A few questions as voting winds down. Who is - or who appoints - the “Head of DAO Talent”? And what’s a “BAG” holder?
1 Like
Thanks for these questions. My role is as “Head of DAO Talent” so it refers to me 
Edit: Bag Holders were proposed as a mechanism for administering payments. The proposal was edited prior to voting so that the Foundation will administer payments (in place of the Bag Holders).
Further details will be provided on the operations of this and apologies for the confusion (which can be attributed partly to covid brain and mostly to my inattention to detail 
)
With the voting now closed and approved I want to say thankyou for your confidence in us to further activate the community through this proposal.
RAD Update - Program Month 1 (October 2022)
October was our first month of the RAD program (Pocket bounties). Details of the program are above and current bounties available can be access here:
https://app.dework.xyz/pokt-network
Results:
In the month of October, 3 key bounties were delivered:
- @deblasis completed Part 1/3 of outlining a baseline for the V1 Protocol CLI. In addition, he provided valuable feedback on how to independently onboard as an external contributor.
- @profish delivered a first phase of the GitHub wiki which is now in further iteration to leverage with a proper review / PR process and keeping docs next to the code
- @ PoktNews took over the PoktDAO twitter account and has provided regular updates on DAO proposal, Bounties, Community Suggestions and other relevant DAO news
These have been high-quality and impact contributions to Pocket.
Other bounties have been allocated but remain incomplete:
- Improvements related to Protobuffs to ensure good code hygiene. This is a great starter task for someone to complete!
- Lisbon Ambassadors who attended various Lisbon Blockchain week events, including a Pokt meetup
Applications received for bounties but not allocated include:
- Metis marketing
- DFK marketing
Retrospective:
The program has been positioned as an experiment, and while still in its early stages we are already accumulating valuable learnings. Some of these include:
- Dework is a simple tool but still requires some offline coordination. We can close some observed gaps through better documentation and communication. We will endeavour to share more with the community on this soon.
- High-skill and high-context contributors make the RAD bounties system fairly effortless. Like most systems, good participants can bridge gaps (It should be noted that the 3 contributors reward this month are now contributing on a more permanent basis).
- But, the system has been somewhat more difficult to operate with lower context or newer potential contributors. We will keep iterating on this.
- For Developer Bounties, having more focus on the type of contributions we want to permission via Dework will help us increase efficiency and impact. We are currently in discussions with @jalde and @Olshansky on this and will share more soon
- From Ecosystem Bounties, we need to increase the volume of potential contribution opportunities and this will be a major focus in November. We have a smart, active community that needs more opportunities to participate this way.
Rewards:
Rewards for the RAD program will be disbursed by the Pocket Network Foundation (PNF). Operations of this will be communicated shortly as part of a broader range of updates. Contributors owed rewards for bounties have been communicated with regarding any potential delay.
