PEP-62: Msa Reimbursement Request

[BTTheDefendoooor (BT)]

Definitely agree with the previous statement! I’m quite surprised by Shane’s stance, especially since no one requested the “CC” solution for the altruist issue. Personally, I find MSA’s contributions and efforts more valuable than those of GRIP’s. I am in complete support of this proposal

[msa6867]

Hi Steve, welcome to the POKT community. I think the flurry of recently proposals is rather an anomaly completely unrelated to market conditions and not likely to be repeated or continued any time soon. This proposal is, to my knowledge, the last of ones the community has been expecting for some time. I hope you can see past this and decide to stay involved with this project.

Let me address a couple specific points you bring up.

@SteveO

Seeing such proposals popping out like mushrooms recently

Some historical context is helpful. Last September, feedback provided to me by the DAO was that the model they preferred for my involvement was for me to complete work first and then submit for reimbursement. This proposal is a reflection of that, and the proposal has been expected by many if not most in the community.

@SteveO

People seems to be voluntarily doing a job no one asked them to and ultimately asking for a reimbursement payment around the all time low price range.

First, it would not be fair to myself to be told last September to do the work first and then submit for reimbursement, only to be told when seeking reimbursement that none will be given because it was not pre-authorized.

Second, it is absolutely not my intention to time the market to try to take advantage of some ATL. I am sure the same hold for other recent proposal authors. I would be glad to put a cap in the budget so that if 30-day trailing price drops below, say 0.05, that higher number, rather than actual will be used for conversion. The timing is more a reflection of (1) it is more efficient to bundle several things together in a proposal than seek a constant stream of on-off reimbursements as it takes a tremendous amount of non-compensated time and energy to write/rewrite/debate a reimbursement proposal and (2) its a natural time to wrap up the body of work I’ve done over the last months as this was all v0-related work and I am now transitioning my energies toward v1.

Again, a bit of historical context is in order. The DAO had a chance to fund lean pocket development a year ago for a fifth of the amount of tokens it recently paid out for this development, but declined to do so. Is it the fault of PoktFund and TH that by the time the DAO was willing tot fund their efforts the token was at ATL? Also a proposal on treasury management to convert a portion of treasury holdings to stables to head off contingencies of price drop was debated a year and a half ago and the DAO declined to take action. Should proposal authors be blamed for this lack of foresight on the part of the DAO?

@SteveO

My last hope for POKT was the recent new policy introduction that was supposed to enforce proposal owners to request an approval for their work through pre-proposal section, but this proposal is another proof of endless ongoing DAO exploit happening in front of DAO eyes.

Just to add some clarity, as this conflates a couple separate things. Correct, PNF is in the process of enacting policy changes that will cause contributors of high-value public goods (think geomesh, LeanPocket) to pre-coordinate with PNF. This policy is not designed for the much lower dollar amounts or nature of work being considered in this reimbursement request. They do have a program they are working to set up to fund various monthly contributors at levels similar to this requested budget, but that program did not exist last year and is not set up to be retroactive.

Separately, there is a “pre-proposal” category on the Forum that can be used by potential authors to get their proposal ready for placing in the final PIP/PEP/PUP folder via GRIP assistance etc. This category is not set up to be a gated process but more of a convenience for proposal authors. In my case I sought GRIP assistance to get my draft “proposal-ready” via engaging the GRIP team on their Discord channel rather than utilizing the pre-proposal folder.

[crabman]

all for rewarding MSA and other contributors, but I am just bummed out in general. I personally would have waited to ask when things are not this gloomy.

[msa6867]

Thanks Shane for your feedback. I appreciate that the nature of your feedback is to debate the budget amount, and not concentrated on arguing against any reimbursement.

I will address specific points below.

@shane

I will share the same feedback I provided @msa6867 during the GRIP review

@shane

In my GRIP feedback I stated the following as a person opinion for the FREN section, which has been added to the dissenting opinions section

@shane

MY GRIP FEEDBACK TLDR

First off, I think it would be much preferable for you to clean up your post to remove all these reference to GRIP. This creates an unfair bias by which (1) it makes it seem your personal feedback should carry extra weight because it comes from a GRIP member and (2) gives the “impression” that I ignored/did not heed the feedback provided by GRIP. This simply is not true. I made every change suggested by GRIP, including spending several days tracking down every bit of documentation for the various tasks, something that was never asked of from @cryptocorn or any other contributor on previous proposals. All the following points were given as your personal feedback (excepting the reference to the cp code fix, which I promptly corrected in the proposal text, as you can see.). For such personal feedback, I appreciate that in the second quote above you call out this is your personal opinion; however I think it preferable to eliminate the appeal to GRIP altogether.

