GRIP Renewal

What’s your view on having GRIP experts provide their opt-in (specifically requested) feedback in the Pre-Proposal category?

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I think that’s what we expected from the beginning. No issues there. It’s only an issue when the default expectation is that posting there triggers a request for GRIP services by default.

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What are your thoughts on this?

Initially, it might be best to let this play out organically, IE, when help is sought, the experts can decide amongst themselves who will provide the requested input. A given pre-proposal could be more in line with one person’s expertise than another’s, or two experts might each have something useful to say. Or the experts could put in place a rotational scheme (without being compelled to). It could be made more structured later if needed.

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I guess there are a number of options to consider, and I’m open to arguments about that. Was just curious if in the last three months, there was any movement on building the roster, and if a rotation was in order. I suspect there would be some challenges in building a large roster and having them debate behind the scenes on who is taking what, versus set terms or the like.

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What do you think about the propriety of a contributor saying I want GRIP help, but only from Mr. X?

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It might be more appropriate to say “I want a tech feasibility review” or the like.

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Some of the criticism of GRIP has been fueled by reading into PEP-45 something that’s not there. For example, some understood that GRIP experts would provide feedback in the Pre-Proposal category only upon request.

Read PEP-45. That’s not what it said.

Beside the Point

However, what PEP-45 actually said and that a misunderstanding occurred are beside the point. Whether GRIP experts should give feedback only if requested is a valid question. We’re debating it now.

GRIP does not control the Pre-Proposal category, nor should it. If people want to use it to see if there’s support for an idea, for lobbying, debate, that’s their prerogative. What role GRIP should play, if any, in the Pre-Proposal category is a different matter.

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This is the second and final instalment of my reply to the community feedback on this pre-proposal for renewal of GRIP.

Part II

  1. Payment in General
  2. Compensation for meetings
  3. GRIP members must stay in their lanes
  4. GRIP needs a tweak or two

1. Payment in general

If the community sees value in GRIP and concludes it’s worth renewing, a fair payment mechanism is needed. In keeping with the egalitarian ethos of our DAO, my view is that GRIP members should be paid at an equal rate: $100 an hour seems reasonable. This recognizes that we value folks’ time and contributions the same.

But we are open to considering other reasonable, fair payment solutions.

To @Caesar’s point, if GRIP is to determine how much to pay its members, I agree that PNF should have authority to seek clarifications before payments.

As to the work that was done to date, GRIP expects payment as approved by the DAO - based on PEP-45. I recognize that PEP-45 did not specify that funding applied to work required to set up GRIP and run it. However, it’s implicit in the proposal’s adoption that such work is included.

For GRIP work, if any, pending the renewal vote and a possible change of payment mechanism, the $100 hourly rate will apply. (No more meetings.)

2. Compensation for meetings

As noted, by approving GRIP, the DAO implicitly approved compensation for the work involved in setting it up, which included our first two meetings. A third meeting was held for team input on optimizing our operations.

Of the 133.2 hours billed by GRIP for its three-month trial - gulp - 23.9 hours, or 17.9 percent were for meeting participation. Time in meetings, per GRIP member, ranged from 1 hour to 4 hours.

@b3n says: “Charging for internal meetings is unfathomable to many.” @Jinx also expressed concern.

Reflecting on the appropriateness of billing for attending meetings, I messaged GRIP members, before posting this pre-proposal, to canvass their views.

I got three replies:

The general sentiment among GRIP members appears to be that some compensation for this time is appropriate. I assume that PNF members attend meetings as part of their work and that these are part of the work for which they get paid. Or, when there’s a reimbursement PEP for work on development of a tool that helps the network, that work might include meetings.

What do other community members think? We’re listening.

(Pending further discussion on this, I will defer GRIP’s bill for these hours. That drops GRIP’s billable hours from 133.2 to 109.3.)

3. GRIP members must stay in their lanes

GRIP team members can bill only for work related to their defined roles. The renewal proposal will make this clear.

Accordingly, the economic and technical specialists will be able to bill only for assistance within their respective areas; unless otherwise specified, the editor will be able to bill only for copy editing, proofreading and writing (including infographic text); the graphic artist will be able to bill only for infographic work. As per PEP-45, GRIP members also will be able to bill for their work in creating summaries of competing viewpoints on complex proposals that have been formally launched.

