Q4 Working Group Guidance

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The purpose of this post is to offer some guidance around Q4 Working Groups proposals, approval, and timeline.

It does not introduce novelty. Rather, it is intended to provide clarity for this upcoming round of Working Group proposals.

Please ask questions!

For improvements to the process that folks identify, let’s be sure we carry those thoughts/ideas into upcoming Future of Finance discussions :owl:

Basics

What are we talking about?
Q4 Working Group Proposals

How are those created?

  • Proposals should follow the steps provided in Working Groups v1.1 & use the Google Doc template.
  • The FC expects ~10+ proposals this quarter and having steps/templates makes it possible to review this volume of work.

What about IIP-85?

  • This pending vote need-not delay the drafting and posting of proposals
  • IIP-85 Temporary Funding Council Decision Making details a proposed, new final step to approve working groups
  • Should IIP-85 pass, approval of Working Groups will be decided via a “Final Vote” Forum Poll. Details are in the IIP. I won’t rehash those right now.
  • I expect IIP-85 to go live Monday, September 27th [Note: I will call for the vote explicitly once the 48 hour waiting period has been hit, per our IIP procedure]

Target Deadlines🗓

These are oriented around the need to get a Grant #5 passed in time to ensure smooth continuity in Coop operations.

Wednesday October 6, 2021 - Last day to post Working Group Proposals to the forums

  • Please post any Working Group proposal no later than this date
  • This gives the FC only 4 working days to review the final Working Groups proposals, provide feedback, and for a “Final Vote” in time to incorporate the WG into Grant #5 by the below-date

Wednesday October 13, 2021 – FC Grant #5 Drafted/Posted

  • We hope to have a draft IIP for Funding Council Grant #5 by this date (see Grant #4 for an example)
  • This is a very aggressive deadline that assumes the majority of proposals are posted earlier than 10/6.
  • Nonetheless, it is what we are aiming for so that the IIP can run the following Monday 10/18.

Monday October 18th - IIP Grant #5 Snapshot vote live

  • Running the Grant #5 vote from Monday October 18 to Thursday October 21 means that it will or won’t pass with 1 week remaining in October.
  • This provides some room to adjust if need be.

Questions :mailbox_with_no_mail:

Whether you currently lead a working group, are considering spinning up a new one, or otherwise have questions, please add them here!

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Hey Greg. What are your and other people’s thoughts on submitting >3month WG proposals to try and alleviate some future operational burden here?

Rough idea. 3month cadence to apply to 1st and 2nd iterations of WG proposals. Beyond that move to 6month remits.

Given budget is difficult to forecast, a suggestion could be for 6m proposals to forecast the 1st 3months, tentatively pencil in the same for the 2nd half of the term but commit to a mid term review.

Tagging some WGL’s who maybe interested in this. Apologies for anyone missed.
@jdcook @BigSky7 @LemonadeAlpha @Metfanmike @fallow8 @overanalyser @0x_Dev @Matthew_Graham @mrvls_brkfst @Pepperoni_Joe

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We can make three big improvements right away during this iteration without rocking the boat too much.

  1. Move to a six month proposal format with the expectation of a quarterly review

  2. Move WG leaders and co-leads to a fixed monthly $INDEX stipend

  3. Move WG core contributors (i.e. the 3-4 people who are really focused on that working group day to day) to a fixed monthly stipend denominated in USD(but still paid in $INDEX).

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COME ON. This is awesome. My heart agrees with your heart lol

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I would like to add a fourth option.

  1. WG receive a mixture of USDC and INDEX.

The reasoning is our operating expenses are sometime nominated in USDC and in order to pay those expenses INDEX is sold at/or near spot. We can reduce this sell side pressure by aligning what working groups receive and what working groups need each quarter.

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1000x this :pray::pray::pray: :pray: :pray:

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I really like 1–>4 from @MrMadila, @BigSky7 and @Matthew_Graham

What about also: 5) allowing some core WG contributors to fix 50% of their renumeration in $INDEX too? Then they get good potential uplift, if the $INDEX price goes up, while were figuring out INDEX 2.0 and related topics - which in all honesty are going to take a good while to agree and implement. This is a twist on @BigSky7 's 3).

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Just confirming the specifics of these proposed changes…

1. Move to a six-month WG proposal cycle with the expectation of a quarterly review and/or adjustment if required
I’m in favor of moving to a six-month proposal cycle. Noting that WG proposals for Q4 will still need to be done in October - so let’s pick up the details of the practical implementation of this change once Q4 proposal approvals are wrapped up (and Finance of the Future has resolved in October).

Edit:
WGLs, I would recommend you write your proposal assuming a 3 month time horizon, with the expectation that a heavily slimmed down “update and revision” document to be shared at the end of this quarter.