@shane

The Proposal Value Model was never designed for non-development based proposals. It was designed for products specifically that the ecosystem can use. It was designed to estimate the value of a single project (all the wording is focused around a single project). I do not believe it is accurate for assessing the value of general work.

While you are free to use it as you desire, I do not believe it should be used in this manner, as it was never meant for this kind of proposal.

I agree, which is why I approach the budget rationale from many different angles and head the rationale section by acknowledging there is no perfect methodology to evaluate the budget. Eliminating that methodology would not affect the outcome of the budget.

Think of it as simply a putting things into perspective. It is more the following type of statement: “If Shane’s model were used, the budget represents about 100 hours of reimbursement. Is this reasonable, given the hours contributed?”

On the other hand, while I appreciate that the work I provide may fall outside the scope of your original intended use of the methodology, it is not far fetched to use in this context, seeing that in most organization, sw engineering and systems engineering are compensated at comparable rates.

@shane

GRIP is not asking for the kind of premiums you are asking for, so GRIP’s payment model is fundamentally different. Your proposal is for significantly more than $100 an hour .

I think you have completely missed the point. This is a completely separate evaluation methodology . In essence throw the previous (Shane valuation) methodology out the window and use this methodology instead. In other words, think of it as putting the budget into a slightly different perspective than the previous section. It is more the following type of statement: “If a “GRIP-equivalent” model of $100/hr were used, the budget represents about 230 hours of reimbursement. Is this reasonable, given the hours contributed?” Go back and reread this section. It is premised on using $100/hr exactly, not on including some kind of overhead and premiums as in your model.

@shane

Has PNF assisted with filling out of this value model? To me it’s not clear how this model is supposed to be used in the general community. Perhaps they could provide guidance.

I have gone over both my proposal in general and the PNF valuation scorecard specifically with PNF prior to submitting this proposal. Agree that it will be good to hear directly from PNF. In the meantime, I will share the feedback I received from PNF:

• the overall budget of this proposal seems reasonable
• the use the scorecard stretches the original-envisioned use case of the scorecard which is geared more for evaluating “public goods” so some creative interpretation of certain boxes may be needed to make it fit a case such as this
• the scorecard is a work in progress, so use by myself, poktfund and others recently helps give them the feedback they need to improve it.
• as to specific scores, feedback centered on two boxes, one in which they thought I had originally scored it too high and one in which I had originally scored it too low, in a way that exactly balances each other out. See cells C16 and C19 which I have reset to middle of the road values to reflect competing interpretations.

Again, there is no one perfect evaluation methodology, hence the multiple approaches.

@shane

I personally believe that research work like this should be approved by the DAO prior to starting work. PUP-25 is very controversial because of the amount of work and changes it would require of all POKT products and services… so it should get approved prior to the work itself being done. I do not believe the DAO should pay for this work since it wasn’t done with pre-approval.

A few community members might have suggested there should be a 3rd party review, but I don’t believe that their suggestion constitutes the DAO paying for it without a vote and established guidelines.

This is both unfair and anachronistic. Just now, the PNF is starting to develop guidelines regarding pre-authorizing work. This simply did not exist last year, Indeed, it does not even exist quite yet as the process and policy is still being developed. Last fall when this work was done, the ONLY model available to contributors was to do the work first and then “hope for the best” that the DAO will be willing to reimburse. That is the who point of the risk premium in your valuation model is it not - risk that work competed won’t get reimbursed - as compared to, say, GRIP, where no such premium is relevant, since reimbursement is guaranteed.

Furthermore, appealing back to historical context, the DAO had just told me two weeks prior to my starting the PUP-25 analysis that the model it wanted me to work under was to complete work first and then submit for reimbursement. It would feel like something of a rug pull for the DAO to then come back and say that funding would not be provided simply because it was not pre-authorized.

Last, I do not think you are really thinking this through completely. Imagine how this would have looked from PoktScan perspective had the DAO voted to fund an independent analysis. In a case such as PUP-25, asking the DAO to pre-authorize and fund an independent analysis is fraught with danger as it could lead to bias in the minds of voters to presume that the independent analysis authorized by the DAO is superior to or more trustworthy than the analysis provided by the proposal authors. This would be unfair to proposal authors. It is better for independent analysis to be provided first to avoid this possible source of bias and then be considered for reimbursement on the merits of the work provided.

Bottom line, the merits of reimbursement for this analysis can be debated , such as you get into on your other points, but it being excluded simply on the grounds of it not being pre-authorized makes no sense.

