Round 12 - GMC Call for Retrospective Applications - Deadline is May 7

This thread is for applications for Rocket Pool’s April 7, 2024 - May 7, 2024 retrospective awards. Please only post retrospective award applications in this thread. If you would like to discuss and/or ask questions about any applications you see in this thread, we ask that you do so in this separate forum thread which has been established for all community discussions related to this round of applications. Only those grant applications that are posted in this thread and timestamped by May 7, 2024 at 23:59 (11:59 PM) UTC will be considered. Any retrospective award applications posted after that deadline will be carried over to the next award period.

This is the expected schedule for round 12:

  • Application Period (April 7th - May 7th)
  • Negotiation Period (May 8th - May 20th)
  • Scoring Deadline (May 21st)
  • Final Voting Amendments, Discussion and Finalization (May 22nd - May 25th)
  • Award Announcement (May 26th)

To guide you in your application, the GMC has established the following goals and the following scoring rubric:

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.

Retrospective Award Rubric

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.

Retrospective Award Application Template

Please copy paste the template below into a reply. Answer the questions there, feel free to remove or add sections based on relevance.

## Name of 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](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT), [GPL](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html), [Apache](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0), [CC BY](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?



## Benefit

<please enter N/A where appropriate>

| Group | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Potential rETH holders | How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH? |
| rETH holders | How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders? |
| Potential NOs | 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? |
| NOs | How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node? |
| Community |  How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community? |
| RPL holders |  How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders? |



## Costs

### How much USD $ is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

### Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?



## 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).

Requesting retrospective grant funding for Node Operator User Research study

OpenUX

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.

In October 2023, OpenUX began an in-depth study about the experiences of node operators getting started with Rocket Pool. Earlier this year, we published the full insights including recommendations, produced an explainer video, spoke on a Twitter space to explain the findings, and hosted an AMA with the GMC to discuss possible solutions to put into action.

In our original proposal, we requested a budget of $50,000 to conduct the work, but agreed to deliver it at a reduced rate in order to prove the value to the GMC and wider community, with the option to request retrospective funding later. We agreed to execute the research study for $33,300 including research participant incentives. We now wish to make a request for retrospective funding of $16,700 to bring us up to the original cost for the work.

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?

Yes.

Benefit

Potential rETH holders
n/a

rETH holders
n/a

Potential NOs
The research findings supports decision-makers at Rocket Pool with data they need to improve the documentation and support for first time node operators. Insights can help support certain key product metrics, for example reducing time to get a node up and running, operator retention, reducing support requests etc. The result will mean that the experience is improved for people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time.

NOs
Outcomes for first-time node operators, and insights that inform better communication and governance will support people already running a node.

Community
The research deliverables are packed with insights and recommended courses of action that are enabling for the community; not only for the GMC to better direct resources, but for the wider community to be able to act on the findings and develop effective solutions that lead to greater NO adoption.

RPL holders
RPL holders benefit from actions taken off the back of the research: increased engagement, better brand equity, and increased trust in the long term sustainability of Rocket Pool and RPL, supporting token price.

Additionally…

Our goal for the research was to improve the experience of node operators, increase the number of people becoming node operators, and therefore increase the security of Ethereum overall. These are bold but achievable end results, however just having the research findings is not enough to make that so; the end users of our research (Rocket Pool core team, GMC and wider community) must be able to adequately action the findings. And due to the nature of user research in large distributed organizations like Rocket Pool, it can time for findings to turn into action, and results.

As a measure to evidence the effectiveness of our research, we anonymously surveyed GMC recipients to collect feedback on the research. Three people filled out the survey. Specific feedback we received from members of the GMC and community included:

“Very high quality work. In terms of ‘value adding’ to the community, high marks, though in some cases technical realities diminish the low hang of the low hanging fruit.”

“This was a positive experience with OpenUX. It will be interesting to see how many of the suggestions can be actioned by the pDAO or GMC.”

“Very professional and helpful report. The actionable stuff might take some time to massage into something that works for us, but that is not a knock to OpenUX.”

We asked our work to be scored and received the following scoring on 3 measurements: the deliverables being high quality, value-adding, and enabling for the Rocket Pool team.

Costs

How much USD $ is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

$16,700

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

LUSD

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).

No.

Name of Retrospective Award

2021 – 2024 Support Hours

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Mig - The Evil Overlord N.O.

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.

This grant is for recognition of my work in the Rocket Pool Support channel, from 2021 to April 25th 2024. My submitted hours are based on the results from the script haloooloolo has written.

rocketscrape github: GitHub - haloooloolo/rocketscrape

commands invoked for reference and better reproducibility:

python3 rocketscrape.py --include-threads -c support -s 2024-01-01 -e 2024-04-25 -r 20 contributors --session-timeout 15

python3 rocketscrape.py --include-threads -c support -s 2021-09-01 -e 2024-04-25 -r 20 contributors --session-timeout 15

Based on the script output, I have been the 6th most active support individual in 2024, with 40 hours, 10th all time, with a total of 146 hours. Total hours I am submitting for this grant is 146 hours. These hours only include work done in the support channel. I am not requesting any recognition for support work done in trading, Node operator, or Hardware.