(In view of the above, my bill for 5.1 hours for feedback on Bruce Yin’s translation pre-proposals, including an hour-long Zoom meeting with Ming, is being withdrawn. This drops GRIP’s bill for its three-month trial to 104.2 hours.)

4. GRIP needs a tweak or two

Let’s not forget that GRIP is an experiment. There was no playbook to follow. So it’s only natural that GRIP might not get it right the first time and may need to adapt. It is hoped that the discussion around this pre-proposal will help show what tweaks need to be made to secure GRIP’s place in the DAO-governance toolkit.

GRIP welcomes all suggestions.

Post-script: GRIP is very grateful to MSA, Caesar, Ben and JInx for their valuable (unpaid :slight_smile: ) feedback on this pre-proposal.

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Whatever consensus emerges for how meetings and other internal conversations (emails) are handled going forward (assuming GRIP does move forward), it is my opinion that if inclusion of these hours was a reasonable good-faith interpretation of PEP-45, then the DAO needs to honor its PEP-45 agreement. If GRIP wishes to volunteer to remove these hours or have them paid out at 50 rather than 100 for the previous cycle, they can initiate that . Otherwise PNF payout for previous cycle should be as originally billed. More harm will come from the DAO or PNF setting a precedent that it can renege on or “force renegotiate” payment agreements than from paying the $2k or so of differential cost.

Same applies for any of the other discussion points.

This one has me scratching my head. I had figured that these hours, of all the hours billed, were the hours most in line with the purpose and intention of GRIP. Could you please provide insight into what you spent those 5 hours doing (apart from the 1hr consultation with Ming that you line item) if not in helping an inexperienced proposal writer get their proposal ready for publishing? As far as I know, this was the one and only proposal tendered during the previous term by a non-veteran proposal author.

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I can’t comment on my reply to Bruce’s first pre-proposal as it’s been removed from the Forum and I did not keep a record of my replies. What remains are my responses to his follow-up pre-proposal. My time was used to transform his idea into a proposal that could serve as a good foundation for the DAO’s translation work in foreign-language communities.

Yes, these hours were “in line with the purpose and intention of GRIP” - to help folks make their proposals better. But not necessarily because Bruce was an “inexperienced proposal writer.” An experienced proposal writer could have come up with the same idea as Bruce, and my response would have been the same.

But, however useful my input may have been (or still is), I was not “hired” by the DAO to give feedback; my GRIP role is as editor. As an aside, I would probably not have spent five hours to create a modified proposal unless I assumed I’d get paid. Nonetheless, payment for this work is outside the scope of PEP-45. PEP-45 rewards only expert feedback and, by inference, its feedback component applies only to proposals of a technical or economic nature. One reason GRIP members get paid for feedback is that they have recognized expertise that warrants compensation. If the DAO wants to encourage folks to take the time and effort to reply to other types of pre-proposals - or for that matter, proposals - a different tool is needed. Or a change to GRIP.

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I agree with this. I think GRIP should be 100% opt-in.

@b3n How is “impact” measured? Is there an objective measure of success? If I’ve missed where that formula is defined I apologize. But can you clarify or point me to where I can understand how impact is evaluated?

For starters, I’m willing to forfeit any compensation for all of my time spent on GRIP.

That said, it’s hard to imagine how to collaborate on complex topics without meetings. Or what an acceptable time allotment for meetings would/should be. Or even how that would be determined. It’s even harder to imagine how you’d estimate the time needed for these kinds of engagements. Do you have any suggestions?

I run a professional service company that provides custom software development. We bill by the hour because it’s impossible to know how much time projects take without a crystal clear understanding of what’s required. We never get that. We could try to guess. But the margin of error is so great that we’d have to hedge in a way that would not be in our client’s best interest.

So, we track all of our time. Down to the minute. Communication overhead (aka: meetings) always accounts for a healthy percentage of the overall time. 17.9% doesn’t seem outrageous at all to me. But I’d love to understand how these kinds of projects could be done with less communication overhead. So, any ideas here would be awesome to hear.

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Thanks to @zaatar and the rest of the GRIP team for their work on completing the first “season” of GRIP

I have a few points to make around the current design of the program, as I don’t believe it is currently fit for purpose.

