Build - LawJammed Dissertation Research Thread

Build Research
1

04/24/23

Hi everyone,

I’ll post updates on this thread as I work through the dissertation process.

To start, I’m excited to be working on this project. Thank you for the opportunity to research and write about this community. I respect what I’ve seen so far, a lot of engaged and knowledgeable people working on a project they believe in.

At the moment, I’m focused on reading. The main goal is to firmly understand the current academic work on DAOs and make logical connections to other schools of thought. The most significant thing is the clear gap between DAOs and polycentric governance in the literature (with a few exceptions that you can see in my research documents). This study of Pokt represents an interesting opportunity to make a deeper connection between the two. With this angle, it means that polycentricity will be formative for developing the interview questions (more on that to come).

Speaking of interviews, I need to apply for ethical approval from the university before officially reaching out to schedule anything. Applications open in a couple of weeks but if you are interested, I would love to hear from you.

I’ve also been assigned my academic advisor, Neil Pollock. I’m excited to work with him and you can check out his profile here: Neil Pollock – University of Edinburgh Business School

You can see all my reading notes, working analysis, and planning docs here: Research Directory - Google Docs

That’s all for now, thanks for reading.
LawJammed

05/01/23

So today is the first day I can officially contact my supervisor and get the ball rolling with them. I’ve been condensing the key literature into working documentation for (1) the literature review and (2) the interviews.

This document contains key elements of polycentricity that I’ll be considering: Important elements of polycentricity from reading - Google Docs

This document contains elements from existing reading I’ve done that connect blockchain to polycentricity: Blockchain clear link polycentricity - Google Docs

I won’t be explicitly sharing the prep for the interview questions as this should be done independently of Pokt. This is because there is not much point in interviewing people who’ve already seen the questions’ structure, logic, and content. It is, however, all being recorded and will be available after the fact.

To have your perspective included in the research, you can book an interview slot here: Calendly - Jamie Law

Please reach out if you have any thoughts or questions about what you’ve seen.

05/10/23

Met with my supervisor and went through the ethics process. Attached are two consent docs for participants, these can be modified to respect anon/specific data requirements of any participants. Several interviews booked already and hoping for more in the next week or two.

Here you can see my early note draft of a literature review, it’ll change dramatically over time and I’ve only covered some relevant theory so far (not DAO-specific, or context information yet): Draft Lit Review - Google Docs

Please share any thoughts or ideas, I want to engage the community as much as possible in this process.

05/30/23

Hi all, I’ve completed a fair few interviews for the process and am starting to pull together a mode of analysis to understand the data I am collecting. I’ve also had a great chat with Jack about governance in general and I met with JP Vergne a well-known academic in DAO literature who shared some new research with me that will be incredibly helpful. I’m still working towards a draft by the end of July and am enjoying the process. Any questions or thoughts, or if you’d like to be interviewed just reply here. Thanks all!

06/07/23

Hey everyone, I’ve managed to speak with a lot of people in the community which has been incredibly helpful for the process. So thank you to everyone who has participated.

I’m writing up the findings now. You can see the lit review structure below and my analysis will be developed over the next couple of weeks.

Lit review:Lit Review Final Structure - Google Docs

06/20/23

Hi everyone,

Quick update, I’ve drafted my literature review which you can read here (ignore the messy footnotes for now): Diss Lit Review - Google Docs

I’m going through all the data collected atm and coding it using Nvivo, and then I’ll be sorting it into themes and beginning my write-up in early July. So all is on schedule and I’m excited to start properly sharing some of these findings.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions!

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PEP with a number is the title for the voting proposals, the category of “Build” is more suitable for the research purpose.

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Thanks @bruceyin, I’ve made the edit

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Just a quick update that I’ve mentioned this thread on the scholarships page: docs/content/community/contribute/scholarships.md at d390fea2aa84a7b40f8417e5ec1b5d51c0eba3a2 · pokt-foundation/docs · GitHub

This should be reflected in the docs soon: Scholarships - Pocket Network

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Thank you to everyone who has gotten involved in this research.

I’ve spoken or messaged with members of the community across as many areas as possible, from new members to the OGs. PNI devs, PNF members, community contributors, anons, and prolific meme creators. Thank you all.

I’ve read your comments on threads, listened to the interviews you have given, and read the documents you have created. I have tried to make the data collection as holistic and balanced as possible.

I’ve coded the findings and done a good chunk of analysis. Now, I’ll spend the next few weeks writing everything up into a messy first draft of the Data Presentation and Discussion (Analysis) sections.

My other action items are:

  1. Structure my context chapter (basically a TLDR of what Pocket is and how its governance works for non-ecosystem readers)
  2. Refine the literature review based on my first draft
  3. Write a methodology section where I will use unnecessarily academic words to describe interviewing people
  4. Intro and conclusion (these will be the very last thing I write)

Here are some ways you can follow/engage with the progress:

  1. Check out some live docs:
    Diss Lit Review Draft - Google Docs
    Draft Data Presentation - Google Docs
    summary of findings structure - diss - Google Docs

  2. Message me.
    I’m always happy to have a chat about what I’m working on and get more insight. While it’s too late to add new data to the set, your thoughts on the project can influence the analysis, contributions, and thoughts for future studies.

  3. Attend a community call
    Hopefully, I’ll be joining some more community calls in the near future (mostly to listen) but also to share some findings. I’ll post more specifics when I have them!

14/07/23
Hi everyone,

Getting closer to a working draft.

I’ve managed to get some feedback as I’ve been going which has been incredibly helpful. I’m still on track for that early August copy.

In the meantime, I’m hopefully going to be attending a community call or two and I’ll be submitting a couple of sections for formal review by my supervisor.

That’s all for now.

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