Top :person_raising_hand:︱support contributors from 2024-01-01 till 2024-04-25

  1. haloooloolo: 186h 29m
  2. Patches: 110h 21m
  3. Leighm: 99h 4m
  4. Snocones: 56h 10m
  5. Steely: 46h 37m
  6. Mig - The Evil Overlord N.O. !: 40h 12m

Top :person_raising_hand:︱support contributors from 2021-09-01 till 2024-04-25

  1. Patches: 1156h 7m
  2. [object Object]: 585h 51m
  3. jcrtp: 322h 50m
  4. dΞΞtoo (hΞ/him): 296h 41m
  5. poupas: 288h 33m
  6. haloooloolo: 267h 27m
  7. faucetbot: 256h 37m
  8. 0xFornax: 239h 41m
  9. lilac: 183h 40m
  10. Mig - The Evil Overlord N.O. !: 146h 22m

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source

All support messages are available for review.

Benefit

Haloooloolo summarized it very well in his grant application.

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders Prospective rETH holders visit the support / general channel for help with navigating the website or ask questions about the reward distribution mechanism.
rETH holders rETH holders benefit from the higher effectiveness of node operators that have been helped in support.
Potential NOs Potential NOs go to support to ask for hardware suggestions, ask about the Smartnode stack or ask other miscellaneous setup questions.
NOs This is the core group for support activity. Most requests involve node maintenance or actively ongoing issues that caused an operator’s node to go offline.
Community Having a strong support channel to rely on is one of the main reasons a potential node operator would join the Rocket Pool community.
RPL holders Mostly NA - indirectly by helping other members of the community and therefore the protocol. Some support requests are about the migration of RPL v1.

Costs
$90/h
146 hours
total $13140

How much USD $ is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

$13140

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

RPL

Conflict of Interest

None

Name of Retrospective Award

April 2024 Support Hours

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Leighm.eth

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.

This grant is for recognition of work performed in the Rocket Pool Support channel, for the month of April 2024. My submitted hours are based on the results from the script haloooloolo has written.

I wanted to make mention of how important I feel the level of support that the handful of us bring to the Rocket Pool support channel. I have seen countless times, how thankful a node operator is to not only have their issue resolved, but have it resolved quickly by community members who are genuinely attentive and competently work with the NO.

Based on the script output, I have accumulated 33 hours in support for the month of April (April 1st to April 30th). These hours only include work done in the support channel. Until a new defined Support policy is developed and implemented, I’ll use this means of

rocketscrape --include-threads -c support -s 2024-04-01 -e 2024-05-01 -r 5 contributors --session-timeout 15

Top :person_raising_hand:︱support contributors from 2024-04-01 00:00:00+00:00 to 2024-05-01 00:00:00+00:00

  1. Leighm: 33h 18m
  2. haloooloolo: 29h 1m
  3. Steely: 13h 29m
  4. Patches: 12h 17m
  5. Mig - The Evil Overlord N.O. !: 8h 49m

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source

All support messages are available for review.

Benefit

Haloooloolo summarized it very well in his grant application last month.

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders Prospective rETH holders visit the support / general channel for help with navigating the website or ask questions about the reward distribution mechanism.
rETH holders rETH holders benefit from the higher effectiveness of node operators that have been helped in support.
Potential NOs Potential NOs go to support to ask for hardware suggestions, ask about the Smartnode stack or ask other miscellaneous setup questions.
NOs This is the core group for support activity. Most requests involve node maintenance or actively ongoing issues that caused an operator’s node to go offline.
Community Having a strong support channel to rely on is one of the main reasons a potential node operator would join the Rocket Pool community.
RPL holders Mostly NA - indirectly by helping other members of the community and therefore the protocol. Some support requests are about the migration of RPL v1.

Costs

$2970. 33 hours @ $90/h

How much USD $ is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

0

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

RPL

Conflict of Interest

None

Name of Retrospective Award

2021 – 2024 Support Hours - This is based on Migs application as it is for a similar request and timeframe.

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Steely / SteelyNinja

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.

This grant is for recognition of my work in the Rocket Pool Support channel, from 2021 to April 25th 2024. My submitted hours are based on the results from the script haloooloolo has written.

rocketscrape github: GitHub - haloooloolo/rocketscrape 4

commands invoked for reference and better reproducibility:

rocketscrape --include-threads -c support -s 2024-01-01 -e 2024-05-01 -r 20 contributors --session-timeout 15

rocketscrape --include-threads -c support -s 2021-01-01 -e 2024-05-01 -r 100 contributors --session-timeout 15

Based on the script output, I have been the 5th most active support individual in 2024, with 52 hours, 17th all time, with a total of 102 hours. Total hours I am submitting for this grant is 102 hours. These hours only include work done in the support channel. I am not requesting any recognition for support work done in trading, Node operator, or Hardware, or DM when specifically requested due to sensitive information.