Measurable impact of output

When analysing any proposal to spend DAO funds, particularly a retroactive one, it’s important to start with the impact delivered.

It is clear that the GRIP group has spent a lot of time in the past 3 months, but can any proposal writer point to the measurable impact they experienced from this? If so, how valuable was it to you? Would you be willing to pay for such work yourself? Was the cost to the DAO proportional to the perceived value you received?

I cannot speak to the direct impact of GRIP’s work as I haven’t been on the receiving end of it to date, but it would really help all of us to determine this if the GRIP team spoke in the language of impact and told us all about how they believe they made a difference. Ultimately, none of us can challenge how much time anyone spent on something, but if we are told that the DAO is to be charged $500 for economic analysis of X proposal that led to changes Y and Z, at least we are having a more productive conversation. It would be really helpful if those that GRIP helped would comment publicly on the value they received.

And going forward - if this program is to continue - I would recommend for the GRIP team to seek feedback after each contribution that can be made public or aggregated privately and released anonymously (TBD on the best way to do this to encourage the most honest feedback…), so all of us - as DAO voters responsible for stewarding the treasury - can understand the value received and the relative cost/benefit of the program.

Regarding the other elements of the GRIP team’s impact, I think the new proposal preparation guide is undoubtedly helpful. My only negative on the work is that it seems to suggest GRIP a little too much for my taste as the primary option for feedback and community support, as opposed to simply engaging with the community in the relevant channels before asking for formal support.

And regarding the updated proposal templates, I have seen the PEP template here, which doesn’t appear to be finished? Is there a projected timeline for finalising this @zaatar ? And do you have an estimate for when the updated proposal templates for PIPs and PUPs will be released?

I think we should align on the impact delivered to date and how best to measure impact delivered going forward before this new proposal can be approved.

Compensation structure

There has been a lot of talk about the issues of 1) charging for internal meetings and 2) the difficulty with charging an hourly rate.

My perspective is that the main issue with the current design of the GRIP system relates to the lack of a feedback mechanism.

In any sustainable system, too much of a good thing (money, carbohydrates, etc…) leads to a negative feedback loop to maintain a healthy equilibrium. However, in the case of GRIP the tap is always on. And there is no mechanism to turn it off, leading to a build up of chargeable hours, but no connection to the impact delivered.

If GRIP is to continue, I would strongly recommend that GRIP be treated like an in-house consultancy service that proposal authors can leverage as they require. Proposal authors should engage GRIP for specific services - eg technical review, grammar checks, etc - and they can challenge how much they are charged at the end of the service. For example, if I am charged for 5 hours of work to do some grammar and spelling checks on a document that took me 1 hour to write, then something is probably amiss, and as a DAO voter who cares about the long-term health of the treasury, I would likely challenge and negotiate such fee before it could be submitted to the DAO for reimbursement. In this case, the customer should always be right unless there are egregious reasons to think otherwise.

Also, making all of these conversations public puts the rest of the DAO on notice about the perceived value received. And should lead to an emergent oversight mechanism and set of precedents on what to do and what not to do in terms of delivering “impact” that is also value for money.

Such a workflow should also remove any need for internal meetings: 1) a proposal author asks for help; 2) a relevant member of GRIP puts up there hand to say they will help; 3) they do the work if chosen to do so by the author (who could also choose someone else); 4) the GRIP member says what they did and how much time it took them; 5) the work is approved by the proposal author based on the value they believe they received.

GRIP is a special forces team of experts that assembles when duty requires. Meetings shouldn’t be necessary. And learning and collaboration can happen in the open on an async basis. As a result, there should be no need for GRIP to charge the DAO for internal coordination and planning.

Membership of GRIP

As per my comment on the initial GRIP proposal:

This should be clarified and made very simple.

A naive model would allow anyone to “join” GRIP, and for the proposal author to choose who they wanted support from. A public record of each member - and the skills they claim to be most useful for - and feedback from every proposal author that uses GRIP would enable an emergent reputation score that proposal authors can leverage.

Next steps and vision for GRIP

As the first season of GRIP was said to be an experiment, before supporting another season I would like to understand what the learnings are and what the vision and proposed success metrics for next season of the program will look like. In short, how are we to know that the GRIP program is working as expected?