Program funds:
Reminder that the RAD proposal secured 600,000 POKT, anticipated to be used as:
Average task size: XtraSmall (XS) to Medium (M); Some Large (L)
- XS = 1-2 hours (10%) - $50-100 = $500
- S = 3-6 hours (30%) - $150-300 = $4500
- M = 1-3 days (50%) - $400-1200 = $30,000
- L = 4-8 days (10%) - $1200-3200 = $16,000
Actual funds to be Disbused in Month 1:
Bounty - Contributor - Size - Rewards
- Developer Bounties - Deblasis - S - $250 USD = 3487 POKT
- GitHub Wiki - Profishional - S - $200 USD = 2790 POKT
- PoktDAO Twitter - PoktNews - L - $1750 USD pm = 24408 POKT
Note: These rewards use the 30 day (Oct) average price from CoinMarket cap of POKT. This price is 0.0717
Program Funds: **
600,000 POKT
Rewards - October
30,685 POKT
Balance
569,315 POKT
Burn rate
30,685 POKT pm. Runway of 18.55 months
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RAD Update - Program Month 2 (November 2022)
November was the second month of the RAD program (Pocket bounties). Details of the program are above and current bounties available can be access here:
https://app.dework.xyz/pokt-network
Results:
In the month of October, 3 bounties were allocated and delivered:
- Germany and team worked on the V1 visualisations. This is an important activity as part of V1 and is hopefully the beginning of a continuing relationship through the life of V1
- For Lisbon Blockchain week, 3 members of the Pocket community took up a bounty to be “Pokt Ambassadors” by undertaking activities and attending events
- PoktDAO Twitter continues to be run by PoktNews
Other bounties allocated but incomplete:
- There are no other bounties in progress
Applications received for bounties but not allocated include:
- There were no other applications for bounties that remain unallocated
Retrospective:
As we entered our second month there were some additional learnings:
- It is important that our bounties find the right balance between tasks that achieve the right priority and a valuable level of impact to various teams. Starting the month of November we may not have had that right, as tasks were more likely to indicates tasks that someone “could do” as a starter task. We have no increased the focus of developer bounties which we think will provide better balance between these needs and a higher level of impact
- Attracting talent to these bounties is something that we have allowed to happen organically. Now that we have more confidence in the types of bounties offered, and the way we can support delivery, we plan to more actively try to attract people to these bounties. One way we plan to explore is by creating incentivization bounties for talent referrals. More to follow on the board soon
- We still have significant scope to increase the number of Ecosystem Bounties offered. We want to note that we stand ready to help any team - be it PNI or other teams in the ecosystem - to make use of the RAD mechanisms and budgets to help advance the goals of the Pocket Network. If you need support or would like to use RAD in your team please reach out to me.
Rewards:
Rewards for the RAD program will be disbursed during December for the months of October and November. We are in the process of capturing final wallet details from relevant bounty hunters.
Program funds:
Reminder that RAD proposal secured 600,000 POKT, anticipated to be used as:
Average task size: XtraSmall (XS) to Medium (M); Some Large (L)
- XS = 1-2 hours (10%) - $50-100 = $500
- S = 3-6 hours (30%) - $150-300 = $4500
- M = 1-3 days (50%) - $400-1200 = $30,000
- L = 4-8 days (10%) - $1200-3200 = $16,000
Funds to be disbursed (Month 2):
Bounty - Contributor - Size - Rewards
V1 Visualizations - Germany - L - Excluded**
Lisbon Ambassador - Annie Snow - S - 1000 POKT
Lisbon Ambassador - Ashley - S - 1000 POKT
Lisbon Ambassador - Tom W - S - 1000 POKT
PoktDAO Twitter - PoktNews - L - $1750USD | 27,733 POKT
Note: These rewards use the 30 day (Nov) average price from CoinMarket cap of POKT. This price is 0.0631
** The Visualizations bounty is quite complex and requires further alignment. It is excluded to allow this report to be shared without delay.
