PEP-62: Msa Reimbursement Request

[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.

[JackALaing (Jack Laing)]

I have updated the number of this proposal to avoid a clash with PEP-59: Sponsor Encode Club Bootcamp Series.

This proposal is now up for voting. Snapshot

[SteveO]

Big NO vote for this proposal. No need for this, excuse me for being so direct.

SER is about to be replaced soon, so much unnecessary funds were spent on it. With all the respect, you are selling unnecessarily complex models to POKT which aren’t solving any of the core issues and still charging ridiculous rates for expensive fictive working hours. DAO recognized it and rejected you already, it’s worrisome that you are still coming back asking for a reimbursement. DAO cannot be fooled anymore like it was the case last year. Just my 2 pokt.

[ChainVestIG]

Hope this gets approved! Especially now that you cut the ask in half.

Going through some of the history and comments, my view is that MSA is being treated quite unfairly, and at times straight-up bad. It’s apparent that if anything, the system/structure is (was) at fault, and not the person. As far as I’ve seen he’s just done what was asked of him at the time, and generally what I’ve seen tremendous value has been added economically, even though some might be indirect. Some of the issues being addressed are highly complex and innovative. Naturally, the value can’t always be quantifiable, and there will be hit-and-miss sometimes. But to then go ahead and not pay people after the work has been done when they’ve followed the guidelines to the best of their ability is a terrible sentiment to set. This won’t exactly motivate new people to try and contribute.

Hope the proposal passes, and also that there are clearer rules/guidelines for competent contributors going forward.

[JackALaing (Jack Laing)]

This proposal failed with 10 yays and 11 nays. Snapshot