Once we agree on the impact delivered to date and what GRIP should look like going forward, I think it will be much easier for DAO voters to determine whether or not they want to support this for another season.

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FWIW, I think the DAO should pay the GRIP members for the work they believe they have done to date in line with their internal rules.

We don’t benefit much from fighting over cutting a few hours here and there, so I think it’s best to learn and move on and apply everyone’s focus to the proposal to renew the program.

Even if certain DAO voters are unhappy with certain items that were charged, we are here to learn and GRIP is a worthy experiment that I think we have all learned a lot from. In the future, I expect that we will be thinking much more deeply about compensation and oversight mechanisms for DAO grants.

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Agreed!

On a separate note, i just had an aha moment that may greatly simplify GRIP an ensure alignment of everyone’s interest going forward. Just want to throw out a wild thought that may be laughably bad or ingeniously good (I have no idea which yet xD ):

Authors who wish GRIP services should have skin in the game. Even if it is $10 or $20 an hr. Let’s say $10 to reduce the friction of would-be authors. Authors contact GRIP (e.g., via Discord), explain what they need, receive an estimate of how many hours that will take and the author decides if they want to proceed or not. If they want to proceed they send the $POKT to the designated wallet to cover the estimate (say 1600 $POKT to cover 8hrs of estimated work assuming $10/hr and $0.05 price point). This PEP becomes an agreement for DAO subsidizes the other 80 to 90% of GRIP costs to make whole at $100/hr. At the end of the month GRIP invoices PNF for reimbursement of work done (at $90/hr in this example). Proof of author’s payment of the first 10% plus some sort of evidence of executed work would accompany the invoice. Further details and kinks can be worked out, but that’s the gist of the idea.

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We shared some impact measures we consider with some of the teams who recently submitted larger proposals. This included things like utilisation and adoption of the product or service as a proxy for it creating user value, or measurable benefit, which is really quite broad and can use any type of testimonial or qualitative user feedback that teams consider appropriate.

If the GRIP team is measuring impact beyond hours I’d love to hear how, and if the answer is they’re not then hey that’s fine too but it really does make it hard to assess whether there is an ROI here that means we should continue

And echoing Dermot that every hour accounted for above should be paid as is, as that was the nature of the experiment and there was a net benefit in learning. That’s why I emphasize “intelligent failure”. GRIP gave some new things a go and taught or reminded us of challenges that might be avoided in future. We need experiments like this to learn and web3 reinforces over and over again that faster learning beats better planning

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What if the proposal was worded differently?

What if it said:

For a max investment of $5,000 per month we want to incentivize 10 long-time community members to spend more time than they already do helping others with proposals.

For less than the investment in a single PNF core team member, these 10 people will do whatever they can to help the community confidently submit more proposals that are better written.

We trust these 10 people because they have proven track records in our community. So we won’t ask them to justify their time. Just like we trust the members of the core PNF team and don’t ask them to justify their time. However, on a quarterly basis, we’ll reflect and consider if it’s worth continuing with them. As we should also do for the PNF core team.

This eliminates the concerns with the use of the hours altogether. Simple.

Thoughts?

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Worth exploring. Would GRIP figure out the allocation internally? Would GRIP report on its allocation and the reasoning behind it? Would we solicit feedback from all help recipients as to the value of our assistance (a) in order to determine this allocation, and (b) for reporting to the community? What if there was little work in a given month, would GRIP make do with a correspondingly smaller budget that month, at its own discretion? (Any possibility of rolling unused balance over to subsequent months?) All GRIP assistance would be opt-in only?

On the mechanics, GRIP could detail its contributions and, to quote @b3n in the PEP-45 thread, “the community can review each month if the output matches the total fund and the team can request more funds if needed.” (While his comment pertained to Coordinape, it’s generally relevance.)

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This is what was already funded in November. If “confidently submitting more proposals that are better written” was the aim it is reasonable to ask GRIP or the community to share that this has been achieved.

I do trust the intentions and capability of the 10 GRIP team members. What I can’t see is that GRIP is meeting a burning need in the community. I would have thought that asking users of the service to share the value they received is a net benefit to everyone.

This is what we are doing now. I’m quite sure the community will ask its own tough but fair questions when the PNF Transparency report for Q1 is delivered in a month’s time.

