GRIP Report no. 5: September 1-30 and Review of Latest 6-Month Trial Period
At the end of the monthly review for September that follows, this post considers the entire GRIP experiment, focusing on the recent 6-month trial period.
This post does not end with a request for further renewal. Instead, it concludes with a request for community feedback. GRIP will mull its fate based on that feedback.
Assistance Requests
In September, there were no new pre-proposals. Although a few proposals were posted, no authors asked GRIP for help. However, PNF requested that GRIP provide infographics for its 3D Governance PGOV1 - Evolving Pocket’s Governance: Introducing 3D Governance - Foundation - Pocket Network Forum proposal (posted in August). The infographic work was done in September (Ale, Cryptocorn and zaatar).
GRIP bill to DAO
GRIP’s bill for September totals $909.50.
Here is the breakdown:
What |
Details |
Author Feedback |
Amount Billed |
GRIP Help |
Infographic (3D Governance) |
Helpful |
|
|
|
|
$800 |
GRIP Admin |
Prepare report on September activity and review of 6-mo. trial period |
|
|
|
Assorted |
|
|
|
|
|
$80 |
GRIP Expenses |
Adobe Illustrator subscription September 2023 |
|
$29.50 |
TOTAL BILLED TO DAO |
|
|
$909.50 |
GRIP Comprehensive Review
GRIP’s six-month trial period ended October 7, 2023. Its first trial period lasted three months, November 2022 to March 2023.
As detailed below, GRIP did achieve its main goals:
- create a system to compensate community experts for the time they take to provide meaningful feedback on technical and economic proposals;
- The feedback and other help provided by GRIP was, with few exceptions, rated helpful or very helpful. No compensation was sought or awarded for unsolicited expert feedback by non-GRIP members. The one non-GRIP member who had requested the community to pay for unsought feedback joined GRIP, thus helping to entrench the process for compensation only for pre-requested feedback on pre-proposals and proposals.
- help proposal preparation including by first timers, thereby broadening community participation;
- GRIP did assist with proposal preparation including for several first timers (as detailed in post dated September 19, immediately above).
- make proposals clearer and easier to grasp and thereby help DAO members understand proposals requiring their vote, thereby enhancing governance;
- GRIP editing improved proposals and made them easier to understand, including via infographics (3D Governance and Payments Negating Favouritism).
This observation, made in August, is valid. Only if demand for its services by community members outside GRIP resumes would it make sense to renew GRIP in its current form.
Goodbye GRIP?
Community proposal activity has dropped, in part due to PNF taking over most of the work in the ecosystem.
Has the time has come for GRIP to say goodbye? Take a pause? Or reinvent itself?
Areas Where GRIP Services Can Meet a Need
GRIP brings proven community expertise, editing and artistic skills that can complement those of PNF and individual builders. Here are four areas where GRIP, or some reformulation of GRIP, could continue to meet real needs:
-
Work on community-related proposals and publications by PNF
GRIP has shown that it can provide value-add to PNF proposals and other documentation. It has provided editing and infographics, most recently on 3D Governance. PNF, and by extension, the community would benefit from the continuation of such assistance.
Moving forward, we can expect the big contributions to the Pocket ecosystem to be in the form of Pocket Open Priorities or POPs. POP authors competing for PNF-funded work could tap GRIP’s services, including technical expertise, to strengthen their proposals. Or, once a contract is awarded, depending on the nature of the work, GRIP members could help with editing and artwork/infographics (e.g., website redesign). Contract applicants or winners could pay for this work or it could be covered or subsidized by the DAO based on the reasoning that POPs resemble proposals whose refinement (pre-selection) and implementation (post-selection) benefit the ecosystem at large.
As long as the Pocket network continues, the DAO will be asked to vote on proposals including those advanced by PNF, such as those related to 3D Governance. Hence, there will always be a need for editing and occasional infographics to make proposals clearer.
While community proposal activity has declined, it has not stopped completely. Not surprisingly given their high level of Pocket knowledge and expertise, GRIP members have continued to author proposals and pre-proposals over the last few months - e.g., Shane’s GANDALF (Decrease Maximum Chains), Bulutcambazi’s PIP-31 (Unleashing the Potential of POKT) and Cryptocorn’s Regulating Sockets (REGS). In future, community members outside GRIP might also come up with proposals and pre-proposals.
The community benefits when these undergo expert review, editing and occasionally, addition of infographics, even when the author is a GRIP member. While the optics of GRIP getting paid to help other GRIP members could be better, the benefit to the community justifies the provision of this assistance. (GRIP help was not requested for GANDALF or PIP-31.) To improve the optics, the hourly pay-rate for GRIP help to other GRIP members would top out at $100 (in a possible renewal proposal); there would be no bonus for work deemed “very helpful.”
Conclusion
In sum, there remains a need for editing and, occasionally, artwork to make all votable proposals more digestible. In addition, GRIP’s services, including its expert feedback. could be leveraged in new ways.
GRIP was a grassroots community initiative, reflective of Pocket’s decentralized ethos. Now that the number of independent node runners has dropped, an entity like GRIP can help keep the decentralization flame burning.
Your Input, Please
GRIP needs to hear what the community thinks before determining whether to close its doors, seek renewal, or reformulate itself.
In the meantime, GRIP will continue to provide assistance if requested. Payment for any such work will be requested - and put to a vote - once GRIP decides on its future by year’s end or sooner.
(Before its fate is decided GRIP could be asked to do infographic work. For now, therefore, it will maintain its Adobe Illustrator subscription at a cost of $29.50 per month.)