Top :person_raising_hand:︱support+ contributors from 2024-01-01 00:00:00+00:00 to 2024-05-01 00:00:00+00:00

  1. haloooloolo: 194h 12m
  2. Patches: 109h 54m
  3. Leighm: 104h 50m
  4. Snocones: 57h 30m
  5. Steely: 52h 21m
  6. Mig - The Evil Overlord N.O. !: 41h 5m

Top :person_raising_hand:︱support+ contributors from 2021-01-01 00:00:00+00:00 to 2024-05-01 00:00:00+00:00

  1. Patches: 1155h 57m
  2. [object Object]: 585h 51m
  3. jcrtp: 455h 37m
  4. dΞΞtoo (hΞ/him): 331h 40m
  5. poupas: 299h 18m
  6. haloooloolo: 275h 10m
  7. faucetbot: 258h 48m
  8. 0xFornax: 239h 46m
  9. lilac: 185h 20m
  10. yorickdowne: 162h 24m
  11. Ken: 148h 28m
  12. Mig - The Evil Overlord N.O. !: 147h 15m
  13. ramana: 129h 45m
  14. Leighm: 126h 41m
  15. Bawcey: 118h 41m
  16. Team Berbere: 113h 55m
  17. Steely: 102h 34m

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source

All support messages are available for review.

Benefit

Haloooloolo summarized it very well in his grant application.

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders Prospective rETH holders visit the support / general channel for help with navigating the website or ask questions about the reward distribution mechanism.
rETH holders rETH holders benefit from the higher effectiveness of node operators that have been helped in support.
Potential NOs Potential NOs go to support to ask for hardware suggestions, ask about the Smartnode stack or ask other miscellaneous setup questions.
NOs This is the core group for support activity. Most requests involve node maintenance or actively ongoing issues that caused an operator’s node to go offline.
Community Having a strong support channel to rely on is one of the main reasons a potential node operator would join the Rocket Pool community.
RPL holders Mostly NA - indirectly by helping other members of the community and therefore the protocol. Some support requests are about the migration of RPL v1.

Costs
$90/h
102 hours
total $9180

How much USD $ is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

$9180

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

RPL

Conflict of Interest

None

2 Likes

Name of Retrospective Award

Support Hours March - April

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

haloooloolo

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.

The grant is for my time spent in the support channel since the initial retro grant. Since we have plenty of precedent for both methodology and format at this point, I’ll keep this short.

The initial retro did not have a rocketscape command attached, so I’m adding it here. rocketscrape -c support --include-threads -e 2024-03-02 contributors produces a time of 200h 18m to match the initial request for 200 hours. rocketscrape -c support --include-threads -s 2024-03-02 -e 2024-05-05 contributors shows an additional time of 79h 56m since then.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source

All support messages are available for review.

Benefit

See other support grants.

Costs

80 hours of work at the established rate of $90/h.

How much USD $ is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

$7200

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

RPL

Conflict of Interest

None

Amsterdam RP Meetup Reimbursement of Cost

The recently awarded Summit Grant programm allows for reimbursement of expenses for attendees of RP meetups.
We organized an RP Meetup in Amsterdam for 12th April 2024 (around the ETHDam conference and hackathon) which fits the goals of this grant.
It was announced and chatted about in the #conferences channel, with the main announcement here.

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

So far 3 of the 8 attendees of the RP meetup handed in expenses. Ideally reimbursements would be paid out directly to them.

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.

We seek only compensation for expenses at the event, like drinks.
All work regarding organizing the event, including getting a location, announcing the event, collecting responses and traveling from Germany to Amsterdam is done for free.

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?

N/A. The whole event was open and accessible to everyone.

Benefit

It proved to be a great opportunity to discuss all things RP and to strengthen community ties.
We brought over 2 hackers from the hackathon who are interested in becoming node operators themselves.

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders Generated awareness of RP at ETHDam which helps bring rETH on people’s radar
rETH holders Strengthening Node Operator community helps us in creating rETH supply (more NOs) and in getting better APY, because NOs are well connected and well informed and thus provide better service and error recovery
Potential NOs 2 potential NOs attended and got a good first impression of the community and the tech
NOs Better community, shared knowledge, more know-how
RPL holders Meetups help retain existing NOs, even during RPL ratio drops like currently, and have new people join as NOs. Thereby supporting RPL use and price.

Costs

Consumption at the event location Hannekes Boom and transportation to it (within the city).

Total costs across all members who provided PoE (proof of expenses):

Person Cost in EUR Cost in USD Reimbursement USD
1 20.10 21.45 21.45
2 48.90 52.18 50.00
3 19.30 20.59 20.59
4 0.00 0.00
5 0.00 0.00
6 0.00 0.00
7 0.00 0.00
8 0.00 0.00
SUM 88.30 94.22 92.04

Empty values mean attendees didn’t respond yet (will update if they do before the deadline) or passed on the reimbursement.

How much USD $ is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

Full reimbursement of cost up to the limit of $50 per person.
Note that people like me who flew to AMS and stayed at a hotel had far greater cost than that which do do not ask reimbursement for.

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

RPL

Conflict of Interest

None