I agree. Teams internal allocations is their domain and everyone else can stay the hell out of it. The community and voters just want to assess impact delivered against the top level number. But I don’t think it’s the hours or the allocation side of the equation that people are caring about… people want to understand the other side - that GRIP is increasing the speed or effectiveness or satisfaction of the things it is working on.

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This is my response to the latest input from Dermot, msa, Steve and b3n.

NOTE: GRIP is up and running and our services are now opt-in only. So if you want GRIP feedback on a technical or economic idea or pre-proposal - you’ve got to request it. Same with infographics and proofreading/copy editing. You, the DAO, voted this grassroots initiative into existence to help with proposals. But it will do what you intended it to do only if you use it. (As per PEP-45, GRIP will run till the vote on renewal.)

TOC

  1. Direct Impact: Author Assistance
  2. Feedback and Copy Editing: Secondary Impacts
  3. Harvesting Feedback
  4. New Payment Mechanism
  5. In-house Consultancy Model
  6. GRIP Growth: New Members
  7. Proposal Templates: Wha’ Happened?
  8. Miscellaneous: msa’s ‘aha’ moment; Proposal Guide ‘too GRIPpy’

1. Direct Impact: Assistance to Author

Let’s look at how the time devoted to pre-proposal assistance over GRIP’s 3-month trial (Nov 22-Feb 22) breaks down.

GRIP member Nature of Help Hours Pre-Proposal Author
Shane Expert Feedback 9.5 LeanPocket and Chocolate Rain reimbursement PoktBlade
2.5 Geo-Mesh reimbursement Jorge_POKTscan
@Rawthil 2.5 SER @msa6867
@PikPokt 1 SALES @cryptocorn*
TOTAL Expert Feedback 20
@zaatar Copy Editing 4.5 LeanPocket and Chocolate Rain reimbursement PoktBlade
Draft Proposal Preparation Guide 20

*Cryptocorn’s pre-proposal, SALES, was launched as a channel under “Pre-Proposals” on the Get a GRIP Discord server as part of our set-up testing.

To determine measurable benefit, says @b3n, we can use “any type of testimonial or qualitative user feedback.”

To assess the direct impact of the feedback and copy editing services that GRIP provided, we must ask the authors who received services if they benefited and if so, how and to what extent. @PoktBlade? @Jorge_POKTcan? @Msa6867? @Cryptocorn? To quote Dermot: “Was the cost to the DAO,” IE the actual time devoted to GRIP assistance (noted above), “proportional to the perceived value you received?”

2. Feedback and Copy Editing: Secondary Impacts

To assess the impact of feedback it’s not enough to ask the authors. We also need to canvass the other discussion participants, both active and passive, as they too may have benefitted. The feedback may have affected their replies in the thread and/or their understanding of/positions on the pre-proposal issues.

Secondary impacts are referred to in PEP-45:

How does one measure these knock-on effects? In my view, common sense must prevail. We can take it as a given that quality feedback elevates debate on pre-proposals for the good of lurkers and active participants. We can take it as a given that a proposal that’s been amended following GRIP detection of technical flaws or unexpected economic outcomes, is good for governance. We can take it as a given that a well-written proposal facilitates voting. These are impacts that we value highly, yet they defy easy measurement.

3. Harvesting Feedback

I agree. A “Rate This Feedback” button could be installed beneath all replies in the Pre-Proposal category. (is this doable @jackal?) When anyone from GRIP posts feedback, the pre-proposal author or any other community member can publicly rate it: 1 not helpful, 2 somewhat helpful, 3 very helpful.

There’d be an option for comments, but not to distract, these could be viewable upon clicking.

In addition, a question could be inserted at the top of Proposal templates: “If you received assistance from GRIP, please comment on whether it helped and if so, how. EG, to what extent did GRIP feedback shape this proposal? If you received copy editing, does your proposal read better?” Other questions could be inserted. The answers could be a footnote to the proposal and/or published elsewhere.

However, as noted above, ratings and commentary may not tell the whole story.

4. New Payment Mechanism

Excellent idea. Let’s adopt it. Says @b3n: “Teams’ internal allocations are their domain and everyone else can stay the hell out of it.“

GRIP will detail its contributions and, to quote @b3n in the PEP-45 thread, “the community can review each month if the output matches the total fund and the team can request more funds if needed.” It’s not the hours people care about, notes @b3n, it’s the value add.

