modify to lower cost and scope. Cost is high, and concerned about process restraining good practice instead of reasonable practice defining process. pDAO is still getting its feet wet and prefer pDAO and team to find the pressure points then define process. Recommend modify by lowering bounty amount and scope to recording pain points and getting feedback from RPIP authors, team, and pDAO on process with upcoming protocol RPIPs.
- DAO Engagement Documentation - Yes, love it.
- RocketWatch Support Template - Tentative yes. Worth an experiment but recommend adding tracking of actual use over time. Hope support folks are aware of bounty if approved.
- Rocket Pool Design Architect - No. Maybe a pDAO coordinator, or something akin to a GMC administrator? I think this needs to be fleshed out more, no for now.
Retrospective
- Reddit Contributions (Support) - Yes, fully support.
- Support Channel - Yes, fully support. Hard to have a metric around supportās value that helps keep nodes running but I support this retro.
- Treasury Work - Yes, fully support. Great work.
Grants
- Rocket Pool Summit Grant - Modify. Would favor modification to include existing community members hosting others who are not current members but adjacent (DAOs, industry partners/colleagues, or potential new operators). Include report outs to community. This modification would not exclude locations with low node operator counts, such as South Korea, etc.
- Node Operator Succession Planning Solutions - Opposed. Undeveloped, may feel different if it mentioned research around specific solutions for stated issues (trust, knowledge, fraud).
- Tikuna - No, risks and benefits not clearly outlined.
- Tidbits - No. At least there are no points, but this does not use existing research on node operation onboarding to address current pain points.
- RP Team Partnership (Patches) - Yes, fully support. Suggest modification of timesheet to include photo of the cat of the month.
Grants
Rocket Pool Summit Grant
Budget is modest and friendship is magic.
Research on Node Operator Succession Planning Solutions
I think something like this would be nice, but I donāt think it needs 30 hours tbh (let alone 30 hours for phase 1 of 3). I think 80-90% of the value is in an instructional document template that could prolly be done in 5 hours. My next step up from there would be using a Safe with social recovery. I worry more complex stuff isnāt actually better tbh (eg, buying a node but always having someone else with node keys and validator keysā¦ eep. Also, $200 an hour is fairly steep.
Enhancing Rocket Pool Node Security using Sakundi Technology
I believe this is the 3rd application? Has anything changed? If so, that would be a great focus. Iām essentially assuming nothingās changed rather than going back and playing āfind the differenceā.
Rocket Pool - Tidbits, Simulations, and Videos
No specific issue with these folks, butā¦ do we have evidence that (a) our previous educational funding has translated to real impact, (b) thereās still a hole? If so, does this (c) addresses the hole and (d) likely get in front of the right people at the time it needs to be addressed? I would really like 4 āyesā answers in order to fund.
RP Team Partnership (Patches)
Soā¦ if Patches wants it - letās make it so. That said, I think one of the coolest things about Patches working on RP stuff is that he has been able to highlight things he believes are issues, even if the team doesnāt have that priority. I do think heightened team access is really beneficial.
Bounties
RPIP Feedback Contribution
So this oneās interesting and I support this. Thereās 2 things that are going on here.
In past governance facilitation work, Iāve put in roughly $500 per vote and explained it as āa fair amount for saying thank you to someone for doing something that we clearly needā. If we want to actually get folks to do work they otherwise wouldnāt, we need to push harder. By setting the bar on what ādirection changesā and āfeedbackā are worth, it also sets the bar on RPIP work in general.
The other thing is that in previous work where Iāve thought others should be rewarded (eg), itās felt like Iām trading off my rewards vs rewarding others. Iāve literally sat here and played with the numbers a whole lotta times. Here this is framing it differently ā itās saying āweāll pay for the feedback on its own, and thatās not coming out of the authorās shareā. I think this is very good.
Rocket Pool Release Process RPIPs
I have honestly not reached an opinion. This is really important. The price tag is really big. The topic is also really big and the DAO has limited attention spanā¦ with tokenomics stuff coming up, Iām not sure itās a good idea to have this ongoing at the same time (I suspect it could skate through with little attention). I might lean āagainst for nowā based on the last.