@shane

PUP-25 is very controversial because of the amount of work and changes it would require of all POKT products and services

This is precisely why it was vital for an independent analysis to be done! The claims the authors of that proposal made were very serious and they certainly felt the claim justified the impact of the change being suggested. Sure, if someone without a proven track record throws out a high-impact proposal, it can perhaps be ignored without due diligence. But this is PoktScan we are talking about. They have a proven track record of high-value contribution to the ecosystem. The claims they made deserved to be looked at adequately.

@shane

…prior to your additional 195 hours (5 weeks) worth of research…

This was a very high-stakes proposal involving a highly complex technical subject. Thus a high number of hours compared to other tasks is reasonable

@shane

I’m having a hard time justifying the work for something that never moved forward

Guidance I have received from PNF has been that analysis that leads to the DAO not taking a certain governance action is equally valuable as analysis that leads to the DAO taking a certain governance action.

@shane

PUP-25 was generally rejected prior to your additional 195 hours (5 weeks) worth of research. Your research did not have any direct applicability.

This is to put the cart before the horse. The reason PUP-25 did not enjoy greater community support than it did was for lack of independent analysis to back up the claims. Had independent investigation backed up the claims and the proposed action, it would have gained traction and support, even if begrudgingly given. I certainly hope that you are not suggesting that the best approach to take when a serious charge of unfairness or other brokenness is levied by a major contributor in the ecosystem, is to bury our collective head in the sand and not do the necessary due diligence to per-review the claims.

@shane

If multiple folks work on a proposal and want reimbursement for their work, then I feel they all should submit together.

I understand the general principle and explain in the dissention section why it is difficult to apply in this case.

@shane

The PR is dormant and hasn’t been touched since last summer. It is currently blocked from merge. I don’t see it’s relevancy.

I corrected this in pre-proposal phase and moved this section to Table 3 listing R&D that either hit dead-ends or remain open. Is there a reason to repeat this here?

@shane

Now that PNF is established and working on community engagement programs, I believe this should be covered under something they oversee.

I understand the idea for going forward; the idea can’t really be applied retroactively. There was no such community engagement program in the past

@shane

@Cryptocorn’s proposal covered 12 months and was 1/3 the ask of this proposal, so I do not believe the evaluations compare. He was the original author, and you later joined on as a co-author, yet your SER compensation would be significantly more than his.

I’ll leve it to @Cryptocorn to weigh in as to whether he thinks the overall ask amount is reasonable, as he has seen my work first hand in much of it. Yes cryptocorn was the original author of the July FREN proposal, but what emerged from the debate was essentially a brand new proposal that was reformulated and rewritten from the ground up. Per your GRIP request I have meticulously documented the breakdown of my contribution to FREN. I feel fairly certain that I put in the majority of hours that went into that task.

@shane

I’m not sure how to approach this proposal, because:

1. Most of this work the DAO did not sanction

I believe this has been adequately addressed above

@shane

The evaluation is not in line with other contributors (like cryptocorn or GRIP)

I fail understand this. Regarding GRIP, I think it falls completely in line with GRIP. If we compensate the editing and feedback done by GRIP at $100 is it not reasonable to compensate proposal authors at similar rate for the time they put into passing proposals?

Regarding @cryptocorn, it is hard to make apples-applies comparison. For one, it should be remembered that he is employed within the ecosystem and a fair amount of his presence felt over that last year was funded out of that, not out of DAO; I would venture to say that his total POKT-related compensation over the time period exceeds what I am requesting. Second, supposing that he voluntarily requested significantly less reimbursement than perhaps was due, that should not be used as precedence for everyone who follows. He himself indicated that his request amounts to less than minimum wage… are you suggesting that the DAO can retain top contributors by offering sub-minimum wage for contributors. Third, there is a lot of analysis that went on behind the scenes in all the proposals in question that laid the groundwork for the final product. That ought to be taken into consideration. As I mentioned in the dissention section, the best prior to use for precedence is PEP44, and this ask is much smaller in dollar amount and for a much longer stretch of contribution than that previous reimbursement.

@shane

I personally feel that I could support a proposal for the SER work, with a structure the emulates GRIP. Being the author of SER, which passed, I could see that being reimbursed.

Is there a reason you feel my work on SER should be compensated but not my work on ACCURATE and FREN, both of which also passed? Or the work behind the scenes to aid PNF in setting SSWM?

@shane

However, I feel that moving forward all community and R&D work should go through PNF with established guidelines and accountability.

Many ideas can be discussed about the best way for the DAO to move forward, but this is a reimbursement request for prior work, and the only effective funding route open to me in the time period covered by this proposal was to do the work first and then submit for reimbursement.

it is possible that as programs like GROW roll out, a reimbursement request like this won’t even be needed in the future as lower-friction lower-pain possibilities to fund work like what I provide open up. But that simply was not a possibility in the time frame covered by this proposal.