2. Allow WG leaders, co-leads and core contributors to be paid reward in both INDEX AND USDC.
Within each WG proposal, members should clearly stipulate what they are asking to be paid in INDEX, and what they are asking to be paid in USDC.

3. Allow WG leaders, co-leads and core contributors to set a fixed INDEX stipend for a 3 month period.
A fixed amount of INDEX is requested and is paid each month, regardless of the price of INDEX.

Here are some examples of possible compensation models for WG leaders, co-leaders and core contributors…

1. Payment in USD
Contributor X requested a fixed stipend of $5,000 paid in USDC. Regardless of the price of INDEX, they receive $5,000 in USDC each month.

2. Payments in INDEX
Contributor Y requests $5,000 in monthly comp. At the end of each month, contributor Y receives $5,000 worth of INDEX calculated using the 20-day moving average.

3. Fixed INDEX stipend
Contributor Z requests a fixed stipend of 167 INDEX ($5000). INDEX value halves in month 3, but they still only receive 167 INDEX ($2500) in month 3.

4. Mixed Model
Contributor A requests a fixed comp of $2,000 in USDC, and fixed stipend of 100 INDEX ($3,000) to equal a total comp $5,000 (assuming price of INDEX is $30). By month 3 the value of INDEX has doubled, so they are paid $8,000 in that month.

Our expectations of WG budget proposals…

If either a USD payout, or fixed INDEX stipend is requested, this should be clearly indicated within each WG proposal. If only a $ amount is requested (i.e. PJ request a comp reward of $5,000) we will assume the payout will be made in INDEX using the 20-day moving average to determine the price (our standard process).

To confirm a few administrative details before we can make this a reality…

@anon10525910 , @Hammad1412 any thoughts on the logistical challenges of practically implementing this for the October reward round?

@dylan @anon10525910 do you have a preference for what price of Index we should use to anchor total WG costs, and cost estimate for INDEX stipends?

For example, if a WG requests 2000 INDEX, we need a $ value of INDEX so we can report the total $ cost of funding the WG. My recommendation is we set a price for index based on the 20 day moving average on 6th October (deadline for WG proposals).

@ElliottWatts will this work from a Financial Reporting perspective? I appreciate we are adding quite a lot of extra lift to accommodate this more flexible rewards plan.

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20 day MA from October 6th sounds good to me.
I believe we have the infrastructure in place to accommodate USDC payouts now with Hammad’s work from last month (from the Funding Council → EWG hand off perspective). I’m unsure what other accounting you all need to set up to track each core contributor’s specific payout preferences.

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My top level response – there undoubtedly will be learnings as we go along and if we’re up for that as a community, let’s go! Growth and improvement ftw :muscle:

Logistically, there is not a ton coming to mind at the moment…so long as the USDC & INDEX requirements are crystal clear in the Q4 proposals we should be alright :ok_hand:

Unless I’m totally losing my mind, most of the responsibility for tracking will fall on WGLs and core-contributors.

I’d imagine though that we will need to update the submission sheet to account for USDC vs. INDEX. Then core contributors will input there, and WGLs will review those inputs tagged to them (business as usual)

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From an accounting perspective, it will not massively impact the lift we just need to make sure on a monthly basis we are crystal clear around the payment amounts, what the 20-day moving average is and what payments this is applied to. We can then create on a monthly basis an accurate picture of community rewards vs the on-chain transaction which will be at a slightly different price point depending on when payment is made.

One point I would like to clarify is at what price we confirm will be the translation for Index denominated rewards. For example at Q3 the 20 day moving average was used to give a $Index value. i.e $5,000 stipend paid in $Index was $5,000/20.21 = ~247 INDEX. Will we across the board use the 20-day moving average for September rewards as the base price to calculate comp?

This should be the same across all working group proposals.

Super stoked for this and great work team!

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I don’t think this will require too much work. For fixed stipends If I have the list I can implement whether they are USDC or index. Which I have created a separate output for similar to the index one. Looking forward to us using ParcelDAO it will be just as easy, it allows you to create different ‘teams’ which can be paid in different tokens.

On this point, I see the solution as just inputting a column where the contributor can choose either USDC or index and a column with the split ratio indicated , then it’ll just be simply adding in a total column for USDC, and splitting out the reward using the ratio indicated. This can be implemented, as Greg said I’m sure we’ll learn!!

Excited for this :slight_smile:

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Great to hear :pray:

I believe this is the same question I asked @dylan - so using 20 day TWAP from Oct 6th. Let me know if you were asking something else there though.

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As a reminder from last week, cross-posting here

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Noting that the very aggressive Oct. 13 deadline was hit :checkered_flag:

I’ll proceed with next steps related to that ^ from that post specifically

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