[Will continue laterā¦]
Bounties, continued
DAO Engagement Documentation
I have two concerns:
- How are people finding this entry point?
- Overlap with other resources
For the first, itās a concern I have repeatedly about educational work. How is the right person getting directed here at the right time? One thing would be including a link to this in the docs for setting things up as an NO ā just having the tickle of āthere is a resourceā is significant. Beyond that, I suspect discord is the main source, which makes for a bit of a circular dependency 
. Still ā better.
In programming thereās a principle of having a āSingle Source of Truthā. In other words, the pDAO should be described well by the pDAO charter, the IMC should be described well by the IMC charter, etc. I like the RPIPs with TLDRs list, but the pDAO/oDAO/GMC/IMC ones seem like they should be redundant.
Finally, I think there could be a lot of value added telling people how to contribute. A lot of my experience has been that those who really want to contribute simply contribute, and folks that want a clear path struggle. This might echo with Rocket Pool Release Process RPIPs talking about how loose things are, though I think weāve gotten better at bounties specifically.
Iām also seeing considerable overlap with book.sprocketpool.net, eg, which I think suffers from very similar concerns.
In the end, Iām not sure where I end up. The price isnāt wild ā Iām more just uncertain about the population that would get addressed in reality.
RocketWatch Support Template FAQ Integration
This has extreme overlap with BA012301. When people have said theyād start working on it (I think itās been almost 10 people now?), I point them at the faq list as low hanging fruit. This is much better defined, which can help get it to happen. I would suggest someone could not claim BA012301 from work for this bounty.
Rocket Pool Design Architect
As written, this aint close. Since this is like an open call for a āhireā and not for a specific person, we need some form of interview to choose someone or not. This individual is essentially being trusted to choose what to work on in whatever capacity they wish and do it. I see essentially zero oversight other than the full pDAO firing them (or is that the GMC?). Iām ok with that, fwiw, just takes agreat deal of trust in the hire.
Retrospective Awards
Reddit Contributions (Support)
Seems very reasonable. Iād ask that we check D2 thinks the numbers seem reasonable, and that we run numbers on ma0za (another mod) on the subreddit.
leighmās 2023 ā 2024 Support Hours
Weāve come mighty close to formalizing precedent at this point. Iād say go for it.
Treasury Work
Fund and fund more. As IMC treasurer ā having vaca looking things over makes me feel more secure. He has caught multiple issues - some have been essential nothingburger details, and some have needed real corrections (erroneous inflation example). He has been incredibly regular in posting treasury reports (see here). I canāt speak to the accuracy of the 3 hour estimate, but $2.5k seems a huge underestimate of value added. The example I provided was a ~$50k catch in favor of the pDAO, eg.
Grants
Rocket Pool Summit Grant
Started off as āfundā but, the more I think about this, the more I think this is a bad way to go about it. As a general idea seems fine.
I think this is much less effective as a method to encourage in-person events that producing a bounty for event-organizers. Such a bounty can include a milestone for reimbursing participants. Like there is no forward flow of payment here that mean this needs to be a grant. I know author tried it as a bounty, but I donāt think I agree with the reasoning, and still think recurring bounty would be better for this.
It seems actively counter-productive to price this in RPL. Like, you want to support community members for whom $50 would be a significant? If thatās the case, then forcing that person to take price risk on that $50 sucks. Like, the costs to be reimbursed are in USDā¦ If you want to use RPL here frame it as a reward rather than a reimbursement.
Research on Node Operator Succession Planning Solutions
Seems like documentation on some options here should exist. If the grant is turned down, will it come into existence via some other channel? Feels like probably no.
Fund it at a reduced level? Agree with others to focus on simplicity.
Enhancing Rocket Pool Node Security using Sakundi Technology
No. Seems like something ethereum needs, rather than something that RP needs specifically, and it was already funded by Ethereum Foundation. Dashboard link on their website 404s. Too many buzzwords.