[msa6867]

@crabman

all for rewarding MSA and other contributors, but I am just bummed out in general. I personally would have waited to ask when things are not this gloomy.

Thanks @crabman . As to current market conditions, I have gone ahead and updated the budget to cap the funding in case the price stays below $0.05. As indicated above , there was absolutely no intention on my part to try to “time the market”. As to waiting to ask when things are not this gloomy… I suppose that’s a matter of perspective. Other than depressed price, I think a lot is currently going right for this project.

As I said above, I’m at a natural transition point between focusing on v0 and v1 so it made sense to close out the previous chapter now.

[shane]

Thanks for the response. Happy to better communicate with the following:

@msa6867

First off, I think it would be much preferable for you to clean up your post to remove all these reference to GRIP. This creates an unfair bias by which (1) it makes it seem your personal feedback should carry extra weight because it comes from a GRIP member and (2) gives the “impression” that I ignored/did not heed the feedback provided by GRIP.

No intention to create an unfair bias. I would encourage anyone to look at the feedback I provided on the GRIP Discord. I basically copy and pasted the relevant parts from the convo over here.

You did indeed make a lot of changes, especially with added references to each of your claims. I greatly appreciated that as it makes looking back at this work much more straightforward. Folks are welcome to review the GRIP Discord for feedback, and they will see you did make many worthy changes to the format and sources.

Thank-you for that

@msa6867

Last, I do not think you are really thinking this through completely. Imagine how this would have looked from PoktScan perspective had the DAO voted to fund an independent analysis. In a case such as PUP-25, asking the DAO to pre-authorize and fund an independent analysis is fraught with danger as it could lead to bias in the minds of voters to presume that the independent analysis authorized by the DAO is superior to or more trustworthy than the analysis provided by the proposal authors. This would be unfair to proposal authors. It is better for independent analysis to be provided first to avoid this possible source of bias and then be considered for reimbursement on the merits of the work provided.

My opinion may differ here from yours… but if someone is proposing that the DAO invest into significant code changes to the protocol, then I think it’s fair that the DAO put resources into vetting it. Personally, that sounds like a good process to me.

My research was the catalyst to GOOD VIBES not going through… and I would have been happy to see the DAO first sanction the research as a matter of a due diligence process, instead of just on my own dime at the last minute So may just be a difference of opinion here.

@msa6867

Is there a reason you feel my work on SER should be compensated but not my work on ACCURATE and FREN, both of which also passed? Or the work behind the scenes to aid PNF in setting SSWM?

SER was your eco proposal that passed, so that make sense for it to be a reimbursement. ACCURATE and FREN were @Cryptocorn, so if there is to be evaluation for your contributions, then it should be in respect to the evaluation of the the original author IMO. That’s why I think a single proposal is better, so the evaluation of value is the same

Regarding the work you did for PNF, that could be reimbursed by the DAO or PNF could compensate. Not sure… but my point was that SER has strong standing for sure.

@msa6867

For one, it should be remembered that he is employed within the ecosystem and a fair amount of his presence felt over that last year was funded out of that, not out of DAO; I would venture to say that his total POKT-related compensation over the time period exceeds what I am requesting.

Personally, it gets too confusing if I need to consider someone else’s salary or theoretic holdings to evaluate another’s proposal. I also believe your salary outside of POKT should not be a factor in the evaluation of your work. That is just my opinion.

Overall, thanks for response and providing your perspective on my comments

[shane]

@msa6867

As I said above, I’m at a natural transition point between focusing on v0 and v1 so it made sense to close out the previous chapter now.

Do you plan to charge the DAO for this v1 research you are starting? If so I would suggest putting up a per-approval proposal that has specific guidelines and deliverables. Or something like an RFP.

I don’t believe the reimbursement proposal structure for R&D work should be continued in the future IMO.

[msa6867]

@shane

Do you plan to charge the DAO for this v1 research you are starting? If so I would suggest putting up a per-approval that has specific guidelines and deliverables. I don’t believe the reimbursement proposal structure for R&D work should be continued in the future IMO.

As I mention above, I plan to request a POP from the PNF under the new GROW initiative once that gets rolled out in a few weeks as that bypasses a lot of the funding friction for cases such as mine. If that goes through, then I do not foresee any new funding request directly to the DAO You will note that the budget of this proposal for the 7-8 months of contribution are fairly in line with the POP monthly budgets Perhaps I should have used that as an evaluation methodology. eg “what compensation would have been provided had this been funded via a POP” That initiative is just rolling out and did not exist in the past for me to utilize.

I can consider an RFP as well, and there is a specific DNA point this can be pursued under. However, it should be noted that just as with the scorecard, the RFP is designed more for “public goods” not so much for straight-up R&D - e.g., if I collab with PoktScan to build a radCAD sim model for POKT, that would likely be pursued via an RFP as that is more of a “public good”.