Program Funds: **
600,000 POKT
Balance - Start of November
569,315 POKT
Rewards - November
30,733* POKT
Balance - End November
538,582 POKT
Burn rate
30,709 POKT pm. Runway of 17.54 Months @ current rate
3 Likes
RAD Update - Program Month 3 (December 2022)
December was the third month of the RAD program (Pocket bounties). Details of the program are above and current bounties available can be access here:
https://app.dework.xyz/pokt-network
Results:
In the month of December, 8 bounties were allocated and delivered. This is again an increase on the previous month:
- We implemented a “developer referral bounty” which was claimed by @PoktNews for introducing us to @h5law
-
@h5law completed PreCommit hook bounty. The rockstar just did the work and submitted the PR which the dev team loved
- @Jinx and team started scaling our community content and marketing efforts, with 5 bounties being awarded from 7 submissions. As encouragement to the team and to better align work with the current POKT price we have provided a 2X multiple for these early adopters. Thanks to @jdaugherty and @ethen (and others) for advocating for fairer rewards
- PoktDAO Twitter continues to be run by @PoktNews
Other bounties have been allocated but remain incomplete:
- The bounty to review our Trophy system was claimed by @OmnistratMatt and aims to be completed within January
Applications received for bounties but not allocated include:
- There were 2 submissions for community content that were declined
Retrospective:
Our third month allowed us to further refine our approach and included learnings:
- Referrals really do uncover the best people. Referrals have already introduced us to devs who joined the protocol team and now great new talent has been referred for bounties. We should continue to leverage this mechanism and I’d encourage anyone who knows people that might want to work with Pocket to claim the referral bounty
- Having a “campaign” for community involvement yields good results. The work of Jinx and the Poktopus army generated a number of submissions and opportunities for further engagement. We will see how this might be replicable in other functions
Rewards:
December rewards for the RAD program will be disbursed during January. Funds to be disbursed can be seen below:
Program funds:
Funds to be disbursed (Month 3):
Bounty - Contributor - Rewards
Precommit Hooks - @h5law - $1200 | 16,830 POKT
Referral bounty - @PoktNews - $1200 | 16,830 POKT
Community Content Small - @0x_Boo - 1000 POKT
Community Content Small - @Cryptocorn - 1000 POKT
Community Content Large - @0x_Boo - 3000 POKT
Community Content Large - @Japandy - 3000 POKT
Community Content YouTube - @Japandy - 5000 POKT
PoktDAO Twitter - @PoktNews - $1750USD | 24,544 POKT
Note: These rewards use the 30 day (Dec) average price from CoinMarket cap of POKT. This price is 0.0713
Program Funds: **
600,000 POKT
Balance - Start of December
538,582 POKT
Rewards - December
71,204 POKT
Balance - End December
467,378 POKT
Burn rate
44207 POKT pm. Runway of 10.57 Months @ current rate
9 Likes
nice! 71k in december!
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RAD Update - Program Month 4 (January 2023)
January was the fourth month of the RAD program (Pocket bounties) and was our largest yet. Details of the program are above and current bounties available can be accessed here:
https://app.dework.xyz/pokt-network
Results:
In the month of January, 6 large bounties were allocated and delivered which create our largest month ever:
-
@h5law has architected a strong pipeline as a trusted agent with the Protocol team. It’s great to see this mechanism work and is something we hope we can scale further for protocol dev
- @OmnistratMatt completed a deeper analysis of Pocket’s trophy system and results will be published shortly by Matt and Jack
- PoktDAO Twitter continues to be run by @PoktNews , including a small back payment for additional work completed towards this task
A number of developer bounties are in progress but remain incomplete.
Applications were received for 2 bounties but were not allocated.
Retrospective:
Our fourth month has led to some additional improvements and requests:
- Bounties are not being priced in “Task Points”. Point values will relate to the number of $USD or $POKT to be rewarded. This creates greater visibility for contributors and will allow payment tracking to be simpler than the previous system
- We want more talent/developer referrals - if you have any ideas for improving this system please let us know
- More will be announced soon of the intersection of bounty and grants programs. Please keep an eye out for further updates from PNF
Rewards:
January rewards for the RAD program will be disbursed before February 15th. Funds to be disbursed can be seen below:
Program funds:
Reminder that RAD proposal secured 600,000 POKT, anticipated to be used as:
Average task size: XtraSmall (XS) to Medium (M); Some Large (L)
- XS = 1-2 hours (10%) - $50-100 = $500
- S = 3-6 hours (30%) - $150-300 = $4500
- M = 1-3 days (50%) - $400-1200 = $30,000
- L = 4-8 days (10%) - $1200-3200 = $16,000
Funds to be disbursed (Month 4):
Bounty - Contributor - Size - Rewards
@h5law - Developer Bounties (x4) - $14,400USD | 244,897 POKT
@OmnistratMatt - Trophy Review - $3000USD | 51,020 POKT
PoktDAO Twitter - @PoktNews - $1750USD |
PoktDAO Backpayment - PoktNews - 24,764 POKT
Note: These rewards use the 30 day (Jan) average price from CoinMarket cap of POKT. This price is 0.0588
Program Funds: **
600,000 POKT
Balance - Start of January
442,703 POKT (Restated)
Rewards - December
325,769 POKT
Balance - End December
116,934 POKT
Burn rate
120,766 POKT pm. Runway of 0.96 Months @ current rate
As we have advanced rapidly toward the end of our runway you should expect another update on this very soon.