Rocket Pool - Tidbits, Simulations, and Videos
Probably not. The information in the sample site is misleading. And I feel like one of these exists already for RP somewhere? Didnāt someone do one?
Like, the protocol doesnāt have good introductory documentation as-actual-official-documentation. Probably makes sense to start with that rather than the tidbits + video format.
RP Team Partnership (Patches)
In principle, I think itās great to get Patches money to work on whatever they think is important. They seem very competent. Probably fund it just based on that.
However, this feels like the exact opposite to the arrangement you want to actually decentralize work on the protocol. When Maker needed to decentralize rapidly, the Maker Foundation continued to pay the Maker smart contracts team with the instructions to ājust do whatever the DAO tells you to do.ā The conditions are not the same, but still, if the pDAO is paying, the pDAO should get to direct development priorities.
I would much rather see a setup where Patches takes requests from the community / pDAO / GMC or even self-directs, and only falls back to core-team-directed work in the absence of such direction.
The core team should be able to work productively with people that operate outside of their internal structure.
Bounties
(Will respond to others for my bounties in this section)
RPIP Feedback Contribution
- If GMC wants to force payment in RPL, that can be fine, but should still be denominated in USD, feedback doesnāt become more or less useful with RPL price fluctuation.
- RPIP authors should act as a spam deterrent by judging the utility of feedback.
Rocket Pool Release Process RPIPs
- Yes itās a lot of work to get buy-in.
- It could result in additional bureaucracy, but doesnāt have to, and it should be a goal that it doesnāt.
- I think 20k will be too low given the coordination work involved, but can start it smaller and increase with no takers, I guess.
- Agree itās going to be a big topic and consume a lot of attention, agree it shouldnāt become active prior to the tokenomics stuff.
DAO Engagement Documentation
- Doesnāt have to violate āsingle source of truthā principle, which I also subscribe to. It should be an introductory window into the definitive source (which is often more precise and complex by necessity), and links to the source of truth for more detailed info. The bullet-lists of RPIPs are not introduction friendly.
- book.sprocketpool.net could be turned into this, but I donāt think it is this in its current form.
RocketWatch Support Template FAQ Integration
- Agree that this would be easy to neglect, hence inclusion of maintenance plan.
- I havenāt spoken to support folks yet, I will reach out to them when making the definition if proposal is approved.
- Tracking use over time is hard with docs. Iām open to ideas on how to do this effectively.
- Iām actually fine if people claim from both this and [BA012301](RPIP-29: GMC Grants, Bounties, Retrospective Awards Ledger , given there has been very little movement thus far. But I can write the definition either way.
Rocket Pool Design Architect
I think @ramana is right in that this is worthwhile to fund. I suspect that if this was done consistently and effectively it could bring more than 200k / year of value to Rocket Pool. I agree it is similar to what Iām trying to do. My strategy for addressing this was the bounty incentives primarily, as they allow anyone that wants to do this work to be funded in a way that fits into existing processes.
Iām unsure if its good to create a bounty for this explicitly. The problem with this sort of thing is structuring the bounty in such a way that it actually results in the output that you want. I donāt think itās impossible to have a bounty for this, but I think its effectiveness relies heavily on the wording of milestones in the bounty definition.
I would say GMC should try to get bounty definitions for this, but I think it should communicate that itās going to have to be a very well thought out and effective definition in order to get funded.
Retros
Reddit Contributions (Support)
Yes, pay it. Reddit is annoying to moderate.
Setup an on-going grant or something for future coverage as well, if possible. If they are providing value and plan to continue to do so, donāt make it so someone needs to trigger retros manually every few months.
2023 ā 2024 Support Hours
Too lazy to check if itās consistent with the other support payments of late. Assuming it is, it seems bad to treat them inconsistently, and it should be funded.
Treasury Work
Yes, fund it. This was discussed some in the RPIP-41 thread.
On balance I think it makes more sense to fund the Treasury Work at the Stipend Rate defined in RPIP-41 ($30 rather than $50) assuming RPIP-41 passes. But I donāt think it matters enough for me to fight for it. (also feels sucky fighting to pay someone less, so eh, whatever the GMC want.)