If neither of these routes prove to be viable I would plan to seek funding directly from the DAO, in which case, I am happy to go through a pre-approval process for anticipated v1 work such as you suggest.

[msa6867]

@shane

SER was your eco proposal that passed, so that make sense for it to be a reimbursement. ACCURATE and FREN were @Cryptocorn, so if there is to be evaluation for your contributions, then it should be in respect to the evaluation of the the original author IMO. That’s why I think a single proposal is better, so the evaluation of value is the same

I totally get the ideal of separate proposal for each of these actions. Just seems impractical to accomplish in this case. Let’s wait and see what the other feedback is like. If there seems to be solid consensus that a merged funding request is preferable, then I can consult with @cryptocorm and @caesar (who provided the comparison analysis for SER) to see how to merge their contributions (that have not already been compensated via PEP51 in to this proposal.

[Also, to be fair, ACCURATE was two separate proposals that got merged, mine and cryptocorn. I did the merging, final writing and the analysis to justify both parts; just a matter of deference on my part to list cruptocorn first; order should not really matter for the purpose of this discussion]

[Caesar]

Thanks msa.

All-

Good for now, I value my time a bit differently and fortunately I don’t need a consensus there. Have given a significant amount of my personal time to Pocket (excluding public TG channels), that only a few are aware of. But that was my choice and will continue to be so (whenever/if ever).

Thanks again.

[Cryptocorn]

I want to add some more insight and my view:

• Firstly, it’s a shame that people are attacking someone requesting payment for putting in hundreds of hours of work. You can question how many of the hours should be paid, and at what value, but there seems to be a correlation between people who’ve never helped the Ecosystem and just complain, usually without really understanding Pocket or people’s contributions, and people not wanting contributors who do the hard work they can’t be arsed to, getting paid.

• I’ve worked with MSA on several of the above proposals, and found his work helpful and insightful.

• In reference to my PEP asking to be compensated, in hindsight I asked for too little (some negative advice I took). While I don’t mind being paid less than minimum wage for some of my work - we shouldn’t expect all contributors to expect pennies.

• MSA did the bulk of the work on the eventual FREN, SER and ACCURATE. He should definitely be paid for this time and effort, which led to major inflation reduction that seems to be the hot topic de jour.

• In hindsight, MSA and I (+ Caeser) should have made a joint proposal for the multiple inflation reduction proposals. I agree that moving forward joint proposals covering the whole compensation request should be standard.

• How exactly to measure the ROI/Impact and pay, other hours requested, I don’t know. MSA should be paid for the proposals at the very least, and for some of his other efforts to do the hard work in our ecosystem. I’d like to see MSA work through a socket going forward so we don’t have these acrimonious debates going forward.

[Ming (Ming-Chun Lee)]

Let’s be sure to question/debate the proposal/model at hand, and expand upon your views of his models, not the person.

[RawthiL (Ramiro | POKTscan)]

I’m not against rewarding work done, but I think that the requested amount is too high. The requested amount for 7 months of work is far higher than the amount requested by @Cryptocorn for 12 months of work.
I feel that the argumentation around the “technical skill” is not solid, as I stated before in the CARE thread the compensation should be to the perceived value of the contribution not making distinction on whether it was technical or not. Also, and since GRIP was mentioned in the initial post, there is no difference in paid amounts to different GRIP members. Regardless of their skills or certifications, everyone is paid the same as they are perceived to be apt by the community.

Regarding the worked ours, I feel that the proposer is claiming too many worked hours. There are a total of 586 claimed hours, that means that in the last 7 months the proposer worked more than 20 hours a week, that’s quite a lot and even more when considering periods like Sep-Nov.
I certainly find it difficult to believe that in the 2 months that the PUP-25 was active the proposer spent 1.25 months of full dedication to it (calculating 195 hours at 40 hours per week). This is in fact more than what I (the author of the proposal) dedicated to it. Finally, and just to leave a note on the value that the proposer claim to have provided to PUP-25, I don’t believe that it was an accurate analysis (refer to this post for more information).

[msa6867]

Thanks @RawthiL for your input. A couple considerations

@RawthiL

The requested amount for 7 months of work is far higher than the amount requested by @Cryptocorn for 12 months of work.

If you see @Cryptocorn 's post just prior to yours he indicates his ask may have been too little and should not be used as precedence for future proposals.

@RawthiL

I feel that the argumentation around the “technical skill” is not solid, as I stated before in the CARE thread the compensation should be to the perceived value of the contribution not making distinction on whether it was technical or not. Also, and since GRIP was mentioned in the initial post, there is no difference in paid amounts to different GRIP members. Regardless of their skills or certifications, everyone is paid the same as they are perceived to be apt by the community.