7 Likes
Love to see it! New PEP incoming 
4 Likes
Thanks @b3n for sharing. Love @PoktNews and I have appreciated what they do in the public channels.
Do you think there should be gates and/or mechanisms for contributors that earn regular bounties to keep raising the bar?
I will give an example-
@PoktNews does a great job in capturing and reporting, I think we all will agree. But their reach is small (702 running). I bet a big number there are those who have already been red-pilled, in other words Pocket insiders.
I understand this is just the 4th month of RAD and this is not to take away the credit behind what @PoktNews has done so far. I am forward-looking here.
After a while news capture and reporting in such a niche environment become routine jobs.
So how do we facilitate the bar to rise, such as in this case @PoktNews focussing on optimum distribution and reach here onwards (which is what ultimately matters)?
Or is that something you wouldn’t want to deal with at this point because it conflicts with RAD’s philosophy and objectives?
I am very specifically referring to contributors earning recurring bounties.
Thanks for reading.
2 Likes
We love the PoktNews!
At the beginning of RAD we took some small and very pragmatic liberties to find ongoing contributors and @PoktNews has been one of our successes.
I agree that bounties should generally be for discrete rather than recurring work. We are designing a lite weight mechanism for recurring contributions that we call Sockets. Sockets will provide ongoing funds to contributors in return for them working in the open and demonstrating their ongoing value. This does not mean we should expect them to deliver ever expanding reach month to month, but more that we want them to share openly the metrics they focus on and the types of experiments and tactics they are deploying to achieve their goals. I’m pretty sure if they’re continually experimenting and learning the results will come.
I think the experiments PoktNews has been running - PoktNews Weekly, Behind the Avi, & many other tactics - are really interesting. I wouldn’t be surprised if the more they work in the open the more impressed we’ll all be at the things they are doing and trying
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Thanks @b3n for the prompt reply. Didn’t want to sound too anal, just was thinking aloud. Look forward to seeing what’s next!
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steps up nervously to the podium for the first meaningful post
Hey Caesar, big fan and we always love your input. But to clarify, the PoktNews page isn’t what the bounty is for, it’s solely for managing the PoktDAO Twitter page.
PoktNews has never been a metrics-focused page. The approach we chose to adopt is “If people find value in it, they will like, retweet or follow and if they don’t they won’t” which is why we dont post in public channels or ask for likes or retweets so our reach grows a lot slower but more organically. Tbh we hadn’t realised 702 followers is small, we’re quite elated with that 
We agree the bounty for the PoktDAO page should be measured by metrics and deliverables, and there are probably members of the community that are better qualified and with more experience than us and we would happily step aside to ensure the DAO and RAD program gets more bang for their $Pokt.
But this won’t stop us from doing what the PoktNews page is currently doing (tbh we’re not sure what that is, we’re just winging it 🫣)
Thanks for reading. PoktNews Out! drops mic
5 Likes
So 2 things happened-
a) @PoktNews just spoke 
b) Caesar got schooled in DMs by the defendooors 
of @PoktNews to back off!! This community indeed loves 
@PoktNews
Hear me out 
Not here to police; plus this is in the capable hands of @b3n
Yours was an easy illustration for me to ask @b3n if there are ways (maybe incentivise) to encourage regularly paid contributors to do better. Was done with good intentions that got misconstrued somehow.
Thanks for reaching out and thanks for correcting me, but otherwise no explanations needed.
