Valuation & Rewards re Shared Resources

[Pepperoni_Joe]

Thanks for taking the time to share these thoughts Mel

Given the depths of insights offered in this post - I will endeavour to address each of your points raised.

I agree that historically the Coop has not been very good at rewarding effort which doesn’t directly contribute to particular WGs objectives - or isn’t seen as a “high impact” as determined by the Funding Council.

However, this last month we have seen a significant step-change in how rewards are allocated:

• WGs are now responsible for budgeting for, and allocating rewards to, contributors progressing activity in their area.
• The formation of the POC WG now provides a budget that supports initiatives that are cross-functional in nature or are Coop wide enablers (such as the Gitbook).

This was done exactly to address many of the challenges raised in your post - and to make our funding Working Groups accountable (as cost centre) to deliver high impact with a predefined budget.

@mel.eth

Why, as a contributor run DAO, is the general feeling that rewards are not consistent with effort?

We have always maintained that rewards should be consistent with impact. This is now determined by Working Groups with a community-led mandate to drive impact in their respective areas.

@mel.eth

Are we OK with a few salary people controlling the purse strings when speculative efforts are standard?

Presently we have 9 elected members (WGLs) and 2 Funding Council members determine rewards. I am okay with this, especially if we start to reconsider how the Funding Council members are appointed (election?).

@mel.eth

Are we OK with the challenge process being run/decided by the same people that make the initial decisions regarding rewards? (aka, how is this really challenging the process?)

If they are budget holders - then I think so?

@mel.eth

Given the tone of WG leads and Treasury being that only WGs can provide rewards, should we make a clear statement (in new joiner calls, forums, handbook, discord) that WG unapproved speculative work will likely not be rewarded? (aka, get approval before working on anything)

We do this! More than that, we go into detail to explain how the contributor rewards process works and how WGLs are the ones to determine rewards. We use this to reinforce the point to New Joiners that they should make WGLs aware of activities they intend to tag to their area.

@mel.eth

Should we allocate a budget for community resources outside of the WG structure?

Generally, I am in favour of budgets and rewards being tied to specific Working Groups, or even individuals with specific mandates. For example, much of the activity you have referred to above is captured by the POC budget. This budget also broke down, in detail, what we expect to pay contributors for the completion of key POC related activity.

This budget received pushback on the amount dedicated to community activity - so I am unsure how spinning up a separate budget focused on “Community” would provide a solution (are we not then just asking the same question twice?).

@mel.eth

Add columns for time and expected reward to the contribution sheets (doesn’t solve the problem, but knowing that contributors expected XX overall and got YY on a monthly basis is useful)

I am in favour of this suggestion as it would provide better visibility to WGLs of the effort that has gone into the tasks they are rewarding. @Hammad1412 can we consider this for the next reward round.

Reflecting on this @mel.eth, I agree with many of the points raised. However, they are challenges raised looking backwards at the now discontinued rewards approach. I would be interested to know if any of your views around contributor rewards have changed as we start moving forward with the new model.