Understood. Everyone in GRIP gets paid $100. That’s all I’m asking for in this proposal. $100/hr, or even slightly less, for the work shown in Table 1 only that led to direct DAO action. Nothing in addition to that for anything in Table 2 and Table 3, which are shown for supplemental purposes and only factor into the fourth evaluation methodology labeled " Using an hourly contract model"

Isn’t this exactly in line with the valuation method PoktScan used for the geomesh proposal, where DAO reimbursed PoktScan for everyone from development to documentation and support at $100. Isn’t that more recent precedence than CARE. I didn’t see PoktScan slash their budget to 1/8th its original ask because CARE set precedence that “equal pay” dictates that everyone in the ecosystem get paid at $12/hr.

If one uses the idea that only contributions that lead directly to DAO/PNF action should be compensated, then I think that my budget and the CARE budget are more in line that you think. If one takes the $7k budget of CARE and scale it up by the ratio of hours I put into FREN/ACCURATE/SER to his, I think you would get very close to my ask amount.

@RawthiL

here are a total of 586 claimed hours, that means that in the last 7 months the proposer worked more than 20 hours a week, that’s quite a lot

Pretty close. A bit under 20hr/wk actually (closer to 8 months than 7 is covered), but correct, pokt has been a rather major focus of my attention.

@RawthiL

I certainly find it difficult to believe that in the 2 months that the PUP-25 was active the proposer spent 1.25 months of full dedication to it (calculating 195 hours at 40 hours per week).

yeah, I pretty much shut down everything else going on in my life during that month or so to concentrate on this issue.

@RawthiL

This is in fact more than what I (the author of the proposal) dedicated to it.

This is rather to be expected. It is much more difficult to try to reverse engineer, reproduce and troubleshoot an analysis than it is to do the original. Plus I acknowledged that the hours shown include some ancillary work such as providing analysis for the third-party bin-equivalence experiment that was being conducted concurrently and being discussed in the comments thread of the proposal.

@RawthiL

Finally, and just to leave a note on the value that the proposer claim to have provided to PUP-25, I don’t believe that it was an accurate analysis (refer to this post for more information).

Yes. Duly noted. I’d be happy to debate if ever needed in the future, but once PoktScan signaled their intention to discontinue pursuing the proposal (which did not occur until after the time period in which I provided my independent analysis) I stopped all further work on the subject.

All that being said, let’s not loose focus that this PUP25 analysis is not part of my Table 1 contributions that form the primary basis for my reimbursement request; it only factors in as supplemental consideration.

[b3n]

Adding some comments as a PNF person:

• The impact scorecard is a tool to support sensemaking about specific parts of the proposal and the impact they created, and to highlight where people might have differing opinions. It was not designed with this specific use case in mind but I think it illuminates some areas which seem to be lost from this discussion, notably that there was “some” impact from effort expended by MSA (and others)

• Retroactive requests will always be subjective which is why we are implementing new mechanisms that will for the most part avoid this or create more incentive for reaching agreement before work starts. PNF will make a forum post soon with some further principles re funding and pricing which we can all debate and discuss. So let’s keep the focus here on a question of was there impact and what is the right reward for effort expended

[b3n]

Adding some comments as an everyday POKT person and observer:

I would say 90% of DAO participants and voters have not (will never) read this thread start to finish. Look at how long it is. Let’s be pragmatic and just summarise the current state of this debate:

• Mostly agreed on some impact from MSA work
• Not much agreement on the right size/price

A simple way forward is to just do a signalling or strawpoll vote of different pricing sizes so MSA has some clarity on the tradeoffs of moving forward in current form or whether to adjust. This could probably achieve more in 2 days than the collective effort of more weeks of reading, replying, debating.

In my opinion we really need a better logic around how these discussions roll out. Here’s my mental model for gating each step towards supporting something. It’s maddening to me that we are aligned on 80% of something and get ourselves in a total mess over the 20% where we aren’t.

My mental gating:
Is this a need? Go to next step:
Is it a need now?
Is this the right solution?
Is this the right person?
Is this the right size?

Using this proposal as an example:
Is this a need? Yes, work was done that had some impact.
Is it a need now? Yes, stop kicking the can down the road with these things.
Is this the solution? There was no other mechanism at the time so suck it up and deal with it
Is this the right person? He did the work, maybe could have been combined with others but too late.
Is this the right size? No idea, let’s figure this bit out by seeing what people would say yes to as quick as humanly possible and get it done.

[msa6867]

I like the idea of using a straw poll. I will dm you to figure out the specifics and we can do something like this sometime next week

[zaatar]

1. Where’s the value-add?
2. R&D work should be pre-approved
3. Extraneous considerations
4. Proposal premature

Where’s the value-add?

