PEP-57: GRIP Renewal

[zaatar]

Thanks Dermot for your input. Shaping GRIP based on your feedback, and that of other DAO members, shows that this really is a community initiative.

@Dermot

Sockets run month to month until ended by PNF or the contributor. So 6 months is a long time, particularly in Web3. As a result, I would suggest 3 months as a reasonable time to judge this next iteration of GRIP. If GRIP is becoming more valuable and important to the community by this point, it will be crucial to consider how its membership is managed, how feedback is working, and any other important tweaks. This will also be an opportunity to expand funding and/or scope, depending on how things play out.

GRIP’s two main offerings are expert feedback on technical and economic proposals and writing assistance (proofreading and copyediting). Infographics come next. If over three months there are no, or very few, technical and economic proposals, or if there are a few or more such proposals but no author asks for GRIP help, then there will be no data on the value of such assistance. Instead of six months, we could limit the trial to six months; 8 pre-proposals including 5 technical or economic ones; or 50 hours of feedback and 10 hours of proofreading/copy editing, whichever comes first.

This formula would not prevent the conducting of a review at the three-month mark on membership management, how feedback is working, and possible “important tweaks.”

@Dermot

You may already plan to do this, but as I didn’t see it mentioned specifically, I recommend that the GRIP team state how much they plan to charge for each piece of work at the end of each engagement, ie the number of hours spent on it. This is helpful for an accountability perspective and also gives the opportunity for the proposal author to respond in real-time to say whether the support given was great value for money or not.

GRIP will disclose to “customers” how much time the work took - but only after they rate the work: unhelpful, helpful or very helpful, plus optional additional commentary. This will produce needed feedback. Further, it will avoid situations where a customer rates the work based on how long it took.

@Dermot

@zaatar

The monthly allocation from the DAO may vary based on the quantum of work done and its impact.

Can you clarify how this will vary? And is the sum of $5k a cap or how much you want to spend each month, notwithstanding the work done?

To be clear, I’m completely ok with the latter - which was what my initial suggestion was using Coordinape as a tool to enable such - but I just want to understand your thinking.

My idea is to pay a base rate of $100 per hour. Depending on how the help is rated by the recipient and others, this could fluctuate: more for highly rated assistance, nothing for work that’s rated as unhelpful. In the latter case, one or more GRIP experts would review the feedback. If the unhelpfulness is confirmed, the consequences would be a) no pay, b) a warning. If there are recurrences, GRIP might remove or suspend the member, depending on the circumstances.

Monthly, GRIP will tally its hours, and based on the feedback, determine what to pay its members and therefore how much to request from the DAO, up to a $5K cap. Monthly allocations could be lower. Any “unspent” portion of the $5K budget, can be used for a later month where the level of compensation to be paid exceeds the cap.

That said, I am open to trying Coordinape (for at least part of the trial) and would be happy to work with @b3n to set it up.

@b3n

One mechanism could be to fund $X,000 of USD or POKT into a Coordinape circle which the team can allocate bottom up as they see appropriate. Against this, the community can review each month if the output matches the total fund and the team can request more funds if needed. I am more than happy to establish and help operate this mechanism if desired

@Dermot

@zaatar

For clarity, GRIP will compensate its members for work related to admin, including reporting to the DAO or PNF on work done and impact. Meeting time will not be compensated. Admin includes creation of GRIP tooling and anything designed to inform the community about GRIP’s services and canvass its impact.

There will always be a need for admin, but it should be capped at a figure of max 5-10% of the monthly DAO allocation.

That seems to be a reasonable target range. In the early going, however, when additional setup work and awareness promotion may be needed, that percentage could be exceeded. Let’s revisit this at the three-month mark.

@Dermot

@zaatar

• Allow GRIP to install, within two weeks of the end of voting, a mechanism whereby proposal authors who post to the Pre-Proposal category of the Forum, are asked if they want help from GRIP, and if so, to specify what type of help. Provide any needed assistance in this regard.

Is this necessary? Is the idea not that proposal authors specifically ask for help if needed? And they can just message on the specific GRIP section of the forum, or to message one of its members? I’m generally keen to avoid over complicating things where possible

I am inclined to agree. However, before an author can ask for help, he needs to know it’s available.

Currently, there’s a message at the top of the + New Topic box in the Pre-Proposal category that plugs GRIP’s services. Let’s see how this works.

@b3n observes that people are unlikely to initiate a request for help from GRIP, and suggests that GRIP contact authors to see if they want help.

We can revisit this if the renewal proposal passes. Accordingly, this part of the proposal will be amended to read:

• "Within 72 hours of the conclusion of voting, revise the message at the top of the +New Topic box in the Pre-Proposal category of the Forum to include (a) reference to the GRIP Help category referred to in the renewal proposal and (b) possible other GRIP-requested changes.

• “Following review once/if this proposal passes, allow GRIP to install, at its discretion, a mechanism, such as a pop-up with check boxes, whereby proposal authors who post to the Pre-Proposal category of the Forum, can specify what type of help they want, if any. Provide any needed assistance in this regard to ensure that such mechanism is up and running within two weeks of GRIP’s request.”