Please keep doing whatever you are doing, and I will do my part to keep you busy and entertained 
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Full support for @PoktNews ! If people (DAO) forces PoktNews to focus on reporting stats and metrics only, it wouldn’t make it most likely. It’s true that it still has “only” 600ish followers, but it keeps growing organically and will keep growing more and more because of the content quality, quick posts and the ability to summarize most important news around Pocket on a weekly basis. It’s a quality work that should be encouraged.
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Clarification has already been made and some of us here also might have understanding of content strategy.
Will save further comments on content for a separate thread.
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RAD Update - Program Month 5 (February 2023)
February was the fifth month of the RAD program. You can see the bounties completed here on dework: https://app.dework.xyz/pokt-network
Results:
In the month of February, 8 bounties were completed and 7 will be paid which makes it the largest month ever for the program. This included:
- @h5law completed a number of bounties to keep his streak going
- @0xBigBoss started contributing to core protocol development
- @profish finishes the github wiki
- and as always, @PoktNews stars at running PoktDAO twitter
A number of other developer bounties are in progress.
Retrospective:
Our fifth month on RAD bounties has delivered some important milestones:
- We have onboarded our second protocol dev (BigBoss) from the program
- We have now exhausted the RAD budget and will return soon with an updated proposal for continuation of this program
- Our first Socket grant from the GROW program run by PNF goes to PoktNews. They will become the first person to receive a grant from this program and will transition away from the recurring monthly bounty
Rewards:
February rewards for the RAD program will be disbursed before March 15th. Funds to be disbursed can be seen below:
h5law - Developer Bounties (x4) - $11,200USD | 164,220 POKT
BigBoss - Protocol bounty - $800USD | 11,730 POKT
PoktDAO Twitter - PoktNews - $1750USD | 25,660 POKT
Profish - Github Wiki - $1000 | 14,662 POKT
Note: These rewards use the 30 day (Feb) average price from CoinMarket cap of POKT. This price is 0.0682
Program Funds: **
600,000 POKT
Balance - Start of February
116,934 POKT
Rewards - February
216,275 POKT
Balance - End January
-99,341 POKT
Difference covered by Pocket Network Foundation
+99,341 POKT
Net:
0
This brings to a close the experimental RAD bounties program after 5 months of operation. We think this has been a successful program and will provide a further update to the DAO shortly.
Thankyou to all involved who participated, completed bounties and helped make this Pocket contribution program a success. And a special thanks to @jdaugherty and @Olshansky for playing such an important role in collaborating with new partners.
7 Likes
Summary: RAD Season 1
The PEP42 - RAD experiment is now complete. Below we will outline performance against the objectives of the program. As a reminder, the objectives of the original proposal were:
- Provide more paid opportunities for DAO participants and community members
- Further progressively decentralise Pocket Network’s workforce
- More closely fuse Pocket Network, Inc. team activities with the DAO
- Learn through small-scale experiments how to optimise contributor experiences and work collaborations
We believe that the first iteration of the RAD program has achieved each of these objectives.
Provide more paid opportunities for DAO participants and community members
Prior to RAD, some contribution programs did exist at Pocket in the form of Triforce and the Scholarship Fund. The total number of external contributors funded by these programs was ~5, and only 1 or 2 were people that might be considered new to the community.
Through the RAD program we funded a total of 28 bounties to 13 individuals. Of these, 4 were new entrants to the community whose relationship with Pocket started through their RAD contributions. Two of these were even hired by PNI subsequent to completing bounties.
While the barriers to completing specialised developer bounties are quite high, even today any individual within the Pocket community can be rewarded for referring talent to Pocket or for generating relevant community content through the RAD program.
These small but encouraging results give us confidence in the longer term possibilities of the program. We would also just note that we may potentially have achieved even more for Pocket DAO if the POKT price had not declined 50% in the time since the proposal was passed, which has ultimately reduced the runway of this program.