@b3n

let’s keep the focus here on a question of was there impact and what is the right reward for effort expended

@RawthiL

compensation should be to the perceived value of the contribution

In response to MSA’s request for help from GRIP with this proposal, he was advised that “your request for reimbursement will have more legs if in addition to identifying what you deem to be your contribution, you provide evidence to back up the usefulness/value of that contribution. Depending on the contribution in question this could include data following implementation of your feedback that can only be due to your feedback, or, you can quote people in the know.”

Unfortunately, however, this proposal provides little if any evidence of value-add or benefit (as distinct from the author’s subjective view). No hard data appears to be provided. (Nor is anyone with recognized expertise cited in support.) Such information is an absolute necessity.

@b3n

Let’s be pragmatic and just summarize the current state of this debate: Mostly agreed on some impact from MSA work.

Any such impact needs to be articulated and assessed with rigor. The DAO should not pay after-the-fact for R&D work unless its positive impact is proven, clearly set out, and comprehensible (for those without economic expertise).

@msa6867

If one uses the idea that only contributions that lead directly to DAO/PNF action should be compensated…

No. What counts is value-add.

R&D work should be pre-approved

@shane

I feel that moving forward all community and R&D work should go through PNF with established guidelines and accountability. Some work could be pre-approved by the DAO with established guidelines (like GRIP), but it would take a pre-approval vote.

@msa6867

I plan to request a POP from the PNF under the new GROW initiative once that gets rolled out in a few weeks

In addition to leveraging GROW, MSA is welcome to join GRIP where he can be compensated for his economic analysis on the same footing as other qualified DAO members. This will standardize the process for compensating expert feedback. If MSA joins GRIP, people who want his feedback can request it in advance, rather than get it unsolicited and see him ask the DAO to pay for it after-the-fact.

Extraneous considerations

@msa6867

That’s all I’m asking for in this proposal. $100/hr, or even slightly less, for the work shown in Table 1 only that led to direct DAO action. Nothing in addition to that for anything in Table 2 and Table 3, which are shown for supplemental purposes and only factor into the fourth evaluation methodology labeled " Using an hourly contract model"

If MSA is seeking reimbursement only for work reflected in Table 1, Tables 2 and 3 are irrelevant. They should be removed from the PEP along with “Contribution Details for Table 2” and “Research Thread Details for Table 3."

Proposal Premature

@msa6867

The pre-proposal category [is]… a place to gauge the larger community sentiment on … size of reimbursement being requested (e.g., PEPs). … In addition, community sentiment can be gauged for a…proposed reimbursement by presenting a case for the topic with less formality and rigor…24hr or 48hr straw polls could be useful in this context.

The pre-proposal category is meant as a starting point for proposals in order to facilitate review and input from the entire community. Posting to the pre-proposal category usually leads to changes that make proposals better and more coherent. It’s a win-win for the author and the DAO. (While authors can ask GRIP to give feedback in the pre-proposal category, this is optional.)

With a straw poll now seemingly in the works, the compensation being sought by MSA’s proposal is up in the air. This proposal should have been submitted in the Forum as a pre-proposal first. The messy, contentious debate, the imminent straw poll, and the inevitable amendments could all have taken place prior to floating this PEP.

[msa6867]

@zaatar

this proposal provides little if any evidence of value-add or benefit (as distinct from the author’s subjective view). No hard data appears to be provided. (Nor is anyone with recognized expertise cited in support.) Such information is an absolute necessity.

@zaatar

Any such impact needs to be articulated and assessed with rigor.

The rigor of articulation and assessment of impact that you call for is unprecedented in this ecosystem. There is not one other proposal - including the GRIP renewal proposal, for which this level of documentation and “proof of impact” has been offered or demanded.

The context of the original request for further documentation was to prove out that my personal contributions to the collaborative efforts of FREN/ACCURATE/SER were significant and essential, rather than ancillary, . I have more than adequately demonstrated this, and this has been further corroborated by @Cryptocorn 's own words stating that I did the bulk of the work on these proposals.

To go beyond this and try to quantify the impact of these DAO-approved changes is no more easily done than it would be for you to quantify the impact of the first three months of GRIP (which impact assessment you did not attempt to undertake), the impact of the Reddit efforts, the impact of CARE, the impact of Messari reports, etc. There is a subjective judgment call the DAO makes in such matters.

PNF’s impact scorecard in designed to help standardize this process and I refer back to this scorecard in considering the budget. However, this is not an exact science, not to mention that all the kinks of the PNF scorecard have not been worked out yet, so we are still left with a large degree of subjectivity. In this process, it is important to avoid double standards as pertains to burdens of proof, lest wildly disparate burdens of proof be used as back-channel mechanism to favor one set of contributors over another set of contributors, based on popularity, personal like or dislike, or any other non-merit-based factor.

