Name of Project
Rocket Pool Sabbatical
What is the work being proposed?
This grant is to make an ongoing quarterly honorarium that is awarded to those community members who have had the most positive influence on Rocket Pool; this honorarium is intended to supplement or replace their regular income to allow dedicated time for RP projects, as well as provide formal recognition of previously unreimbursed accomplishments; additionally it provides a formal title for high performing community members. The recipients will be decided directly by the pDAO, rather than the GMC. The amount is 500 RPL per award (2000 PRL/year); while currently this is unlikely to allow all people to work full time, the vision is that with a rising RPL price this award will be used to take a true sabbatical and dedicate three months to RP activities, effectively allowing 4 part time positions per year.
Proposed mechanism (rough):
- Nominations: On a yearly basis, a forum post will accept nominations.
- Community poll: forum poll (max vote of let’s say 5 options)- anyone over 10% moves on to application phase.
- Application: Nominees make a CV of unreimbursed RP activities and detail the activities they will pursue with the grant
- Vote: Snapshot/pDAO vote- maximum 3 choices. The top 4 voted individuals receive the award that year. You can vote for yourself; delegates can vote for themselves.
- Award: Each chosen member is awarded during that year’s quarter based on their rank in the vote. The expectation is that they perform the activities detailed in their application during the year; however, because this grant is largely retrospective, the award will not be withheld or decreased if recipients do not do expected activities [this deviation will just be noted in any further awards].
Proposed pDAO decision will rely on:
- Nominee’s unreimbursed RP activities:
A) Activities paid for by the GMC or other RP bodies do not count, even if those reimbursements were felt to be suboptimal; however, if desired applicants can specify reimbursed activities on their application in which case the previously reimbursed amount will be deducted from the RP Sabbatical grant [if chosen].
B) If the nominee already has has already been awarded through this grant, only activities since that vote can be considered. - Nominee’s proposed use of the sabbatical time
Other nuts and bolts:
- After the first awarded sabbatical, a community member will be granted the title of Assistant Professor; after the second, Associate Professor; after the third, Full Professor (these titles are USA-centric, definitely open to other titles). After 3 awards, no further awards can go to the same community member from this grant; the pDAO should consider hiring that person full time.
- Professorship can be stripped with a 75% pDAO vote (ie, for maleficence or activity not becoming a RP community member); awards that have already been disbursed cannot/will not be clawed back.
- Detailing non-RP uses of a sabbatical is also completely acceptable (eg, the pDAO decides that a 3 month vacation to Tahiti has been earned because of the level of dedication previously), although this will likely make the application somewhat less desirable to the pDAO.
- Activities listed in the application cannot be subsequently reimbursed by the GMC or other RP bodies.
This addresses a couple of issues that seem worth solving:
- The pDAO doesn’t have a great way to recognize and elevate people who have provided great service for the pDAO. The Rocket Scientist label has community input, but it is decided by the team.
- There is not a great way for the GMC to reward ongoing efforts or non-discrete projects. Similarly, valuing these efforts has been extremely challenging.
- While the pDAO may have the resources to hire people on a full-time basis, it is ill-equipped to deal with the process of maintaining employees (e.g. hiring decisions, valuation, continual review, or gracefully firing someone who is underperforming without that person getting pissed and exiting the community). By allowing subsequent years awards, we can reward good return on investment without the negative connotations of consciously revoking a grant.
- This grant takes some large reimbursements out of the hands of the GMC and place them on the greater pDAO.
- Because this grant awards lifetime contributions (or since last Sabbatical award), eventually it will be given to the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th most valued community members. I feel this could act as motivation (ie, you don’t have to necessarily compete with the 1-2 highest availability members) if you keep up activities over several years.
Is there any related work this builds off of?
Not really.
Will the results of this project be entirely open source:
What the recipients choose to do with their time is up to them and will be listed on their application; obviously, choosing open source that can be used by the community in perpetuity should be valued.
Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate
| Group | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Community | This grant provides retrospective and prospective awards for a wide range of activities; while the grant will need to be approved by the GMC, the actual awardees will be decided by the pDAO. The activities this grant reimburses will affect a wide range of stakeholders- most of those recipients are likely to have helped rETH stakers, RPL holders, NOs and potential NOs, etc. This strengthens the pDAO’s controls over the pursestrings for some larger grants, provides some incentive for community members to continue to work hard for RP as this grant relies on lifetime contributions, while giving the community aspirational models to follow. |
What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?
n/a
Team
Who is doing the work?
The GMC is approving the grant, but the voting will be done by the pDAO and the work done by community members.
What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?
see above
What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?
The proposed sabbatical activities will have no milestones or deadlines, except what is mentioned in the nominee’s application. The failure to meet those milestones will not result in revoking any granted monies.
How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?
see above
How will the work be maintained after delivery?
see above
Payment and Verification
What is the acceptance criteria?
The pDAO will vote on a yearly basis; the award will go to the top 4 voted community members.
What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much USD $ and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?
The pDAO will vote on a yearly basis; the award will go to the top 4 voted members in order (first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter); if approved for another year, the same process will occur.
How will the GMC verify that the work delivered matches the proposed cadence?
No verification is needed
What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?
Hiring full time members; deciding on large retrospective reimbursements on a per-case basis.
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).
I soon will be on the GMC; if approved, it is likely that some GMC members will get this grant; in fact, because the GMC is not reimbursed, time spent on GMC business should be considered by the RP community.
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?
No, it is extremely unlikely that I would be awarded and by submitting this application I am attesting that I will decline any monetary award through this grant.