For a month when GRIP’s contributions don’t warrant the full $5K, it would request a lower amount.

This will render unnecessary reporting to authors on how many hours were devoted to feedback/editing/infographics and preclude petty squabbles about the appropriateness of time allocation.

At the same time, however, we are open to exploring other payment mechanisms. EG, how would a Socket work? @b3n?

5. In-house Consultancy Model

GRIP has already switched to an opt-in only format.

Yes to steps 1-3. For step 4, it may not be necessary to say what they did if it’s publicly viewable. As to the time taken, this can be reported internally (and published if needed). As to step 5, the proposal author will give feedback publicly as noted above (“Harvesting Feedback”); GRIP will take this feedback into account in allocating payment.

6. GRIP Growth: New Members

From the PEP-45 thread:

From this thread:

This is what the renewal pre-proposal says:

“If you want to join GRIP, visit the new #join-grip channel on the Get a Grip Discord server. Tell us what value add you can bring to GRIP. Two GRIP members must vouch for you, including one who’s a specialist in the area where you wish to provide feedback.”

Are even these requirements too onerous? Should anyone be able to join GRIP simply upon request? No vouching needed? What do people think?

7. Proposal templates: Wha’ Happened?

The templates are not a PEP-45 deliverable; the community did not mandate GRIP to update these. GRIP embarked on this as it perceived a need and there was community buy-in, including from PNF. However, a community member opposed GRIP’s design. Since we lack a mandate, GRIP lacks jurisdiction to decide. Completing the templates will be part of our renewal proposal; the community can vote on whether it wants us to make these decisions, albeit as collaboratively as possible.

Scorecards

Also not part of GRIP’s mandate is submitting a scorecard on community pre-proposals. In the comment cited below, is @Dermot suggesting that we assume this task?

See: Compensation Structure for DAO Contributors

8. Miscellaneous

msa’s ‘aha’ moment

In the future, this might be a good idea for pre-proposals that seek monetary reward. For now, however, with GRIP yet to take hold, and with its services being provided only upon request, it’s important to let people try it out and see if they find it helpful. People need to test-drive GRIP and a user fee might discourage that now. Once people get a taste of GRIP’s value, we can look at a nominal user fee.

Proposal Guide “too GRIPpy”

With respect, this criticism is misplaced. Wherever GRIP is mentioned as an option for support, it’s always in the alternative and not as the “primary” option. The only place where GRIP was noted otherwise was in the final paragraph:

“Still have questions? Ask GRIP. We’re here to help. You can reach us in the
#proposal-support channel on the Pocket Discord server or follow this link to our Discord server and contact us in the #public-lobby channel.”

I’ve changed this to read:

“Still have questions? Post them in the #proposal-support channel on the Pocket Discord server. Or you can ask GRIP. Follow this link to the Get a GRIP Discord server and contact us in the #public-lobby channel.”

Generally, highlighting the utility of GRIP where relevant in the guide may help drive the use of a tool (GRIP) that the DAO has created to benefit the community. Nothing wrong with that.

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@zaatar ,
You have done an excellent job accepting and incorporating the various feedback. I’m not sure if you are queuing up changes that you plan to incorporate in an upcoming draft rewrite or if you have been modifying the proposal text as we go. A cursory check shows the proposal still shows “open-ended” vs a two or three month defined follow-on , so I’m guessing the former or a mixture?

I think we are approaching the point where most of the profitable input has already been given and digested and I see diminishing returns of continuing pre-proposal discussions much further. I recommend cleaning up the draft to reflect promised changes (including limiting to a defined two-or-three month defined period) , bring to full-proposal status, quickly work out any new discussion against the revised draft, and put to a vote to let the experiment continue.

My personal opinion is that it would be short-sited for the DAO to jettison GRIP just because various aspects did not meet expectations during the first three months. I believe at least one more round is needed to the “experiment” because part of the experiment is to see how well GRIP (both for itself and as a test case for possible other future recurring funding for DAO-delegated tasks) can respond to DAO feedback and pivot as needed. Delaying the process is not helpful; we are already approaching a one-month gap in DAO funding continuity.

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