@zaatar

@msa6867

If one uses the idea that only contributions that lead directly to DAO/PNF action should be compensated…

No. What counts is value-add.

I think it is self-explanatory that if the DAO votes to approve a change, it does so precisely because they feel it adds value; otherwise the voters would reject the change. Toward that end, having passed the proposals FREN, ACCURTE and SER, the question is not if value was added, but how much. While the answer to that is subjective; I have attempted to utilize the PNF scorecard as an imperfect step toward quantizing this value. The budget is consistent with the scorecard value.

@zaatar

@shane

I feel that moving forward all community and R&D work should go through PNF with established guidelines and accountability. Some work could be pre-approved by the DAO with established guidelines (like GRIP), but it would take a pre-approval vote.

In addition to leveraging GROW, MSA is welcome to join GRIP where he can be compensated for his economic analysis on the same footing as other qualified DAO members. This will standardize the process for compensating expert feedback. If MSA joins GRIP, people who want his feedback can request it in advance, rather than get it unsolicited and see him ask the DAO to pay for it after-the-fact.

Thank you for that invitation. This proposal is not about moving forward from here, but about reimbursement for past work. As stated earlier, GRIP was not inexistence or an option last fall. Nor was the concept or possibility of “pre-approving” an R&D endeavor.

Further, joining GRIP does not answer the question on how to compensation proposal authors for the analysis and work that goes into shaping a passing proposal. My argument is that if GRIP members get compensated at a certain rate to edit or provide expert analysis toward the shaping of the proposal, surely it is reasonable for the authors to get compensated similarly.

@zaatar

If MSA is seeking reimbursement only for work reflected in Table 1, Tables 2 and 3 are irrelevant. They should be removed from the PEP along with “Contribution Details for Table 2” and “Research Thread Details for Table 3."

Table 1 is the primary consideration. Table 2 and 3 are supplemental factors only. Voters are free to ignore Tables 2-3 if they wish and consider the merits of the budget solely on the basis of Table 1.

I decline to remove Tables 2-3 as they are there more for the sake of the DAO than for my sake. Namely, the proposal, as written, sums up a body of work, and places a marker in time that says work spent through March 2023 on any of these areas is included and thus will never show up in the future on any other reimbursement request, even if some of the open issues eventually come to fruition. If the proposal were rewritten to reflect Table 1 only, then questions might arise as to whether or not I might in the future seek further reimbursement from this time period.

@zaatar

With a straw poll now seemingly in the works, the compensation being sought by MSA’s proposal is up in the air. This proposal should have been submitted in the Forum as a pre-proposal first. The messy, contentious debate, the imminent straw poll, and the inevitable amendments could all have taken place prior to floating this PEP.

Perhaps posting in the pre-proposal category may have been better; my understanding was that shaping the draft in the GaG Discord was equivalent, but I understand your point.

Realistically, however, the exact same conversations and debates and opinions voiced on value or lack thereof would take place either way.

TL;DR

Value ultimately is in the eye of the beholder (voter); hence the vote. Some will see no or little value in the contributions, others will. That is what the vote will show.

PNF scorecard has been filled out and discussed with PNF to ensure the the budget is reasonable from a PNF perspective.

In assessing subjective value, multiple comps should be used for guidance. Focus should not rest on one single comp that is cherry-picked to build a case against this proposal. PEP-51 is a one-sided comparison seeing that the PEP-51 recipient himself acknowledged that the ask was way under market value and should not be used as precedence to bind future proposals.

Other comps that can be considered:

• the budget is equivalent to the initial 3 months of GRIP plus two months of follow on.
• the budget is equivalent to one Messari report
• the budget is equivalent to 2/3 of the reimbursement given to me previously for work on PIP-22 and PUP-21
• the budget is same ball park but a bit higher than the budget of Reddit over the same period
• the budget is approximately 2% of what the DAO just spent/committed for three v0-only solutions that do not carry forward into v1

The question for DAO voters is how this current body of work - primarily Table 1 and the driving of emissions from the 50% inflation narrative of last August to single digits by one year later - stacks up in value compared to these other initiates. If it stacks up favorably, a “yes” vote is warranted. If it does not, a “no” vote is warranted.

[msa6867]

I have updated the budget of this proposal to $13k USD, down from the original ask of $23k and down from the approximate $19k reimbursement that would have resulted from implementing a cap on the original budget.

The reduced budget accounts for questions that arose during discussion regarding the scope of work being reimbursed as well as to be sensitive to the weakness in $POKT price in recent weeks/months.