Further progressively decentralise Pocket Network’s workforce
One benefit of the program has been our ability to increase the decentralisation of the workforce of Pocket. We now have 2 contributors to the core protocol operating through the RAD program, as well as having had our external PoktDAO twitter account funded by RAD.
These bounties are not just vanity activities but core functions of how Pocket Network operates both internally and externally. RAD has often been the catalyst for new conversations about the nature of work at Pocket and the start of relationships that even though start quite discrete, tend to be leveraged into continuing and increasingly important roles as trust and accountability are established. This increases not only the value of the work but the value of the ecosystem as a whole.
More closely fuse Pocket Network, Inc. team activities with the DAO
RAD bounties enabled benefits for PNI that persist to this day, including “increased overall project velocity, addressing techdebt that may have otherwise been kicked down the road… and found owners for un-owned parts of codebase including FT contributors.”
We currently have two external protocol contributors working with the V1 team via bounties. While we do anticipate the nature of these contributions may well evolve beyond bounties over time, PNI now has contingent, external contributors working with them on a recurring basis through the RAD program. We hope this gives them, and the broader community, further encouragement that our path to progressive decentralisation is sustainable and will be a success.
Learn through small-scale experiments how to optimise contributor experiences and work collaborations
Much has evolved since the RAD program was developed, which has provided us clarity around further experimentation with programs like GROW. That said, we have been able to run small scale experiments to further tune the RAD program. This includes:
- Through the program we have experimented and refined the systems for working with external contributors. This has included further defining how external contributors access core systems like Github and how we authorise activity for social media accounts
- Through the Poktopus Army we have experimented with an “externally” run set of bounties being delivered within the program. While momentum has slowed on this it does give us confidence to further explore how RAD can be a program leveraged by others in the community, not just PNI
- Through the Referral bounty, we have been able to experiment with leveraging talent referrals; a key part of growing any community or DAO. This identified the high level of talent in our extended networks that Pocket can try to access in more effective ways, although perhaps RAD is not a compelling enough mechanism to really make this work
- Through the Pocket Trophies bounty, we used a completely external contributor to Pocket who was relatively low context on how Pocket works. The result of this work was actually really good, and gives us confidence that we can use external knowledge within Pocket in targeted ways and to onboard new people into our ecosystem.
The future of RAD
With the encouragement of these results we plan to put forward a proposal for a continuation of the RAD program, addressing some of the opportunities and weaknesses of the program outlined above. Expect to see a new post in the forum soon.
As we close out the program a thanks again to all who have participated and supported us. We welcome anyone involved to share their own reflections, colour and feedback about the journey of RAD below.
Many thanks,
Ben, Jess, Jack, Ming and Olshansky
5 Likes
I have been doing bounties through the RAD program for the last few months now and have really enjoyed getting involved with Pocket. This is such an enthusiastic community and from what I have seen everyone is really keen to get more people involved through initiatives such as these.
The team at PNI are amazing when it comes to helping newcomers like myself get involved and do some real work at the protocol level. Huge shoutout to @Olshansky and @jdaugherty for being the 
s that they are.
I am excited to keep on doing work not only with bounties but also with the new GROW initiative @b3n mentioned. I would love to see more larger tasks come out as bounties. I had the opportunity to work on a few larger tasks as part of the bounty system and these taught me a lot. It is from these larger pieces of work that community members contributing to the protocol can really see where it is that they want to focus their time and energy. When we are given the chance to work on larger bodies of work we can provide more meaningful contributions, this doesn’t mean that addressing tech debt or doing smaller tasks is not meaningful. But at the core of Pocket is decentralisation. By decentralising not only the protocol team but every aspect of contribution to the project, we ensure the long-term survival of Pocket by removing its reliance on the core team at PNI (I believe they are doing great work 
). And in my opinion, this can only be achieved by getting more people working on the bigger open issues. And I think RADv2 will continue towards this goal with @b3n at the reigns.
Let’s see what bounties lie ahead
9 Likes